Has getting your preferred candidate for elective monarchy become more difficult recently?

[asebvgrtahr]

Hi there,

I'm getting back into CK2 after a long absence; this is my first playthrough with Conclave.

I usually use elective monarchy and for my first few rulers it was fine, but at the moment I'm struggling to get my preferred candidate as my heir. Instead, my vassals are strongly preferring other candidates despite having positive relationships with me. All of my vassals are of the same culture and religion, and are also my own dynasty, as are the candidates they are voting for.

This isn't a problem I've had with previous versions of the game, so I was wondering if elective monarchy has been made harder to control in recent versions of the game, and if I should instead just switch to primogeniture and execute my children to get the desired heir.
Thanks for your answers!

 

[Azarias59]

Can't say it has been any more or less difficult. Though one would think that Favour would come into play...

 

[Galvador]

maybe the other candidate is more prestigious? Try to spam honorary title to your heir to build prestige, might work.

 

[mrstevehazzard]

Elective was definitely made a lot less easy to game, I believe it was in Conclave that they changed it. I don't find it all that useful as a succession law anymore, especially for really large realms. Go primo ASAP.

 

[Woifee]

Go Gavelkind. Best law ever because of demense bonus.

Just keep one possible heir.

And just in case something goes wrong, just use it for your primary title. All the others should be primo.

 

[Greybeard0815]

Elective was definitely made a lot less easy to game, I believe it was in Conclave that they changed it. I don't find it all that useful as a succession law anymore, especially for really large realms. Go primo ASAP.

Actually it was the patch 2.5. not Conclave itself. The patch lowered the opinion bonuses across the board, which makes it harder to get to 100 opinion. Essentialy this change made diplomatic characters stronger and weakened the others.

 

[Aries666]

I too have noticed difficulties with elective since I started playing again a couple of week ago (after a 6 month break). However, after a Zunist run I have really come to like ultimo. Primo forces you to "do something " about older undesirable heirs in ultimo you just have more kids, once your happy, divorce your wife, marry a granny and your golden. You also get the added bonus that you get longer lived rulers.

 

[Bernard95]

Elective has been this way for awhile and probably has been for a few patches, though as others have pointed out Conclave took it another peg down. Pretty much if you want to use elective in a decent sized realm things must be rigged in your favor or you're pretty much leaving things up to chance. Your two options are either a) go with a kingdom with few de jure duchies such as Brittany or b) you create your own form of tanistry by ensuring most of the realm is your own dynasty.

 

[Aries666]

Yes, my last game I created the kingdom of Castile and made that my primary. Even though there was a duke there only he and I could vote so I could permanently vote my own choice. However, eventually you get so big you have to form an empire so you can make king vassals.

 

[FrosT37]

Yes it's tricky.

From what I've seen, your vassals seem to prefer adults, males, firstborn child & landed characters.

If I don't have an adult son, I nominate a brother or an adult from my dynasty and it seems to work until my firstborn son becomes an adult. At that point, I nominate my firstborn son.

If I want another heir than my firstborn son, the best way to do this is to land him and nominate him. He should take precedence as long as my firstborn son remains unlanded.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

Yes, it has been made somewhat harder.

Elective used to work like "Selective Monarchy" where you just selected an heir. Now your vassals are more likely to look at the traits, stats, prestige and titles of a character. It's still possible to get a preferred character elected but they have to be a good candidate, i.e. better than the other candidates of your Dynasty.

You can forget about they voting for your cruel, paranoid, gluttonous son who is a Known Murderer, though. That isn't going to fly.

 

[Matthias_Wlkp]

One weird thing I noticed with elective - two vassals were voting for my dynasty members. 3 votes were needed so I thought I'm good. But as soon as I voted on the same guy as them, they instantly switched to my other family member...

 

[SigurdStormhand]

Maybe they hate you?

 

[Matthias_Wlkp]

AFAIR, they were around +40 towards me...

 

[Aries666]

I think there needs to be more information given to the player as to why each elector is voting the way they are so that you can try and do something about it. At the minute it can be for any number of reasons, they have low opinion of you, low opinion of your chosen heir, high opinion of an alternative heir, are only interested in voting for themselves, don't like the stats/traits of you chosen heir, chosen heir is too young and probably more. As a result it mostly comes to trial and error to find the electors you can sway when it would be so much simpler if the game just told you the underlying reasons.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

I dislike being given too much information - you can usually work out the likely reasons, and the game will show you if your chosen heir has rivals who are electors.

You get a huge amount of information with the Council in Conclave and it makes things rather too obvious - it even tells you if a Councillor is voting a certain way because they've been bought. So you know straight away to fire them.

Being psychic isn't actually fun.

 

[TheDungen]

Well you have to consider who your vassals want not just who you want, but aside from that it's not really a problem. Make sure to appoint lots of electable characters of your dynasty (kings if you're an empire for an example).
The only thing I dislike with it is the vassals seeming so interested in voting for my children even when I am not. If not even their parents think they are suitable to rule then perhaps the lords of the realm should pick up on that.

 

[Aries666]

I dislike being given too much information - you can usually work out the likely reasons, and the game will show you if your chosen heir has rivals who are electors.

You get a huge amount of information with the Council in Conclave and it makes things rather too obvious - it even tells you if a Councillor is voting a certain way because they've been bought. So you know straight away to fire them.

Being psychic isn't actually fun.

I sort of get you but if the info is already there just difficult to find in a timely fashion then there isn't really a reason not to have it readily available. This is also the reason why we have a ledger telling us troop numbers etc you can worth these things out yourself given enough time so it is made readily available.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

Well, it's not actually 100% clear with elections the way it is with the Council, you have to try to divine what the AI is thinking, which is more similar to real life.

 

[asebvgrtahr]

Wow, what a response! Thanks for the replies, guys.

I do have a kind of de facto tanistry going on in my realm at the moment: it's literally impossible for me to *lose* an election outright, since every landed feudal character in my realm is my own dynasty. But I want my own children or siblings succeeding me, not some guy whose closest relation is some guy who died 200 years ago!

It definitely does seem more difficult, as you folks have corroborated. What was a little frustrating for me is that the candidate I was going for did have a whole lot of prestige despite being unlanded-- he is a prince and also the designated regent, which gives him a huge amount of monthly prestige. And my vassals did generally have good relations with me. Previously, you could just sort of assume your preferred candidate would get enough votes. What was really worrying is that their preferred heirs were often leaders of revolts, meaning I couldn't just revoke their titles to make them go away.

I seem to have managed to get enough votes for my favored heir after a little more play time, but it's clear that elective is not the cut-and-dry process it was previously. I can imagine it getting even more difficult with vassal kings in play-- that extra layer would make it more difficult to influence duke-level electors.

I've been looking more and more at primo/ultimo. I'm the Emperor of Britannia with my desmesne covering the entirety of Wales and nothing else, so setting up hereditary rule and vassal kings could be incredibly powerful. I'd have only three vassals, each one being far weaker than me. The council would be completely impotent even if they hated me, but they wouldn't even be able to faction against me.