New player having a litte trouble with sucession understanding

[Sunsanvil]

New player here. Loving it so far. My learning is coming along but there is one facet of succession I don't understand, that of loosing a county you own on succession.

Simple example: The learning scenario where you play Leon. You are instructed to take that tiny island county west of Africa. No problem, becomes part of my Demesne...but I get the warning I will loose it on succession. Could someone please give me the cliff notes as to why (and what I can do about it before I die).

Also, my sister was plotting to kill me...I had proof and so imprisoned her without penalty....but she still owns her county and it will still go to her personal heir. Her being in prison doesn't seem to change anything (except she can no longer scheme). Is that right, or does it make things any easier in terms of claiming, revoking, or invading that one county?

Thanks.

 

[Robert II]

I believe you are losing the county because of gavlekind. With gavlekind titles are shared between eligible heirs. You can revoke that title and with her in prison she can't say no however it will incur a negative opinion penalty with your other vassals as you don't have a valid reason.

 

[shiro the bushi]

loss of land usually comes from 2 things
1. Gravelkind, most here hate gravel kind, once you have to landed titles the other one will go
2. elective, a person that is not of your dynasty can easily get your primary title in elective so long as they have the money and influence
as for your sister, just because you imprisoned her doesmt mean you took her title, you would be better off ransoming her for her ducats and preparing to imprision her again

 

[StarSword]

New player here. Loving it so far. My learning is coming along but there is one facet of succession I don't understand, that of loosing a county you own on succession.

Simple example: The learning scenario where you play Leon. You are instructed to take that tiny island county west of Africa. No problem, becomes part of my Demesne...but I get the warning I will loose it on succession. Could someone please give me the cliff notes as to why (and what I can do about it before I die).

Gavelkind succession. If you have multiple children allowed to succeed you, your titles will be divided up between them.

Also, my sister was plotting to kill me...I had proof and so imprisoned her without penalty....but she still owns her county and it will still go to her personal heir. Her being in prison doesn't seem to change anything (except she can no longer scheme). Is that right, or does it make things any easier in terms of claiming, revoking, or invading that one county?

Thanks.

You can revoke her title if your crown authority or council laws permit and she won't be able to fight you for it, though it will still mildly piss off your other vassals (-15 opinion for Revoked Vassal Titles for IIRC 20 years).

 

[Bernard95]

Gavelkind is most likely your problem, especially since it is basically the default succession law. Gavelkind is rather infamous and somewhat tricky to deal with- it's one of those things you'll pick up as time goes on.

In short, gavelkind follows a strict logic where basically your firstborn son will get your primary title along with your capital county no matter what. From there, the game will seek to divide the rest of your titles between your other sons, attempting to give you anything in your capital duchy as long as you have more titles than sons.

As an example, say you're a king with two duchy titles with several counties in each. You have two sons only, so your firstborn gets everything in the capital duchy and your second son will get the other duchy and everything in it. Then you had a third son, he would get a county from the second son's duchy. Later you had to give that entire second duchy away. Now all your firstborn gets is the capital county and primary title.

Regardless, the best thing you can do is switch your succession law to something else such as primogeniture or seniority, where all titles go to a single heir.

 

[Sunsanvil]

Thanks very much every one. So with Gavelkind an only child gets it all, but as soon as there is more than one they have to share.

Are there any basic strategies to maximizing a first born's inheritance, and/or maximizing inheritance from one's liege which you are still alive?

 

[Moarice]

Thanks very much every one. So with Gavelkind an only child gets it all, but as soon as there is more than one they have to share.

Are there any basic strategies to maximizing a first born's inheritance, and/or maximizing inheritance from one's liege which you are still alive?

You may try switching to Seniority. When you do, the oldest member of the dynasty will inherit everything. But it's usually best to do it only if you don't have any brothers or have only a few of them. I usually use it until I'm allowed to use Primogeniture succesion, which is the most basic "eldest son inherits everything", but gices you a prestige penalty for each unlanded son.

 

[Dragatus]

Thanks very much every one. So with Gavelkind an only child gets it all, but as soon as there is more than one they have to share.

Are there any basic strategies to maximizing a first born's inheritance, and/or maximizing inheritance from one's liege which you are still alive?

There are a few. Gavelkind tries to make sure every son (or every daughter if you don't have any sons) gets at least 1 county and will do that, unless you have more heirs than counties, in which case it will hand out counties until there ar enone left to give. If you have more counties than children it gets complicated and a bit unclear.

