Layered Inheritance

[daftrhetoric]

My government is an Aristocratic Principality with several subject Republics Serene and ordinary. Since Conclave's introduction of the Powerful Vassal appointment mechanic I've been paying more attention to realm structure*. It's difficult to gauge, but I'm trying to balance the advantage posed by granting powerful vassal status and complimentary council appointments to realm patricians*2.

The problem, aside from the high volume of management and hard decisions required to achieve decent counselors, is unpredictability of inheritance patterns. The observed worse case is a gavelkind outcome where the patrician loses Republic titles to siblings. The better case, after the onerous, stigmatizing process of intrigued title revocations and hard-lobbied legal reforms, is presumed seniority succession-based unified inheritance. This presents another problem; I suppose patricians nominate their most electable members rather than their most senior. Probably this is manipulable by ensuring the right member has considerable prestige by granting honorary titles.

The only relevant inheritance laws seem to be Agnatic Patrician Elective*3, Seniority, and Gavelkind. Will enacting seniority succession in titles given to patricians, the only form apparently available other than gavelkind, secure unified inheritance for their houses? Do I need to cultivate technical legal advancements in vassal capitals to encourage inheritance law reforms? This presents the problem that not all titles, titular or regional, have dedicated capitals.


* What metrics qualify vassals as powerful? Has anyone analyzed the balance of factors relevant?

*2 Is it possible to establish Merchant Republics as vassals rather than only Legal Republics?

*3 Is agnatic the only gender succession available to Merchant Republics in Conclave? Are there any workarounds like conversion to Catharism?

 

[Me_]

A game like this would benefit from a good forum.

Are you a lawer? I know a few and they too think that being stealthily mean makes them not-********. It does not.

My government is an Aristocratic Principality

What's that?

This presents another problem; I suppose patricians nominate their most electable members rather than their most senior. Probably this is manipulable by ensuring the right member has considerable prestige by granting honorary titles titles.

I don't think the AI uses designated heirs at all. I've never seen them do so, anyway.

The only material inheritance laws

The what?

Will enacting seniority succession, the only form apparently available other than gavelkind, in titles given to patricians secure unified inheritance for their houses?

I doubt that. Patricians look at their house's inheritance fist as far as I know, the other titles given to them will conform to the house's law.

* What metrics qualify vassals as powerful? Has anyone analyzed

I haven't seen any analysis anywhere yet.

*2 Is it possible to establish Merchant Republics as vassals rather than only Legal Republics?

Yes, but only if you're not a Merchant Republic yourself. Just give a duke-level title to a republic vassal with capital at a coast.

*3 Is agnatic the only gender succession available to Merchant Republics in Conclave? Are there any workarounds like conversion to Catharism?

Yes. There is no workaround.

 

[Thrake]

The worse case is a gavelkind outcome where the patrician loses Republic titles to siblings.

I was pretty sure that patricians will always have the special merchant republic inheritance law for all their titles, unless maybe you do some shenanigans with culture/religion.

What's that?

Probably the flavor name.

 

[balmung60]

My government is an Aristocratic Principality with several subject Republics Serene and ordinary. Since Conclave's introduction of the Powerful Vassal appointment mechanic I've been paying more attention to realm structure*. It's difficult to gauge, but I'm trying to balance the advantage posed by granting powerful vassal status and complimentary council appointments to realm patricians*2.

The problem, aside from the high volume of management and hard decisions required to achieve decent counselors, is unpredictability of inheritance patterns. The worse case is a gavelkind outcome where the patrician loses Republic titles to siblings. The better case, after the onerous, stigmatizing process of intrigued title revocations and hard-lobbied legal reforms, is presumed seniority succession-based unified inheritance. This presents another problem; I suppose patricians nominate their most electable members rather than their most senior. Probably this is manipulable by ensuring the right member has considerable prestige by granting honorary titles titles.

The only material inheritance laws are Agnatic Patrician Elective*3, Seniority, and Gavelkind. Will enacting seniority succession in titles given to patricians, the only form apparently available other than gavelkind, secure unified inheritance for their houses? Do I need to cultivate technical legal advancements in vassal capitals to encourage inheritance law reforms?


