Yet another partition gripe

[Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom!]

IMO it's fair to rehash conversations after a patch comes out which doesn't address them.

The partition system seems intentionally designed to give the smallest number of counties possible to the primary heir. As far as I can tell, this is a way of stabbing players to make the game seem "challenging". However, it's done in a way that makes no sense when analyzed.

For example, I just died and inherited 6 counties. I have 3 eligible sons. Originally the primary heir was going to get 1 county, with the others getting 2 and 3. The primary heir was a POS, so I disinherited him to make my second son my player heir, and divide the realm one way fewer. Now the 6 counties are going to be split 4/2 against my player heir.

Why? This makes no sense. Why would the heir who is considered to be the primary heir get the smallest cut? There is no logical reason other than the obvious: to create "challenge" in the game. Nonsensical challenges are not fun challenges.

If anyone out there is going to answer that "There is nothing wrong here, this makes total sense, get good scrub", then I pose a challenge to you: Find a historic example to back this up. There are P L E N T Y of examples of feudal inheritance. Find me the example where the heir who this game would consider to be the primary heir, ie got the most valuable title, also got the least land.

 

[aono]

How are this counties distributed between duchies/kingdoms?
(and no, the system isn't designed to give smallest number of counties possible to the primary heir)

 

[InsidiousMage]

(and no, the system isn't designed to give smallest number of counties possible to the primary heir)

It kind of is. I've got a Haraldr Fairhair run going right now as king of Norway with six counties, two duchies and five sons. Eldest gives the kingdom and the capital duchy and county. Second son gets the second duchy and three counties. Third and fourth son each get a county from the capital duchy. Fifth son gets nothing despite Second son having counties to spare. I've never seen the game give away counties from anyone who isn't your primary heir regardless of how many sons, duchies and counties you have.

Partition is poorly designed blunt instrument that is meant to either challenge the player or encourage them to spread their dynasty yet fails at both. A fail state for partition is based entirely around RNG since conquest is simply enough and barely a challenge unless you are count and even then it can be easy enough if you know what you are doing. Spreading your dynasty is it's own reward so players will do it on their own if they want to. The only reasonable explanation I've seen for including partition is that it's supposed to mirror the lack centralized power in the game's time period but there are plenty of other ways to do that and would also probably make the game more interesting, challenging and enjoyable. Lower domain limits, have sever penalties for holding multiple titles of the same rank that are lessened over time as you unlock innovations that allow for centralization, have strong willed vassals that can actually limit the players ability to do things and you need to compromise with them to get what you want. I'm not a game designer but I'm positive there are tons of other ways to do what partition is supposed to but in way that isn't one of the worst game mechanics of all time.

 

[InsidiousMage]

Here is another example of partition taking from your primary heir when taking some your second heir would be more equitable and sensible. Taking from the second son would lead to the eldest two sons each getting a duchy and two counties while in both scenarios the youngest son gets one county.

 

[ACShadow]

The way it is designed, all lower heirs become your vassals. If you take counties away from secondary titles, some heirs would be vassals to other heirs.

 

[Snadasky]

The way it is designed, all lower heirs become your vassals. If you take counties away from secondary titles, some heirs would be vassals to other heirs.

Nothing wrong with a third kid being the vassal of the second. They are all still ultimately your vassal even if it's a layer farther down the onion.

Besides ultimately it is a critique of how it's currently designed so if that part of the design conflicts with a proposed change then it would be part of the change.

 

[aono]

It kind of is.

No. The system is build on non-splitting of titles given away.
If you have two sons, capital duchy with 8 counties, and non-capital duchy with 1 county, your main heir would get 8 provinces, and second heir would get one.

That's an example I like. As you can see, first heir gets 15 counties, second one gets 2, third one gets 3.

 

[Sozey]

The partition system seems intentionally designed to give the smallest number of counties possible to the primary heir.

I don't think that's the reason.

If you take a look into the early middle age (Charlemagne f. e.), you will see, that if you have 3 sons, your empire would be split into 3 equal empires. Luckly the game does not do this. Your firstborne son becomes king of all the realm (or duke) and that is "worth more" than f. e. 3 counties. So your later born sons get compensated for beeing vassals and not beeing independet.

That's the way I see it.

 

[The Norman Yoke]

Nothing wrong with a third kid being the vassal of the second. They are all still ultimately your vassal even if it's a layer farther down the onion.

