Seniority or primogeniture?
- Thread starter IlyaZ
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okay I am super wimp, now give me salic consanguinity http://crusaderkings.wikia.com/wiki/Salic_Consanguinity as in CK1.
Nah, I've run games where I specifically abuse it.
I ran a couple of games under the preview where I tried to see just how high I could get my demesne cap. Between abusing gavelkind and abusing spouses, I was getting around 18 demesne.
Where it was maximum fun was that every time I died, I would drop back down to 7-9 demesne (depending on children). Then, as my family and vassals plotted against me, I would imprison and revoke/confiscate myself back up to 18. Normally, when I'm not abusing the system, I have to immediately hand off those titles to someone else, making me less likely to revoke or confiscate. (Why invoke tyranny just to immediately hand the titles off to someone else? Might as well keep the offender in jail where I can neutralize his duchy.)
Now that the wrong holding penalty is -75%, this strategy is not as fun, since you can't own 6 cities and swim in more gold than Scrooge McDuck. Still, owning 14-18 counties directly makes you one bad dude.
I suppose we could have more variety in election laws or perhaps some events or options to react to strange situations (voluntarily or not). Example: In the Kingdom of Jerusalem, dynastic rights were generally respected (apart from the fact that Montferrats and de Lusignans competed for a long time) but try getting that crown without the approval of the Haute Cour (their version of Privy Council)... Or situations like inheritance by appointment, whether by simple appointment or in a treaty. Mutual inheritance pacts existed in Eastern Europe, whereby the survivor of the two parties would inherit. Louis d'Anjou, the King of Hungary, got the crown of Poland that way. I'm not saying these are particularly good solutions, they're just variety.
Also, I like gavelkind. It's kinda fitting for counties and duchies. However, I believe there should be an option to require vassalage if titles that go away from demesne are within de iure kingdoms or duchies remaining with someone older and with a higher title. As a rule, I believe counties should only really go with their de iure duchies, not like mutually holding counties in each other's respective duchies and going to war about it. Gavelkind reflects the old idea that basically all royals are kingly, all imperials are very special, all duke sons are dukes or princes at least in rank, a bit like the traditional system of German nobility (French was trickier and English totally unlike).
Also, I like gavelkind. It's kinda fitting for counties and duchies. However, I believe there should be an option to require vassalage if titles that go away from demesne are within de iure kingdoms or duchies remaining with someone older and with a higher title. As a rule, I believe counties should only really go with their de iure duchies, not like mutually holding counties in each other's respective duchies and going to war about it. Gavelkind reflects the old idea that basically all royals are kingly, all imperials are very special, all duke sons are dukes or princes at least in rank, a bit like the traditional system of German nobility (French was trickier and English totally unlike).
I understand this era is all about feudalism and delegating, therefore one cannot act as King of the United Kingdom in 1066, however my main issue, still is that there is not enough power for the King. Yes gavelkind increases the limit 1/3 or so but due to baby kings in regency it is still not safe enough.
Once you're a little bigger of a king, game quickly becomes a constant challenge of keeping it together rather than ruling peacefully and expanding whenever you want & find an opportunity etc.
Also since there is no such a 'High King' tier between King and Emperor, you cannot manage conquer & uniting several kingdoms (e.g. UK) and once completely conquered, delegate it (pass to nephew etc) and expect it to stay in your dynasty and in your (extended) realm peacefully. I think this should be possible to some extent. Note that I do not expect it to be pacified for 400 years, yes it should revolt/claim independence at some point in time, as soon as there is an ambitious king is crowned in the delegated lower kingdom, thus give a challenge. But currently it is constant warring and never ends.
I have had this several times, maybe there is a better way to do it which I am missing, however with current experience I think game needs to be tweaked to allow RULING with less internal challenge.
might i venture the suspicion that you merely didn manage your vassals quite right?
as king of castille additional king titles i have are: galicia, leon, navarra, wales, england
and all vassals are above 0 opinion despite short reign modifier.
it is in fact possible to "unite" several kingdoms.
i have no holdings in england whatsoever. so i am deleting, although technically not i guess, i still have to manage peasant revolts by myself.
edit: oh and the kingdoms of scotland and ireland are next on the list, meaning im already at war with scotland for it...
as king of castille additional king titles i have are: galicia, leon, navarra, wales, england
and all vassals are above 0 opinion despite short reign modifier.
it is in fact possible to "unite" several kingdoms.
i have no holdings in england whatsoever. so i am deleting, although technically not i guess, i still have to manage peasant revolts by myself.
edit: oh and the kingdoms of scotland and ireland are next on the list, meaning im already at war with scotland for it...
