Some questions for vanilla without DLC

[Urloc the Great]

1. Ok, so my character is basically the last member of my dynasty in a relationship, but she or he if matrilineal marriage can still have kids. How do I safe this run? (Happened two times already, both multiplayer)

2. My friend was the king of swabia and got the chance to conquer all of france, I helped him doing so. How did he get the claim/CB?

3. How do I make my Dynasty survive through bad rng? I.e. All heirs dying off before they could get married/get offspring?

4. How do I get away from all the bad government forms (Gavel, Elective, etc.)? Especially when I am vassal of a weak ambitioned King that doesn't want to bost crown authority?


This game is amazing but those little things currently bug me and I couldn't find any solution to this online.

Thanks for answering in advance!

 

[Duskwave]

1. Without DLC, having kids is a lot harder to reliably make happen. Watch out for fertility effects- Chaste, Frail, and Learning education give penalties, Lustful, Strong, and Stewardship educations give bonuses, for example. Sometimes individuals are just especially fertile or infertile too, which you can't see without cheating, but in real life, people arranged divorces or otherwise got rid of spouses who didn't have kids in an attempt to find someone who could, pretty often. Women can only have kids up to age 45, for reference. I tend to try to have as many kids as possible and make sure distant relatives of my dynasty get landed, to improve the odds. (Unlanded courtiers have fewer kids, overall fertility is lower in crowded courts, and landed characters are much more active in spreading the dynasty.) I also marry daughters matrilineally basically whenever possible (which is harder to get good pacts with sometimes, but can be great for getting claims...) to increase dynasty, and unlike a lot of people, I almost never assassinate family members to get their stuff, I'll take different routes.

2. Easiest way to get a claim on a kingdom is usually marrying someone with an inheritable claim, so that your kids with them will eventually have claims of their own, then become that kid later. (Once you're an Empire, it's easier to just give a claimant a county in your realm and then press their claim.)

3. Full dynasty extinction, rather than just having someone you'd rather not as heir, is mostly a problem for your first character or two, and if you get past that, it becomes more about getting the heir you want, exceptions like losing your entire realm or the like (which are really situational based on where you are on the map) aside. see answer 1 on that. (There are other answers involving DLC of course.)

4. Personally, I usually find Feudal Elective the best one, but it pretty much requires landing dynasty members as your vassals and focusing on being liked and likable. (Diplomacy education, bribes, avoiding anything that incurs Tyranny, etc), but a lot of people play in a way that means they basically only want Primogeniture, and getting High Crown Authority can get tricky... but mostly it's about getting out from under your liege, probably. Which generally means a lot of plotting... whether gobbling up weaker vassals' lands and doing an independence revolt, or buttering up your liege and then marrying his kids in a way you or your kids can inherit his titles.

And while I totally get doing just vanilla no-DLC, I will say that if you can, Way of Life goes a long way to making a lot of the particular sticking points easier, and it's $8 when it's not on sale. Just noting.

 

[Froggie]

1. Ok, so my character is basically the last member of my dynasty in a relationship, but she or he if matrilineal marriage can still have kids. How do I safe this run? (Happened two times already, both multiplayer)

Matrilineal = Female bloodline inherits. It's going to be easier for you to play as a male with regular marriage or only marry your daughters (of your dynasty) into matrilineal.

2. My friend was the king of swabia and got the chance to conquer all of france, I helped him doing so. How did he get the claim/CB?

He probably married into a close relative of the King of France, lets say his daughter. Out pops your Heir who has a claim to the Kingdom of France

3. How do I make my Dynasty survive through bad rng? I.e. All heirs dying off before they could get married/get offspring?

Marry a 16 year old, Have more children, Divorce useless spouses, Take Concubine (not sure if this last one is possible without DLC unless tribal)

4. How do I get away from all the bad government forms (Gavel, Elective, etc.)? Especially when I am vassal of a weak ambitioned King that doesn't want to bost crown authority?

Tech - Invest in Legalism.
Rule for 10 years (hover over your highest-oldest title).

As a Tribal Christian you should look towards Tanistry as an early Government Type. As a Feudal you should try to go Primo and hope that you only have 1 Son for a generation


This game is amazing but those little things currently bug me and I couldn't find any solution to this online.

CK2 is amazing and you will learn little things for years to come which will help you have more fun. Once you get the hang of the basic I would recommend getting "The Old Gods" DLC, as this will add a significant amount of content and replay-ability.