Besides ultimately it is a critique of how it's currently designed so if that part of the design conflicts with a proposed change then it would be part of the change.

Why should your third son be so unworthy he becomes a vassal of your second son? He should be a vassal of your first

Here is another example of partition taking from your primary heir when taking some your second heir would be more equitable and sensible. Taking from the second son would lead to the eldest two sons each getting a duchy and two counties while in both scenarios the youngest son gets one county.

View attachment 730116

They're keeping the duchies together to prevent border gore

 

[Roseah]

The game is already far too easy for the player. You get the highest tier title and the capital associated with it reguardless of anything, and get to keep any MaAs in the army. If you focused on improving your primary title capital county it’s extremely easy to take back lands of your siblings. The only difficultly is when they become your vassals as they don’t always accept title revocation, but again there are so many ways to deal with this it seems almost broken towards the player.

Primogenture is such a boring way to play the game imho. Your primary heir is guaranteed everything. I mean where’s the challenge? You may as well just ROFLstomp your way across the map in a game where the AI is already bad at war this makes it even more easy to just blob the entire map.

 

[InsidiousMage]

No. The system is build on non-splitting of titles given away.
If you have two sons, capital duchy with 8 counties, and non-capital duchy with 1 county, your main heir would get 8 provinces, and second heir would get one.

That's an example I like. As you can see, first heir gets 15 counties, second one gets 2, third one gets 3.

And in the Haraldr example I posted my youngest isn't getting anything even though my second son has counties to spare. Even if the intent is not to split the realms of you non-primary heirs the effect is that it essentially punishes your heir if you don't have enough titles to go around, which is the point being made in the primary post. If you asked me, the best way to divided Haraldr's realm would be to give each son one county, the eldest two a duchy and then eldest son the remaining county since he is going to be king and needs to be able to, you know, defend the kingdom.

I mean where’s the challenge?

Where's the challenge in Partition? It's just a chore that the player given to do. As you yourself mentioned, conquest is hilariously easy in the game and the partition forces the player to go on a bunch of conquest so, again, what's the challenge? Hoping you don't die before you have enough land to give to all of your kids? There are also so many ways to cheese the game if you want to avoid partition like disinheriting sons or shoving them in a monastery or whatever other method super-special-awesome method half for the forum seems to have for avoiding partition.

 

[aono]

And in the Haraldr example I posted my youngest isn't getting anything even though my second son has counties to spare.

I'm sorry, why your second son obliged to give parts of his inheritance duchy to his brother?

 

[InsidiousMage]

I'm sorry, why your youngest son obliged to give parts of his inheritance duchy to his brother?

First, it's the second oldest son giving something to his youngest brother. Second, this isn't real life, we are talking about game mechanics and I have zero interest in talking about the inalienable rights of fake people in game. Should history be reflected in how the game works? Yes, but it's still a game and it needs to be fun or challenging to play as game. It needs to work in the way people think it should work based off of what it's says it will do. Partition says "All Children Inherit Equally" but I guess my second son is just more equal than all of this younger brothers. Sucks for them I guess.

 

[aono]

Second, this isn't real life, we are talking about game mechanics and I have zero interest in talking about the inalienable rights of fake people in game

Game mechanics - inheritable titles aren't break down. If a person inherited a duchy, he get a duchy, not some counties in a duchy, until it's top level title.
It's logical, it's effective, it's working, it's generate less border gore.

 

[The Norman Yoke]

Where's the challenge in Partition? It's just a chore that the player given to do. As you yourself mentioned, conquest is hilariously easy in the game and the partition forces the player to go on a bunch of conquest so, again, what's the challenge? Hoping you don't die before you have enough land to give to all of your kids? There are also so many ways to cheese the game if you want to avoid partition like disinheriting sons or shoving them in a monastery or whatever other method super-special-awesome method half for the forum seems to have for avoiding partition.

There's tonnes more if you have partition
Do you conquer new lands to give to your spare sons to keep your original titles
Do you disinherit sons using costly dynasty mana
Do you make them take vows
Do you plot to kill your own children and imprison them to secure succession
Partition makes you weaker and more prone to giving into factions, but it also means your spare sons now have their own courts and so will have more sons allowing you to spread the dynasty out
Those spare sons might only have daughters and then you can inherit parts of your rivals realm with a strategic marriage

 

[The Norman Yoke]

The game is already far too easy for the player. You get the nicest tier title and the capital associated with it reguardless of anything, and get to keep any MaAs in the army. If you focused on improving your primary title capital county it’s extremely easy to take back lands of your siblings. The only difficultly is when they become your vassals as they don’t always accept title revocation, but again there are so many ways to deal with this it seems almost broken towards the player.

