How to Disinherit Your Children: A List

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The most secure way to keep up the structural integrety of your demesne while keeping your potential heirs-to-be alive in a gavelkind environment is to expand like hell and land your surplus of sons adequately (although that might take huge efforts every generation and results in your realmn almost never being at peace - what is bad for the most non-Norse realms)

Edit: a downside not to be overlooked is thatyou have to land your sons probably much earlier than you would have liked, just to be sure, for it takes some time to accumulate the needed holdings to balance against your main title. That way, you most surely will lose the influence on your second /third, fourth...) son's education, for he would be on his own once he left your court to become the Jarl of some newly conquered piece of land somewhere far off. Positively you can say that it raises your dynasties prestige, for as you continue to go on, your kinfolk is getting their hands on more and more land with every generation passing.

 

[Sunspawn]

I love these forums. Where else would a thread like this be considered normal?

I do have a warning about making a younger son a doge. Republics are usually set to Seniority Succession, which can mess things up pretty badly.

But with three sons you can easily control gavelkind if there are no other dynasts besides your sons - say you want middle to inherit - make youngest a doge, eldest is set to inherit republic so disinherited, middle now sole heir(I think).

 

[NewbieOne]

10.) Play as a republic

Yeah, even a feudal doppelduke under a republic.

 

[yequr]

Adding to point 8: If you're small and poor, you may just want to execute your unwanted kids. Costs 50 tyranny and guaranteed kinslayer and may fail if the child already has intrigue points, but for, say, a Gavelkind double count who just had a non-remarkable second son, nothing beats the good ol' manual postnatal abortion.

I'm pretty sure banishment doesn't affect inheritance of characters though, only relocates them (technically only "for now" rather than absolutely forever) and takes money (and held titles). Think I've tried that.

 

[Kurblius]

Adding to point 8: If you're small and poor, you may just want to execute your unwanted kids. Costs 50 tyranny and guaranteed kinslayer and may fail if the child already has intrigue points, but for, say, a Gavelkind double count who just had a non-remarkable second son, nothing beats the good ol' manual postnatal abortion.

I'm pretty sure banishment doesn't affect inheritance of characters though, only relocates them (technically only "for now" rather than absolutely forever) and takes money (and held titles). Think I've tried that.

Yeah, I finally tried this myself - Banishment doesn't work.

 

[ColZimin]

nothing beats the good ol' manual postnatal abortion.

I know it's been said but ... conversations about CK2 are just dark comedy gold!

Has anyone had much success getting unwanted heirs (or faction heads and other nasties) killed on the front lines? Like putting them in charge of a tiny force and sending them in the path of the Caliph's 14,000-man doom stack?

 

[Patroclusmega]

5.) Force children to take holy vows - I've never tried this, but apparently you need to imprison them first (which gives -40 tyranny unless you caught them plotting or being heretical). Does this work on females too? This would be useful as I currently don't know any way to disinherit women assuming inheritance isn't absolute cognatic. Also, can you imprison children and force them to take holy vows? I think not, which is unfortunate. Waiting till they're adult is often way too risky for me, which is why I've never used this.

If you are the liege of your head of religion (at example you are orthodox and the ecumenical patriarchate is your vassal) and your son share the same head of religion (So mostly he has to be in your same kingdom) you can excommunicate him, so you can imprison him with no vassal malus opinion then you ask to lift the excommunication (he will be even grateful for it and will forget that you excommunicated him so will not have the malus for have been excommunicated) and then, since he is imprison you can force him to take holy vows and he will be or monk or in a holy order. In any way you disinherit it without take tyranny and without make him hate you.

 

[Thorkel the Tall]

8.) Just kill them - Assassinate. Apparently you can't use plots to kill your own children. You gotta do it manually. I've used this lots.

Question from someone who havn't done alot of these nasty things (only when strictly necessary). How do you "manually" assassinate kids? I have only assassinated people through plots.

 

[Mike Louis]

Has anyone had much success getting unwanted heirs (or faction heads and other nasties) killed on the front lines? Like putting them in charge of a tiny force and sending them in the path of the Caliph's 14,000-man doom stack?

The Uriah Gambit (famous for being used by the biblical King David who btw learned it from his father in law and predecessor King Saul when the latter tried to send him on a suicide mission) is definitely one of the ways I dispose of unwanted heirs.

