Getting the crown...from inside!

[Landmeister]

Well, things are beginning to go smoothly. My male heir is married with the eldest daughter of the emperor. The emperor died and all four kingdoms have different kings now (Middle and West France, Burgundy and Aquitaine. That means she has a weak claim on all those kingdoms and the French empire!!!

Could someone suggest how could I take the maximum advantage of it? when my duke dies I will be the new duke of Toulouse and I will be able to force the claim of my wife, but she will be the queen, not me. I can try all four kingdoms for her!! Is it easy to control? My grandson can be the new emperor of France. From duke to emperor in just two generations!!!

 

[StarSword]

You mean the Karlings actually managed to stay in control long enough form Francia in your game?

Well, then, what I'd do would be to focus on overthrowing the King of Aquitaine first, then:

• Faction for the Empire the same way you factioned for Aquitaine. Get the other kings onside.
• At the same time, try to develop CBs to conquer the other kingdoms. If you can manage to get the pope in your pocket (bribery, Theology focus, and Improve Religious Relations and Diplomatic Relations on Rome) you might land a sanctioned invasion CB with your claim.

Note that you cannot press a woman's claim against an agnatic title; it's going to have to be your grandson unless the gender law is changed. (I don't know if you can faction for that.)

 

[Dragatus]

You may have to wait until your son inherits the claims from his mother before you can do anything with them. You could wait until that happens naturally and you play as the son with all the claim. Or you could hasten things a little and kill the wife. If you do manage to make an emperor out of your son before your current duke dies, but are worried what he might do under AI control, you can try to revoke a county from a vassal and then surrender when he rebels. That will force your current duke to abdicate and you'll get to play as his heir, which presumably should be the new emperor.

 

[Landmeister]

You may have to wait until your son inherits the claims from his mother before you can do anything with them. You could wait until that happens naturally and you play as the son with all the claim. Or you could hasten things a little and kill the wife. If you do manage to make an emperor out of your son before your current duke dies, but are worried what he might do under AI control, you can try to revoke a county from a vassal and then surrender when he rebels. That will force your current duke to abdicate and you'll get to play as his heir, which presumably should be the new emperor.

But my wife has weak claims only. If I don't declare war on any of her claimant targets, they will not be inherited by my son.

 

[StarSword]

But my wife has weak claims only. If I don't declare war on any of her claimant targets, they will not be inherited by my son.

Mouse over her claims and look a little closer at the tooltip. Some weak claims are inheritable even if not pressed.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

I did this with point 3, but from the County of Bordeaux.

tl/dr details in the spoiler.

Spoiler

-First I took the Duchy of Poitou and Bordeaux from my liege by war.
-Aquitaine, Burgundy, Middle Francia and West Francia (now France) were all changed to elective by faction. I was the main cause of Kingdom of Burgundy switching to elective, but the other three were switched on their own.
-I made sure I inherited or forged claims to gain a title in each of these kingdoms (only Dukes, claimants, and relatives of the King are eligible for an elective Kingdom apparently), so I made sure my personal demesne had a province in each location. I focused on Burgundy, Poitou, Provence, and my home base Bordeaux. The situation may make you focus on different locations, but such is life. My Ducal realm was elective so I could make sure I put forth the best family member.
-I sat in place making friends, defending everyone from raiders and invaders.
-In the third (or fourth?) generation, the young Karling Emperor consolidated power by force so he held all these King titles. This made him plenty of enemies. As I had land in the above Kingdoms, I became the heir-elect to all of them at one point, so I plotted to kill the poor Karling... and succeeded.
-I inherited control of two thirds of the Empire without fighting my liege, just favors and cash. Italy, East Francia(now Germany) and Flanders are not mine, but we are all happy subjects of the Empire.

Afterwards, I reorganized my realm to put family members in as many subject Duchies as possible (so I can allow my chosen heir to keep all four Kingdoms without too much risk), and pushed my realm deep in to a badly fractured Andalusia to enlarge de jure Aquitaine. North Africa, Sicily and Tunisia are within range now. Plus I destroyed the Middle Francia title to absorb that into Aquitaine too.

At the current save, I run the land within Aquitaine, France, Burgundy, Middle Francia, and the majority of Andalusia (edit - and Brittany).

I am still a vassal to the Karling Emperor though. Once complete, I will probably break off from Francia and form my own imperial realm. I haven't decided to go for Hispania or form a new one.

S.R.

p.s. As I write this, I wonder if it's easier to just take Francia from the inside too. I was all set to break free with my main power base shifting to the western Mediterranean, but now I wonder...

 

[Dragatus]

But my wife has weak claims only. If I don't declare war on any of her claimant targets, they will not be inherited by my son.

Whether or not a claim is inheritable is independent from the strength of the claim. Claim can be strong and uninheritable (for example if fabricated by chancellor), strong and inheritable (for example second and third son under primogeniture), weak but inheritable (all children that didn't get strong claims), or weak and uninheritable (children of people with weak inheritable claims).

So the princess should have a weak claim that can be inherited, but her son will have a weak claim that can't be inherited unless pressed in a war.

 

[Thrake]

1. May male heir will marry the daughter's kingdom of Aquitaine claimant. Only a strong claimant will be considered, as claim will become weak when he/she dies and his/her daugther inherits it.

Weak claims are inheritable once, and then not heritable (unless pressed somehow where they become strong and thus can be passed two generations as weak).

It's possible to find strong female claimants (if he has less than 3 boys) though weak claims work as well as you can form faction for those, so you could actually even form a faction to be ruled by the wife of your son (and prey for your son not to die from stress before he gets her pregnant with a boy ).

You can also scheme your way through pressing weak claims the conventionnal way (either through depose king CB if his heir is under age, either through the sneaky way murdering your way to a regency or female ruler).

Breeding claimant and pressing claim through faction is obviously the easier way as you can get people in your faction through spymaster, favors and alliances. If you're the kind of player with the ambitious trait though, you'll want to first press a claim the conventional way on a kingdom that is not your de jure kingdom, and then press a faction to put the new queen on the throne of your de jure kingdom. If you do it through your de jure kingdom, then you can't get her on another throne (unless you can somehow murder her way to inheritance).

If you do it with your kids instead of your wife though then it's another story as you can either get a kingdom per children Karling style (and get two for your heir the same way you can get two for your wife) or you can wait to die to press them when playing the guy with the weak claims. If you can get the AI to be stronger than your former liege though, there's a fair chance it will try to press its claims on its own.