How can avoid my son creating a kingdom

[hardcorebe]

I recently started a playthrough as a count of Salerno, captured some lands and created the kingdom of Sicilly. Now I also have enough land to create the title for the kingdom of Sardinia. I did not want to create that one because I have 2 sons so when I die it would give one kingdom to my heir and the other tho his brother.

I gave some duchies to the other son and when I check the succession it shows only the title for the kingdom of Sardinia would go to the other son. So I thought it would be ok since I did not created it. But when I died, the kingdom of Sardinia was immediately created and my non heir was actually better off than my heir.

How can I best avoid this? I just want my heir be the king and keep growing with his brother under him.

 

[Tryvenyal]

There is no difference if you create the title or not with confederate partition. Regardless of if the Kingdom of Sardinia is created or not (as long as there are enough counties owned to create it) he second son will get the Kingdom of Sardinia (and the primary heir will get a claim on it). And if a non-primary heir gets a title(s), they can't inherit lower titles unless they are de jure under that higher title(s). Plus if you don't have holding within the title(s) your non-primary heir is receiving, they will just take one from a vassal.

So no way is the second son getting the Kingdom of Sardinia and land within the Kingdom of Sicily unless OP gives the second son land within the Kingdom of Sicily. The only exception is if one of OP's vassals has land in both kingdoms but their primary title is de jure under the Kingdom of Sardinia (though this isn't the second son getting the land directly, but taking the vassal with them).

I was quite sure it matters as I explained, though your determinated reply makes me doubt. I know the distribution outline prior to succession sometimes is unrelyable but I have seen inheritance change the way I explain. In my recent playthrough, as England, I had 8 counties, 7 under England and 1 under Wales. I had enought Vassals in Wales for the title to be created on succession. I held 2 duchie-titles in England. I had 2 sons. The second was predicted to inherit 3 titles and create 1 - the second english duchie, 1 county inside it, the county in wales and create wales.

I then created wales myself. And second son got only 2. Wales and the county in Wales. This was also what happened when succession occured.

What I think happens is that the title creation happens last rather than first. One thing that supports this is the way you as a primary heir gets claims on all counties(including vassals leaving with your brother and any duchy-title) that leaves your(parents) realm but in the case its inherited(rather than created on succession) you get claim only on the top-tier title. One point mildly against is that you as primary heir gets claim on the created title. That means either claim inheritance is the vary last step or that a second claiminheritance happens for created titles.

I can be wrong, there are some other scenarios that COULD lead to the partition seen in the first case.

• I wonder if creating a Wales duchie(the one above the held county) would have created the same scenario. But My guess is the game would give second heir both secondary duchies and their counties.
• It might also be the second English duchie that somehow ruined it for me

I have never seen a secondary heir ursurping from vassals on succession. Likely there are cases when it happens but I am quite sure it does not happen at least when succession creates the toptier.

I will laborate a bit tonight if I find the time.

 

[Tuo]

I have never seen a secondary heir ursurping from vassals on succession. Likely there are cases when it happens but I am quite sure it does not happen at least when succession creates the toptier.

They will usurp a title from a vassal if all the counties within the inherited titles are held already by vassals, and the secondary heir has no counties from elsewhere either - in this case, to prevent the heir from becoming county-less, they will usurp a county from a vassal (as will always happen if a liege would lose their last county while a vassal is still holding any).

 

[pengoyo]

I see, this must have been changed in some patch or another - I recall quite some time a forum user reported a case where the capital location changed the behavior in the way I described. I appreciate the correction, I don't like spreading false information!

I wouldn't be surprised is it was a bug that was removed.

 

[hardcorebe]

There is no difference if you create the title or not with confederate partition. Regardless of if the Kingdom of Sardinia is created or not (as long as there are enough counties owned to create it) he second son will get the Kingdom of Sardinia (and the primary heir will get a claim on it). And if a non-primary heir gets a title(s), they can't inherit lower titles unless they are de jure under that higher title(s). Plus if you don't have holding within the title(s) your non-primary heir is receiving, they will just take one from a vassal.

