Gavelkind : Dealing With It

[Anthropoid]

It is 1119AD and my Count of Auxerre & Never start has progressed well. My 2nd generation leader Ogier de Bachaumont is Duke of Burgundy, Count of Dijon, Auxerre, and Never.

I have no idea how, but somwhere during the war in which I assisted my Duke of Toulouse ally my first born son seems to have picked up the County or Rouregue, which is south of the Burgundy area and part of Duchy of Toulouse.

1. So this is my first question: how the heck did my son, who was most certainly a vassal of mine throughout wind up getting a County by virtue of my having helped an ally in a war?

2. Second question, Gavelkind and other succession laws and how to deal with Gavelkind if that is all I am able to do for the time being?

Agnatic-Cognatic Gavelkind is what County of Auxerre and Duchy of Bugundy start with and it is what I still have. I just had not changed it yet.

I tend to go for Primogeniture but JonStryker argues for Elective. Assuming I stay with Gavelkind for the time being, I'm curious how I would be best advised to deal with my current situation.

As I say, my first born is (somehow) Count of Rourgue. So I can only hope that when I die and assuming he is the heir I don't wind up somehow losing Duchy of Burgundy or some nonsense . . . But the game wants to list my second born as "Heir of Auxerre" and my third born as "Heir of Never."

Is there an easy way to negate those specific inheritances and instead allocate them their own holding from a newly acquired County? Say for example, I revoke County of Macon and allocate that one to the 2nd born then give Chalons to the 3rd born?

Or am I better off making both of them bishops without wives?

 

[Serathion]

You can either make them bishops, or, although this may be considered gamey, give everything except for one county to your heir before you die. The latter would be a problem if you die in an accident or battle before you got of age and "retired".

 

[dauncosony]

I usually just stock up on a lot of wealth for my primary heir so when I die I can use mercenaries to fight my brothers of the lands of my father. Wealth doesn't split among sons, only titles!

 

[MylesSCP]

The only way I can see your first born son inheriting land without your involvement is by inheriting something through his mother's side. This makes sense because you were allied with Toulouse, so your wife was related to the Duke, who probably gave a family member land; so your son must have inherited the county from your wife's brother or something.

You can also see the history of the county to know who held the county before your son did by clicking the county shield and then the history button.

I think elective is the best succession method except for very large realms, but in your case I would probably make your younger sons bishops AFTER marrying them because I like to have a lot of family members to give land when I expand.

 

[unmerged(600321)]

Your questions are copied/pasted below with answers.



1. So this is my first question: how the heck did my son, who was most certainly a vassal of mine throughout wind up getting a County by virtue of my having helped an ally in a war?

He got it from your wife's side or from his wife's side (in which case his wife is the actual countess and his son will be a count).

2. Second question, Gavelkind and other succession laws and how to deal with Gavelkind if that is all I am able to do for the time being?

Kill off your other sons or make them bishops to take them out of succession. I generally find it easy to switch to elective early on and eventually get to primogeniture once I am too big for elective to be reliabe (e.g. Empire sized). You can change to elective succession as long as you have ruled for 10 years and your vassals are happy. Even with Gavelikind, if you only have one duchy, your first son will get it. Your other sons will get the counties and be your first son's vassals. If you have 2 or more duchies though, they will get split. Gavelkind won't split your realm if you only have one of the highest title (1 county, 1 duchy, 1 kingdom, etc). But if you have 2 of the highest title (e.g. 2 counties, 2 duchies, or 2 kingdoms), they will split. People dislike gavelkind because your powerbase includes counties and those get split even if you are an emperor.

3. Is there an easy way to negate those specific inheritances and instead allocate them their own holding from a newly acquired County? Say for example, I revoke County of Macon and allocate that one to the 2nd born then give Chalons to the 3rd born? Or am I better off making both of them bishops without wives?

If you give your sons counties, those won't get considered during succession. Some people grant their oldest child all counties before dying. That way the Duchy goes to the oldest son and he already has all counties. Giving younger sons counties will make things worse because the remaining counties will still split among your children and they will get more than normal. This game is not about being fair to your kids. You want your chosen successor to get as much as possible since you want to keep your dynasty strong (plus you get to play as him or her).

