Tanistry Versus Elective; thinking ahead to my next Irish playthrough...
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You will never lose the election with tanistry to another dynasty but you cannot pick your heir.
Elective is probably the better choice if you think you can appease your vassals and/or handle losing the election.
I'd suggest going with Tanistry though as you can always use Elective in another playthrough.
Elective is probably the better choice if you think you can appease your vassals and/or handle losing the election.
I'd suggest going with Tanistry though as you can always use Elective in another playthrough.
Elective you can lose your titles quite easily. Use tanistry, if I could i'd use it for every game. You're likely to not get the heir you want picked, but you get your pick of the litter if you don't like the current heir. Most people -will- vote for your choice as long as it isn't your child. Usually it goes uncle to nephew then from that nephew to his cousin. (The uncle's son.) Its a fantastic crown law, simply because you get the benefits of elective without the draw backs of losing your titles.
Tanistry also gives you a reason to educate your sons with the best possible person. I have found if your preferred heir has at least one of the good congenital traits, two or three of the virtues, and at least one of either brave, gregarious, or honest, you can get who you want elected.
Not to mention that a conquered Ireland divided among your family members makes for a awesome civil war upon succession. 
So you get the bonus opinion to your vassals with Tanistry same as with Elective?
I had an tanistry game nearly ruined several generations in when the electors decided to vote for someone who was Anglo-Saxon instead of in the Celtic culture group. The succession law automatically changed to gavelkind. Since then I've stuck with elective monarchy.
As long as you educate your heirs personally so that you have control over what traits he gets and don't act tyrannical, Elective seems pretty easy to manage, in fact many of my chosen heirs get unanimous votes. It only seems to be problematic if you try to have two or more kingdoms, even then it's usually manageable with bribes and perhaps some assassinations, just harder, which makes me think that candidates born inside the kingdom probably have an advantage over those born outside. Tanistry, on the other hand, is far more unpredictable, while only dynasty members are eligible they seem to favor older people from different branches of the dynasty, and if they pick a different culture candidate then you can lose all your cultural buildings which are very expensive and I'd honestly prefer getting knocked down to a duke or count due to losing an election over losing the money spent on cultural buildings.
Tanistry also has a lot more potential voters, which could explain the seemingly random choice.
One of my old Irish games, the (expanding) Duchy of Ulster had tanistry (my demesne was in the south). The idiots elected a distant kinsman, the landed King of France. Lost the north of Ireland and a third of Scotland to that bastard.
Tl:dr I don't trust the computer's choices.
Tl:dr I don't trust the computer's choices.
A big problem can be if the voters decide to choose for instance a female in a normal marriage with heirs of a different dynasty, though that may only happen when your dynasty is on the brink as im sure? the voters prefer males
That's only a problem if the woman in question is of a different culture and the succession law changes, otherwise her children are ineligible to inherit. But yes, the voters do prefer males in any case, so if you've gotten a female heir you're probably in trouble anyway.
For most cases, Tanistry is the superior version of elective (risk of your dynasty losing its authority is the risk that ain't as present here).
Also, it would be a waste to not use the law when only the Celts cane have it. You won't be able to play with it in non-Celtic playthroughs so use the opportunity.
Also, it would be a waste to not use the law when only the Celts cane have it. You won't be able to play with it in non-Celtic playthroughs so use the opportunity.
Well, usually the only possible candidates are the current kings or one of the dukes and from what I can see grand dukes are a real danger when you have a kingdom where you don't own a single duchy inside that kingdom.
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I once had a Celtic empire with tanistry, it's a pretty good succession law, it usually goes to good people in your dynasty and as long as you make sure you keep the same heirs for all your titles it's good.
Way better than elective, still not my preferred succession law though, I like it when the title passes from father to son.
Way better than elective, still not my preferred succession law though, I like it when the title passes from father to son.
Elective is my favorite law just because it's so easy to keep in check. As long as your vassals are mostly happy, they'll tow the empire line and vote for your preferred heir. I consider i way better than primogeniture from a gameplay perspective, to the point where I wonder why primo requires high CA and elective doesn't. I've only tried Tanistry a couple times, and I'm not thrilled with it simply because it seems much more difficult to guide your vassals to vote for your preferred heir. Sure it keeps the titles all in the family, but it's so easy to do that with elective anyway that's not an issue. As it is, I'll use primo and Tanistry for roleplaying purposes, but elective is still the best succession I've found.
I much prefer elective. It keeps the vassals docile and the candidate pool small (and mostly restricted to my own children and a handful of powerless dukes). At that point, I can groom whatever child I want to be my heir instead of hoping that some relative was kind enough to give their genius son a 4-star education.
I prefer elective as well , but ,if you have many kingdoms with elective succession with multi-cultured vassals your going to have problems.
In my record games as Matilda of Tuscany , i had Italia(empire),Italy ,Sicily,France and Aquitaine ,i struggled to elect my Byzantine Empress daughter because she was Greek also.
In my record games as Matilda of Tuscany , i had Italia(empire),Italy ,Sicily,France and Aquitaine ,i struggled to elect my Byzantine Empress daughter because she was Greek also.
Elective has become even better than it used to be what with the Levy system. Being a King with only Counts ensures you'll be the deciding (only) vote, and you'll get more troops by not having any Dukes around as a bonus.
The other issue with Tanistry is that the Tanists tend to be old, which means you'll lose them sooner rather than later (and, consequently, that you'll be in the short reign penalty more frequently).
Elective arguably takes a little more work once you're hitting the empire level, simply because it becomes harder and harder to unite your various electors behind your preferred candidate. That said, if you've been managing your dynasty properly, you'll always be able to find someone they can live with, and chances are that someone will still be a better character than whatever random bumpkin your Tanistry electors give you. In other words, the (practical) worst-case scenario for Feudal Elective ... well, looks a lot like Tanistry. The actual worst-case is getting your dynasty voted out, of course, but I find that in practice it's extremely easy (too easy, in fact) to avoid that.
It's possible that Tanistry's slightly better when you're at the point of true imperial sprawl and FE becomes an issue, but at that point, you probably want to be shifting to Primogeniture anyway. Until then, being able to choose your exact successor is *extremely* powerful, not just because you're guaranteed a good statline, but because it allows you to consolidate claims with trivial ease. With elective, it's quite easy to forge an empire in great sweeps, rather than needing to pick away at your target kingdoms duchy by duchy.