guide to royal marriages, personal unions and claim throne.

[Travis_Bickle]

In general, if you have a strong ally and you get your dynasty on their throne, what's the correct age to break the alliance so you are able to DoW immediately if they have no heir when their current ruler dies?

As Spain, I got Trastámara on the Austrian (union over Hungary) throne within the first years of the game! But they were my most reliable ally vs France, so I didn't want to break my alliance to soon. Usually I am for around when their current ruler is 45. It worked out for me in the end although I had two missed attempts when their ruler died younger and got an heir before the truce was over.

I genuinely love the PU game. It's so rewarding when it works out.

 

[atwix]

In general, if you have a strong ally and you get your dynasty on their throne, what's the correct age to break the alliance so you are able to DoW immediately if they have no heir when their current ruler dies?

As Spain, I got Trastámara on the Austrian (union over Hungary) throne within the first years of the game! But they were my most reliable ally vs France, so I didn't want to break my alliance to soon. Usually I am for around when their current ruler is 45. It worked out for me in the end although I had two missed attempts when their ruler died younger and got an heir before the truce was over.

I genuinely love the PU game. It's so rewarding when it works out.

The only way that is safe is to hope for weak claim heir. Just break alliance . Clsim throne and force pu. If king dies and consort takes over you can still lose claim though..

 

[Travis_Bickle]

The only way that is safe is to hope for weak claim heir. Just break alliance . Clsim throne and force pu. If king dies and consort takes over you can still lose claim though..

Funnily enough, that did happen once in a previous game. France had a Trastámara Queen and entered a Queen Regency with a De Valois weak claim ruler. The regency would last like 7 years so I had time to dissolve the alliance and wait to declare the war.

I think if I could afford it, and the PU was really worth it, I'd consider a trucebreak.

 

[atwix]

added something to guide that has been missing for a LONG time. My rule of thumb when it comes to who spreads dynasty to heirless nation on ruler death was incomplete.

Basic rule of thumb (very important!):If you become highest total EFFECTIVE development nation of all RM partners of a nation, you will deliver a noble of your dynasty to become ruler of that nation, if their old ruler dies heirless, and IF you also have higher effective development then the biggest nation of the target nation's dynasty.

example; you can"t spread dynasty into a trastemara nation or any nation ruled by dynasty X UNLESS you are bigger in effective development then the biggest dynasty member of the nation you are trying to spread YOUR dynasty to.

this rule is obscure and I don't know if it got added since game launch, but I don' think it was. At some point I started noticing goofy things when trying to spread my dynasty into Castille (it stayed "noble of Trastemara takes throne" even if I was biggest RM partner) so here we are. Finally changed

 

[love sweden]

This thread doesnt seem to have much use now that most nations in Europe get a PU in their missions anyway.

 

[atwix]

This thread doesnt seem to have much use now that most nations in Europe get a PU in their missions anyway.

I can respect that opinion. But basically this thread learned the community *and* the devs themselves the PU system. You can still get lucky and PU all christian GP without missions.

Trust me, not EVERY player tag switchers from this to that tag just to get 10+ force PU missions....

 

[Manwe_Sulimo]

Some thoughts on keeping Unions in the long run if something like this happens (or how to avoid it?):
I am just in danger of losing my Union with Naples who I got via succession war after Aragon abandonded them very early in the game as my very young 0 4 4 ruler is now 56. Semms I am going to need to use even gifts and even subsidies to get them over 0 again. I was really confused at first why this goes so much out of hand these games, normaly these events only become an issue in combination with siphoning income or similar.
What I found out -> never have a 0 Admin ruler in a royal marriage. Those -25 opinion seem to be able to stack up indefinetly (at least until 200), and they are extremly frequent in this situation. (https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Union_events ). Good to know for the next time, although I am not sure if this should not be capped at 100 at max.


View attachment 658618

 

[atwix]

Some thoughts on keeping Unions in the long run if something like this happens (or how to avoid it?):
I am just in danger of losing my Union with Naples who I got via succession war after Aragon abandonded them very early in the game as my very young 0 4 4 ruler is now 56. Semms I am going to need to use even gifts and even subsidies to get them over 0 again. I was really confused at first why this goes so much out of hand these games, normaly these events only become an issue in combination with siphoning income or similar.
What I found out -> never have a 0 Admin ruler in a royal marriage. Those -25 opinion seem to be able to stack up indefinetly (at least until 200), and they are extremly frequent in this situation. (https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Union_events ). Good to know for the next time, although I am not sure if this should not be capped at 100 at max.


