Muslim ruler: how to disenfranchise sons without killing them?

[LarryLeica]

As per thread title.

As a muslim ruler is it possible to remove a child from the succession in the same way a christian ruler can by granting them a bishopric (and, no, mosques don't)? Is the only way to kill them? I just want to land my chosen son when he comes of age but not have several other sons competing for succession when I die. I really don't want to kill them off though, and am stumped as to how to do this without killing them. Am trying to RP my rulers a little (current one is kind and just).

Would appreciate some ideas. Many thanks.

 

[Theddude]

All you really need to do is give a county to your preferred son and as long as he is the most powerful of your sons he will be your heir. Succession is the easy part, but the decadence is the real problem if you don't give lands to your sons. I personally just give a county to my favorite son and leave the rest unlanded and try to keep the decadence down with Ramadan. Just give your preferred heir the most land and he will inherit. He can kill all the others once your current ruler is dead.

 

[unmerged(533203)]

but the decadence is the real problem if you don't give lands to your sons. I personally just give a county to my favorite son and leave the rest unlanded and try to keep the decadence down with Ramadan.

Put your sons on the council. If they have a job they don't cause decadence (Unless you have a huge empire). Can be a problem if you have many sons.

 

[LarryLeica]

All you really need to do is give a county to your preferred son and as long as he is the most powerful of your sons he will be your heir. Succession is the easy part, but the decadence is the real problem if you don't give lands to your sons. I personally just give a county to my favorite son and leave the rest unlanded and try to keep the decadence down with Ramadan. Just give your preferred heir the most land and he will inherit. He can kill all the others once your current ruler is dead.

This is what I do normally, the biggest issue for me at the moment is the decadence even with Ramadan, I'm having to war just to keep it down which is a bit silly. My concern is that the last 2 successions where only my chosen heir was landed lead to factions forming around the various other pretenders both times very quickly (before the spies etc can have any effect). The last really nasty succession was barely dealt with as they got a bunch of free troops from a passing cloud and it was touch and go if I could do it or not. I'm trying to avoid that situation, but in character...

I need a cruel ruler! That way I can allow myself to kill them off... Looks like I will be finding a province with plague in it and sending them as generals to sit there until they catch it.

The main thing for me is I'm not so bothered about winning and losing as I just enjoy playing as a diversion, hence trying to play somewhat by what my ruler's traits are; so it does seem there is no way to play a kind muslim ruler and not get hit by decadence issues if I only land my main son... Hmmm... I think I will land all the other sons as counts under the duke-level heir and let him deal with their scheming for now.

Put your sons on the council. If they have a job they don't cause decadence (Unless you have a huge empire). Can be a problem if you have many sons.

For me at the moment, I have the Arabian empire formed, and over 10 sons, plus other dynasty members such as cousins showing in the decadence tab. I can't remember the exact rate of increase as am not in-game right now. I just don't have enough things to give out which leads to a need to constantly expand the borders just to land dynasty members. It looks like I will be forming Spain and landing everyone there under a dynasty king or something similar.

 

[Eldorian]

I wonder... can you not put your family members as leaders of your retinues? Does that "give them a job" and "get them killed"? I'll have to try it next muslim game I play.

 

[LarryLeica]

I wonder... can you not put your family members as leaders of your retinues? Does that "give them a job" and "get them killed"? I'll have to try it next muslim game I play.

I must check that too. It does get them unfortunately killed in battle, oh woe *cough*, especially when you send them leading 120 levies against a mongol doomstack. I have not thought to check if it gives them a job though... hmmm...

 

[Zsrai]

You don't have to KILL your sons (or other male family members), you can just imprison them and that will stop the decadence as well. In fact, as a Muslim ruler, it's usually best to NOT give out titles to other dynasty members and just imprison/kill them instead.

 

[ctuncks]

Since you can't imprison your other sons without penalty, do the next best thing (assuming) they have a poor intrigue stat, make them your spy master and send them off to steal tech from the Byzantines. Once they get caught and are rotting in prison leave them there or wait until them Byzantines release them minus their genitals (if they only get blinded try again) from there you're fairly safe to grant them land since they won't be able to reproduce the title should ultimately come back to you or your heir.

Once your heir takes over have to imprisoned for good or just flat out executed.

 

[ZechsMerquise73]

Just give them land. Its easy enough to expand as a Muslim.

 

[MasterOfGrey]

Just give them land. Its easy enough to expand as a Muslim.

This is an ultimate recipe for disaster. Eventually you'll come across a block that slows you down and your decadence will into space. Remember the more family members you've landed then the faster you have to expand to keep decadence down. If you keep landing them you need to keep expanding exponentially. So even just being slowed down by someone like France or the HRE can have catastrophic consequences. (Especially if you're big enough to be taking them on to begin with.)

