I'm playing my first long save and have some general questions

[ramzi]

First I'd like to thank Paradox for making this game, I haven't been so hooked on since Civ 4. After some reading and learning to play with Ireland, I started over as a Byzantine count. Many hours later, I am King of Bulgaria commanding 70% the size of my liege's army. Obviously I'm doing good, but things are getting too big and I need some help.

1. One of my dukes managed to get his hands on a second duchy. When he died, both of them went to one of his sons and didn't split gavelkind style. I don't understand why? I'm looking for a way to take one of the titles from him, because I don't want a single person to hold more than one duchy.

2. I don't know why the game let me, but I did a matrilineal marriage between my daughter and the heir to the Kingdom of Croatia. I have elective succession and I was planning to give the crown to my daughter, then change the succession law and her heir would add Croatia to my realm. Shortly after the marriage something happened and Croatia broke down to its duchies. Too bad.
So I go to change my heir nomination. Lo and behold, my nephew is King of Poland! No idea how did that happen, but surely I want him to be my new heir. The question is what will happen on succession? Will Poland become part of the Byzantine Empire? If I am King of Poland and King of Bulgaria and I change to gavelkind succession, those would go to different sons, right? Also I won't have any duchies in Poland, because it is too far away, what are the odds I'll manage to keep the title? Perhaps destroying it and having only one kingdom is the way to go. What would you do?

3. I tend to marry my females matrilineally to enlarge my dynasty. I also give out titles only to my kinsmen. Now every of my vassals is allied to the others (Same dynasty), is that a bad thing? I still can't figure out in what wars what allies can be called. If someone rebels can he call to arms all the rest of my vassals? Another disadvantage is that when I need to kill somebody he is usually a kinsmen and I eventually get the Kinslayer trait.

 

[Kimberly]

1. His other son was probably ineligible for succession somehow, e.g. because he was a bishop or the successor to a bishop, or because he was castrated.

2. If the King of Poland inherits the Kingdom of Bulgaria, Bulgaria becomes independent of the Byzantine Empire. If the King of Bulgaria inherits the Kingdom of Poland, Poland becomes a part of the Byzantine Empire--it's all about who inherits what. If you hold two royal titles and you have gavelkind succession, the titles will split up amongst your heirs. (Unless you kill them, castrate them or otherwise make them ineligible.) If you destroy the Polish kingdom title, you are heavily encouraging independence revolts, and will have a bunch of trouble holding on to the title. I suggest you simply let it split up among your sons; you won't have control of Poland but it will be in your dynasty, bringing dynastic prestige and a permanent ally.

3. Vassals can not call each other to war unless they have the same liege. In a rebellion, the rebels are temporarily independent. Hence, they can not call non-rebel vassals as their ally, so you should be safe. What can happen is that if one duke declares war on another duke, your realm will explode into violence as both dukes call in everyone in the kingdom. This is annoying, but has no major repercussions on you as king. Note that in a rebellion, your rebel family members can call in foreign dynasty members--so if you do let the Kingdom of Poland go to one of your sons, you may find the Poles coming to aid a rebel duke eventually.

 

[aprogressivist]

2. The Kingdom of Croatia usually has Agnatic Seniority as its succession law so it's quite possible that your daughter's heir wouldn't have inherited the Kingdom (though I think he would have gotten a Claim, which you could have pressed...).

 

[ramzi]

I got an old save and loaded with the duke in question. His titles are two duchies and one county (capital of the main duchy). He has 3 eligible sons (no bishops, heirs to bishops or castrates) and gavelkind succession law.
Am I getting this right:
On death his main title (Duke of Thracesia along with the county I assume) goes to his oldest son. The other titles are supposed to be split between all the heirs, but in this case that means only the second Duchy (of Vidin) and it just goes to the first heir, which the oldest son. So with gavelkind nothing is split if you are holding two duchies?

Thanks about the allies and foreign kingdom succession explanations. The difference between giving land to my kinsmen or outsiders doesn't seem big. Only the "Same dynasty" modifier and eventual troubles with elective succession laws, where my title may go to a duke not of my dynasty. Therefore handing counties to outsiders seems safe. Just a little caution is needed on handing out duchies (and kingdoms)



I went back to check on Croatia and it had a primogeniture law. The heir was in my court as a child, that's how I got him to matrilineal marriage. Later Byzantine conquered the capital county and only holding of the King of Croatia. I guess that caused it to break down to duchies.

 

[knppel]

If the Duke holds two Duchies, but only one county, this is the reason only one of his sons gets all titles. Preferably, grant the Duke a second county in his other Duchy, then his lands will properly split up amongst his eldest sons.

As for Poland, if the ERE has no higher then medium CA and you set the King of Poland as heir, Bulgaria will indeed split off the empire. You on the othercan can make Bulgaria your primary title and swear fealty again, as Bulgaria is de jure a vassal of the Emperor of Constantinople. (A King of Poland could not swear fealty to the Emperor, as Poland is not a de jure vassal and Kings are disabled from swearing fealty otherwise. Bulgaria, as de jure vassal, could)

 

[ramzi]

Sorry, but I'm having a succession crisis because the two kingdoms have different laws.

How do I get the dukes to support my heir nomination? Is the vote determined by their opinion of me or is it their opinion of my heir?

 

[Daelix]

First I'd like to thank Paradox for making this game, I haven't been so hooked on since Civ 4. After some reading and learning to play with Ireland, I started over as a Byzantine count. Many hours later, I am King of Bulgaria commanding 70% the size of my liege's army. Obviously I'm doing good, but things are getting too big and I need some help.

