Personal Union Question

[Ashantai]

Having a weird problem as Byzantium.

I have Guyenne and Normandy in PUs, and before my last Emperor died it told me that Guyenne would be inherited by me on ruler's death. But then he died...and nothing happened, the PU continued.

So I reloaded the save and tried a console command to kill, but again nothing happened, my heir took over my country and those two, but no inheriting.

Anyone had this before?

 

[Tudyboss]

happened to me sometimes,not sure why either...

 

[Dafool]

That tooltip is reliably unreliable. The chance to inherit seems to be based on a specific set of "under the hood" calculations that determine whether you can inherit a nation or not. That tooltip doesn't actually seem to represent that value though. I believe this happens on a case by case basis per junior partner, but the factors clearly come from the senior member, because if you pay attention, you'll notice that most of the time you'll inherit all of your junior members at once or none at all. That's probably too much information, but it just gives you a little background on how exactly inheritance chances work.

 

[Ashantai]

So if I did it several times I might be able to actually inherit? Do we know what the factors are?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Dafool]

So if I did it several times I might be able to actually inherit? Do we know what the factors are?

Thanks for your help!

No and no. The "chance" seems to be set in stone at any particular moment, but if you reload and your king dies a year later instead, then it is possible that you might inherit. And as far as modifying the chances, we only know that relations plays a part in this, but only because having low relations will break the union. Many people have suggested things like having a high diplomacy rating, high prestige, or low infamy, but there's really no way to confirm any of that.

 

[Ashantai]

I could force integrate but that gives me a lot of infamy. I tried that with Guyenne and got 38 infamy! Yeah...not doing that again. Reload!

I guess I'll just have to wait.

 

[brifbates]

I could force integrate but that gives me a lot of infamy. I tried that with Guyenne and got 38 infamy! Yeah...not doing that again. Reload!

I guess I'll just have to wait.

There have been a number of discussions (some fairly recently) about the mechanics of inheritance.

In general the consensus is:

high relations, high trust, high prestige, high diplomacy value of heir, low infamy, both at peace, larger

are plus factors for the senior partner's inheritance chance. The junior must be at peace or you cannot inherit, there is still some question as to whether you can inherit if you are at war but the junior is at peace.

 

[cacra]

Trust is the mist important factor imo, just answer call to arms and don't break agreements ect and you should be set. Also i find if you have a big army and a good ruler helps aswell. And you have to be at peace.

 

[Dafool]

In general the consensus is:

high relations, high trust, high prestige, high diplomacy value of heir, low infamy, both at peace, larger

As I mentioned, I think these are mostly speculation. Being at peace and having positive relations are the only only two that we know affect inheritance chance, only because they'll completely negate it. We do know that inheritance isn't actually a chance, but a yes/no variable so it's very hard to figure out what exactly flips it in either direction.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

That tooltip is reliably unreliable. The chance to inherit seems to be based on a specific set of "under the hood" calculations that determine whether you can inherit a nation or not. That tooltip doesn't actually seem to represent that value though. I believe this happens on a case by case basis per junior partner, but the factors clearly come from the senior member, because if you pay attention, you'll notice that most of the time you'll inherit all of your junior members at once or none at all. That's probably too much information, but it just gives you a little background on how exactly inheritance chances work.

What's more is that the boolean on whether or not a subject nation would be inherited appears to be calculated every two years or so (i.e. save + reload + kill always yields the same outcome). I can't locate the variables in the save file though.

 

[Ashantai]

It's all rather mysterious I'm afraid.

 

[ve3609]

yea its a bit weird. In my Byzantium game, I had a PU with Castille. Nearly every time the tool tip said I'd inherit. I did eventually.

 

[unmerged(487181)]

I don't know whether or not it's hardcoded, but I have never inherited while either member of the PU is at war.

 

[unmerged(204522)]

I could force integrate but that gives me a lot of infamy. I tried that with Guyenne and got 38 infamy! Yeah...not doing that again. Reload!

I guess I'll just have to wait.

guyenne with 38 provinces wont inherit until you are much larger than them. for small inheritances, increase your SoI.

 

[brifbates]

As I mentioned, I think these are mostly speculation. Being at peace and having positive relations are the only only two that we know affect inheritance chance, only because they'll completely negate it. We do know that inheritance isn't actually a chance, but a yes/no variable so it's very hard to figure out what exactly flips it in either direction.

Positive prestige is also an absolute requirement. Whether high prestige increases the odds is speculative. Also, I disagree with your assertion that it is a yes/no switch as I have seen no evidence that leads me to believe there is not a random element. A good test for that would be saving a nation with a bunch of PUs listing various on death results and doing /die-reload-repeat a dozen or so times but I can't be bothered to do so because I don't force PUs enough to get such a save.

I personally have never seen a nation inherit a larger nation (number of provinces) but I'm willing to believe that others have done so despite the little testing I have done showing results to the contrary.

 

[Ashantai]

I've got over 300 provinces myself, so I don't think size is an issue....

 

[Dafool]

Positive prestige is also an absolute requirement. Whether high prestige increases the odds is speculative. Also, I disagree with your assertion that it is a yes/no switch as I have seen no evidence that leads me to believe there is not a random element. A good test for that would be saving a nation with a bunch of PUs listing various on death results and doing /die-reload-repeat a dozen or so times but I can't be bothered to do so because I don't force PUs enough to get such a save.

It's absolutely a yes/no equation. Of that I have no doubt. As I and numerous others have figured out, killing your monarch at any particular moment will always result in the same outcome. It doesn't vary. Also, artificially increasing prestige or lowering infamy doesn't seem to change this. Another factor that seems to support this is that if you have a large number of personal unions, it seems very likely that you'll inherit most, if not all of them, at once, or rather none at all. Very rarely is it just a fraction of them. This is easily testable as well. My guess is that the game checks the overlord to see if they are generally capable of inheriting and then checks the junior members individually to see if they are capable of being inherited. Chance may play a factor whether you're capable of inheriting, but it doesn't play a part when you actually get the opportunity to inherit. Hopefully that makes sense.

I personally have never seen a nation inherit a larger nation (number of provinces) but I'm willing to believe that others have done so despite the little testing I have done showing results to the contrary.

You can inherit a larger nation, but the game is built to discourage it greatly. As a side note, I seem to have broken that rule when I was modifying the AI for D&T, because we realized that my changes allowed a OPM to maintain a PU with and eventually inherit a much larger nation. Honestly though, I have no idea what I did to cause that.

 

[Mgoblue201]

The opacity of the inheritance mechanism isn't quite as bad as the unreliability of it. The chances seem to change from year to year, even if barely anything else has changed in that time span. You can do everything "right" and it still feels completely random.

 

[MrQwerty]

The opacity of the inheritance mechanism isn't quite as bad as the unreliability of it. The chances seem to change from year to year, even if barely anything else has changed in that time span. You can do everything "right" and it still feels completely random.

That is what I have noticed. One month, I will read "On monarch death, 'Country X' will be inherited by 'Country Y'." On the next, I'll read "On monarch death, the personal union continues." The best you can do is to keep prestige, legitimacy, relations, and other factors at their best levels.