* What metrics qualify vassals as powerful? Has anyone analyzed

*2 Is it possible to establish Merchant Republics as vassals rather than only Legal Republics?

*3 Is agnatic the only gender succession available to Merchant Republics in Conclave? Are there any workarounds like conversion to Catharism?

WRT point 3, I there actually is a way to get other gender laws, no matter what religion or government you have. Raise the Status of Women law to its second highest level and regardless of cultural, religious, or governmental restrictions, you will have access to the Agnatic-Cognatic gender law. Raise it to the very highest level and you will have access to Absolute Cognatic gender law, no matter what limits your religion, culture, or government normally places on gender laws. Furthermore, this law will also remove the penalty for having a female ruler and/or heir.

Basque culture and Catharism and Messalianism only give access to additional gender laws for feudal rulers. Everyone else is stuck with Agnatic unless they pass Notable or Full Status of Women.

As a similar bit of legal shenanigans, if you're ever a non-republic Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain and want to use Feudal Elective, one of the council laws enables Feudal Elective succession, even for religions that do not normally allow it.

 

[Me_]

WRT point 3, I there actually is a way to get other gender laws, no matter what religion or government you have. Raise the Status of Women law to its second highest level and regardless of cultural, religious, or governmental restrictions, you will have access to the Agnatic-Cognatic gender law. Raise it to the very highest level and you will have access to Absolute Cognatic gender law, no matter what limits your religion, culture, or government normally places on gender laws. Furthermore, this law will also remove the penalty for having a female ruler and/or heir.

Did you confirm this? The devs have said a few times that Merchant Republics are only supposed to use Agnatic. If that's not the case anymore, then it may be a bug.

Feudal Elective being available to various extra groups has been confirmed as WAD.

 

[balmung60]

Did you confirm this? The devs have said a few times that Merchant Republics are only supposed to use Agnatic. If that's not the case anymore, then it may be a bug.

Feudal Elective being available to various extra groups has been confirmed as WAD.

I could have sworn that I heard that it worked and an initial reading of succession_laws.txt seemed to support it.

However, after re-reading succession_laws.txt, you're right. I had missed a bit that prevented the Status of Women laws from overriding the "merchant republics can only be strict Agnatic" rule.

 

[DominusNovus]

There's no current way to be anything but strict agnatic as a Merchant Republic.

 

[Me_]

I could have sworn that I heard that it worked and an initial reading of succession_laws.txt seemed to support it.

However, after re-reading succession_laws.txt, you're right. I had missed a bit that prevented the Status of Women laws from overriding the "merchant republics can only be strict Agnatic" rule.

Actually, now that I have read the file again, I think you are right. It's very convoluted, but it seems that an independent merchant republic or one whose liege has enacted Agnatic-Cognatic or Cognatic law can indeed overcome the restriction.

I need to actually verify that in-game, though.

 

[daftrhetoric]

@balmung60 In game this isn't the case. Neither notable nor full legal status make inheritance gender laws available in my Catholic Merchant Republic campaign. I'll note that I'm playing HIP, though this seems probably unimportant.

 

[indika_tates]

I was pretty sure that patricians will always have the special merchant republic inheritance law for all their titles, unless maybe you do some shenanigans with culture/religion..

No.

I had a MR on India (Jain one). Then I used subjugation CB on a enemy kingdom. What happened on doge's death? The kingdom inheritance was on gavelkind by default and my second son became a feudal ruler. I said what the hell is this? I didn't realised what happened. But I did after some time. The solution was to make the recent conquered kindgom your primary title. Then it automatically become a patrician elective title, so this issue is solved.

Be careful with this because it can ruin your game. Carefully check all of your kingdom titles to make sure they have the proper inheritance law by making them primary to solve it.

 

[balmung60]

Actually, now that I have read the file again, I think you are right. It's very convoluted, but it seems that an independent merchant republic or one whose liege has enacted Agnatic-Cognatic or Cognatic law can indeed overcome the restriction.

I need to actually verify that in-game, though.

The vassal one might work, but I empirically tested it for an independent MR (consoled tolerance 5 and permission to pass laws back to back) and could not enact any new gender law.