So no way is the second son getting the Kingdom of Sardinia and land within the Kingdom of Sicily unless OP gives the second son land within the Kingdom of Sicily. The only exception is if one of OP's vassals has land in both kingdoms but their primary title is de jure under the Kingdom of Sardinia (though this isn't the second son getting the land directly, but taking the vassal with them).


No, as long as you have enough counties to create the kingdom of Sardinia and your primary title is a kingdom level title, that title will be created with confederate partition if it doesn't exist on succession.


So your option are:

To release counties in the de jure Kingdom of Sardinia so that you don't have enough counties for the Kingdom to be created. This will have your second son become a vassal of your primary heir on succession, but will probably mean they he will inherit more of your primary heirs land (since he didn't get a kingdom level title he can inherit duchies (and potential counties) regardless of kingdom).

You can create the Kingdom of Sardinia and make both kingdoms elective. And then make sure your primary heir wins both elections. Though this will again mean your second son will become a vassal and might inherit more of your primary heir's land as he won't have received a kingdom title.

Depending on how far you are into the game you can rush the innovation for partition and switch your succession to that (but sounds like this is not an option).

You can become an emperor, thus only if you get two land enough to create a second empire title will the realm be in danger of splitting on succession (though as you mentioned it is not always possible to get enough land to become an emperor in time).

You can remove your second son from succession (e.g. death, disinheriting, etc). You can imprison your son and then execute him without needing to be sadistic (though your son might flee in response and if successful you will get the kinslayer trait if Catholic). Or if you want to be somewhat kind to your second son, note that if you disinherit you second son you can still grant him titles if you want him to receive something.

You can let your realm split and leave it as such for the increased renown. Note if you are after the Empire of Italia you don't need the Kingdom of Sicily. So you could create the Kingdom of Sardinia and make that your primary title and let your second son rule the Kingdom of Sicily.

And finally you can let your realm split, but then press your claim on the other Kingdom, thereby reuniting the realm and subjugating your brother.

Thank you very much for the in depth explanation!

I already gave the guy also a bunch of land in Sicilly unfortunately so on my death my non heir just got way too much and the title got created automaticallly.
So the solution for me is switching to partition instead of confederate partition, that way the title isn't created automatically upon my death.

 

[pengoyo]

I was quite sure it matters as I explained, though your determinated reply makes me doubt. I know the distribution outline prior to succession sometimes is unrelyable but I have seen inheritance change the way I explain. In my recent playthrough, as England, I had 8 counties, 7 under England and 1 under Wales. I had enought Vassals in Wales for the title to be created on succession. I held 2 duchie-titles in England. I had 2 sons. The second was predicted to inherit 3 titles and create 1 - the second english duchie, 1 county inside it, the county in wales and create wales.

I then created wales myself. And second son got only 2. Wales and the county in Wales. This was also what happened when succession occured.

What I think happens is that the title creation happens last rather than first. One thing that supports this is the way you as a primary heir gets claims on all counties(including vassals leaving with your brother and any duchy-title) that leaves your(parents) realm but in the case its inherited(rather than created on succession) you get claim only on the top-tier title. One point mildly against is that you as primary heir gets claim on the created title. That means either claim inheritance is the vary last step or that a second claiminheritance happens for created titles.

I can be wrong, there are some other scenarios that COULD lead to the partition seen in the first case.

• I wonder if creating a Wales duchie(the one above the held county) would have created the same scenario. But My guess is the game would give second heir both secondary duchies and their counties.
• It might also be the second English duchie that somehow ruined it for me

So first it is possible the panel informing you of how the succession will go was out of date until the title creation forced it to update. I've never been able to get the succession display to be out of date in my tests, but it is a complaint I've heard.

Second, for the sake of my sanity I do all my tests in debug mode. And while I don't think that would affect the succession code, it is always a possibility.

But I'm pretty positive the title are handed out in a top down manner from the tests I've done. For instance, in my tests, the son who gets the 2nd kingdom title (whether it is created by the confederate partition or not) he will only get titles within that de jure kingdom, but if you make it so the second son doesn't inherit a kingdom title he will inherit land in multiple de jure kingdoms (and in test where there is a lot of titles up for grab outside the 2nd kingdom title, this means he inherits more titles overall when not inheriting the kingdom title). So the extra titles definitely needs to be created before the titles are handed out.

