Why is it that, with Gavelkind succession, I lose all but 2 counties while lesser heirs get as many as 4 or 5 in my vast and rapidly gained Nordic kingdom? Doesn't it make sense to keep the same amount of counties for everyone?
Why lose every county?
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I believe it tries to keep duchies together, so an heir getting one county in a duchy will usually also get the remaining ones unless that would prevent some other heir from getting anything. Moving your capital to the duchy where you have the most holdings should help give your primary heir a bigger demesne.
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The problem is that gavelkind doesn't assign land - as it should - but titles. So if you get a Kingdom and your brothers get duchies you get a smaller demesne as a result. That this is both illogical and ahistorical has been pointed out repeatedly but it's never been fixed.
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Wouldn't it make more sense to just evenly divide up every tier of title? It seems that being a King makes you lose every Duchy and Country and that's just sad.
It is a balance feature an fully WAD. You get a king tier title probably with a good amount of vassals which makes you stronger then your Duke brothers. Once you understand how elective gavelkind works you can easily get around with it.
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They get the counties, because they are still your vassal. You get the Kingdom, which is worth a LOT more than individual counties.
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How in the world is it ahistorical and illogical?! You don't seem to understand why being the boss of a Kingdom with little land is worth more than being a vassal of a Kingdom with more land.
VERY historically accurate. Look at France, for example, in most of this time period. The King had piddly lil lands in Isle-de-France and/or Orleans while many of his vassals (Aquitaine and Gascony) had HUGE tracks of lands. But the King of France was still technically more powerful. Yes... it can, at times, create uber-powerful vassals, but that's one of the points of gavelkind.
VERY historically accurate. Look at France, for example, in most of this time period. The King had piddly lil lands in Isle-de-France and/or Orleans while many of his vassals (Aquitaine and Gascony) had HUGE tracks of lands. But the King of France was still technically more powerful. Yes... it can, at times, create uber-powerful vassals, but that's one of the points of gavelkind.
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If anything, Gavelkind helps greatly keeping Vassals under control. I love Gavelkind for just that reason.
A Duke gets to big? Give him another Duchy, wait for succession, and his lands split up into 2 vassals.
A Duke gets to big? Give him another Duchy, wait for succession, and his lands split up into 2 vassals.
I didn't say it wasn't WAD, I said it wasn't logical or historical - and no matter how many times this has been discussed it has never been fixed to be logical or historical.
Gavelkind implies the equitable distribution of land (the demesne) but what you get is an equitable distribution of titles. This leads to younger sons being better off than their elder brother (and new liege) in terms of taxes and troops, which in turn leads to an increased likelihood of Kinstrife as the stronger younger brothers try to overtrhow the weaker elder brother or as the elder brother tries to seize the land of the younger brothers to correct the balance.
The last bit is the real rub, not even the AI thinks the system is fair.
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The King of France did not have small holdings because of Gavelkind, he had small holdings because of how the Capets came to be kings in the first place.
I understand the argument that it's "better to be boss of a Kingdom" but that's only true in certain circumstances, Gavelkind leaves the King weak as an individual lord, which undermines his right to be king to begin with, and it's not "Gavelkind".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavelkind
For an example of nobles using something like Gavelkind in the CKII time period you would be looking at the partition of the Carolingian realm, either between Charlemagne and his brother, or later into West, Middle and East Frankia. Other examples include the partition of Ferdinand I of León's realm into three parts on his death, or the division of Henry II's realm between his three surviving legitimate sons, where Richard got the greater share of lands and the Kingdom, Geoffrey got Brittany and John got nothing.
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You actually think the younger brothers would agree that the land is fairy distributed, if they had the same amount of holdings as their older brother, but the older brother also is their Liege?
The younger brothers have more land, but the older brother has all the vassals.
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I think that often medieval nobles were willing to take everything their brother had - Henry I being a prime example.
In principle, however, I think that - yes - if it was not possible to divide the realm then people would expect to get an equal share of land, and the concept of a patriarchal society does include a "father of the household", even if that's actually your brother. In this period land is wealth, land means horses and sheep and cattle, and taxes from tenants. Gavelkind is the equal division of wealth, not title.
If you want to argue that its WAD and therefore that's how it should be fine. However, I gave you several examples of division of a realm in the medieval period /division of a King's titles and the wikipedia link to how Gavelkind actually worked in real life; the way it works in-game is not historical.
