How to cheat the succession system - bug or massive win?

[unmerged(157368)]

Ok I realised there is a pretty strange bug which allows you to rig the succession system for 100 years. I was playing Castille and I owned all of the land in de jure Kingdom of Castille with elective succession by personal preference to keep vassals happy and sometimes the eldest son isn't preferable. I annexed and destroyed the kingdom titles of every Kingdom I conquered apart from Castille (entire Iberian peninsula, Morocco and Mali) to incorporate them as the Kingdom of Castille after 100 years. (I did this because Empires always end up fighting over shit and breaking off since vassals can have tons of land as kings, and kings always want independence). Anyways I realised that I was the only elector in the entire country and whoever I elected would always be the successor and everybody was fine with this. I found out that its because there are no dukes in the Kingdom of Castille and destroying Kingdom titles revokes the elective rights of anybody in that Kingdom until it incorporates.

This means for 100 years until one of the Kingdoms incorporates and there will actually be other dukes than myself in the de jure Kingdom of Castille, I am the sole elector in the entire Kingdom.

 

[Eldorian]

In my recent Brittany game, I use elective in the kingdom of Brittany, but it is dejure only a single duchy, which I hold, so yeah, I have the sole vote, and the doges I've set up in Ireland all approve of my elective rule. I did form the kingdom of ireland, but I destroyed after a few years, after I finished using it to offer vassalization to the remaining counts of Ireland.

This also works in two duchy kingdoms, as long as you hold one of the duchies. Your vote as king always wins ties.

 

[unmerged(157368)]

Yup that's exactly what happened, let's say brittany somehow annexed France, if you destroy the Kingdom of France title none of the dukes in the KoF will be electors until it incorporates into the Kingdom of Brittany, and since you are the only duke in the Kingdom of Brittany you will be the elector for 100 years

 

[The_Blind_One]

Not that unrealistic...

I guess you just disolved the french crown...

They probably will be more likely to rebel if they are not dejure part of the kingdom who holds it tho if I am not mistaken. But the game gives u a major boost with elective monarchy, so that is probably destroying the balance. With primo or gavel you'd probably suffer alot more rebellion since u don't get to keep all those vassals happy with your elective monarchy opinion bonus.

 

[Alyiakal]

If you REALLY wanted to game the De Jure system... Spain is the perfect place to do so.

Let's say you hold the Kingdom of Castille (which, as you said, is one duchy). You're letting everything drift into it. Ok. But once it's all drifted, the new De Jure dukes will finally get a vote.

You also hold all the counties of the Kingdom of Leon, but without actually holding the title. After 90 or so years, the duchies are about to drift de jure into Castille. You then create Leon, set it as primary, and destroy Castille, thereby causing the 90 years of drift to reverse, and then everything to slowly incorporate into Leon. Rinse, repeat.

Now that's gamey...

 

[Kimberly]

I think this mechanic makes sense.

Only vassals that are a de jure part of your kingdom gets a vote--a person in the Kingdom of Leon should not logically be able to have a say in who gets to be King of Castile. That makes sense, right? Instead, they interact with the mechanics of the de jure realm you are a part of, which seems sensible as well. Historically, when separate kingdoms were united they often remained legally separate. You don't hold the de jure title of your vassal's realm? Well, good luck with your "Not my de jure liege" penalty, which will have them rebelling frequently.

As it is, the system is fairly balanced. You can either go the legitimate way and juggle multiple kingdom titles, or incorporate others into your kingdom, suffering the consequences of not holding their titles while the areas incorporate. Either way, Castilian law only affects de jure parts of Castile. Perhaps the effects of not being someone's de jure liege could be tweaked to make this road more challenging.

 

[unmerged(457435)]

that's stupid.
more kingdom u have, more prestige ur family will have at the game end

 

[grumphie]

but you entirely abandon the fact that same culture+relgiion de jure dukes will never faction for independence? not very smart imo.

 

[Alyiakal]

Oh it's entirely not smart. There are a multitude of ways to keep people happy and voting for your preferred heir. Just saying that there is a possibility to game the system if you really wanted to.

 

[unmerged(519337)]

that's stupid.
more kingdom u have, more prestige ur family will have at the game end

Does anyone actually play the game for a high score though?

 

[unmerged(457435)]

Does anyone actually play the game for a high score though?

actually me

 

[N Katsyev]

Yeah nonsense like this makes me not want to ever use elective law because it's so easy to game the system.

 

[kraussda]

As stated earlier, there is a downside. Vassals will be able to join independence factions and get the (still ridiculous, unrealistic, and barely toned down) extra troops event that is a huge pain to deal with relative to some "lower crown authority" faction once every time a shitty ruler comes to power. I'd consider this a major exploit if it wasn't pretty damn easy (possibly equally damn easy) to have tons of kingdom titles with primogeniture succession all on absolute CA with minimal rebellions.

 

[Avernite]

A secondary disadvantage which I really noticed in my latest Normandy game (where I rapidly conquered England and greater France, then created Aquitaine): factions tend to stick to one kingdom only. So the more kingdoms you have, the easier it is to crush any single rebellion.

Granted, you'll have three rebellions to deal with, but each rebellion also gets much less free troops, it seems. 3 10k doomstacks are IMO easier to deal with than a 30k one.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Does anyone actually play the game for a high score though?

I used to examine my save games regularly with the "Gloria Mundi" tool, to check who the greatest (prestige+piety) characters were, and which dynasties had the greatest accumulated prestige+piety. That was strangely motivating, especially since I started with an Irish dynasty of nobodies. Clawing your way up into the top 10 is damned hard work when there are so many strong dynasties that just don't die out... in my game, the Piasts, the von Frankens, the Seljuks, the de Normandies and the Doukases. Not to mention the Rurikoviches who were lightyears ahead of everyone else.

It's enormous fun, tracking the score and trying to create mega prestigeous and mega pious kings

 

[Swxpert]

I had fun rigging the succession in my game for around a hundred years. I was caliph and emperor of Britannia, I was able imprison people like mad, people say you shouldn't give titles to your family but if your family are going to all be in jail they don't affect the decadence. Anyway. One person happened to have a stupid king of croatia for a relative who was able (and I thought the person had to be at your court so I don't know how) to press this person's claim for Byzantium, he won. Now suddenly and entirely unexpectedly I have the emperor in my dungeon, I look at the pretender screen and because of turkish succession I guess it just happens that the next two people in line are Imams I have already arrested, I then had peace in much of the world for near a hundred years with 3 emperors in jail one after the other. The peace was unexpected I wanted the empire to splinter but instead the largest empire in the world basically did absolutely nothing with the exception of mauritania getting free. was it worth giving up 2 mosques? yes I think so.

 

[barny]

They so need to nerf elective succession. It really should have severe drawbacks so that Primogeniture is, what most people strive for. At least that was, what happened in the real world.

 

[JonStryker]

In my recent Brittany game, I use elective in the kingdom of Brittany, but it is dejure only a single duchy, which I hold, so yeah, I have the sole vote, and the doges I've set up in Ireland all approve of my elective rule. I did form the kingdom of ireland, but I destroyed after a few years, after I finished using it to offer vassalization to the remaining counts of Ireland.

This also works in two duchy kingdoms, as long as you hold one of the duchies. Your vote as king always wins ties.

You don't even need a duchy. The current ruler always gets a vote