Primogeniture or ultimogeniture? Help for a newbie

[Dahoota]

My preference is elective or ultimo. NEVER go elective if your realm has any cultural or religious diversity though - electors won't vote for your heir.

Ultimo is simple enough to manage: make sure your wife Is about the same age as your character - typically the last child will be born no later than 35-42yo due to fertility rates, most characters die around 50-65. If done properly you will have a young adult character and long reigns or at worst a short regency of 2-3 years.

Switch to hunting focus if you need to extend your life expectancy to avoid a regency, switch to rulership if you want shorten it to move to your next character (very likely to pick up stressed or depressed).

 

[Dragatus]

That costs to much piety, just get another wife above 45. You get the stats, you don't worry about new kids. Fun.

Unmarried 45 year old geniuses aren't all that common and I tend to have lots of Piety from fighting holy wars, so paying 100 Piety once per monarch's reign is very much affordable.

 

[Warspock]

Ultimo.

Easy to get.

Breed until you have a genius and stop.

Have tons of child vassals which you can not only educate for the opinion bonus, but to make them beasts in the stat department.

 

[General Karthos]

I like primogeniture. A run of bad luck means old heirs, but much of the time you'll wind up with a young, but adult heir. My longest-reigning character inherited when he was only a few months old (his father died of wounds sustained in battle a few months after his heir was born) and ruled until he was 89. (There's no apparent cap to the long-reign bonus, or there wasn't back then, so in the last 20 years of his life he could basically do whatever he wanted.) Because of the succession laws, when he died he had outlived all his children and his oldest grandchildren, but his oldest son's oldest son's oldest son (his great grandson) inherited the throne at the age of six or so.

You can imprison and execute your own son if you're willing to take the major malus. (Extra luck if he plots against you, since then it's just a -10 malus.) Then his son becomes the heir. (There are other ways to disinherit a son, like forcing him to take the vows once he's imprisoned, as opposed to executing him.)

And you can plot to assassinate any relative who isn't your son or daughter.

 

[Sergeant Flutter]

Primogeniture is best. Easier to track succession, simply educate him better, etc.

If you go Ultimogeniture, you always run the risk of your wife having another son.

 

[Iron Chariots]

Elective can be problematic for bigger realms, since lords could just vote one of them into power.

I mean, yeah, in theory, but the solution to that is to just breed a massive dynasty and let them hold all the elector titles. Let them be superdukes if you don't have enough dynasty members to hold all the duchies. You can then even keep them in line by putting them on your council.

 

[Pyoro]

Some here complain about tanistry jumping between dynasty branches as a down-side, when that's actually why it's so effective. Basically, with every new ruler you can sort out a new part of your realm. Gift lands away to sort internal borders. Build up the demesne. Get some good genes into that branch. And then you rotate through to the next.

It's not something I'd enjoy for every game, but I don't think I ever had any more powerful Kingdoms/Empires than those under tanistry rule.

 

[RX2000]

If you go Ultimogeniture, you always run the risk of your wife having another son.

Unless you throw her in prison. Or divorce her & marry an old lady.

 

[Iron Chariots]

Some here complain about tanistry jumping between dynasty branches as a down-side, when that's actually why it's so effective. Basically, with every new ruler you can sort out a new part of your realm. Gift lands away to sort internal borders. Build up the demesne. Get some good genes into that branch. And then you rotate through to the next.

It's not something I'd enjoy for every game, but I don't think I ever had any more powerful Kingdoms/Empires than those under tanistry rule.

But you can totally do that under elective as well if you want. If some obscure landholding branch within your realm isn't eligible, just give them an elector title. No need to rely on luck of the draw as with Tanistry, where the voters basically never pick the person you want.

 

[RX2000]

No need to rely on luck of the draw as with Tanistry, where the voters basically never pick the person you want.

Do they pick the person you want more often under elective? Does your vote sway the other voters? I haven't ran elective in a while but I remember back in the day when I ran it they always seemed to just want to vote for themselves.

