Why can't I punish my relative's murderes

[Dolin]

Long story short, I'm the Chatenois emperor of Francia. I tend to land my relatives, including my sons whenever possible.

However... My landed relatives also tend to be murdered one way or another, often without any proper reasons! And even with reason, you can't just murder the son or brother of your emperor, the mightiest and wealthiest man in Europe!

But hey... There's no way the mightiest man in Europe, crowned by the Pope himself, can retaliate whatsoever againt the petty duchess that decided to kill her husband. Or the worthless King of Austrasia, his ancestor crowned by mine, who excommunicated my precious (fourth) son for no reason and killed him straight after I transferred the vassalage of Champagne (thus my priest-son). Or the rightful King of England (my second son) who got deposed and murdered

How long will it take for my first born son to be killed by his whore of a known adultress wife (I doubt any of my grandchildren is truly of my blood); why can't I make him divorce this godless woman!

ARGGHH... WHY!?

These events always are an unpredicted challenge... but I'd like to do something about the people that murder my sons without justified reason.

 

[Vokasak]

If I had to guess, it’s for the situations where the shoe is on the other foot. Cutting down Karlings is a great hobby, but it’d be much more problematic if all 300+ of them got free revenge on you any time you messed with one leaf on the family tree

 

[Hajji]

Could it be you are a not nice king? Maybe there is a pact out to sever your bloodline. Either way it is a conspiracy. Have you joined a nefarious order to gain revenge? the satanist like to kidnap people and torture them. I think if answer to first question is negative this could be your playstyle.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

you have 1 intrigue. 1.

 

[C-5]

They were burnt at the stake, most likely they had a sercret religion or joined secret cults and hunted by the court chaplain if the court chaplain didn't caught the wrong person.

That's why I always avoid marry my sons & daughters to a foreign court.

 

[Rags17]

you have 1 intrigue. 1.

This.

Your character doesn't even think like that - he is Just, Kind, Content and Trusting, if your daughter in law says that your son slipped and impaled himself on his own knife then it would be pretty churlish of you to doubt her.

Go with the flow and RP it - get her into your court and marry her to an Ugly, Hunchbacked Imbecile with Lover's Pox. She deserves to be happy !

 

[afrodius]

They were obviously witches.

 

[knppel]

Yeah you really might consider picking intrigue focus for once, or at least seduction, even a maidservant lover could save lives here, literally

 

[AlexArgos]

Go with the flow and RP it

Or you could disregard RP and just murder all known culprits (unfortunately you can't do anything with "suspicious circumstances")!!!
Start with the unfaithful daughter-in-law. Just make sure to have a good replacement in your court to suggest to your son as his next bride or he's likely to marry the 1st wench he comes by or the 1st inbred with high prestige and claims.

 

[knppel]

For those who are not aware, using intrigue focus, while basically allowing to slander and falsely arrest innocent people, also allows to discover real dirty secrets if used on the right target- such as, who is whos real father, or, who might have been involved in the murder of whom.
The requirement is simply to spy on someone that has a real dirty secret you can discover.

Observing relations between npc's and checking out who profits from what possibly is thankfully not relying on PC intrigue skill.
Logic implies to check out whomever got pushed up in the line of inheritance, not the poor dumb girl that now will not be queen because someone killed her hubby.

Oh, disregard all That!
I just checked the screens in detail and realized all your family burns each other at the stake.
You have a problem with secret societies much rather from the looks.
Given you made him your apprentice and he's thus bound to not join the satanists or the annoying secret religious cults, your heir should be safe here (Unless his wife decides she is better off with his son ruling- check out her relation to him, if she's intriguing).

To avoid religious cults, avoid coverting vassals by demand- they're bound to keep practicing their crap in secret and start a society to undermine your realm, and eventually lead to a witch hunt because Hunt Apostates is default action.
Just ignore vassals of false religions, revoke titles and redistribute them if possible, and squash revolts.

 

[AlexArgos]

who might have been involved in the murder of whom

I use intrigue focus very often and have never come across such an event. I only ever discover current plots.

 

[knppel]

It's considerably rare, given you have to be spying on someone who in the past was involved in such a plot, that succeeded without being discovered. Unlike hidden bastards from Mali men, you can't easily spot out murderers, though, hence why it's relatively rare- unless you observe plots, let them succeed, and then investigate the conspirators to blackmail them. Which is an awful lot of work to get rid of someone, imho. No wonder the rulers back then prefered absolute dictatorships over like, rights of men and presumption of innocence

Given in the end of the day most characters in an average playthrough are not vile mass murderers, it's indeed a real niche to investigate murders- I know it often looks different, but the exceptions the player spots state the rule, a majority of characters dies without anything in their kill list, and even most rulers only have like the odd burned apostate or a guy in prison from a rulership focus event or a plot or such.

Specially tricky is that as soon as a person is dead, you can not check up their rivals anymore- and rivals are even more prone to plot to murder each other than people who can inherit each other's titles. Unless you're aware upfront how your vassals and courtiers are standing to each other, and thus can take guesses who could have been involved beyond the obvious new heir, more often than not you'll just look like the 1-Intrigue-Emperor in the op, and sigh it off if the kids play murder again.

 

[Dolin]

Okay, mister emperor Leudast has 1 intrigue... but also totally capable spies.

And we know who murdered his sons right? So that gives us the target anyhow. If not, it would state "died during suspicious circumstances", not?

It might be true that some of them were Fraticelly followers, as for some reason they're thriving in Francia (even with 100100 Catho authority). Even the emperor's own brother doge Ageric II is one!

 

[afrodius]

Yes and as filthy heretics burning them alive was not murder, but a perfectly justified execution.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

Right, it's not murder, so you're not allowed to be upset.

 

[knppel]

Looks like the 1-intrigue Emperor put too much effort into research of technology and not enough in hunting apostates. It happens, not blaming. I once had a manichean conspiracy in a Zoroastrian game which must have developed for two generations until I discovered it, by them openly declaring.