 

[ZechsMerquise73]

This is an ultimate recipe for disaster. Eventually you'll come across a block that slows you down and your decadence will into space. Remember the more family members you've landed then the faster you have to expand to keep decadence down. If you keep landing them you need to keep expanding exponentially. So even just being slowed down by someone like France or the HRE can have catastrophic consequences. (Especially if you're big enough to be taking them on to begin with.)

All my family members are landed in my current game. Granted, I usually imprison my distant kinsmen who cause significant decadency. Remember, too, that wars now, especially defensive wars, remove massive amounts of decadency.

Even when you get to 100%, that just makes the option of an invasion possible. Even if the invasion succeeds, you wouln't be removed from the game, I don't think.

 

[MasterOfGrey]

I think I need to pay more attention to the new patch mechanics then.

When I ran into my stated problem I'd been making an effort to -only- land family members like christian kingdoms can whilst playing in Iberia... Then I ran up against France. The decadence stung then. Was 1.06b though.

 

[grumphie]

the point of playing muslim is that, contrary to playing a catholic/orthodox, you continuesly need to care for your family tree. let it grow uncontrolled and you are going to get problems. my personal tactic with a huge emprie is:
1. make a cadet branch that holds lands
2. keep this branch small
3. move as many titles as possible into this branch after my sons are "maxed"
4. kill someone landed and his heirs if you need lands for a son

my persoanl main problem is people giving away titles when theyre getting decadence. seriously, thats about the most annoying thing of decadence for me. why cant it be calculated by realm size instead of demense?

 

[Lwantssugar]

Unless things have changed imprisoning your children should be simple and not cause vassals any anger. The rule is if the character is of your dynasty you can freely imprison them and only have to deal with the opinion hit of the prisoner and their father. Ergo, throwing extra kids in the slammer doesn't get anyone important mad

 

[hajutze]

Give them cities, this way they wont marry and have kids.

 

[LarryLeica]

Unless things have changed imprisoning your children should be simple and not cause vassals any anger. The rule is if the character is of your dynasty you can freely imprison them and only have to deal with the opinion hit of the prisoner and their father. Ergo, throwing extra kids in the slammer doesn't get anyone important mad

I was not aware of this mechanic. That will make things MUCH easier.

Give them cities, this way they wont marry and have kids.

I do, but I get a significant decadence hit still as their title is too far in rank from my own (Arabian Emperor).

the point of playing muslim is that, contrary to playing a catholic/orthodox, you continuesly need to care for your family tree. let it grow uncontrolled and you are going to get problems. my personal tactic with a huge emprie is:
1. make a cadet branch that holds lands
2. keep this branch small
3. move as many titles as possible into this branch after my sons are "maxed"
4. kill someone landed and his heirs if you need lands for a son

my persoanl main problem is people giving away titles when theyre getting decadence. seriously, thats about the most annoying thing of decadence for me. why cant it be calculated by realm size instead of demense?

There's a problem with expanding as an Empire, if I take a Kingdom title I can't split that title off into a separate kingdom after placing all my unwanted dynasty members there AFAIK, so I'm still racking up the decadence.

The dynasty management was the main reason I have been playing muslims recently as it's a bit more of a challenge compared to the usual.

I've just started from the beginning again (with first save) and am going to focus on killing off superfluous or troublesome dynasty members and see where I end up at the same point in this restart (stopped at ~1220). Also, setting up a whole branch in a non de jure kingdom (any of the spanish ones will do) once I have the necessary ones titles for forming the empire, then they can fight amongst themselves. Once that is done then I can form the empire and start worrying about ol'Genghis...

Thanks for all the hints so far...

 

[Cymsdale]

I'm currently playing the Sultan of Andalusia and I've found it pretty easy to keep decadence low with a simple steps.

1) I check the religion window now and then for any dynasty members (not a son) currently causing decadence. If I can't get any use out of him (most of the time), he's off to jail. If his father is a landowner and will be annoyed by this, well then the father goes off to jail to.

2) I try to keep a few spare titles to give my sons, with an emirate going to the son who I want to be my chosen successor.

A slow growth of decadence is easily managed with decisions and war, so I don't make a fuss if I don't have it at 0 all the time.

When the time comes for my heir to take over, all of his half-brothers are thrown into prison immediately. Them's the breaks. If this causes a revolt - yay free title.

 

[Nague]

This is an ultimate recipe for disaster. Eventually you'll come across a block that slows you down and your decadence will into space. Remember the more family members you've landed then the faster you have to expand to keep decadence down. If you keep landing them you need to keep expanding exponentially. So even just being slowed down by someone like France or the HRE can have catastrophic consequences. (Especially if you're big enough to be taking them on to begin with.)

no its not, you just do a purge on every succession since you can at least imprison everyone except your sons for free.

 

[Cymsdale]

no its not, you just do a purge on every succession since you can at least imprison everyone except your sons for free.

Yup, I wonder if it's a little *too* easy to deal with unwanted relatives as a Muslim ruler. The imprison button has very little consequence, especially if the target's parents are already dead (or in jail themselves).

 

[brxbrx]

Seriously, just throw them in prison and execute them once your chosen heir inherits