Since Rights of Man came out we have had the ability to disinherit our heirs and abdicate our monarchs. The exact value of this ability and the best way to use it has been hard to pin down, but the received wisdom of the community has mostly been that republics are still superior monarch point generators. I find disinheriting mechanics appealing both thematically and as a power-gamer. I like the idea of a monarchy that only permits those who are actually worthy of the title of Queen or King to ascend. I think of it as a dynastic meritocracy. From the perspective of a power-gamer, monarch points are just about the most valuable resource in this game and so the ability to get more is very appealing.
The best way to actually use these mechanics has been something that has taken a long time to understand. In many ways this is a game system that resists easy reduction to a formula which is another reason that I like it. In my current game I have achieved my best-ever list of monarchs, and I want to share some of the principles that led me to being able to achieve this.
It is not as simple as threshold below which you disinherit. There are many more considerations to keep in mind like the relative value of different monarch points to your game; the age, ability, and dynasty of your consort, and the age and ability of your current monarch. You should also abdicate if your heir is an improvement on your current ruler. It's not a coincidence that my very best rulers tended to rule the longest where my merely good-enough rulers tended to retire as soon as they were able.
Consorts, as it turns out, are pretty important. A young consort with great stats allows you to disinherit deeper into the lifetime of your current monarch. Once your monarch reaches the age of 45 you need to start seriously considering the possibility of a consort regency in your deliberations. Rulers have a significantly increased chance to die once they turn 61. It is worth noting, here, that the age of your monarch does not affect your heir chance, and nor does the age of your consort. Heirs produce consorts, not the other way around. If your consort is older than your monarch, then of course you cannot rely on a consort regency. If your consort has horrible stats then a consort regency of any length is something to avoid. You may also consider the dynasty of your consort – if you get a dynasty swap in another nation while in a consort regency, you will spread your consort's dynasty, not your own. Similarly, your consort may allow you to claim a foreign throne that your own dynasty would not.
The next important consideration is one that is a little less obvious. The age of your ruler is important not just because your ruler might die if they are old, but because you want to avoid having new rulers come to power when they are already old. You want rulers to come to power young in order to give you the most opportunity to disinherit the next generation of heirs. If your current ruler is a 20 year old 6/5/5 and you get a 4/4/4 heir, you should probably disinherit them. You aren't going to abdicate your 6/5/5, and if they live to be 70 then your 4/4/4 heir will come to power at the age of 50, making it much harder to arrange a quality heir for them. This implies that you must consider the strength of your current ruler as well – if you would be happy to abdicate the current ruler then you can possibly accept a middling heir (4/4/4 is disinctly middling for our purposes, and probably should be considered below average).
Not all monarch points are created equal. A 1/6/6 is probably unacceptable in most circumstances where a 5/4/1 might be entirely acceptable. You need to consider what it most valuable to your game at the time the ruler will rule. That doesn't always mean admin, but it frequently does. If you are playing a taller game then Dip and Mil might well be the most valuable. In most cases it's Adm. It's something to be aware of, regardless.
Another thing to be aware of is the power of events like Talented and Ambitious Daughter. A quick look at the wiki informs us that this event generates an heir rolling 2D4+1, rather than the usual 2D4-2. That is incredibly powerful. The event requires a ruler that is at least 40 years old and becomes more likely the older the ruler is.The MTTH is 500 months and is modified by 0.9 each 10 years after your ruler turns 40. This event is actually better than Lux Stella or Starlight, and far, far more common. It's actually a major consideration in disinheriting. There's a reason there were a flood of screenshots of amazing event-generated heirs after the patch that changed the roll formula for them went live.
There are two primary constraints on your ability to disinherit: prestige and time. We have already covered the ways in which you can try to maximise time. Increasing your heir chance is also equivalent to increasing time. Prestige is really quite simple, there is no super secret way to generate it. You just farm it by declaring wars into weak alliance networks. You peace each member out for as much prestige as you can – most likely by forcing them to remove rivals. This is also a good way to keep irritating possible-coalition members truce-locked. It doesn't generate any AE but does generate long truces. Conquering a lot also generates good prestige. Keep prestige in mind when conquering, though, make as many separate peaces as you can to maximise prestige.
More prestige and time means more disinherits. The next step is to calculate the expected number of disinherits to get an heir of a minimum MP threshold. I haven't actually done this, yet. I suspect the maths has already been done, but I haven't been able to find it. My intuition from playing the game and disinheriting a lot is that 13+ is good. 12 is something of a tipping point where you settle for it if the distribution is good and the general circumstances don't favour further disinheriting. 11 can be okay if it's very well distributed (like my 5/5/1). 10 is almost certainly not worth it since the random heir you are risking getting by dying heirless will have an expected value of 9. There is very little risk in disinheriting a 10 point heir. There is huge potential upside, though.