High King / Queen: "My son / daughter, I need you to take your Host to the Abbasid / Byzantine / Amazon / Horde frontline and skirmish with them until General (insert name) can bring the main army up and reinforce you."

[When the Crown Prince / Princess leaves the imperial chamber, the High King / Queen then turns to the Marshal]

High King / Queen: "Marshal, issue sealed orders to the commanders of the Crown Prince's / Princess's Host saying that they are to hold their forces back the moment they make contact with the enemy forces. Once the Crown Prince / Princess has been killed, they are to report the news of his / her death to me via courier."

Marshal: "Forgive my frankness your Imperial Majesty, but is this the appropriate course of action?"

High King / Queen: "I know I must answer to the Creator for this, but it's cleaner this way and I would rather give my son / daughter a honorable death in battle fighting the enemies of the Realm over an assassin's blade in the middle of the night. It's only for the sake of the Realm that this sacrifice must be made...may both the Creator and future generations forgive me."

Of course, there's always the following methods:

"My son / daughter, I would like for you to bring the word of the Creator to the Norse / Amazon / Horde people."

"My son / daughter, I want you to research the latest Byzantine technology."

 

[Dahoota]

I want to makes sure I've got all the strategies covered, because inheritance is everything in this game:

3.) Make your son a Doge - I just discovered this cool strategy. If you grant your kid a coastal city, then the county the city is in, and then a duchy, he becomes the new Grand Mayor of a new Republic, which disinherits him. Works on the son expected to inherit the primary title. Works best if you have a King title and you can wage holy war.

This one can particularly positive, especially if you are spreading your dynasty. The republic draws on ALL family members in your realm, and often means that a member of your dynasty will be doge 75%+ of the time.

There is a small chance that it can potentially backfire later in the game though - if your intended heir is fairly old and actually inherits the republic.

 

[Sunspawn]

Question from someone who havn't done alot of these nasty things (only when strictly necessary). How do you "manually" assassinate kids? I have only assassinated people through plots.

You can't and never could assassinate sons.

 

[shiro the bushi]

I honestly didn't even try to assassinate anyone until the priest declared my wife's child as the antichrist and I took action... after the denoucement and action the child had somehow became a bastard prisoner in another court but was somehow killing my heirs bizarre ways, I went though my entire treasury trying to kill the demon spawn who somehow kept surviving multiple assassination attempts in prison before the last assassin finally got her. Afterwards I excuted my ex-karling wife just to be sure... her brother the holy roman emperor didn't even get a negative reaction to it, perhaps because she had the slept with Satan modifier.

After that I believe my next assassination spree was to wipe out a entire branch of my patrician family because in spite of marrying unrelated a genius and strong characters together I got a entire line of slow people from that.

wow, the devil child event, ive been waiting for ever to get it myself....probably one of the most op events in the game, for the witches event you get afterwards

 

[Dahoota]

You can't and never could assassinate sons.

That's true in vanilla, most of the many of the major mods enable it though (CK2+ and GoT do, HIP might too IIRC), which might be where that original comment came from.

 

[Unready]

For catholic you can set adult children as heir of bishop if you have Free Investiture.

 

[sumdood]

Question from someone who havn't done alot of these nasty things (only when strictly necessary). How do you "manually" assassinate kids? I have only assassinated people through plots.

Once upon a time, there used to be an assassinate button. Keep in mind, this is thread was posted two years ago.

 

[beartjah]

Question from someone who havn't done alot of these nasty things (only when strictly necessary). How do you "manually" assassinate kids? I have only assassinated people through plots.

Don't necro threads.

On the topic: there used to be an option to spend money (for a chance to) to kill someone as a diplomacy option, but it was too abusable and also kinda rendered obsolete by a patch that imporved the pollting a bit, so it was removed. This option was available against averyone except youself, so you could assisinate you children back then.

 

[Sunspawn]

Don't necro threads.

On the topic: there used to be an option to spend money (for a chance to) to kill someone as a diplomacy option, but it was too abusable and also kinda rendered obsolete by a patch that imporved the pollting a bit, so it was removed. This option was available against averyone except youself, so you could assisinate you children back then.

Not your own.