1. One of my dukes managed to get his hands on a second duchy. When he died, both of them went to one of his sons and didn't split gavelkind style. I don't understand why? I'm looking for a way to take one of the titles from him, because I don't want a single person to hold more than one duchy.

2. I don't know why the game let me, but I did a matrilineal marriage between my daughter and the heir to the Kingdom of Croatia. I have elective succession and I was planning to give the crown to my daughter, then change the succession law and her heir would add Croatia to my realm. Shortly after the marriage something happened and Croatia broke down to its duchies. Too bad.
So I go to change my heir nomination. Lo and behold, my nephew is King of Poland! No idea how did that happen, but surely I want him to be my new heir. The question is what will happen on succession? Will Poland become part of the Byzantine Empire? If I am King of Poland and King of Bulgaria and I change to gavelkind succession, those would go to different sons, right? Also I won't have any duchies in Poland, because it is too far away, what are the odds I'll manage to keep the title? Perhaps destroying it and having only one kingdom is the way to go. What would you do?

3. I tend to marry my females matrilineally to enlarge my dynasty. I also give out titles only to my kinsmen. Now every of my vassals is allied to the others (Same dynasty), is that a bad thing? I still can't figure out in what wars what allies can be called. If someone rebels can he call to arms all the rest of my vassals? Another disadvantage is that when I need to kill somebody he is usually a kinsmen and I eventually get the Kinslayer trait.

1) If you can afford the opinion hit amongst your vassals - or if you can afford to hand out some honorary titles/grease some palms of your vassals - you can always simply revoke one or both of that duke's titles. If you revoke one and he later revolts because he just plain hates you, he's now a traitor (because he revolted on his own) and you can revoke the other and instate a favorable lord to each Duchy.

2) Like Kimberly said, if you make your heir to your kingdom the same guy as the heir to the other kingdom, he'll become king of both. This will split you from the Byzantine Empire - but as you're now controlling the King of this new Slavic dual kingdom, you can either remain independent or simply call up the Basileus and swear yourself as a loyal servant once more. There's probably no need to divest yourself of your lands unless you want to manage a small realm.

3) Revoking titles is usually the safer bet than executing anyway, as execution merely causes succession - revocation allows you to redistribute all the titles you revoked. If you can legally imprison an opponent, Banishing them functions as revocation but they don't have a chance to resist, and you get ALL their gold. It all depends on which action accomplishes what you need done with the least opinion hit - and executing, though its opinion hit is usually less, if you get Kinslayer it may never go away, unlike tyranny penalties which expire 10 years after you commit the event your vassals see as tyrannical.

Sorry, but I'm having a succession crisis because the two kingdoms have different laws.

How do I get the dukes to support my heir nomination? Is the vote determined by their opinion of me or is it their opinion of my heir?

I'm not sure the formula or how many factors come into play in the code, for that I would private message Jordarkelf, as I think he might know the CKII code better than the entire developer team. Based on what I've seen, the primary issue is opinion of the person they're nominating (they're not nominating you to succeed you, after all! ) and I think dynastic concerns - whether it empowers their family. A lot of the time the natural convergence of this is that it leads to them nominating themselves. Since everyone is in your family, I would guess that makes it more likely for them to nominate themselves.

 

[Fishy101]

I believe you can get the kinslayer trait removed using the ask the pope to forgive your sins intrigue option. I am not sure about this though, I've been able to avoid kinslayer so I've never ask the pope to forgive my sins with the kinslayer trait. I usually use that intrigue option to help me get better opinion from pope to remove excommunication.

 

[ramzi]

I'm not sure the formula or how many factors come into play in the code, for that I would private message Jordarkelf, as I think he might know the CKII code better than the entire developer team. Based on what I've seen, the primary issue is opinion of the person they're nominating (they're not nominating you to succeed you, after all! ) and I think dynastic concerns - whether it empowers their family. A lot of the time the natural convergence of this is that it leads to them nominating themselves. Since everyone is in your family, I would guess that makes it more likely for them to nominate themselves.

Yes, I was looking for some formula, because they are all of my family and they don't always nominate the candidate they have the highest opinion of (I tried excommunication and checked relations).
My king was ill, then pneumonic, so I rushed and assassinated some candidates and misguided voters. In the end I managed to get through, but I'm definitely going to change the laws. Or destroy Poland to also get rid of the "desires the kingdom" opinion penalty.

I believe you can get the kinslayer trait removed using the ask the pope to forgive your sins intrigue option. I am not sure about this though, I've been able to avoid kinslayer so I've never ask the pope to forgive my sins with the kinslayer trait. I usually use that intrigue option to help me get better opinion from pope to remove excommunication.

I'm orthodox, the Pope doesn't matter. Actually it is pretty annoying, because I don't get to have fun with crusaders, holy orders, invasions. I can't vassalize anyone due to "false religion" penalty. I can't freely appoint bishops to cheat gavelkind.

 

[Zireael]

I'm not sure the formula or how many factors come into play in the code, for that I would private message Jordarkelf, as I think he might know the CKII code better than the entire developer team. Based on what I've seen, the primary issue is opinion of the person they're nominating (they're not nominating you to succeed you, after all! ) and I think dynastic concerns - whether it empowers their family. A lot of the time the natural convergence of this is that it leads to them nominating themselves. Since everyone is in your family, I would guess that makes it more likely for them to nominate themselves.

They nominate themselves all the time, even 5-year-olds...