Succession Question

[eats2much]

Just started playing this game and love it. United Ireland, and by the third Irish king started moving into Wales. Took enough counties to create the kingdom of Wales, which I did. Had two sons, and the primary heir would retain the Kingdom of Ireland and his younger brother would become the King of the Welsh. I assumed the Welsh king would still have the Irish king as his liege, but upon their father's death (who was holding all the titles), it separated entirely, and I only had control over Ireland again.

Any legal way I could have prevented this? Presumably once I get to primogeniture this won't be an issue, but any advice to empire building prior to that? I even had the highest crown authority and thought perhaps "Vassal titles cannot be inherited by characters outside the realm" meant Wales would remain in. But nope, didn't happen.

And I understand that I could have killed or disinherited the second son, but that's not really the issue. I don't mind splitting titles, I want to avoid splitting realms.

[PostalGibbon]

Disinherit your first or second son so all your titles go to one son/heir. Same ranking titles always split the realm (king cannot rule another king as a vassal). Murder (if you are first in line to inherit) or conquer land again. I always disinherit to time when i get primogeniture.

[AC Denton]

Just have one kid or disinherit the others. It's just a core part of the game, it's meant to be this way. If you could prevent it early it would be primogeniture pointless.

[Kimlin]

If you wanted your second son to be a king the realm would need to break. This is if you have multiple titles of the same tier as your primary.

To keep the realm together with confederate partition there are a few tricks you can use.

1. Give titles to your second son until he is no longer eligible to inherit any. I believe 2 duchy equals a kingdom.
2. Add an elective succession to your non primary kingdom title/s
3. Disinherit/kill your second son

[AmesNFire]

Alternatively, play the dynasty game and use your Welsh sibling to help conquer another Kingdom on the isles and focus on uniting the Kingdoms under the Empire title.

[Flybox]

Originally posted by eats2much:

Just started playing this game and love it. United Ireland, and by the third Irish king started moving into Wales. Took enough counties to create the kingdom of Wales, which I did. Had two sons, and the primary heir would retain the Kingdom of Ireland and his younger brother would become the King of the Welsh. I assumed the Welsh king would still have the Irish king as his liege, but upon their father's death (who was holding all the titles), it separated entirely, and I only had control over Ireland again.

Any legal way I could have prevented this? Presumably once I get to primogeniture this won't be an issue, but any advice to empire building prior to that? I even had the highest crown authority and thought perhaps "Vassal titles cannot be inherited by characters outside the realm" meant Wales would remain in. But nope, didn't happen.

And I understand that I could have killed or disinherited the second son, but that's not really the issue. I don't mind splitting titles, I want to avoid splitting realms.

If your question is, could you have kept the Kingdom of Wales in your realm while still passing it to your second son, no. Whatever succession you have, a king will never be the vassal of another king, so if you have two sons inherit two different kingdoms, they will be independent of each other.

My recommendation is to just roll with it. You now have a second kingdom in your dynasty, which gets you more renown. Stay friends with your Welsh brother, but just make sure he doesn't get strong enough to claim Ireland from you.

Alternatively, slow down your conquering. If you had conquered less than 50% of Wales, then the kingdom of Wales would not have formed, and the land would have stayed part of Ireland. Your second son would have become a Duke, and stayed a vassal of your heir.

[eats2much]

Thanks everybody. Really appreciate the info and definitely learned some things. Appreciate the help.

[Supply Slut]

Others have covered most of what you need to know. Most people build an empire by slowly acquiring more land, but there an another route you can take.

If you can, make an alliance with your brother the welsh king, use the alliance to conquer new counties and duchies for Ireland in the English and Scottish region. Your goals should be: form kingdom of Scotland so it can split like welsh did while also growing the Irish crown with English counties.
Eventually you should be able to create kingdom of England. Make this your primary title, it’s the biggest of the kingdoms, solidifying your hold on the isles.

Finally, conquer your dynasty members on the other thrones, uniting them in a single glorious lifetime, creating the empire of Britainnia. Now you can let dynasty members be vassal kings and you’ve got the whole enchilada. Leading up to that you’ll also earn a ton of renown.

[Twelvefield]

I was going to add much the same: your view needs to be dynastic. As long as things stay in your family, and as long as you keep making heirs, and as long as everybody gets along (more or less, and sometimes getting along means allowing someone to accept a poisonous snake in their bed), then you can plan for an empire!

As an example where it all goes wrong, playing in Denmark I had a brother who took half the land in succession. We got along just fine, though, so that side of the family was vassalized to mine. His wife, though, we hated one another, and I had her banished. Fair enough, she married into another court. For two hundred years, her family worked on a claim to my titles, and while I sat and played happy King, she (and her heirs) marshalled my enemies against me. They eventually presented their claim, I rejected it, and then half of Europe used my corner of Denmark as their welcome mat. Yee-owch.

[St3amfails]

alternately, just dont create the kingdom title (or any title matching your own) until you are ready to create the empire. Some situations having that ally kingdom is great. Others you want control of it all since the ai is... flaky.

[CrUsHeR]

Your primary heir will inherit a claim on Wales. So you would sort out any potential factions in your own realm first, then reclaim the Kingdom of Wales through war.

It is intended to work this way until you can create an empire. Just ignore the posts above about disinheriting everyone, this would only be the very last measure if you cannot provide enough titles in one generation.

All you need is to hold one duchy or kingdom title per extra son, let the partition law do its thing. As long as your primary heir keeps all the counties, you've done it right.

This does of course mean that you need to constantly expand your realm through forged claims or holy war / conquest.

[Jrago73]

If available you can also change the succession laws on both kingdom titles to elective feudal and try to control the vote to pass both to the same heir.

[Sid1701d]

The one thing you also got to look at is confederate partion. The county title is the lowest de jura claim and can't be destroyed, each counter belongs to a higher tittle either duchy or princpetalities depending on what it is called, in some areas they are called petty kingdoms. If your vassel got a tittle equal or greater than you they become free and independent. So in the early game its wise to hold on to the duchy titles but give counties away as giving anyone a duchy tittle would fracture the realm. Once you get to kingdom level hold the kingdom titles and only give duchy titles and hold on to county and kingdom and 2 duchy tittles you are allowed to have as king. regular confederate partion looks at the de jura tittles and see if any title is not created if there is one that is created it will transfer that one to each of your family members if there is not and one can be created it will create it and transfer the title to your heirs, the high partion will partion existing tittles but won't create new ones so until the tittle of whatever is equal to your tittle is created it will be part of your domain but once its created even by your vassels it becomes independent. This is why you can only hold one Empire tittle as its the highest tittle as soon as another empire tittle is created in your land your realm splits.