I will be more than happy to see I am wrong on this. I will start a new game soon with latest patch, my sole focus is holding on to 4 king titles (UK) this time.
Do you give duchies to your family or others?
Do vassals not jump-to-conclusions (i.e. ah he has more than 1 king titles, 2nd one must be for me! yay!)?
Did you have several assasinations in row and have 2 baby kings in succession?
edit - And what succession law?
i try not to give titles to family members, but couldnt avoid it in england (a few decades before i took it myself i installed a family member as king)
yes some vassals are nagging about wanting a kingdom. for example my dukes of portucale and castilla always want the kingdom of portugal and castille (oh hey forgot to mention kingdom of portugal heh)
its a -25 opinion, but its manageable. they never revolted yet, and even if they would, if at all possiblei try to give no more than one county to a random courtier, and one of them gets the duchy title on top of it. no more. also makes for nice clean looking internal borders.
my "direct vassal" map mode looks exactly the same as "de jure duchies" in iberia
at game start i assasinated the king of falicia, king of castille died on his own, so i inherited them both, other than that i dont use assasination to inherit stuff.
i marry dynasty members to claimants of titles (regular or matrilinearly, whichever is appropriate for the claimant) and let them have children, who inherit the claims of the non-dynasty-member parent.
then i press the claim of those childrens. and through some strategically marrying sometime down the line i will have a character(which i play) who also has a claim on other kingdoms (nneds quite a lot of dynasty management) and then press this (as happened with england and scotland).
i play under primogeniture. i am contemplating playing seniority though. it opens up the possibility of my heir being the king of other kingdoms who are ruled by family members (it would make the step of managing in my family to get my character a claim on those kingdoms obsolete) but my family is so huge, it owuld need quite a lot of assasinations to get rid of the bad members
yes some vassals are nagging about wanting a kingdom. for example my dukes of portucale and castilla always want the kingdom of portugal and castille (oh hey forgot to mention kingdom of portugal heh
)its a -25 opinion, but its manageable. they never revolted yet, and even if they would, if at all possiblei try to give no more than one county to a random courtier, and one of them gets the duchy title on top of it. no more. also makes for nice clean looking internal borders.
my "direct vassal" map mode looks exactly the same as "de jure duchies" in iberia
at game start i assasinated the king of falicia, king of castille died on his own, so i inherited them both, other than that i dont use assasination to inherit stuff.
i marry dynasty members to claimants of titles (regular or matrilinearly, whichever is appropriate for the claimant) and let them have children, who inherit the claims of the non-dynasty-member parent.
then i press the claim of those childrens. and through some strategically marrying sometime down the line i will have a character(which i play) who also has a claim on other kingdoms (nneds quite a lot of dynasty management) and then press this (as happened with england and scotland).
i play under primogeniture. i am contemplating playing seniority though. it opens up the possibility of my heir being the king of other kingdoms who are ruled by family members (it would make the step of managing in my family to get my character a claim on those kingdoms obsolete) but my family is so huge, it owuld need quite a lot of assasinations to get rid of the bad members
Nah, I've run games where I specifically abuse it.
I ran a couple of games under the preview where I tried to see just how high I could get my demesne cap. Between abusing gavelkind and abusing spouses, I was getting around 18 demesne.
please don't abuse your spouse :angry:
Yeah sorry, it is in the game but apparently only muslims can access it. I had it when I played Palermo in the demo. But don't despair: since it is in the game I guess it's easy to mod it to be available for Christians as well.
Since it's hard, or impossible, to be able to switch to primogeniture in some cases and seniority is out of the question as I like my heir to rule for more than 5 years, I switch to elective to avoid gavelkind. Naturally you have to be in a position where you have enough clout to make sure that your vote is the decider (Or give your intended heir the means to vote too), but so far that hasn't been a problem for me.