 

[Anthropoid]

Thanks guys! I've switched over to Elective. Never played with it before. So far, all I've done is click _Nominate_ and chose my 4th or 5th born son (the 1st born got killed fighting some dumb war down around Toulouse). But then I eventually decided my daughter was actually better and nominated her. She is nearly twice his age, but has twice his Steward, diplo and intrigue and even slightly better at Martial.

What happens when I die? Do all my vassals vote and does that include Bishops, and Mayors?

The old man is Duke of Burgundy and has all six counties in his Demesne. All vassals are Mayors and Bishops, so I guess that is 12 of them in total.

)3) Does that mean that my one vote gets diluted by 11 other votes or that my one vote is the ONLY vote because I'm the only member of the realm who is a Count? If Elective works like the latter, then _yeah_ definitely the way to go!

Also, here is another question:

(4) What is a good way to start getting CBs on my fellow French Dukes? Shortly after I usurped the last of the Counties in the Duchy of Burgundy, I went on a "Claimant Hunting Spree" and invited a bunch of various claimants to my realm. I even went so far as to kill off the spouses of some of them whose claims indicated they could be inherited and then try to marry them to people in my dynasty. I kinda lost track there were so many of them, and then I went on a building spree. +12.57 florins per month seems like a good start

Right now about the only useful CB I have against a nearby Duke is a claim on a Barony in one of his counties which is actually not adjacent to mine. Not very handy really.

Obviously setting the Chancellor in the capital county for the Duchy is one option, but so far I've never had that fabricate a claim on Duchy. Marrying into ther dynasty is the way I got the Duchy of Burgundy so that is always an option over the long haul.

Any other tricks I should keep in mind? Plots and Factions don't seem to offer me much at this point, and all the "Claims that can be pressed windows" linked via the popup symbol on the top of the page are for Toulouse which is really just proximate enough for me. I want to take over one whole Duchy that is immediately next door and then after another generation or so, go for the Kingdom. I'm thinking Champagne would be a good target, or perhaps Duchy of Berry or Bourbon Auvergne got kinda chopped up.

Lets say I just want to carve off one County from Duchy of Champagne, say like Sen. Is it tenable to do that? Just fabricate a claim on Sen and then DoW and win I guess?

Still haven't quite figured out what it is that causes the plot options to populate, but definitely a very nice part of the game. Had a lof of fun plotting to kill the spouses of some of the claimants I invited to my realm so as to marry them to my kin

 

[Alsn]

Only dukes and above can vote and as far as I know, no matter the amount of titles held by someone, each physical person only gets a single vote. You can see the vote tally in the "laws" tab. There will not be a "recount" if you die, if you die whoever has the most votes at that time is the one that inherits.

Generally, the best way to maintain power in an elective kingdom is to simply destroy all duchy titles and make sure no count has enough counties to create a duke title. That way the only one with any say at all is you with your one vote. Problems can occur when "de jure" parts of your kingdom belong to another country(declaring independence as an elective italy before taking all the italian lands from your HRE rivals was a baaaad idea, as I painfully experienced, the HRE emperor simply elected his heir to the throne of italy and my one vote couldn't change that...).

Be warned though, don't destroy duchy titles that are "de jure" only two provinces unless you are going to keep those two provinces in your personal demesne unless you are a full king. In the HRE, a count proclaiming himself duke of a two province duchy will answer to someone with higher authority(if you are not a king, this means the emperor). I think, although this might only happen if you give them the duchy.

When I use elective I generally destroy all duchy titles other than my primary one and then make sure that counts are never allowed to hold enough provinces that they can create their own duke title. This usually means any two province duchy have to be a part of your own demesne while three province and above duchies are destroyed and the provinces handed out to someone with no risk of inheriting anything else one by one(character tab with filters is good for this, "part of a great house: no"). One province counts while occasionally warlike, usually do so very rarely so revoking any extra titles they may gain shouldn't be too frequent a necessity.

 

[Anthropoid]

Cool!

Wow, so for medium-small to small-large realms, Elective clearly rocks eh!?

I guess I was thrown off by that word "elect" as I somehow confused it with "democracy" or something. But yeah, manipulating the number of votes so you always have a majority is not so hard is it? Especially given it will generally be the best way to be the most powerful realm anyway.

ADDIT: I'm kinda keen on this idea of forming the Kingdom of Burgundy and then using it to form an Empire.

