Question about PU

[Blust]

Hi, I started a game as Austria, in order to get as many personal union as possible, but there's something I don't understand. I hope you might be able to help me and explain to me what I'm doing wrong.

Here it is :

Year 1473, Castile doesn't have a heir. His king is a de Trastamara. He have 2 marriages : one with Portugal (de Avis dynasty) and one with me (Austria, von Habsburg). His prestige is at -7.

But the succession war is between 2 differents countries : Aragon and England. I can understand that, Aragon, with the same dynasty, is a part of it but... why is England (-21 prestige) the opponent ? Shouldn't it be me or Portugal ?

My king is 57 years old, my heir 25. I don't understand, it worked perfectly fine with Bohemia, Hungary and Milan... Can someone help me ?

 

[CoolSpin]

@atwix !

 

[Pelthis]

The most probable answer is, as Aragon is the same dynasty, they get the PU de facto. And when some country get a free PU like this, it's proposed to one of their rivals to contest it. So I guess England had Aragon as a rival that's why THEY could contest it while you didn't as you were not Aragon rival

 

[Blust]

England have Castile as a rival, not Aragon tho :/

I have a similar problem with Brandenburg, who's going to let Poland's dynasty on this throne even thought I have more prestige than Poland. I thought I understood how PU works but... not so much it seems.

 

[Sfan]

Castile has no heir, so they fall in a PU under someone who shares their dynasty and have the highest effective development (Aragon, over Navarra). The PU is contested by their rival with the highest military score (England). Rival them and get a higher military score, full annex Aragon and Navarra, or accept that it's unlikely to get a PU on a country which shares a dynasty when you don't.

 

[Tarkilth]

What has been said is pretty much the root of the issue at stake here. Since aragon and castille shares a dynasty, Aragon gets Castille in a union on monarch death, but a rival of Castille at the time will typically get the option to contest it. For the lognest time the AI would always do this no matter the odds, these days unless it's at least a somewhat major country they at least wont try to defeat half of Europe for the PU.

 

[Badesumofu]

Castile has no heir, so they fall in a PU under someone who shares their dynasty and have the highest effective development (Aragon, over Navarra). The PU is contested by their rival with the highest military score (England). Rival them and get a higher military score, full annex Aragon and Navarra, or accept that it's unlikely to get a PU on a country which shares a dynasty when you don't.

This. Saved me some typing.

 

[CoolSpin]

Castile has no heir, so they fall in a PU under someone who shares their dynasty and have the highest effective development (Aragon, over Navarra). The PU is contested by their rival with the highest military score (England). Rival them and get a higher military score, full annex Aragon and Navarra, or accept that it's unlikely to get a PU on a country which shares a dynasty when you don't.

(sort of TL;DR)
"their rival", Castile or Aragons rival?

 

[atwix]

Hi, I started a game as Austria, in order to get as many personal union as possible, but there's something I don't understand. I hope you might be able to help me and explain to me what I'm doing wrong.

Here it is :

Year 1473, Castile doesn't have a heir. His king is a de Trastamara. He have 2 marriages : one with Portugal (de Avis dynasty) and one with me (Austria, von Habsburg). His prestige is at -7.

But the succession war is between 2 differents countries : Aragon and England. I can understand that, Aragon, with the same dynasty, is a part of it but... why is England (-21 prestige) the opponent ? Shouldn't it be me or Portugal ?

My king is 57 years old, my heir 25. I don't understand, it worked perfectly fine with Bohemia, Hungary and Milan... Can someone help me ?

Castile has no heir, so they fall in a PU under someone who shares their dynasty and have the highest effective development (Aragon, over Navarra). The PU is contested by their rival with the highest military score (England). Rival them and get a higher military score, full annex Aragon and Navarra, or accept that it's unlikely to get a PU on a country which shares a dynasty when you don't.

(sort of TL;DR)
"their rival", Castile or Aragons rival?

i'll quote my rm guide:

You, and several legible nations are interested in the succession of a target monarchy, with no heir. If the ruler there dies without an heir, you usually see a noble of your house seize their throne, if you have RM with that country and if you have highest development total of all their RM partners.

But if those other nations qualify to contest the outcome of this disputed succession in the heirless monarchy, then you get a succession war.

Military rating of nations or score of nations comes into play here.

RULE OF THUMB: Among all possible aggressive claimants in a succession war (meaning your RM partners, the RM partners of the heirless nation, the nations that set YOU or the heirless nation as rival, and other nations with your dynasty): the nation with highest military rating/score gain will get popup if they want to contest a succession aggressively in a succession war.

But what is military rating exactly?

Military rating evaluates the land warfare capabilities of a country.

Modifier Rating

Mil Tech +0.2 per Technology level.
Mil ideas +0.1 per idea + +0.25 per bonus.
Generals +0.025 per pip for each general or conquistador (counting rulers/heirs). Max 5.00.
Military quality +0.15 per +5% combat ability (sum of all types).
Discipline +0.15 per +5%.
Soldiers [Unknown]
Morale of armies +0.5 per point.
War exhaustion -0.2 per point.

So, you might need military ideas filled, big military tech, high discipline, high morale and lot of good tier 3 generals to qualify to contest a succession. Its sounds like only military nations can contest. But nations with HUGE pips on generals have HUGE military rating (can get +5 bonus with generals alone!)


What can you conclude out of this? Nations who pick military ideas get more military rating then nations who don't. A (lucky) nation with military ideas, with full manpower pool, with big manpower pool due to provinces owned and large standing army led by god general pool will usually have the highest military rating. AKA France? England, Austria, Muscovy etc. Note that score might play role too.

Result? Its usually always the same nations that contest successions. In western Europe France, Austria and England contest successions a lot. In eastern Europe Muscovy/Russia contests everything since they have huge force limit army and HUGE manpower pool thanks to national traditions. This changed a bit in 1.10 and beyond. It seems Europe situations can get wonky and you will see more unusual PU situations and succession wars now.

IMPORTANT TIP: So, if you want to provoke succession wars, its good idea to set England, France or a blobbed Muscovy as rivals IF they didn't rival you yet. Nations that set YOU as rival will be part of the contestant pool then, giving you chance for free PU with just a RM done!! As said before, only nations that rivaled YOU or the heirless nation count. Rivaling France won't do, they have to rival YOU if they want to be able to contest.


I'll repeat it once again: a succession war can occur in step A with JUST a royal marriage done, IF a high military rating nation or anyone else qualifies to contest the succession. But it can also happen in step C. Usually a same dynasty partner attacks you then.

Important note: All this may be overruled by factors that make a succession war impossible, such as the target being at war or leading a personal union of its own.



tl;dr: up your military rating, and the aggressive contestant might flip to YOU @Blust compare the military rating in ledger (in score comparison) between your nation and England. Lower war exhaustion, pay troops, get prestige and army tradition or defender of the faith for more morale for your armies,make more troops, demand manpower from noble estate, tech up military, roll some good generals, quality idea group helps, etc.

if the difference in military rating between you and england is tiny, it is easily doable.

 

[TomoSojiro]

we all love atwix

 

[Blust]

Thanks a lot, this is complete ! I thought I had the biggest development score of Europe, but that includes all my PU, so that explains why France and England were more likely to contest it !

The Iberian Wedding fired before the SW could happen, and then I succeed to put a von Habsburg on Castile throne so, I guess somehow it worked !

 

[Sfan]

You don't entirely get it. Actual development (so development reduced by local autonomy) is only useful to know which country of the dynasty gets the PU, or which RM partner spreads their dynasty. To know who contests, this is the military score (in the ledger), as atwix wonderfully explained.