Partition Is A Problem

[Dionysus42]

To be clear, I'm not necessarily talking about the decision itself to make partition an unavoidable aspect of the game for the first 3 quarters or so. That's an unfortunate decision that frontloads difficulty and just encourages gamey workarounds, but that's aside the point. I'm also not complaining about the difficulty of it or wanting to avoid it necessarily. It's pretty easy to deal with, thought not especially fun, using the aforementioned workarounds. I'm talking about the way that partition itself functions.

I'm talking about the overly opaque and black box nature of the partition system itself. Let's take one of the most common ways of dealing with succession: simply giving the other children plenty of land so that they don't take from the main heir. There is no way to check how much land a given title will take away from their inheritance, nor any way to tell from which titles it take within their inheritance. You just have to check the interface before and after. This is just purely mechanical. It doesn't even touch on how, in a game supposedly focusing on roleplaying, there's no way to deal with the issue in an in-character way: for instance, asking them what land or how much land they would want, negotiating on how much of the inheritance they are willing to forego for landed titles now, or even promising that the heir will give them land after succession with a big malus if you fail to do so. The whole thing remains purely a player-system relationship, which the characters in-game have no knowledge of; it's just something that happens to them - and you - instantly when the ruler dies.

Again: partition is evidently THE main obstacle for most of the game, at least as far as I can tell that is the intention. Yet despite being the main gameplay obstacle, it remains completely un-integrated with the much-vaunted roleplaying.

The other issues is with the partitions themselves, assuming you let them play out without gaming them. They have a strong tendency towards nonsensical divisions of land, the priority of title ranking still leaves the heir with by far the least land consistently.

How do we have an overly opaque system that, aside from not interacting with the character focus of the game at all, simply doesn't work all that well, remain basically unchanged for 2 years of development while being one of the key gameplay features?

 

[J.P.Cliffer]

You want to avoid it ? Just make less babies or marry late otherwise it take few learning perk.
Work as intended grab a duchy and give it to your extra heir otherwise.(general skill issue)
Also to avoid the non sense land division (just give it before you die)
It's like IRL inheritance.

 

[Aregodas]

I do agree that inheritances as a whole would do with some rework, particularly in a more realistic and role playing fashion: be allowed to create an actual will. Not that it needs to be upheld by the parties involved upon ruler death as a rule, just give the player the chance to create one. Then roll the dice and see if your other non primary heirs, claimants to your titles, grasping character within your kingdom, etc, accept it... or not.
This way it would keep realism and would also offer the player an in-game capability to try and actually split your inheritance according to YOUR wishes, which is what a will is for; whether these wishes are actually kept or not after you die would add to the game; would lead to natural rivalries, wars, factions, etc, in a more organic way... or stability.
Let fortune decide, instead of allowing a strict implemented mechanic determine everything. Provide flavor and events instead of forcing players to take undesired and repetitive actions to prevent sucession crisis before each ruler death.

 

[Aregodas]

And come to think of it, the new struggle mechanic could also be used to play along with inheritances and sucession crisis. Obviously we'd be talking about a temporal, easily solving and realm focused, struggle. Nothing that couldn't be solved within 6 months if the wishes of the previous ruler are respected OR 20+- years if things go wrong... but I think I would find these sort of localised temporal struggles very engaging.
Awww, if only I were a proper modder.

 

[dawedqafdAD]

I think partition would be a lot more workable if we only had some way to choose what titles go to who like someone else said written wills would be a good way to do this. its bogus that counties within the primary duchy just get thrown around to non primary heirs, it quite frankly just makes no sense.. I shouldn't be getting counties in my brothers duchy and vise versa. it also seems like the primary heir for some odd reason receives less titles then some of the other heirs which again makes no darned sense

Besides that argument though I think some sort of balancing needs to be done for the AI's sake because they don't have the ability to cheese succession like the player does, couple generations in and the AI kingdoms are on the brink of collapse at all times weak, broken, and usually easily outmatched by the player far to quickly leading to a somewhat boring experience as the game progresses. Infact paradoxically it seems as the game progresses further the AI actually seems to downgrade and become weaker consistently and quickly due to multiple successions weakening kingdoms and empires. In my game right now for instance France sits at an embarrassing 4766 total soldiers and the "king" using that term loosely holds 1 single county to his name (and the kingdom obviously) weak and pathetic all thanks to partition succession and I'm 255 years in here.