View attachment 658618

I bug reported that in 1.15 already or so, no reply. It seems paradox is ok with stacking those bad events indefinatly.

It kinda makes sense, as an idiot king would constantly make bad decisions and be perceived as "not caring" for their own subjects..

What you can do and should always do is try and not get bad kings. It may sound stupid.. But letting a good stat king take over with abdicating is usually better then letting the idiot rule.

You could also disinherit until you got decent heir, but the prestige loss might push up liberty desire from PU subjects if it goes in the negative..

The *real* problem is that these events inside PU subject happen without notificiation for the player (unless message settings for events are on for subject) and that the opinion drop is often enough not seen in time.

THAT I think is problematic.

 

[Manwe_Sulimo]

Yes I don't think its a bug, it is probably a rather extreme case. I normally would try to get rid of such a low-admin ruler, but as he had decent Diplo and Mil stats I kept him not being aware of that issue.

I agree that the lack of information on this is a severe problem, I checked the opinion regularly to prepare for siphon money (which I could not do due to the low opinion), otherwise I would not have noticed until it breaks prob - there is not even a Red Alert that a Union can break upon death, which is rather weird, should work like the Alert you get that you might become a Junior Partner

on a principles note: I find it werid that all the events rely beside another factor (of which one is low diplo skill) rely on admin skill, imo diplo skill makes more sense as it is still technically a dif country (or for some events its admin, for some diplo), I would even consider a low mil skill might also have an affect (he is a bad leader / can't protect us) - on principle I think these events are good as they give a certain level of unstableness on PU, just a bit extreme that you can't even counter it with +200 relations and all other stuff you have

Edit: One more observation: The 10 years in the modifiers is for real -> the whole modifier, even if it is far over 100 disappears totally, so no need to wait for the decay. Naples will be part of the Habsburg empire forever!

 

[WorldWarIV]

Are there any mods that enhance the game of thrones that you guys would recommend?

 

[atwix]

Are there any mods that enhance the game of thrones that you guys would recommend?

I never really checked.. Mods that allow assasination of Kings, or remove dynastic events, would definatly help. Maybe you could use some keywords in the eu4 steam workshop and browse

 

[WorldWarIV]

I never really checked.. Mods that allow assasination of Kings, or remove dynastic events, would definatly help. Maybe you could use some keywords in the eu4 steam workshop and browse

It's not even that I want to change it, but a mod which would warn you if a country could become your junior partner would be fun (just like when you're warned when you could become a JP), or a warning when your dynasty is the regent of another country, or a family tree showing you where one member of your dynasty is in line for another throne, etc.

 

[GChapman]

Quick question about PUs:

I had a RM with Austria, but didnt share dynasty. Still i got into a succession war as defender. What happend?
The attacker in the war was someone without RM with Austria and with another dynasty.
There were also other nations with the same dynasty as Austria.

So what happened? Why did i become the defender?

 

[Travis_Bickle]

Quick question about PUs:

I had a RM with Austria, but didnt share dynasty. Still i got into a succession war as defender. What happend?
The attacker in the war was someone without RM with Austria and with another dynasty.
There were also other nations with the same dynasty as Austria.

So what happened? Why did i become the defender?

Largest marriage partner.

There's "cycles" that I believe reset with who is the Emperor/Curia Controller meaning you can sometimes get a PU without sharing dynasty.

It would have been you as the largest marriage partner vs whoever was their largest rival by autonomy adjusted development.

 

[atwix]

Quick question about PUs:

I had a RM with Austria, but didnt share dynasty. Still i got into a succession war as defender. What happend?
The attacker in the war was someone without RM with Austria and with another dynasty.
There were also other nations with the same dynasty as Austria.

So what happened? Why did i become the defender?

this can happen in with just a marriage yes, if someone is eglible to contest the succession of Austria. You need to be bigger in development then the largest dynasty member of habsburg to become eglible as defenfer though.

In the guide its described in section A, in chapter 5.