Present me some evidence of this sort of partitioning in Europe where a noble got "top title" but his brothers got more land to placate them. I hazard that you will find no examples - such an arrangement would destablise realm by weakening the liege in favour of vassals with a claim on his titles. In reality the eldest son usually got the lion's share so that he could better overawe his brothers.
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Since this is a game first, I don't really care about the history. We're playing the game, there needs to be some balance to that. It's more balanced to give the top liege less demesne. And makes for far more interesting gameplay.
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You're entitled to your opinion but please don't try to rationalise the game system against history or realistic psychology.
Personally, I think you'd feel different if factions were more effective, so that you really had to worry about your own demesnes and levies vs your vassals because it might be all you were left with. As it stands your brothers need a leg up if they're going to even consider challenging you. In my mind that shows how interlinked all the game systems are, a problem in one place cascades down through everything.
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It's because gavelkind is a little bit screwey, though it is a lot better than it was before they tinkered with it (used to be really horrible, with your main heir getting 1 county + kingdom and your secondary heir getting 6 counties and 2 duchies and crap like that).
Seriously, Paradox need to let us allocate land under gavelkind. It's ridiculous to think that a king who had decided to divide his land between his children wouldn't be able to decide WHAT land they get. I mean, Didn't Karl and Karloman's father (769 start) decide to give his two sons the land the way he did to make them work together, rather than fight one another? So it has basis.
We should obviously not be able to screw all other children in favour of the primary heir, giving the primary heir 4 counties while giving the secondary heirs only 1, or even just a barony. We should have to make it fair. But let us choose!
Seriously, Paradox need to let us allocate land under gavelkind. It's ridiculous to think that a king who had decided to divide his land between his children wouldn't be able to decide WHAT land they get. I mean, Didn't Karl and Karloman's father (769 start) decide to give his two sons the land the way he did to make them work together, rather than fight one another? So it has basis.
We should obviously not be able to screw all other children in favour of the primary heir, giving the primary heir 4 counties while giving the secondary heirs only 1, or even just a barony. We should have to make it fair. But let us choose!
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jup, when yur char is cloe to deadth, simply kill all heirs except one best and problem solved.
No mater which system you implement here in the place of Gavelkind there are enough examples in history to argue against it.
I quote my self here:
The focus on the authenticity stops us from talking about the real issue of gavelkind.
Player information and understanding of this law! Once you understand how it works you can deal with it and it sometime can be a very good succession law. But how you get there? Just look at the ckiiwiki page. How should a person that just played a few hours understand what this article is taking about. You need good understanding of English and of the game to finally understand the rules of gavelkind. And without the wiki you are completely lost. The game itself doesn't tell you why your brother get those counties or the other Kingdom gets created (EG), at least not in a why you can easily understand as a noob. That's why we have a gavelkind thread very week. There need to be a why an how, in game, to simply understand why gavelkind is doing that stuff is that it does. I irks me that EVERY week there is a thread about this topic. This needs to stop. The historical debate on this topic doesn't help at all with this problem.
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You are to, but please don't try dragging realism into my game in favour of balance.
And yes, I'd feel different if factions were more effective. I'd love this game a lot more if they were.
Court intrigue and balancing vassal opinions is what this game is about after all.
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You can't kill your own children without gamey actions that border on cheating.
I refer both of you to my first post in this thread when I said it was "neither historical nor logical." CKII is an historical simulation, therefore it should approximate history, in a way which is logical and easily understood by the player. To be clear, what I am saying is that not that it should always be "history first" but equally the game should avoid anachronism and mechanics that are blatantly counter-historical. Generally speaking there should be a way to "approximate" history if you design all the mechanics to works together.
The "Gavelkind" law fails both those tests, it's demonstrably nothing like historical practise of gavelkind and it's counter-intuitive in the way it assigns land and titles. On top of that it can lead to consistently odd behaviour from the AI and gamey tactics from the player. Giving less land to the liege creates a weak liege with one or more vassals stronger than himself with a claim on his titles. This provokes both player and AI (player more than AI) to make an internal land grab, either revoking titles or just straight up murdering their kin. That could still happen if gavelkind worked logically but it would be less likely.
My point is this - gavelkind as is is WAD to cover for the excessive difficulty in toppling your liege if he's your brother. Younger brothers are given more land to make it easier for them to win a Civil War.
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