Succession Problems

[GabrielLoki]

For some reason, I'm almost universally liked by my vassals, but none of them are voting for my nominee, my 6 year old half brother.
In addition, my grandson is in line to inherit the Duchy of Thrace while some random Strategos is going to inherit the empire. What gives?

(My primary title is Basileus)

 

[SaphireSeas]

For some reason, I'm almost universally liked by my vassals, but none of them are voting for my nominee, my 6 year old half brother.
In addition, my grandson is in line to inherit the Duchy of Thrace while some random Strategos is going to inherit the empire. What gives?

You have elective succession. You have two issues.
1. Your grandson is in line to inherit the duchy of Thrace. This is because on losing an election, the succession law defaults to primogeniture.
2. No-one is voting for your 6 year old half brother. This is because, at present, they don't see him as a good Idea for the next Emperor. If you can last until your 6 year old reaches 16, They'll probably change their votes, especially if they like you.

These are the two major problems with elective.

 

[Mike Louis]

Depending on your gender laws, you might have to consider nominating an adult dynasty member (seeing that you have elective succession, nominating an adult male would be good idea).

 

[GabrielLoki]

All of the adult dynasty members are either close to death or horribly underqualified....

 

[Don_giorgio]

Then try to stay alive for 10 more years so that the nobles will like your 16 yo half brother and vote for him.

 

[Dragatus]

Pick one of the close-to-dying candidates as heir. If they die, just pick a different one. If you die, then you have a decent ruler to run the empire until the half-brother is old enough to become an acceptable nominee.

 

[Iron Chariots]

All of the adult dynasty members are either close to death or horribly underqualified....

You know who else is not qualified? A 6 year old child. As mentioned above, pick one of the old guys just in case you die early, then change your pick when he comes of age.

 

[Aries666]

Whilst you have young children who you want to inherit it's hard to get your vassals on board. Having lots of vassals who are dynasty members can help but for the most part as others say nominate an older dynasty member who your vassals will vote for on the off chance you get sick or are assassinated.

 

[Asiak]

They will not vote for a child.

Youngest I've ever seen them vote is 12 because he as purple-born genius. I've seen them vote for a 14 year old but generally lower then 14 without traits they aren't going to go for.

Children are often the weakness of elective, but often all you have to do is wait it out they will go with him when he gets to 16. If he isn't purple born Despot him, even if he isn't give him some nice honorary title for that little boost of prestige. And if you have no suitable older men to be a temp then just wait it out.

With a skinny dynasty elective can be tricky.

 

[Thorkel the Tall]

What exactly do the elctives look for (besides adult men)? Prestige? Diplomacy skill? Traits? How well they like him? If he is landed or not? (in gavelkin elective they seem to go for unlanded ones to mess up the most!).

 

[Dragatus]

I think it mostly has to do with opinion of the liege and opinion of the heir. You'll note that Diplomacy and traits lke Born in the Purple all improve opinion as well.

 

[Beyond Disbelief]

In my experiments, culture matters too. When i formed the RE i was having trouble with different succession laws (Born in the Purple apparently supercedes seniority succession), so I tried to change a few titles to Elective (coudln't change RE) to fix it, and apparently in Greece everyone's voting a greek relative over my nominee.

 

[Dragatus]

Culture also influences opinion.