 

[Iron Chariots]

Do they pick the person you want more often under elective? Does your vote sway the other voters? I haven't ran elective in a while but I remember back in the day when I ran it they always seemed to just want to vote for themselves.

Yeah as long as they like you and are of your culture and religion they'll usually follow your vote. Just in case, I like to make all (or at least most) of my electors members of my dynasty so that even in the rare case where I lose I just get a different heir than I wanted, but don't lose the top-level title-- but in that case I'm no worse off than in tanistry.

 

[RX2000]

Yeah as long as they like you and are of your culture and religion they'll usually follow your vote. Just in case, I like to make all (or at least most) of my electors members of my dynasty so that even in the rare case where I lose I just get a different heir than I wanted, but don't lose the top-level title-- but in that case I'm no worse off than in tanistry.

And really, after a couple hundred years of a nice stable realm its probably not the worst thing in the world if you happen to lose the top title & have to fight or scheme to get it back.

 

[Pyoro]

Something you don't have to worry about with tanistry. And it's not like with that you don't also get votes yourself, and the vassals also follow your vote to some extend. Whether the mechanics behind one law make it a bit better than the other I frankly don't know, but in a general sense tanistry is far from a bad law to pick.

 

[Iron Chariots]

Something you don't have to worry about with tanistry. And it's not like with that you don't also get votes yourself, and the vassals also follow your vote to some extend. Whether the mechanics behind one law make it a bit better than the other I frankly don't know, but in a general sense tanistry is far from a bad law to pick.

I think tanistry is really only worthwhile if you've done a bad job at vassal management and have a bunch of wrong culture vassals who won't vote for your chosen heir. If you structure your realm properly for elective you can eliminate its only disadvantage relative to tanistry but keep all its advantages of having an easier time choosing your heir.

 

[Conan Troutman]

Of course if you want to be really gamey, you run gavelkind, only marry infertile women, and use the seduction focus to create lots of acknowledged bastards and legitimize one son per generation (with some daughters for matrimarriages to create dynasty members, if you want), enjoying increased demesne size while keeping your vassals from switching to primo and consolidating.

Something similar: The "born in the purple" mechanic if you're the Byzantine or Roman emperor is also pretty great with ultimogeniture and seduction focus. Just marry as you please and if you don't get your desired heir after a while, use seduction until you do, grant him the despot honorary title (which means he'll count as born in the purple as far as succession is concerned and as the youngest legitimate son will be first in line to inherit). Then divorce your wife and marry someone old (45+). Or you could just go full on seduction from the start and you can cycle through the best candidates by granting and revoking the despot title as your ruler gets older (if you like younger heirs, but don't want to increase the risk of regencies.)

 

[RelVleDy]

Primogeniture is best. Easier to track succession, simply educate him better, etc.

If you go Ultimogeniture, you always run the risk of your wife having another son.

Not if you do a lot of what others have mentioned in this topic -- divorce your wife and remarry one over the age of 45.

 

[Sergeant Flutter]

Not if you do a lot of what others have mentioned in this topic -- divorce your wife and remarry one over the age of 45.

You can always do that, but it doesn't mean you son will. Say he has 3 sons. Son 1 has no traits; Son 2 has Attractive; Son 3 has strong, genius, and attractive.

But, then, his wife has another kid! Oh look, he's inbred!

 

[Robert II]

You can always do that, but it doesn't mean you son will. Say he has 3 sons. Son 1 has no traits; Son 2 has Attractive; Son 3 has strong, genius, and attractive.

But, then, his wife has another kid! Oh look, he's inbred!

Plot to kill the wee inbred shit.

 

[Sergeant Flutter]

Plot to kill the wee inbred shit.

Always an option.

 

[Robert II]

Always an option.

It's probably not even necessary. They typically end up incapable then dead without the need for a bribed maid and a pillow.