Primogenture is such a boring way to play the game imho. Your primary heir is guaranteed everything. I mean where’s the challenge? My may as well just ROFLstop your way across the map in a game where the AI is already bad at war this makes it even more easy to just blob the entire map.

Agreed but you now gain men at arms whenever you become landed. Early game you might want to kill your sibling counts to inherit their men at arms

 

[Amtep]

If you take a look into the early middle age (Charlemagne f. e.), you will see, that if you have 3 sons, your empire would be split into 3 equal empires. Luckly the game does not do this. Your firstborne son becomes king of all the realm (or duke) and that is "worth more" than f. e. 3 counties. So your later born sons get compensated for beeing vassals and not beeing independet.

Actually his empire split into three independent kingdoms and the empire title was destroyed.

CK never does that but imho it should.

 

[InsidiousMage]

Game mechanics - inheritable titles aren't break down. If a person inherited a duchy, he get a duchy, not some counties in a duchy, until it's top level title.

Then why does your primary heir's duchy get partitioned out? If the game can partition out the counties of a duchy that your primary heir is getting then the game can clearly partition out some of your other heirs counties as well.

It's logical, it's effective, it's working, it's generate less border gore.

Given that the game literally says "All Children Inherit" I'm going to say the mechanic isn't logical, effective or even working as it should. Especially since it has the effect of just punishing your primary heir whatever the actually intent is, which the whole of the thread.

 

[The Norman Yoke]

Then why does your primary heir's duchy get partitioned out? If the game can partition out the counties of a duchy that your primary heir is getting then the game can clearly partition out some of your other heirs counties as well.


Given that the game literally says "All Children Inherit" I'm going to say the mechanic isn't logical, effective or even working as it should. Especially since it has the effect of just punishing your primary heir whatever the actually intent is, which the whole of the thread.

Partitioning your counties but keeping them as a count only within your duchy helps prevent border gore

Actually his empire split into three independent kingdoms and the empire title was destroyed.

CK never does that but imho it should.

Charlemagne doesn't seem to have put succession of the imperial title in his will, but whilst merovingians and karlings pre treaty of verdun made all of their sons Kings, they were still seen to have some shared governance in each others realms, and that they should unite for common issues such as invasion, so they wouldn't be completely sovereign if one another.

Louis the pious is the one son that doesn't predecease Charlemagne and so inherits the whole, using the imperial style and claiming it as his inheritance, with even a byzantine emperor agreeing to him using it in diplomatic messages. Louis appoints his sons to be sub Kings to learn how to rule and set up power bases for when Louis is dead. It's only when Louis is dead, and his 3 sons contest each others share of inheritance that the imperial style starts to wane, with lothair not having much influence in his two brothers realm

 

[Bannerman21]

They're keeping the duchies together to prevent border gore

Precisely. The reason your primary heir doesn't get as many counties is because you didn't consolidate your domain. All of your counties are in a whole bunch of different duchies.

Here's how I presume it works: First it checks how many Empires you have, and it goes down the list of your sons/daughters (only a mix if you have Equal) and gives one to each until they run out. Primary title first. Then it does the same for Kingdoms. If there's more than one per child, it loops around and gives another to your primary heir, then another to the second, and so on. Then it does the same for Duchies. If an heir recieves a specific Kingdom title, they will recieve all Duchy titles you own in that Kingdom. For example, if your eldest gets Norway, and your second son gets Denmark, your primary won't recieve any Danish duchies, and your secondary will not get any Norwegian duchy titles you own.

As for counties, if you don't have a Duke-tier title it's a bordergorey mess, but even if you start as a Count, working your way up to Duke is not hard. Anyway, if you are a Duke/Duchess or above and have multiple duchy titles, your non-primary heirs will get all counties in their duchy. Heirs who do not get duchies take from the primary heir, and the primary heir only. This is important to keep in mind if you run out of duchies.

This is because, without this, there would be stupid amounts of bordergore, doubly so if all/any of these secondary heirs became independent.