 

[johnty5]

There was a thread way back at launch that explained exactly how partition worked, including how the titles are ordered and distributed - but agree it should be explained better (or at all) in-game and better documented in the wiki.

I'm slightly torn on what I'd like to see mechanically. Part of me would like to see a rework with some of the suggestions in this thread - but another part of me would like to see some of the ways players are able to manage succession (disinheretance etc.) nerfed, forcing the player to deal with more succession crises rather than having a pretty secure realm within a character or two. CK is most fun when you really have to watch your back to avoid losing your throne.

 

[Ezumiyr]

It's like IRL inheritance.

But precisely - it's not.
The vast majority of times in the medieval era, even when some kind of "partition" was enforced, the deal was made before inheritance.
In game, it's not something that is negociated, it's just a bit obscure and can sometimes lead to situations where the main heir gets less valuable lands or simply fewer titles just... because.
And I don't mean that this should never happen. But when it happens, there should be a reason, and that's what is so frustrating currently. At the very least, the different heirs should try to make sure they get the lands of the duchies they inherit.

 

[Aregodas]

I wasn't trying to suggest to make life easier for the player. Not at all, it's already too easy as it currently stands. No. Nor did I want to trash everything that already exists on the process.
My main point was to remove the rigidity imposed by the current model for something a bit more modular, more interesting, much more open to events and variety.

For instance, let's do a small thinking experiment.
Say, we keep the current inheritance laws as they exist. They are the basis. This is how characters and the player know they are eligible for a claim and such; who is suppose to get what. To that we add a will to the player (the human player at least, not sure if the AI would be capable or how it would go on about it) wherein you can designate heirs for your different titles that MAY contradict and technically SUPERSEDE the inheritance law of the kingdom (being the will of the lawmaker of the place, we can assume this is.............. ok... historically not quite, but all right).
ON_DEATH we compare the law inheritance against the will and determine who gets what; AND THEN depending on the rolls we can get something more stable or unstable, considering how much -or little- the will reflected the inheritance law, who is happy and who is angry with the outcame, etc. The worse your designated heir (be it for personality, opinion with other potentates in the realm, skills, age, *a mess of all of them in truth*) the easier things can get out of control if the will is divisive; the more liked and skilled the heir, the easier you can reign in your newly acquired realm. Some events for flavour, some potential decisions to placate your disgruntled siblings/vassals, etc.

I think this could be fun. It offers both a way for the player to try and hold everything together in a roleplaying way (where even knowing a very controversial will might backfire you can still go for it and try to hold for dear life) but doesn't make it EZ MODE either, since you need to balance pros and cons.

 

[johnty5]

Say, we keep the current inheritance laws as they exist. They are the basis. This is how characters and the player know they are eligible for a claim and such; who is suppose to get what. To that we add a will to the player (the human player at least, not sure if the AI would be capable or how it would go on about it) wherein you can designate heirs for your different titles that MAY contradict and technically SUPERSEDE the inheritance law of the kingdom (being the will of the lawmaker of the place, we can assume this is.............. ok... historically not quite, but all right).
ON_DEATH we compare the law inheritance against the will and determine who gets what; AND THEN depending on the rolls we can get something more stable or unstable, considering how much -or little- the will reflected the inheritance law, who is happy and who is angry with the outcame, etc. The worse your designated heir (be it for personality, opinion with other potentates in the realm, skills, age, *a mess of all of them in truth*) the easier things can get out of control if the will is divisive; the more liked and skilled the heir, the easier you can reign in your newly acquired realm. Some events for flavour, some potential decisions to placate your disgruntled siblings/vassals, etc.

I think this could be fun. It offers both a way for the player to try and hold everything together in a roleplaying way (where even knowing a very controversial will might backfire you can still go for it and try to hold for dear life) but doesn't make it EZ MODE either, since you need to balance pros and cons.

