So! Succession Laws!

[General Karthos]

So conclave made it much harder to change succession laws as a count or Duke, but much easier to change them as a King. In some ways, I approve of this. My character who inherited at 29 moved from count of Kent (well, one province Duke) up to King of England in his own life time. He did not survive to change the succession law. (He lived to 78. I was honestly surprised that he lived long enough to become King of England, especially since I was playing with the old age mod where your characters seldom make it past 60 and almost never make it to 70.)

To change to Primogeniture, you need to have Late Feudal government, which requires a legalism of 3, which I naturally rushed. You require no vassals warring and no negative opinion, as per before, but you need the legalism of 3 even as a Duke. You can't just wait until you've ruled 10 years, change the succession law, then form your Kingdom.

I generally approve of this rule change, but that's because it worked out for me. (Thank goodness for "Imprison, Force to Take the Vows" and only having two sons before going celibate for my first ruler.)

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

I changed gavelkind for seniority initially as d_mercia, since I couldn't get primogeniture as early as I used to. It was purely defensive as I think I had 4 heirs at one point to split all my titles amongst - which would have broken up my two duchies and my counties in an unacceptable mess.

It's mostly worked out well, keeping things together (even netting me Cornwall as an inheritance), although I did have to fold to a faction recently for elective, which is going to be awkward at best. I'm hoping that if I can get the council on side I can either switch back, or to primogeniture sometime soon, although at the moment my dynastic heir under elective is acceptable.

 

[General Karthos]

I changed gavelkind for seniority initially as d_mercia, since I couldn't get primogeniture as early as I used to. It was purely defensive as I think I had 4 heirs at one point to split all my titles amongst - which would have broken up my two duchies and my counties in an unacceptable mess.

It's mostly worked out well, keeping things together (even netting me Cornwall as an inheritance), although I did have to fold to a faction recently for elective, which is going to be awkward at best. I'm hoping that if I can get the council on side I can either switch back, or to primogeniture sometime soon, although at the moment my dynastic heir under elective is acceptable.

IIRC, you can't move from elective direct to primogeniture any more.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

IIRC, you can't move from elective direct to primogeniture any more.

Admittedly I might be misreading the various options available to me - sometimes multiple layers of "One must be true" and "All must be true" get a little complicated for me. On the other hand, it seems like if that's the case, the only choice I have to switch to is elective gavelkind. For my specific purpose, I might as well restart the game, since if I'm stuck with elective it's going to be awkward for me since my relations with my vassals is getting tanked by continual (almost) national army sized religious revolts of Cathars. My chaplain can't convert the provinces back quickly enough.

 

[Djaevlenselv]

So conclave made it much harder to change succession laws as a count or Duke, but much easier to change them as a King. In some ways, I approve of this. My character who inherited at 29 moved from count of Kent (well, one province Duke) up to King of England in his own life time. He did not survive to change the succession law. (He lived to 78. I was honestly surprised that he lived long enough to become King of England, especially since I was playing with the old age mod where your characters seldom make it past 60 and almost never make it to 70.)

To change to Primogeniture, you need to have Late Feudal government, which requires a legalism of 3, which I naturally rushed. You require no vassals warring and no negative opinion, as per before, but you need the legalism of 3 even as a Duke. You can't just wait until you've ruled 10 years, change the succession law, then form your Kingdom.

I generally approve of this rule change, but that's because it worked out for me. (Thank goodness for "Imprison, Force to Take the Vows" and only having two sons before going celibate for my first ruler.)

Starting as a count vassal to independent duke in 769 I switched from Gavel to Primo on my first or second ruler. I, too, assumed I would have to have legalism 3 and then take Late Feudal admin, but no, it appears that those requirements apply only to kings and emperors. As far as I can tell, the introduction of Late Feudal is basically just the replacement for Crown Authority for the purpose of changing succession as a king or emperor.
In fact, contrary to your statement that it's harder to change succ as count or duke, the opposite appears to be the case. Since admin isn't a crown law it only applies to your own realm meaning that counts and dukes are always free to change succ as long as they fulfil the peace and opinion criteria, even if they are under a king/emperor without Late Feudal or Imperial. The liege wont be able to change, but the count or duke still will.

 

[General Karthos]

Starting as a count vassal to independent duke in 769 I switched from Gavel to Primo on my first or second ruler. I, too, assumed I would have to have legalism 3 and then take Late Feudal admin, but no, it appears that those requirements apply only to kings and emperors. As far as I can tell, the introduction of Late Feudal is basically just the replacement for Crown Authority for the purpose of changing succession as a king or emperor.
In fact, contrary to your statement that it's harder to change succ as count or duke, the opposite appears to be the case. Since admin isn't a crown law it only applies to your own realm meaning that counts and dukes are always free to change succ as long as they fulfil the peace and opinion criteria, even if they are under a king/emperor without Late Feudal or Imperial. The liege wont be able to change, but the count or duke still will.

I started as an independent duke, and I had no vassals (count or higher) with a negative opinion of me, and no vassals warring, and I couldn't change my succession law. Was your duchy a viceroyality in the ERE? Because that also allows the change of the succession law as I recall.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

IIRC, you can't move from elective direct to primogeniture any more.

Tried it. It works as an independent king.

 

[Djaevlenselv]

I started as an independent duke, and I had no vassals (count or higher) with a negative opinion of me, and no vassals warring, and I couldn't change my succession law. Was your duchy a viceroyality in the ERE? Because that also allows the change of the succession law as I recall.

Duchy of Pandya Nadu, south tip of India, so no. I have no idea why it worked for me and not for you. I actually complained about it on the forum, because I was expecting it to work like how you've experienced, but everyone who replied seemed to think my experience was WAD.