That said I did do some tests related to your what you mentioned about claims, as I haven't really looked at that before. And you are right. If I have two children and the second gets a kingdom that is created on succession, my primary heir only gets the claim on the kingdom title. But if that 2nd kingdom is created ahead of time, the primary heir gets claims on all the titles.

But I decided to see what would happen if I added a 3rd heir and weirdly it made it so the primary heir got claims on the titles of heir to the 2nd kingdom regardless of if the 2nd kingdom is created ahead of time or not. But it gets weirder.

I then tried the first setup with the two kids again (wanted to double check) and got claims on all of the 2nd son's titles regardless of if I created the title ahead of time or not. And this is despite me doing all these test by loading the same save and making tweaks (though time was allowed to pass as I wasn't paused).

So my only guess is that there seem to be some kind of bug causing the claims to be wrong on succession, but I can't reliably reproduce it.

I can be wrong, there are some other scenarios that COULD lead to the partition seen in the first case.

• I wonder if creating a Wales duchie(the one above the held county) would have created the same scenario. But My guess is the game would give second heir both secondary duchies and their counties.
• It might also be the second English duchie that somehow ruined it for me

In the tests I've done, I've have specifically looked at whether having a the duchy under a kingdom, or not, affects things and it definitely doesn't seem to with confederate partition.

I've also looked at whether having lots of or very few duchies (and/or counties) in your primary kingdom effects things. And as long as the other heirs inherit kingdom level titles, they don't take titles from you primary kingdom. But as there are a lot of possible combinations for this (and there do seem to be some weird bugs in the succession code) so I can't completely rule out that there isn't some combination that breaks things.

I have never seen a secondary heir ursurping from vassals on succession. Likely there are cases when it happens but I am quite sure it does not happen at least when succession creates the toptier.

I just retested this to make sure and it definitely is the case. It even happens if the kingdom title is the only title the 2nd heir receives (whether created ahead of time or not).

I will laborate a bit tonight if I find the time.

Please do, while I have done lots of testing of the system at this point and feel I have a good understanding of it. There is definitely the possibility of edge cases I hadn't considered, bugs I hadn't noticed, or something I've overlooked.

 

[pengoyo]

Thank you very much for the in depth explanation!

I already gave the guy also a bunch of land in Sicilly unfortunately so on my death my non heir just got way too much and the title got created automaticallly.
So the solution for me is switching to partition instead of confederate partition, that way the title isn't created automatically upon my death.

No worries.

Yeah partition would solve the independence problem.

You could also switch to Sardinia being your primary title so that way the other guy only gets Sicily rather than Sardinia and parts of Sicily. But that's probably only worth it if you directly own multiple counties in Sardinia.

 

[Tryvenyal]

@pengoyo Nice tested and I fold to evidence. But I will never trust the outliner again.

For testing purpose, I will try to recreate my outliner. Create the second kingdom. Check the outliner. Delete the second kingdom and see if outliner is changed.

Did you test my case with 2 duchies under main kingdom?

 

[pengoyo]

Did you test my case with 2 duchies under main kingdom?

I feel like I must have at some point, but can't recall any specific test (all my recent test for this Kingdom of Sardinia case have involved 3 or 4 duchies). So probably worth double checking at the very least. If you tell me the titles in Wales and England I could try out that specific combination.

 

[Tryvenyal]

I feel like I must have at some point, but can't recall any specific test (all my recent test for this Kingdom of Sardinia case have involved 3 or 4 duchies). So probably worth double checking at the very least. If you tell me the titles in Wales and England I could try out that specific combination.

Kingdom of England
Duchy of York/Jorvik
All 4 counties(c_north_riding,c_east_riding,c_west_riding,c_lincolnshire)
Duchy of Essex
County of Middlesex(c_middlesex)

c_norfolk, c_cambridgeshire

in Wales it was c_denbighshire, if I remember right.

Two sons. No2 was listed to inherit D_Essex, C_Middlesex and c_denbighshire. K_wales would be created.
When wales was created in advance, he got only K_wales and c_denbighshire

 

[pengoyo]

Kingdom of England
Duchy of York/Jorvik
All 4 counties(c_north_riding,c_east_riding,c_west_riding,c_lincolnshire)
Duchy of Essex
County of Middlesex(c_middlesex)

c_norfolk, c_cambridgeshire

in Wales it was c_denbighshire, if I remember right.

