Losing Everything Upon Death?

[Baked Potato]

Ok so this is my first time playing and I had conquered half of Ireland and then I died and my son took over. Suddenly I lost almost all my territories. My brothers took over some of them? Is there something I'm missing? Do I have to reconquer territories once a character dies and the heir takes over?

[The Former]

For a while. It's confederate partition, and everyone's locked into it for the first few hundred years (until the advent of primogeniture, which is "heir inherits everything"). Here's what happens:

When you die, any titles in your realm, defunct or not, that are equal to your primary title get created (if necessary), then spit between your eligible heirs. Then the lower titles get split. The game tries to get everyone an even share.

However, anything LOWER than your primary title will leave the brothers as vassals of your heir. So for instance say you're King of Ireland and England. When you die, one son becomes King of Ireland, one King of England. However if you ONLY have Ireland, one son will become King of Ireland, and the other a duke who serves him.

[Nyx]

Originally posted by Lockfågel, the Paradox Knight:

For a while. It's confederate partition, and everyone's locked into it for the first few hundred years (until the advent of primogeniture, which is "heir inherits everything"). Here's what happens:

When you die, any titles in your realm, defunct or not, that are equal to your primary title get created (if necessary), then spit between your eligible heirs. Then the lower titles get split. The game tries to get everyone an even share.

However, anything LOWER than your primary title will leave the brothers as vassals of your heir. So for instance say you're King of Ireland and England. When you die, one son becomes King of Ireland, one King of England. However if you ONLY have Ireland, one son will become King of Ireland, and the other a duke who serves him.

Just a note you can somewhat avoid partition giving away titles you want by give your heirs each a title below your highest. For example say you are a king you can give your four heirs each a ducal and a county combo and thus avoid them taking titles you want usually. Also Also you have a primary at every level of title so you have a primary county, duchy, kingdom, empire; so if you have one duchy and five counties your duchy and your capital county will always go to your main heir.

[Dufflebags]

Confederate partition is a bit of a learning curve. Pay attention, because even when you get to empire level and are passing on the empire, you want to make sure you're still passing on your main duchies and counties you spent the last 'x' hundred years investing in.

[Baked Potato]

Are there any good youtube videos about it, showing how it works? It sounds super complicated. It's been wild. The son of the first king lasted half as long, suddenly died, then his son who was like 20 years old took over but he was sickly and died within months so now his 9 year old took over and I'm quickly running out of heirs... lol!

[Dufflebags]

Originally posted by Smashed Potato:

Are there any good youtube videos about it, showing how it works? It sounds super complicated. It's been wild. The son of the first king lasted half as long, suddenly died, then his son who was like 20 years old took over but he was sickly and died within months so now his 9 year old took over and I'm quickly running out of heirs... lol!

For sure there is. Just google. But I relate, at 180 hours almost I still feel like a total noob from time to time.

But, one strategy I've learned. Open your active election tab often and check who all the electors are voting for. If lots of them aren't voting for your heir, you should try to change that. A quasi effective method I've found is to stick your spy master on them until you discover a secret, then use your hook to force their vote at the end of your life span.

When you open the succession tab it will show you red exclamation marks for lands your going to lose - some of it you just have to accept and raid that county immediaty after you take the throne because you'll have that claim. So just check what you're willing to lose and not.

For me I like to get two duchies very close together and make sure I keep those all game aswell with my kingdom. My vassals can fight over everything else.

EDIT: once again though, make sure you pick two core duchies early and keep them. Losing them was the beginning of the end for me cause I was only focused on my empire.

