Harsh gavelkind division (losing 4 of 6 counties because of having 3 ducal titles)

[NewbieOne]

This isn't a bug strictly speaking but rather a request to readdress a feature due to how it turns out in a specific situation.

So here's the screen to illustrate the spot I'm in:

Basically, I hold 3 ducal titles (Greater Poland, Pomerelia, titular Sandomierz) and 6 counties plus one count as a vassal. My younger son would get one of the ducal titles (Pomerelia)—and actually the one to which my only vassal count (Slupsk) is attached, but four of the counties and I'm not sure about where my vassal count would go (to the primary heir or to the one that gets the de iure duchy in which this count is located).

This division would leave my eldest son and heir severely outmatched by his younger brother. The elder would have the title of the Duchy of Greater Poland, the county of Poznan and Kalisz and the titular Duchy of Sandomierz. The junior would get only one ducal title, that of Pomerelia, but he would get all of the other lands of the father's and possibly the vassal count. Even if he wouldn't get the vassal count upon succession, he would have the de iure ducal claim and twice the number of counties to draw levies from (comparing the respective two demesnes here and not including the count on either side). He would have a claim on the elder's primary title anyway.

I believe gavelkind should be tweaked to take account of these kind of situations to prevent the outcome being that the younger brother can DoW the elder on the day of the father's death and win.

I'm sure situations like this could happen in the middle ages but perhaps only when handing out complete duchies to heirs. The elder could end up getting the duchy with a higher honour but the younger with more power. But when adding "loose counties" into the equation, I doubt a 2/4 division, where the younger brother becomes 2 times more powerful (at the minimum, because he also gets the better counties, with more slots for holdings).

The fact that apparently succession change requires a specific level of crown authority that the liege has, on which I have no influence, means I can't realistically expect to change succession laws. I could make one of the sons a bishop or hope I have more sons or just dump all counties on the heir before I die, but still...

Thanks for listening.

 

[BlckKnght]

I suspect this is WAD, but I agree with you that it's confusing. What I think the issue comes down to is that the eldest son always gets the primary title, even if that is weaker than one of the other titles of the same rank. So you could swap the inheritances of your sons by changing your current ruler's primary title to be Pomerelia rather than Greater Poland.

 

[NewbieOne]

Yes, I agree with you. Primary goes to heir, then it is some sort of power ranking, although keeping within tiers.

But with the default apportioning, I suspect that if you had 3 counties, an odd number of ducal titles, so say 3, and 2 sons, you could end up with your elder son getting 1 county and 2 duchies and the younger 2 counties and 1 duchy. War = loss for the elder unless it's Barcelona or some other panzercounty.

So I'm not saying this isn't WAD in terms of system specification, shall we say, but that it needs a tweak for special situations. As I said, a reasonable fix would be employed in real life in such situations, I think.

 

[K-vald]

While I understand your concern, I have to go with BlckKnght on this one. As you too are saying you have ways to solve this little inheritance issue. I'm not sure on how it worked in real life situations but gavelkind is a risky succession law, primogeniture is a way more safer route to take.
I use to only go with main titles when having gavelkind, if I'm king I will grant all duchies and counties to my vassals and I'll have all the kingdoms set to gavelkind. In that way the eldest son will inherit the main title and since all the kingdoms are separated from each other per law he will inherit all the primary titles.

 

[NewbieOne]

Well, my point is that on the basis of realism, getting actual land should take precedence over getting titles, especially titular duchies that don't have land attached. I totally understand and support the notion of giving the primary title to the eldest or the other preferred heir. In some specific situations in the middle ages, this actually sometimes meant the elder brother getting a lower title than the younger because of a longer history of the title in the family or some other prestigious aspects. Needless to say, sometimes you couldn't really assess the military power of a duchy too well beforehand anyway. But here I think the issue with ducal titles taking precendence before counties. Hence in odd situations a junior son may end up with twice as much land, which is too extreme, considering that he got 1 out of 2 ducal titles, of which 1 was only titular anyway (there is no way for 1 of 2 sons to grab both of the landed duchies and leave the titular one to his brother). Realistically, the father wouldn't have put it on his will like that, nor would brothers really agree to such a split, then again, there isn't much voting when you have 2 voters. As I see it, the father and/or the sons would basically be drawing lines on the map rather than going into the intricacies of titles.

But maybe I'm too influenced by the type of gavelkind practiced west of France, in which all sons would retain the hereditary rank of the father (king or emperor wouldn't be included and wouldn't necessarily result in princely titles for the family upon loss of the crown if they hadn't been princes before), albeit with fractions of the land, sometimes the size of CK2's barony. This is the reason for so many duchies in the HRE, Poland, Russia. Actually, this titular duchy of Sandomierz we have here is a prime example of this. It was technically within the seniorate fraction of Poland but created for Kazimierz the Just (represented as King of Poland in the 1187 start) because it was believed as the son of Boleslaw the Wrymouth (d. 1138) he had the right to rule. In some cases in later years the brothers actually wouldn't split the father's holdings in a formal way but instead form a sort of council, but I'm diggressing. I'm pretty sure, on the other hand, that in France or England or Spain or Italy or even very late mediaeval Germany this kind of thing could happen.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

There's a link in my sig about improving gavelkind in a future patch by letting you nominate which titles go to which sons. If you're interested you could post there -- the more people who agree, the more likely Paradox are to implement this in a patch later on.

I know it won't help you in your current game but it'd be a step in the right direction.