 

[unmerged(600321)]

I prefer elective early on. Just don't use elective once you get too big as it is fairly easy to lose control of succession. With primogeniture, some pruning of the heirs is needed to ensure your heir has good traits and no negatives like slow or imbecile. Sometimes, I even kill off a regular normal heir if my second son has genius (I tend to only marry genius wives unless I have a strong reason not to...for example if I want a claim on the HRE).

Just switch out of elective once you get past 100 or so holdings or get your second Kingdom.

 

[tormos]

The other thing to be careful of when trying to "game the system" with elective is that vassals will notice and be unhappy if you have too many elector titles (most noticeable if you are an emperor because extra king titles don't have any other penalty). This can wipe out a lot of the bonus to relations you get for elective if you are not careful.

 

[Talq]

Be warned though, don't destroy duchy titles that are "de jure" only two provinces unless you are going to keep those two provinces in your personal demesne unless you are a full king. In the HRE, a count proclaiming himself duke of a two province duchy will answer to someone with higher authority(if you are not a king, this means the emperor). I think, although this might only happen if you give them the duchy.

Slight clarification, duchies cannot be usurped (by province control) from anybody in the same realm (ignoring factions/plots). They can be created by anybody controlling enough of the provinces, which in the HRE includes the HRE (obviously). Given the relationship benefits, count on the HRE creating any destroyed title and giving it to one of his friends, which in practice doesn't mean too much except that in elective they can all vote, and as they are probably german, will probably vote for a german candidate. Also the pope & venice start dejure in the kingdom of italy at the start of the game. Italy is not a great realm to have an elective monarchy.

 

[Anthropoid]

Hmm, so basically HRE and Italy are risky for Elective.

I'm presently part of Kingdom of France though.

My heir inherited and in one fell swoop my power just about doubled: thank you Elective succession!

Shortly after my 2nd leader character came to power, his wife's relation with the Duchy of Toulouse led to our participation in a war on their behalf. We won, and I guess shortly after that, my grandson became the heir of the Duchy of Toulouse.

Years passed, I arranged a betrothal to the daughter of the Duchy of Orlean and my grandson, more years passed, they grew up.

End result, when my heir (via Elective) inherited "my" demesne (Duchy of Burgundy and all its subordinate Counties + County of Sen (part of Duchy of Champagne), he was already Duke of Toulouse with three de jure counties there, and HIS son was Duke of Orlean.

Just before I died (lucky) I had noticed I had a claim on Duchy of Orlean and had started that war (against my juvenile grandson! ) and so when my heir inherited Duchy of Burgundy he also inherited a war against his son for Duchy of Orlean!!

In one succession, my dynasty went from a single Duchy with 7 counties to a double-Duchy with 10 counties and soon to become a triple Duchy with possibly even more Counties!

My personal levy size must have gone from ~2000 to ~5000 and with vassals that jump is probably from about ~5000 to ~12,000 !! And I'm not even 100 years from start yet!

Wow. Elective is POWERFUL for certain circumstances.

I suppose I'm probably going to be getting close to my demesne size limit soon so I'll need to start dolling out pieces to suitble dynasty members. Not sure which section to keep as my own, and there would seem to be opposing long- and short-term reasons either way. Toulouse is definitely a more rich County for now, but the leader does not hold all of those de jure counties. Dijon or Never is more central to a Kingdom of France kind of long-term strategy but then Paris is far richer . . .

 

[NewbieOne]

Well, gavelkind is good if you have just one title at the top tier. For example, if you have just one royal crown (and in some cases all your royal crowns go to the same person in gavelkind, I don't know why). Probably harder for a duke or count. You can always rearrange the proposed succession: "title lost upon succession" list changes whenever you give something away. One method is dumping everything on the heir at some point, which you can actually do even if you're a multiduke. You'll simply become a 1-duke with your son being your blobby neighbour.

Otherwise, I guess gavelkind would similate the historical mobility of smaller vassal dynasties, resulting in you ruling a relatively small political organism while having a good number of permanent allies. And you can always go Seniority at some point. Seniority means you join the lands together but forget independence if the heir is of equal rank but already someone's vassal. He'll just add the new titles to what he already has.

Elective is favoured by players as it allows them to influence the outcome of elections and appoint the best heir. Personally, I'm not a great fan of it because of how it undermines the dynastic right in that vassals can, at least in theory, rise to the throne and displace me if I don't manage to manipulate the elections.