[local news]

Yeah it's pretty easy to manage it. Just give 4-5 counties each to your sons and it won't break your domain apart. U can check how much land u need to give each of them in the realm menu-- sucession part. Try not to have too many sons and marry your kids to older women or wait till they are 30 to find another 30 year old for them. U can plot to murder your grandkids if your main heir is having too many sons

[local news]

If u conquer too much your brothers might inherit an entire kingdom and then the only option is to beat them and the land back, u will always win since u inherit the menat arms and your dads money. Ideally u wanna form an empire as soon as possible to stop your brothers from becoming independent kings, and at that point u can just follow what I suggested in the above comment just give them any newly conquered 5-6 counties and they won't take land from you on inheritance. But if u conquer 2 empires worth of land the realm will give your second son a while new empire so be careful and expand slowly till u go from conf partition to normal partition( this stops them from forming new titles on inheritance)

[Dufflebags]

Originally posted by local news:

Yeah it's pretty easy to manage it. Just give 4-5 counties each to your sons and it won't break your domain apart. U can check how much land u need to give each of them in the realm menu-- sucession part. Try not to have too many sons and marry your kids to older women or wait till they are 30 to find another 30 year old for them. U can plot to murder your grandkids if your main heir is having too many sons

I could be totally wrong here, so take no offence. But at first I followed this strategy, but I found over successions my powerful family members would make things difficult for me. I feel like it's actually better to invite a no name bum guest to your court and give them titles.

Make your vassals fight for every inch of power they get. Because no matter how much they like you, if they get stronger than you, they will betray you

[Dufflebags]

Originally posted by local news:

If u conquer too much your brothers might inherit an entire kingdom and then the only option is to beat them and the land back, u will always win since u inherit the menat arms and your dads money. Ideally u wanna form an empire as soon as possible to stop your brothers from becoming independent kings, and at that point u can just follow what I suggested in the above comment just give them any newly conquered 5-6 counties and they won't take land from you on inheritance. But if u conquer 2 empires worth of land the realm will give your second son a while new empire so be careful and expand slowly till u go from conf partition to normal partition( this stops them from forming new titles on inheritance)

I had my benficiaries from crusades become extremely powerful dynasty allies in my first few playthroughs and thought it was the best strategy ever. But my last few took a turn. Randomly, they kept just taking land from me without wars or anything because they where entitled and a vassal died. I perpetually found myself in a state where a patch of my empire would be the wrong color cause one my supposed allies or dynasty members took it from me.

I even had moments of weakness where my brothers straight up declared war on me over a moment of weakness and generations of alliances.

EDIT: it's in their code. The second they feel they could defeat you in a war they will try without any real foresight or long game in mind

[Josh]

Your best bet is dis-inheriting sons until you get to primogeniture.

[Dufflebags]

Originally posted by Josh:

Your best bet is dis-inheriting sons until you get to primogeniture.

I did this once and it worked great, but I wasn't paying a lot of attention. What's the penalty or cost for disinheriting?

[Kapika96]

Originally posted by Dufflebags:

Originally posted by Josh:

Your best bet is dis-inheriting sons until you get to primogeniture.

I did this once and it worked great, but I wasn't paying a lot of attention. What's the penalty or cost for disinheriting?

It's massively expensive in terms of renown, which is hard to come by and is spent on dynasty legacies which can give your entire dynasty great permanent bonuses.

Not sure the kind of people that use disinheriting, but I assume it's basically a noob trap. To me the costs FAR outweigh the benefits. Especially since those benefits can be gained through numerous other ways that don't cost anything.

[Josh]

Originally posted by Kapika96:

Originally posted by Dufflebags:

I did this once and it worked great, but I wasn't paying a lot of attention. What's the penalty or cost for disinheriting?

It's massively expensive in terms of renown, which is hard to come by and is spent on dynasty legacies which can give your entire dynasty great permanent bonuses.

Not sure the kind of people that use disinheriting, but I assume it's basically a noob trap. To me the costs FAR outweigh the benefits. Especially since those benefits can be gained through numerous other ways that don't cost anything.

"Noob Trap"

Lol. It's not expensive at all, especially when you start running down the line and you expand your dynasty through betrothal marriages with the leige's son's heir's, and you start making upwards of 5+ reknown per month.

See, the benefits of doing it this way is that you know for sure until you get primogeniture that it's going to happen this way. Though I'm sure if you want to believe someone who probably doesn't take full advantage of the marriage system, I'm sure you'll think it's a "noob trap" too.