One way of doing this would be giving every character in the line of inherence a feudal contract with you (whether they're landed or not) that allows you to tweak inherence in the same way as you use the feudal contracts to tweak your vassal's rights/responsibilities to you. The player could use hooks and trade offs to change that "inherentance contract" (just like negotiating feudal contracts) and there'd be opinion/tyranny penalties (and maybe knock on effects to faction formation?) for dicking them around too much.

 

[Aregodas]

That's a nice idea. Though I think it would be easier to consider the will itself as one huge feudal contract with more than two parties involved, unlike the regular one which is two ways. Every held title (county and up) should be different points of said contract that needs be addressed in the will, whethe to keep them as they stand by law or to modify them according to your whims.
In this manner it is possible that due to character interactions, diplomatic treaties or hooks some of the titles included would be locked to the player, unable to change them (potentially unlockable by other means...?).
We add a flag to the characters that are expected to receive inheritance by law, another to those mentioned in the will... maybe a third for those that have been excluded from both but may have some ties to the title... and I believe we got something. With flags it's easy to then swift opinions, penalties and benefits with different characters to create a nice scene with which to trigger all sorts of factions, CBs, events and whatever else.

 

[Ciccillo Rre]

I think that, if anything, partition should be harder to avoid. At present, you can just dishinerit children or restore inheritance at whim and you are set.

 

[Gobla]

Partition is probably the mechanic I hate most in CK3.

It's extremely easy to cheese.
It's extremely annoying to deal with RPing, especially as a faith with multiple wives/concubines.
It's extremely disadvantageous for the AI.

In the end it's a mechanic that creates the impression of difficulty because you're forced to spend a lot of attention to it but actually makes the game easier because no matter how badly you handle it the AI will always be worse and thus unable to provide a challenge in any other aspect of the game.

 

[Allen418]

The way kingdoms will be divided usually seems pretty predictable, but sometimes the duchies and counties make my brain hurt. I wish I had a court position that allowed me to game plan partition. “Show me what happens to my domain after I die if I give my third kid two new duchies in Aquitaine. Now how about if I give him the two duchies and this county I have in England?” Especially nice for iron man play throughs.

 

[void0x00]

It make me mad when I grant the only county the child should get because out of domain size limit, just to find out he can now inherit another.

 

[J.P.Cliffer]

The way kingdoms will be divided usually seems pretty predictable, but sometimes the duchies and counties make my brain hurt. I wish I had a court position that allowed me to game plan partition. “Show me what happens to my domain after I die if I give my third kid two new duchies in Aquitaine. Now how about if I give him the two duchies and this county I have in England?” Especially nice for iron man play throughs.

Usually you don't want to give too much like that you prefer to give it to vassal or relative family without claim. When i did it like you think it's civil war.At kingdom level granting 1 duchy/kid is enough. The rest you want minions that hold land for your ruler. You put elders close to death in command
in order to maximize your chance to get back the land. if they are sterile it's even better (it's like byzantine administrator)

 

[Flockingbird]

There was a thread way back at launch that explained exactly how partition worked, including how the titles are ordered and distributed

Succession Laws Explained

Which Child Gets Which Title

And in case it’s helpful to anyone reading the thread, InsidiousMage’s How to Use Elective Succession to get Defacto Primogeniture

 

[BrokenSky]

Succession as a whole probably needs a rework.

People have been asking for it since CK2, and given the dev team's track record for things people have been asking for since 2 (customizable heresies, dynamic melting pots etc.), I assume it's probably already very much on their radar. Hopefully they'll do it soon (and also hopefully the implementation will be good).

 

[The Shacks]

Ai certainly struggles, my main peve is seeing Aquitaine and France break apart and noone ever having the brains to reconquer it, the claims goes away and France never gets another claim. Happens in 1066 far too often too.

 

[YellowPress]

Ai certainly struggles, my main peve is seeing Aquitaine and France break apart and noone ever having the brains to reconquer it, the claims goes away and France never gets another claim. Happens in 1066 far too often too.

French laudabiller really needs to be a thing, that or make cathars in Aquitaine more common rather than paulician sicilians or insular English

 

[HoridMatec]

since we play as the ruler of w/e you are playing we should be able to decide on what inheritance we want, I hate this mechanic, it is very obnoxius to keep the inheritance as you want it.....