I would still prefer primogeniture, but I had to switch to elective in a panic earlier today. I was the Queen of Navarra. Good stats, good traits, good relations despite the penalties associated with female rulers. Until I get excommunicated, and the King of Leon uses the Excommunication CB to force me to abdicate in favour of my son. So far so good, as the prestige hit to the (former) queen didn't really matter. Except that he is a minor. And his heir is his father, who is not of my dynasty. So if he dies in the next 4 years (he was 12 I think), it's game over. To make matters worse, he's homosexual (Disliked by others and lowered fertility), and almost as soon as he came of age he was excommunicated too.
So there I was, disliked by everyone and excommunicated, struggling to produce an heir, and still years away from being able to change to Elective law to get an heir. Now it turned out ine; excommunication was lifted, I had a daughter, and survived long enough to change the law, which I did as I only had one daughter at the time.
Moral of the story? Go elective, for the sake of your mental well-being
So let me get this straight. Under elective succession, you can engineer merging of titles? To plan it out from the beginning:
1. Change your inheritance to Elective Succession
2. Marry your daughter to the heir of a title that you covet
3. Nominate the heir of your son-in-law with said title as the next person you play as
Then when you die, you pass your titles on to the nominated person, who also inherits the titles you were aiming for.
Is this a good way to go about merging titles? It'd be two generations away, and you need to win some votes to do so. Really the big question (for me) is if it's quick enough to merge all the random Russian duchies in time to present some sort of coherent defense against the mongols.
I realised the hard way that it's not quite as good as it seems You can't nominate just anyone as your successor, I think it needs to be a ruler inside your realm or a close family member (Not sure of the exact criteria). So what it is good for is consolidating titles inside the realm, and being able to cherry-pick the best possible heir. But expanding outside the realm through inheritances is tougher, as you can't do it two generations away.
If you mainly expand through conquest of muslims/pagans it's pretty good IMO. Are you a King wanting to expand his demesne but can't through inheritance or conquest? Just nominate the Duke with the juciest land as your heir. It's all very convenient.
I'm sure someone else will know more how it works. I only used it in the game mentioned to avoid game over. Found it pretty convenient, but switched back to Primogeniture when I had the chance.
You can't nominate just anyone as your successor, I think it needs to be a ruler inside your realm or a close family member (Not sure of the exact criteria). So what it is good for is consolidating titles inside the realm, and being able to cherry-pick the best possible heir. But expanding outside the realm through inheritances is tougher, as you can't do it two generations away. If you mainly expand through conquest of muslims/pagans it's pretty good IMO. Are you a King wanting to expand his demesne but can't through inheritance or conquest? Just nominate the Duke with the juciest land as your heir. It's all very convenient.
I'm sure someone else will know more how it works. I only used it in the game mentioned to avoid game over. Found it pretty convenient, but switched back to Primogeniture when I had the chance.
If you are playing for score, unfortunately nothing matches seniority when you get to a large kingdom.
In primogeniture you should load up your heir with as many titles as you can give him as his prestige will increase and be added to your total score once he becomes leader and dies. However, if you load up your heir with too many titles he will distribute them to subordinates and get less prestige than if he ruled them directly.
In seniority, instead of getting one new king every 50 years or so you get a constant line of old bastards about to croak, consequently you have more characters to spread your prestige-garnering titles among and in the end you will get more total prestige than if you gave them all to one heir who then divided it up among subordinates.
Keep in mind this only becomes true once you get around 20 castles.
In primogeniture you should load up your heir with as many titles as you can give him as his prestige will increase and be added to your total score once he becomes leader and dies. However, if you load up your heir with too many titles he will distribute them to subordinates and get less prestige than if he ruled them directly.
In seniority, instead of getting one new king every 50 years or so you get a constant line of old bastards about to croak, consequently you have more characters to spread your prestige-garnering titles among and in the end you will get more total prestige than if you gave them all to one heir who then divided it up among subordinates.
Keep in mind this only becomes true once you get around 20 castles.