How to do Co-Kings/Co-Emperors

[klopkr]

The counsel system from conclave is already perfectly set up for this. Add a new spot for the co-ruler and make their vote a veto so they must agree to pass anything. Unlike your other counselors they would also always have a say on all matters regardless of laws. The benefit would be that you could select your co ruler with a special minor title that would also make them your heir on succession. The co-rulers stats could also be compared to the main ruler and give the higher of the two giving you a bit of a boost. The co-ruler would also obviously have a strong claim automatically.

So the trade off is that you get a really stable succession and the better of the two characters stats but the downside is they stifle your ability to do things unless you please them and they can push their claim to the throne and depose you.

There could also be a historic option for female rulers to always have their husbands as co-regent as was somewhat historically true in the time period.

 

[Patriarch of Bub]

Wow, really interesting!
What realms would use this though?

 

[delta180]

The benefit would be that you could select your co ruler with a special minor title that would also make them your heir on succession.

it is really overpowered and ahistorical to be able to pick your own next ruler, most of the challenge in this game comes from managing your bad rulers or making sure you never get bad rulers, you should not be able to have your cake and eat it

 

[Hobotango]

So...the cake is supposed to rot on the table ?

 

[klopkr]

Wow, really interesting!
What realms would use this though?

I know for a fact the byzantines practiced co kings occasionally and if I remember correctly the english did it on a few occasions too. Since it's decently powerful I would suggest limiting it to late administration and imperial administration and having a hefty upfront prestige cost like 2000. I also think the co-regent must have landed titles because otherwise they'll be too weak to be a real threat to the player.

Abdication factions could become more popular while using this system and I think it could be interesting to even have a special faction to make someone with a claim to become co-regent/heir, possibly even a non dynast if you're not careful.

 

[delta180]

So...the cake is supposed to rot on the table ?

there is little strategy in just always picking your best candidate as heir, whereas eliminating unfavourable heirs, securing electors and changing succession laws all come at a cost and more importantly bring meaningful strategy and decision making to a game about strategy and decision making.
If you do not want to play with the succession, that is fine as well, but you roll with the punches if you get a bad character and you have to make yet more hard but interesting choices to stay in power and play vassals off against each other
I am honestly surprised that in a game with a large focus around court intrigue and civil wars, most players seemingly would rather cut out that part of the game and always have a character who can forgo that part of the game
do not let your cake rot on the table, make the meaningful choice of weather you want to have your cake presumably because it looks good or to eat your cake because that is what cakes are for

 

[Almaron]

I think in the case of the English (and French and Hungarians, according to the Wiki) it was less about selecting an heir and more just prepping the eldest son for rulership; getting him to take an active role in things so that when he succeeded things would be smoother for the nobles as they'd be used to them already. In a way, it'd basically just be a more powerful version of the Designated Regent title (perhaps with a bit of the 'introduce heir to court' decision mixed in for good measure) that gets handed out to your default heir alone. I can see that working if it's just that, since it's basically just giving them a tiny boost to their popularity and offsetting the short reign penalty.

 

[Hobotango]

@Delta : I didnt say Id like to play as the person you were talking to mentioned, Im just saying, people should be able to play their single player game however they want.

Also, Im all for historical authenticity, and technically, Co-Emperor was a thing. I dont know at what frequency or any details, but I would really love the game giving us infinite decisions, or at least, those that were available in that time period.

Mad kings who did whatever the hell they wanted, did exist, others who followed the law religiously also. The game is about role playing after all. Say, I want to play a game, and make a few of my characters as very dilligent kings, and suddenly, I inherit the throne as a young boy, and I want to go mad and create all kind of weird laws, I should be able to do so ( with the possibility of being assasinated or ousted, or whatever ). But what if... I survived into adulthood, still reigning... and started making all kinds of illegal wars, or ushered in a new era of progressive thinking and just decided to make women as equal of men, in 900 A.D.

None of this is possible unless by following strict rules, which is fine. But just what if, I wanted to play a mad king.
Well I know there is plenty of possibility like this in the game already, but you do have to follow strict rules, or get lucky. You cant just decide yourself.

Im not sure if I express myself clearly ( I usually dont) but basically, Im pro having thousands of choices and the player decides what he do with it, because what someone does in his own game, doesnt concern me.

man oh man, if I could be part of the development team for CK2, I would just spend my whole day writing events, writing options for people to choose. What if, we had a big book of law, with thousands of laws to chose from, each with their own consequences. so I want to make it legal for people to hunt in the forest, done. I want to make it illegal for people to use horses, done. I want to make using metal tools illegal, done( and obviously, it would come with all the setback that would potentially happened if such laws would be enabled, for exemple, most likely an imminent revolt and the banishment/killing of the king). I want to completely change the way feudal works ( and creating my own system ) by choosing all sort of laws, that, put together, makes a revolutionary system. done.

I want to play traditionally ? done. I dont have to pick any of those.

Ah anyway this is just the type of things that goes trough my head when I think of the potential this game could offer in terms of role playing. Its already offering the most of any game I know though, Im not bashing the game, Im praising it.

 

[Almaron]

From what I can see (following a quick Wiki binge), in the majority of cases the title of Co-Emperor was simply given by the Byzantines to their heirs apparent, which would mean what I was suggesting above should work for them as well. The only examples where it varied from this was with Michael III (he named Basil the Macedonian his heir/co-emperor initially as he didn't have a kid (supposedly; he DID marry Basil to a lover of his who may have already been pregnant with his child)), and with Constantine X Doukas and his successors, and this is a bit messy; Constantine raised his eldest and youngest sons to Co-Emperor at the same time, while oddly spurning his middle son, but when he died, none of them succeeded, instead, the throne passed to Romanos IV Diogenes; a general who married Constantine's widow and was proclaimed stepfather to his kids. Romanos proceeded to name ALL of his and Constantine's kids as Co-Emperors, and the eldest eventually did succeed him, but only after staging a coup against him...and he had his brothers remaining as Co-Emperors for a bit as well!