 

[atwix]

On a positive note, the Favours mechanics is a blast. By raking up favours, placing my heirs and claiming thrones/fighting succession wars I have Hungary, Austria, France, Burgundy, England and Castile as my junior PU partners by 1620. Mind you, France started it by placing their dynasty on my throne, lol (thanks, France).

anyone else got some feedback on how this new favour system in leviathan 1.31 changes the way one plays PU game? I'm kind of excited that AI seems scripted to "help" or put you at risk of falling in PU now.

 

[Gaijin de Moscu]

anyone else got some feedback on how this new favour system in leviathan 1.31 changes the way one plays PU game? I'm kind of excited that AI seems scripted to "help" or put you at risk of falling in PU now.

Hmm, I’m not sure the AI is scripted to “help” in any way. What I do is aggressively disinherit my heirs hoping to get my target country’s dynasty on my throne. Because I’m almost always at war, the risk of me falling under a PU is minimal.

Apologies if the way I’ve phrased my point was confusing!

However, the new favour mechanics is very powerful indeed. I diligently joined all of Hungary and Austria’s wars and kept my diplomat raking up favours with them. So I always hovered between 90 and 100 favours with each. As soon as their rulers died heirless — boom, I put my dynasty to them.

The thing is, the heir you put this way is in his twenties. So there’s a very high chance, when their current ruler dies, they won’t have a heir and you can claim throne.

I’m enjoying this quite a lot.

 

[Drachenfels]

Indeed new system of planting Heirs is a bit awkward. I am doing the opposite of you, I play as Austria have 10 allies and disinherit weak heirs like crazy. Either I get my own heir or someone plants one. Spread dynasty like that to 2 extra countries on top of usual PU.

 

[NolValue]

Hello! I'd like to input some change to the base thread here. So, with regards to basically everything, based off my extensive testing around the past few months (I actually never noticed this thread during this time somehow), you've been basically spot on. There is however, one mistake I've noticed. You loosely imply with the "dates change under x" that the game stores a value for the inheritance after each of those events, which is incorrect. The game never stores any value into memory for the inheritance tier.

Rather than that, the game runs the calculation under basically every event where the information is required. Such as hovering over any country's ruler in the diplomatic screen who has a royal marriage with the target country, or on the death of the monarch of said country. It is not set in stone at any point what inheritance you get, it can change if the AI takes ANY event that changes any of the inheritance values.

So (ignoring the fifteen province count limit on inheritance for the sake of argument), for example, if your target were to say go from Castile to Spain, which are different tags with different IDs (The game stores every country in a list during its loading phase, for reference. They aren't just loaded on the fly.), through the "Form Spain Militarily" Decision, where there's no province count change, no papal change, no hre change, etc..., the inheritance date would still change as they're different tags with different ids.

(Also could use any Lower Saxon nation forming Hannover as an example, which could validly happen in an actual game)

This isn't a serious issue with the thread, but it could lead people on in very specific circumstances and make them confused if it doesn't result in what is expected

 

[atwix]

Hello! I'd like to input some change to the base thread here. So, with regards to basically everything, based off my extensive testing around the past few months (I actually never noticed this thread during this time somehow), you've been basically spot on. There is however, one mistake I've noticed. You loosely imply with the "dates change under x" that the game stores a value for the inheritance after each of those events, which is incorrect. The game never stores any value into memory for the inheritance tier.

Rather than that, the game runs the calculation under basically every event where the information is required. Such as hovering over any country's ruler in the diplomatic screen who has a royal marriage with the target country, or on the death of the monarch of said country. It is not set in stone at any point what inheritance you get, it can change if the AI takes ANY event that changes any of the inheritance values.

So (ignoring the fifteen province count limit on inheritance for the sake of argument), for example, if your target were to say go from Castile to Spain, which are different tags with different IDs (The game stores every country in a list during its loading phase, for reference. They aren't just loaded on the fly.), through the "Form Spain Militarily" Decision, where there's no province count change, no papal change, no hre change, etc..., the inheritance date would still change as they're different tags with different ids.

(Also could use any Lower Saxon nation forming Hannover as an example, which could validly happen in an actual game)

This isn't a serious issue with the thread, but it could lead people on in very specific circumstances and make them confused if it doesn't result in what is expected

i'm sorry, but where do i need to change something in the guide then? thanks for the feedback