Two sons. No2 was listed to inherit D_Essex, C_Middlesex and c_denbighshire. K_wales would be created.
When wales was created in advance, he got only K_wales and c_denbighshire

One, thanks for the debug names. Those were very helpful.

Two, I ran the test by having all the above title and vassallizing ruler in wales until I had enough counties to create the Kingdom of Wales. If I didn't have enough to create the Kingdom of Wale, my 2nd son was shown to inherit the Duchy of Essex and the County of Middlesex (and if I died that was all he got). But when I vassallized enough to create the kingdom of Wales, it'd switch to showing the 2nd son as getting the Kingdom of Wales and the County of Denbighshire, regardless of if the Kingdom of Wales title was created or not (and if I died this is exactly what the 2nd son inherited).

I couldn't get the combination of Duchy of Essex, County of Middlesex, and Kingdom of Denbighsire to be inherited by the 2nd son (or shown as the inheritance) unless I also had the Duchy of Gywned (which the 2nd son would also inherit) and didn't have enough land to create the Kingdom of Wales. But once I had enough land to create the Kingdom of Wales it would switch to showing the 2nd son as inheriting that kingdom and titles under it (again regardless of if the tile was created or not).

So my best guess is that you experience some kind of bug. That has either been fixed or only appears under a more narrow set of circumstance then I tried.

 

[Tryvenyal]

One, thanks for the debug names. Those were very helpful.

Two, I ran the test by having all the above title and vassallizing ruler in wales until I had enough counties to create the Kingdom of Wales. If I didn't have enough to create the Kingdom of Wale, my 2nd son was shown to inherit the Duchy of Essex and the County of Middlesex (and if I died that was all he got). But when I vassallized enough to create the kingdom of Wales, it'd switch to showing the 2nd son as getting the Kingdom of Wales and the County of Denbighshire, regardless of if the Kingdom of Wales title was created or not (and if I died this is exactly what the 2nd son inherited).

I couldn't get the combination of Duchy of Essex, County of Middlesex, and Kingdom of Denbighsire to be inherited by the 2nd son (or shown as the inheritance) unless I also had the Duchy of Gywned (which the 2nd son would also inherit) and didn't have enough land to create the Kingdom of Wales. But once I had enough land to create the Kingdom of Wales it would switch to showing the 2nd son as inheriting that kingdom and titles under it (again regardless of if the tile was created or not).

So my best guess is that you experience some kind of bug. That has either been fixed or only appears under a more narrow set of circumstance then I tried.

Thank you very much! Excellent!

Might been an (display)bug. (There were ofc other circumstances, within a few months before I noticesed this there were 4 heirs. First died my grandson - first son was dead since several years. Then one of my junior sons died too)

I was looking around in other realms with Fed - Partition and the outlines strenghten your proofs.

 

[Mohreb]

Is it still enough (to switch out of confederate partition)?
Not exactly the same situation but I played Duke of Toulouse, with high partition. Upon death all not de jure counties got "indépendant" (still under the king, but not beneath my successor)
Felt strange and different to what I remembered from before.
(but of course no title or claim was created)

 

[pengoyo]

Thank you very much! Excellent!

Might been an (display)bug. (There were ofc other circumstances, within a few months before I noticesed this there were 4 heirs. First died my grandson - first son was dead since several years. Then one of my junior sons died too)

I was looking around in other realms with Fed - Partition and the outlines strenghten your proofs.

I haven't ever tested with grandchildren inheriting. In theory that shouldn't affect anything, but I could see that being a situation where bugs might creep in.

Is it still enough (to switch out of confederate partition)?
Not exactly the same situation but I played Duke of Toulouse, with high partition. Upon death all not de jure counties got "indépendant" (still under the king, but not beneath my successor)
Felt strange and different to what I remembered from before.
(but of course no title or claim was created)

Weird. If you have no titles of equal rank to your primary title, then all types of partition, except confederate, should leave your realm in one piece.