 

[Anthropoid]

I don't know that much about royal succession in Europe at this time. How close are these in-game laws to what actually happened in history?

 

[Baron Jukaga]

I used to hate gavelkind and go elective, but the problems that come with elective aren't worth it. With gavelkind, you can still select your heir of choice by sending your other sons to be bishops. The extra desmene points are great and you don't have any penalties for not landing your sons.

 

[dageir]

My take on gavelkind has been to just give away all counties to courtiers not related to me. I destroy duchy titles. (And kingdom titles other than my main.)
No sons other than my heir inherits anything and the realm keeps together. I try to discourage duchy formation by counts and give them a good spanking if they betray me.

 

[nyah]

Am I the only fan of gavelkind on this forum? It's no problem to deal with at all. As long as you only keep one duchy title all your counties will stay under your control, either directly or as vassals. If you're not happy with the number of counties lost then revoke them or imprison and banish your brothers. As a small duchy there should be no other vassals (count or above) and nobody to dislike you for being a tyrant.

There's no need to make your sons bishops, or to kill them, or give any your counties before you die.

I don't understand how somebody can vote in an election that takes place after they've died. Elective succession would be much better if the player couldn't vote.

 

[Duke of Bavaria]

Personally i think Seniority is very underestimated in general too. It really is very good in a phase were managed to get relatives on foreign thrones via marriages, the frequent deaths and new rulers give you a good chance to gather all the titles in one hand over time. Also you always get experienced rulers and can avoid having children struggel to rule. If you care for the points you also get a lot of rulers that already collected prestige throuigh their lifes and die soon and add their score to the overall score. Only negative thing in seniority seems to be that the more frequent deaths might destabilize the country a bit whrn a new guy takes ove,r never really had problems with it though. For me Seniority really became a nice option at a certain phase in the spreading of your dynasty.

 

[Anthropoid]

I think "Elective Succession" is not _truly_ meant to be an election. It is mean to reflect the outcome of a process in which the ruler concedes that other members of the realm get to have some say in his heir. You might prefer that your son/daughter/aunt be your heir, but by virtue of Elective law your vassals get a say too. It cannot possibly be meant to literally reflect an "election," because, as you say, you're dead so why should anyone else who casts a vote go along with you.

As far as I know, Gavelkind or Primogeniture were the actual most common, and to the extent that something like 'consensus-dependent' or elective actually occurred it was a reflection of a weak ruler whose lineage and claim on a title were questionalbe; NOT because the ruler had enacted a particular law.

Now I'm having mixed feelings about Elective.

After my 2nd ruler died, and his heir was Duchy of Toulouse (as I explained above) with roughly twice as much power as his grandfather, I was sitting pretty. But quite frankly it was all very complicated.

I have three sons: oldest is Steward of Chartres; next is Count of Chartre; and youngest is Count of Melgueill. My brother is Duke of Orlean and his liege is the King of France (not me). That means that my oldest sons and next oldest sons are vassals to my brother, and my youngest son is my direct vassal.

I own all of Duchy of Burgundy (gave Sen to a relative); I am Duke of Toulouse and Burgundy and own all but three provinces of Duchy of Toulouse. One is some stranger woman (Countess of Gevaudan) my son (Lord Mayor of Melgueill) and another stranger (Count of Foix). One county in De Jure Duchy Toulouse is a vassal of Holy Roman Empire (Vivarais).

When the succession took place, the law in place was Gavelkind, which did not seem ideal given my realm is kinda all over the place. After a year or two in throne, I somewhat impulsively decided to switch to Elective and that seems to be a bad idea in this situation.

I nominate my brother as his succession will lead to the heir having three duchies and multiple counties in each. However, my AI rivals see it differently. Present the Countess of Gevaudan is the leader with two votes, and my fricking AUNT! (who has no titles but a few claims) who is like 58 is the next in place with BOTH of my juvenile Count sons voting for her!?

I vaguely now remember messing with Elective a bit back with Crusader Kings I and deciding that I did not like it for these very reasons: when things get messy (as they often do) the result can be unpredictable. I mean, who could guess that some 58 year old childless old maid Aunt would get nominated!?!?

I guess now that I've changed it once I'm stuck with it for the rest of my reign, so I guess I'm gonna be busy imprisoning or assassinating or something unless I want to go back to a previous save or restart.