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

1. Ok, so my character is basically the last member of my dynasty in a relationship, but she or he if matrilineal marriage can still have kids. How do I safe this run? (Happened two times already, both multiplayer)

2. My friend was the king of swabia and got the chance to conquer all of france, I helped him doing so. How did he get the claim/CB?

3. How do I make my Dynasty survive through bad rng? I.e. All heirs dying off before they could get married/get offspring?

4. How do I get away from all the bad government forms (Gavel, Elective, etc.)? Especially when I am vassal of a weak ambitioned King that doesn't want to bost crown authority?


This game is amazing but those little things currently bug me and I couldn't find any solution to this online.

Thanks for answering in advance!

1. Yes, you can have children, but the children will count as members of the female dynasty. So matrilinear marriage is something you only want to do, if you are female - OR if you marry your daughters (see 3.)

2. The best way is, as already mentioned, you marry someone with a weak claim and than wait for it to press it (in vanilla your options to press weak claim are rather slim though). Best practice is to marry a kings daughters. She will inherit a weak inheritable claim. Have children with her. Your children will have a non-inheritable claim. To press it, your claimaint must either be male and the ruler of the kingdom female OR the ruler of the kingdom has to be in a regency (either a child, in hiding or incapable). You can try to murder plot the current king and hope for him to go into hiding (more likly if he's a coward) OR actually murder him with your plot until a women or a child inherits.

3. Depending on your own realm size you should consider landing family/dynasty members to avoid game over. However if you demesne size is 8 and you have 8 holdings stick with those.
Unless you are in a desperate need of an alliance you should always marry your daughters matrilinear. This comes with several advantages:

• their children count as members of your dynasty; this way they serve as back-up heirs
  
• no foreign realm gets claims on your titles
  
• if you have agnatic succession law and no other male members of your dynasty, one of your grandsons will inherit ALL titles, even with gavelkind
• you can murderplot against your grandchildren allowing you to remove unworthy ones from the dynasty (those with bad traits like weak, slow and so on)

4. This is a rather tricky question. Someone mentioned Tanistry as succession law, but I am fairly certain this not available in vanilla as there are not christian tribals. With low crown authority you can probably not change your own succession law to prio. However Gavelkind is not such a bad succession law at all

• The standard tip is to have few children but it's a risky strategy in early game
• However is mentioned earlier if you have one son and one daughter (and agnatic succession) and you marry your daughter matrilinear you can use her sons (your grandsons) as back-up heirs in case you own son dies. However if they had no children and your and your son die it's game over. So better yet change your succession law to agnatic-cognatic. This way your daughters would inherit your titles if there is no son. This would lead to title split amoung your daughters but that's still better than game over
• With Gavelkind succession you should aim to have one Duchy title. In case there is a realm-split upon succession you can plot to revoke your brothers titles if they are in your capital duchy.
• In vanilla you can not order your children to take the vows but if you have free investigure (or your liege has) you can appoint your second and later sons to inherit a bishopric which will remove them from the line of succession. This require you to NOT marry them, because if they had sons on their own, their sons (your grandsons) would inherit the titles instead of your sons
  
• Bonus here: after succession you can appoint someone else for that bishopric and your son (now brother) can be used as back-up
  
• As an emergency strategy: If you have no count+ -level vassals (only mayor, barons and bishops) you can simply imprison your underage sons (assuming you have more than one). This will cause unrest in your realm because of the tyranny modifier but what are they gonna do? Baron-level vassals can't start major rebellions against you. The bishops would probably stop paying takes to you and stop giving you levies but it's not a big deal if you die 3 days later (as I said, emergency strategy in case you 44 year old wife had another son when you are already infirm...).
• Put those sons into the oubliette but do not excute them. If succession happens they would inherit some titles but stay in prison, and die after some time (no need for kinslayer). But in case your primary heir dies you may still release them
• I don't know if that's still possibleactually I know that this is no longer possible in the current game but I don't know if it still works in vanila: but assuming you have the neccessary gold you can build temples and grant them to underage children to remove them from the line of succession
• Have your children have children early! This is probably a good tip although I never do it. If your son gets married when he's 16 and has 2 sons when he's 20, you are probably only 40 yourself (assuming you did that over a few generations). As I said earlier you may plot against your grandchildren, so if you risk title split upon the succession after the next succession you can murder plot the worse grandchildren.