Note that I've posted this here because I'm hoping for a discussion. If I manage to really flesh it out with more numbers I'll consider reposting it in the guides forum.
The best way to actually use these mechanics has been something that has taken a long time to understand. In many ways this is a game system that resists easy reduction to a formula which is another reason that I like it. In my current game I have achieved my best-ever list of monarchs, and I want to share some of the principles that led me to being able to achieve this.
It is not as simple as threshold below which you disinherit. There are many more considerations to keep in mind like the relative value of different monarch points to your game; the age, ability, and dynasty of your consort, and the age and ability of your current monarch. You should also abdicate if your heir is an improvement on your current ruler. It's not a coincidence that my very best rulers tended to rule the longest where my merely good-enough rulers tended to retire as soon as they were able.
Consorts, as it turns out, are pretty important. A young consort with great stats allows you to disinherit deeper into the lifetime of your current monarch. Once your monarch reaches the age of 45 you need to start seriously considering the possibility of a consort regency in your deliberations. Rulers have a significantly increased chance to die once they turn 61. It is worth noting, here, that the age of your monarch does not affect your heir chance, and nor does the age of your consort. Heirs produce consorts, not the other way around. If your consort is older than your monarch, then of course you cannot rely on a consort regency. If your consort has horrible stats then a consort regency of any length is something to avoid. You may also consider the dynasty of your consort – if you get a dynasty swap in another nation while in a consort regency, you will spread your consort's dynasty, not your own. Similarly, your consort may allow you to claim a foreign throne that your own dynasty would not.
The next important consideration is one that is a little less obvious. The age of your ruler is important not just because your ruler might die if they are old, but because you want to avoid having new rulers come to power when they are already old. You want rulers to come to power young in order to give you the most opportunity to disinherit the next generation of heirs. If your current ruler is a 20 year old 6/5/5 and you get a 4/4/4 heir, you should probably disinherit them. You aren't going to abdicate your 6/5/5, and if they live to be 70 then your 4/4/4 heir will come to power at the age of 50, making it much harder to arrange a quality heir for them. This implies that you must consider the strength of your current ruler as well – if you would be happy to abdicate the current ruler then you can possibly accept a middling heir (4/4/4 is disinctly middling for our purposes, and probably should be considered below average).
Not all monarch points are created equal. A 1/6/6 is probably unacceptable in most circumstances where a 5/4/1 might be entirely acceptable. You need to consider what it most valuable to your game at the time the ruler will rule. That doesn't always mean admin, but it frequently does. If you are playing a taller game then Dip and Mil might well be the most valuable. In most cases it's Adm. It's something to be aware of, regardless.
Another thing to be aware of is the power of events like Talented and Ambitious Daughter. A quick look at the wiki informs us that this event generates an heir rolling 2D4+1, rather than the usual 2D4-2. That is incredibly powerful. The event requires a ruler that is at least 40 years old and becomes more likely the older the ruler is.The MTTH is 500 months and is modified by 0.9 each 10 years after your ruler turns 40. This event is actually better than Lux Stella or Starlight, and far, far more common. It's actually a major consideration in disinheriting. There's a reason there were a flood of screenshots of amazing event-generated heirs after the patch that changed the roll formula for them went live.
There are two primary constraints on your ability to disinherit: prestige and time. We have already covered the ways in which you can try to maximise time. Increasing your heir chance is also equivalent to increasing time. Prestige is really quite simple, there is no super secret way to generate it. You just farm it by declaring wars into weak alliance networks. You peace each member out for as much prestige as you can – most likely by forcing them to remove rivals. This is also a good way to keep irritating possible-coalition members truce-locked. It doesn't generate any AE but does generate long truces. Conquering a lot also generates good prestige. Keep prestige in mind when conquering, though, make as many separate peaces as you can to maximise prestige.
More prestige and time means more disinherits. The next step is to calculate the expected number of disinherits to get an heir of a minimum MP threshold. I haven't actually done this, yet. I suspect the maths has already been done, but I haven't been able to find it. My intuition from playing the game and disinheriting a lot is that 13+ is good. 12 is something of a tipping point where you settle for it if the distribution is good and the general circumstances don't favour further disinheriting. 11 can be okay if it's very well distributed (like my 5/5/1). 10 is almost certainly not worth it since the random heir you are risking getting by dying heirless will have an expected value of 9. There is very little risk in disinheriting a 10 point heir. There is huge potential upside, though.
Note that I've posted this here because I'm hoping for a discussion. If I manage to really flesh it out with more numbers I'll consider reposting it in the guides forum.