Still, if we ignore that and for gameplay purposes (like several other titles and positions) keep it to a title that's restricted to the heir apparent, it should still work; the player doesn't get to pick their heir, they can just give whoever their heir is a popularity boost for when they succeed (and if they stop being heir, they lose the title), and since they're the ones who have to bestow it, they don't have to give it to a random general who's popular amongst the Imperial electors.

 

[Fitzjacob]

It's possible to have heir designation without it being overpowered. To begin with, it could be combined with gavelkind with the king's children being the only possible candidates and titles still being distributed between the children as usual. Selecting a younger candidate would piss off the elder children all vassals who prefer them and guarantee rivalry between the new king and his elders upon succession.

An interesting restriction could be that you're only allowed to designate and heir if your succession law is either primogeniture, ultimogeniture or gavelkind and only if all persons above the designee in the line of succession are landed (possibly at least at duke tier).

Also it allows for historical scenarios; for instance, William the Conqueror wasn't succeeded by his eldest son Robert "Curthose" but rather his third (second surviving) son William "Rufus" leading to a war between the two.

 

[Almaron]

Hmm, a bit like Elective Gavelkind? Could be interesting...although William the Conqueror's situation was a bit more complicated; Robert had been your standard difficult CKII prince for years (you know, the kind who complains that he doesn't have enough lands or power even though he's already the heir) and ultimately rose up in rebellion after (I kid you not) his brothers dumped a chamberpot on his head and he got annoyed that his father didn't punish them more.
Since his rebellion consisted of him and his friends trying to take a castle, it failed spectacularly and he had to flee to Flanders, harassing the French King along the way and getting both realms coming after him. Eventually his mother got them to reconcile, but when she died things went back to the way they were, with Robert going off and wandering Europe. As a result, when William was on his deathbed, he attempted to disinherit Robert, but he was convinced to instead give him Normandy and make William King instead.

...so maybe it'd be worth adding an event that lets you disinherit an heir ONLY if they've risen up against you in battle and thus dishonoured themselves? It should be something you can choose, mind - Henry II of England's sons all rose up against him, and yet their inheritance remained intact, and Peter I of Portugal (he shows up at the veeeeery end of CKII) revolted against his father because he had his wife murdered and lost, but his father pardoned him and then died shortly afterwards, so Peter became heir.

 

[delta180]

It's possible to have heir designation without it being overpowered. To begin with, it could be combined with gavelkind with the king's children being the only possible candidates and titles still being distributed between the children as usual. Selecting a younger candidate would piss off the elder children all vassals who prefer them and guarantee rivalry between the new king and his elders upon succession.

An interesting restriction could be that you're only allowed to designate and heir if your succession law is either primogeniture, ultimogeniture or gavelkind and only if all persons above the designee in the line of succession are landed (possibly at least at duke tier).

Also it allows for historical scenarios; for instance, William the Conqueror wasn't succeeded by his eldest son Robert "Curthose" but rather his third (second surviving) son William "Rufus" leading to a war between the two.

the example you gave does not entirely support your point, the rebellion of 1088 was a rebellion by odo of bayeux against Rufus in support of Robert, Robert and Rufus never fought eachother, so rather than guaranteeing a rivalry between siblings it should lower the opinion of all vassals

Hmm, a bit like Elective Gavelkind? Could be interesting...although William the Conqueror's situation was a bit more complicated; Robert had been your standard difficult CKII prince for years (you know, the kind who complains that he doesn't have enough lands or power even though he's already the heir) and ultimately rose up in rebellion after (I kid you not) his brothers dumped a chamberpot on his head and he got annoyed that his father didn't punish them more.
Since his rebellion consisted of him and his friends trying to take a castle, it failed spectacularly and he had to flee to Flanders, harassing the French King along the way and getting both realms coming after him. Eventually his mother got them to reconcile, but when she died things went back to the way they were, with Robert going off and wandering Europe. As a result, when William was on his deathbed, he attempted to disinherit Robert, but he was convinced to instead give him Normandy and make William King instead.

...so maybe it'd be worth adding an event that lets you disinherit an heir ONLY if they've risen up against you in battle and thus dishonoured themselves? It should be something you can choose, mind - Henry II of England's sons all rose up against him, and yet their inheritance remained intact, and Peter I of Portugal (he shows up at the veeeeery end of CKII) revolted against his father because he had his wife murdered and lost, but his father pardoned him and then died shortly afterwards, so Peter became heir.

a choice to disinherit after a rebellion makes a lot more sense to me, maybe with a small penalty to vassals opinion as previously stated.

 

[Almaron]

And it wouldn't necessarily be too overpowered because they'd still retain a claim to the throne - Robert did, although he based it on an old agreement he and his brother had had to be each other's heir - and so they'd be highly likely to revolt under the rule of the next monarch, so it's a risky choice...

Incidentally, on the topic of Robert, he actually missed out on being King TWICE; the second time he was in transit from the Holy Land, and thus his youngest brother Henry was able to seize the throne. Would it be worth adding some sort of event which can fire in that scenario, where another claimant can seize the throne if the stronger claimant is outside the de jure realm? It could potentially work with Richard the Lionhearted and John, since Richard was off crusading for most of his rule, while John attempted to set himself up as regent a few times...