Forming Personal Unions

[joezak40]

As far as I understand it, forming a Personal Union can be done the following ways:

1) Royal Marriage and get lucky and have one form.
2) Fabricate Claims using a spy and go to war using the 'PU' CB.
3) Claim throne, through a royal marriage, of a disputed secession; legitimacy<50. Get a 'PU' CB and go to war.

Are they any other ways? I.e. declaring a war on a country you have a royal marriage with and once you win the war force them into a PU?

 

[unmerged(463662)]

I think that's about it.

 

[brifbates]

You don't have to go to war with the claim throne action to get a PU. If the ruler dies while you have a claim and an RM with them you will get a PU. Going to war makes it far less likely they will get a legitimate heir before dying and speeds up the process but is not required.

Note that for your case 1 to be possible you must be the nation with the highest prestige the target has a RM with and your prestige must be higher than theirs.

 

[joezak40]

@brifbates & @yabba - Thanks guys, appreciate the help. I haven't used PUs that often but I think that will change.

 

[cuendillar]

You don't have to go to war with the claim throne action to get a PU. If the ruler dies while you have a claim and an RM with them you will get a PU. Going to war makes it far less likely they will get a legitimate heir before dying and speeds up the process but is not required.

Note that for your case 1 to be possible you must be the nation with the highest prestige the target has a RM with and your prestige must be higher than theirs.

Is it actually enough to just have higher than theirs to get a PU, I was under the impression that their prestige must also be negative (or under another threshold) or they would just get a ruler from your dynasty?

It's also worth pointing out that if more than one country claims the same throne, the two with the most prestige will fight a succession war about who gets the PU. The heirless country itself always fights on the side of the most prestigious claimant.

 

[brifbates]

Is it actually enough to just have higher than theirs to get a PU, I was under the impression that their prestige must also be negative (or under another threshold) or they would just get a ruler from your dynasty?

It's also worth pointing out that if more than one country claims the same throne, the two with the most prestige will fight a succession war about who gets the PU. The heirless country itself always fights on the side of the most prestigious claimant.

To answer your question, yes it is enough to have higher prestige. There are other factors at play that are a mystery due to dev silence but I've gotten a "random" PU with a nation in the 90s prestige without a claim. In my recent Austria game I randomly inherited Lorraine while their prestige was in the 40s. It is true that in general the target higher prestige reduces the chance of forming a union but it doesn't appear to be THE determining factor with the caveat that if they are higher than you then no union.

 

[costevie]

man, i'd love a more transparent marriage system in IV

who can detail to me what factors determine whether a PU continues or ends (either in integration or in "a ____ noble inherits")? it seems to me to be pretty random

 

[brifbates]

man, i'd love a more transparent marriage system in IV

who can detail to me what factors determine whether a PU continues or ends (either in integration or in "a ____ noble inherits")? it seems to me to be pretty random

The PU will continue as long as both of the following are true:

1) Senior partner has positive prestige
2) relations between the two nations are positive

If either one of these is not true the union ends...this is the part that is demonstrable fact.

Then the proverbial die is rolled to see if the junior is inherited.

The devs haven't said but the following are the factors the forumites have come up with that appear to affect the chance of inheritance:

1) Prestige & difference in prestige between the two nations
2) trust value between the two nations
3) diplomacy value of the heir potentially inheriting
4) legitimacy value of senior nation
5) relations between the two nations
6) culture of two nations
7) relative size of the two nations
8) infamy level of senior nation
9) religions of the two nations
10) nations must be at peace

There may be more including a random effect but these all have at least anecdotal support...

 

[costevie]

Cool, thanks for the info. That brings me to another question: in my current game as Bosnia, I really really want Castile and Aragon to form Spain. I started in 1493 so they've been in a PU the whole game (currently ~1550) but Castile keeps insulting Aragon to lower relations. I have no qualms with editing save games or switching the user nation, I just wanna see Spain - how can I force this issue? I've tried everything I know how to in my limited knowledge of the save game code, and no matter what the relations between the two countries diplo-annexing is always listed as "impossible." Help?

 

[unmerged(204522)]

you need to make castille smaller or aragon bigger, since you cant inherit a nation with more provinces....

 

[unmerged(465279)]

Do you guys get lots of RMs all over the place, making your relations awful after some claims? Or do you aim for certain countries and focus on/invest in those?

 

[costevie]

you need to make castille smaller or aragon bigger, since you cant inherit a nation with more provinces....

Ahh thank you - I'll get on that!

 

[unmerged(204522)]

Do you guys get lots of RMs all over the place, making your relations awful after some claims? Or do you aim for certain countries and focus on/invest in those?

marry-claim throne/fabricate claim-war to enforce PU-restore positive relations-form alliance-rinse and repeat-its not unusual to inherit 10+ nations at the same time.

 

[brifbates]

Do you guys get lots of RMs all over the place, making your relations awful after some claims? Or do you aim for certain countries and focus on/invest in those?

Depends on who you're playing and the game siuation. Very early in the game spamming RMs can net you a few random PUs/inheritances as a lot of nations start without heirs-a particularly good situation for small-medium nations. Then once the initial situation sorts itself out you take a more targeted approach. Obviously if you have a specific target in mind then you want to sort that out first even at the start (castille wanting Aragon or vice versa at the start for example). Larger nations that can easily win wars can take the targeted approach from the start.

 

[Lord Curlyton]

Also, if you're willing to be patient and rely on luck, you can spam RM's and watch as PUs start to roll in. It helps a lot if you are generally pacifist and do your best to avoid alliance-chain wars, as it seems random PU's happen with more regularity if said nation doesn't hate you. Holland/Netherlands is a good nation not called Austria to form a lot of good PUs with. Got Austria in a PU (HA!! Take that, von Habsburgs!) and they actually never tried to insult their way out (likely due to my large-ish navy and budding colonial holdings at the time). Got Great Britain shortly after, but they kept insulting and I wasn't inclined to try and force them to stay. THEN I got Spain, and they stayed loyal. This included my running PUs with Brabant/Friesland/Cleves/one other that I forget. Kept not inheriting until right after I got Spain, then BAM! All of them at once.

Similar situation as Castille, but then it was just with Aragon and it lasted ~150 years before they finally decided to be nice to me.