What I have noticed though is that in addition to trying to give everyone an equal amount of titles it also tries to preserve de jure duchies. I've seen a case where a king had 1 kingdom, 1 duchy, and 8 counties and the primary heir inherited the kingdom, the duchy, and the 3 counties that were a de jure part of that duchy. But the younger son inherited the 5 counties outside the duchy. In another case I've seen a duke who owned all 4 counties of his duchy and his eldest son inherited the duchy along with 3 countiesand the younger son got a single county.

Note also that when gavelkind is handing out titles, it will take into account the titles that a potential heir already has. For example if you have 4 counties and two sons, each son is supposed to get 2 counties. But if the second son already owns a county for whatever reason, he will only get 1 county on inheritance and the eldest son will get 3.

So what you can do is decide which counties you want to keep and then grant the ones you are willing to part with to younger sons. If they all get at least 1 county/barony you should be able to inherit your capital duchy and all it's counties intact.

Check the "titles lost on succession" warning to see what you will lose. If a county or barony that you want to keep for your primary heir is on the list, check who is inheriting it and give that person a different county/barony.

 

[hagagaga]

The most effective way of dealing with gavelkind was once to make sure that you never have more than one title of the highest tier. That has changed in later patches, but the principle remains the same. Make sure that even if your younger sons are getting some of your titles, they will still be your heir's vassals.

 

[sigeena]

Gavelkind is pretty refined right now. It usually ensures that de-jure counties are given to the same son. In fact, I favour it over Primo sometimes, because of the extra 1 desmesne and prestige malus that Primo otherwise brings due to un-landed sons.

To ensure that your primary heir is stronger, always ensure that de-jure counties of the capital duchy are in your desmesne. And then hold 1 county in other duchies. When splitting inheritance, your primary heir retains the de-jure counties, whereas the secondary heirs take the other counties that are non de-jure.

 

[Sunsanvil]

A somewhat amusing followup question: is there any way, other than murdering the wife, to stop having children?

 

[Dragatus]

A somewhat amusing followup question: is there any way, other than murdering the wife, to stop having children?

Imprisoning the wife. Works best if you either catch her plotting or have her excommunicated first or else you'll be facing a massive tyranny penalty.

I believe you can also prevent yourself from fathering any more children if you are constantly in command of an army (retinues work well for this), but your wife could still get pregnant by cheating on you, so it's not reliable. Unless of course she has the Homosexual trait.

 

[Sunsanvil]

(...) but your wife could still get pregnant by cheating on you, so it's not reliable. Unless of course she has the Homosexual trait.

LOL. Best.....Game.....Ever....

 

[Moarice]

Imprisoning the wife. Works best if you either catch her plotting or have her excommunicated first or else you'll be facing a massive tyranny penalty.

I believe you can also prevent yourself from fathering any more children if you are constantly in command of an army (retinues work well for this), but your wife could still get pregnant by cheating on you, so it's not reliable. Unless of course she has the Homosexual trait.

But... Homosexual trait doesn't prevent getting pregnant. Even with people of same gender.

 

[Dragatus]

LOL. Best.....Game.....Ever....

That reminds me of a funny story. In one of my games my wife had a lover and none of the children she gave birth to were mine (I could tell because I got the special event for hiring a maid ... but she never found anything out). I was somewhat irked by that, but since there was nothing I could do I resigned myself to contiuing the dynasty with essentially adopted children.

So I arrange a marriage for my heir (who is not my son) but mere days after his wife arrived at court an even fired telling me that she might fancy me. And so I gave her a good tumble and we became lovers and all the children she gave birth to were mine.

So in the end I managed to reclaim my dynasty for my actual descendants by fighting fire with fire. Fun times!

But... Homosexual trait doesn't prevent getting pregnant. Even with people of same gender.

Is this modded in any way?

 

[StarSword]

But... Homosexual trait doesn't prevent getting pregnant. Even with people of same gender.

No, but it does make them much less likely to respond to the Seduction focus.

But going off to war does not work: you can still impregnate your wife from a different continent. (Yes, I'm sure I wasn't cuckolded, I checked with Charinfo on the console.)

 

[Moarice]

Is this modded in any way?

To be honest, I have no idea. I found them in the strange screenshots thread.

 

[hagagaga]

A somewhat amusing followup question: is there any way, other than murdering the wife, to stop having children?

Wrap it before you pack it?

I find it hilarious that we actually do have to specify "other than murdering the wife." Also, murdering my wife didn't stop my concubines from getting pregnant.

More seriously: Divorce and imprisonment. If you get imprisoned by a ruler of Greek culture, you might get castrated. That will keep you from having more children. Some events can cause you to become celibate.