House Rules & Strategies for Normandy

[Casiru]

The faction mechanic for a claim is cheese on its own, usually it to double king is even worse. I tried William to have a decent power base against an eventual Aztec invasion, the plot to give me a claim on France went through before I had enough war score to take England so I made a faction for myself that filled up almost immediately. Presented my ultimatum expecting a war and he just handed it over. England's cooked soon after and bam I'm the largest realm (unless the HRE was still bigger, but they were fighting an independence war when I checked)
Kinda left a bad aftertaste.

 

[Alexander Seil]

The elective bonus is by far the largest. Nothing says 'my succesion is secure' than elective monarchy with no risk of a misinheritance. You just pick the best duke/son and see how far you get.

I'd consider my vassals electing a popular imbecile to be a "misinheritance." And it clearly requires careful setup...I can't just switch to elective in my game, for example - my line will get turfed out immediately and replaced with complete idiots. Or worse yet, a Saxon.

 

[justin6477]

Interesting. I never considered elective. But how do you make sure other vassals nominate your choice?

By making sure your favorite heir is the best candidate of course.

Also remember that only Duke tier vassals vote in elective monarchies, which is why I made all the 2 county duchies Prince ArchBishops. They generally tend to vote in lockstep with their liege, especially if you have free investiture.

The best thing about elective is that it you start to breed for great relatives, and soon enough you have a massive (albeit unlanded) family with no claims on your Kingdom. It makes them perfect candidates when you want to give away Jerusalem, or re-conquer Sicily from the Fatimids.

 

[Avernite]

I'd consider my vassals electing a popular imbecile to be a "misinheritance." And it clearly requires careful setup...I can't just switch to elective in my game, for example - my line will get turfed out immediately and replaced with complete idiots. Or worse yet, a Saxon.

Usually the inheritance goes to the best diplomat, or your chosen heir if you are good friends with your vassals. The good thing is, if all your dukes are your dynasty, you can easily decide the most important trait in your next ruler is that he is most popular among the nobility... and that someone then becomes your official heir, as he is of your dynasty.

Sure, you might fail to get your genius strong son on the throne if you die a few days after his birth, but then the next ruler can still just educate the child and make him the NEXT heir.

 

[Alexander Seil]

Usually the inheritance goes to the best diplomat, or your chosen heir if you are good friends with your vassals. The good thing is, if all your dukes are your dynasty, you can easily decide the most important trait in your next ruler is that he is most popular among the nobility... and that someone then becomes your official heir, as he is of your dynasty.

Sure, you might fail to get your genius strong son on the throne if you die a few days after his birth, but then the next ruler can still just educate the child and make him the NEXT heir.

The problem is that it's still inherently not a controllable process. At least with primogeniture you know what you get and can definitively plan for it. Elective is likely ideal for well-bred realms set up just so where everything's lovey-dovey and you don't have 30 different claimants to every one of your titles. There are certainly situations where I would go for elective...but England isn't one of them.

P.S.: The example with landing arch-bishops and using that with elective is somewhat of an exploit of the limited mechanics for the Catholic Church. If any historical King went for a set-up like that, he'd promptly find himself excommunicated...maybe one day we'll get a Church DLC to deal with this. Stuff like this is why investiture was a big deal to begin with - can't just have secular lords boss around huge Church holdings through puppet bishops.

 

[feastonthrones]

I have played where I took about 70% of the counties in England. After about 30 years I got an event basically making me change culture type. So now 70% of my vassals now hated me. I was very upset. This was a long time ago, 3 updates back, so I dont know if that event is still around. An easy way to make sure that France doesnt declare war on you is to marry off one of your offspring into the french line. It stopped them attacking me for a generation.

 

[justin6477]

I have played where I took about 70% of the counties in England. After about 30 years I got an event basically making me change culture type. So now 70% of my vassals now hated me. I was very upset. This was a long time ago, 3 updates back, so I dont know if that event is still around. An easy way to make sure that France doesnt declare war on you is to marry off one of your offspring into the french line. It stopped them attacking me for a generation.

You're probably referring to the English melting pot event chain.

Don't worry, every last person in England will flip to English soon enough when that event hits.

 

[DarkPhoenix]

I don't know, but from my limited experience of successfully playing House Godwin and the duke of Lancaster, and of course from watching while playing somewhere else, the key for Norman success is simply "not getting the Bastard killed on the battlefield". After that, even die AI can manage to keep England together, usually...