Moving capital suddenly changes duchy titles inheritance?

[Phoenix]

I keep getting confused about the intricacies of title inheritance.
Playing as Hasteinn (pre-made start from a county of Montaigu), under Male Preference Confederate Partition law. Have 4 sons. My titles are Kingdom of Brittany, Duchy (jarldom) of Poitiers, Duchy (jarldom) of Brittany.

While I almost gave up on the weird spread of future inherited counties between my sons, at least it resembles what the game says in law description - more or less "equal" reward for everyone (despite it has little to no sense to me giving the son counties in opposite sides of the country, but whatever).

What really stumbled me is this: I just conquered several counties de jure belonging to Duchy of Anjou (that duchy title still belongs to another person not in my realm).

I desperately wanted my eldest son to inherit county of Anjou, so I tried to move my capital there. And this suddenly messed up inheritance of my duchy titles.

Before the move it was: Kingdom goes to 1st son, Duchy of Poiters to 1st son, Duchy of Brittany to 2nd son. 3rd and 4th inherit only counties. That matches my understanding how it supposed to go.

After the move it suddenly is this: Kingdom still goes to 1st son, Duchy of Poiters - to 3rd son, Duchy of Brittany still to 2nd. Thus, my direct heir does not receive any Duchy title all of a sudden.

Does it look like a bug or am I missing something?
Thanks.

[ShepherdOfCats]

I'm not familiar with the french area of the map. Is one of those duchies outside of your dejure kingdom realm?

You should make an effort to have one duchy title to give for each son you have if you are a king. You say you controlled only part of Anjou, so you would have needed to usurp that duchy title from someone else if you wanted it divided up nicely.

Under confederate partition the game tries to make sure that everyone gets something. If all you had to give away was 2 duchies and a few counties, the game gave those away to your other heirs and basically told your first son, "hey, you only got the one capital county, but you got control of the whole kingdom, so you should be happy." It's really hard to play around like you could in CK2 to make sure your son specifically gets what you want him to get. If you don't mind giving up direct control, I usually cheat my other heirs out of land by giving titles to my first-born's own children (my grandchildren) who are in line to inherit.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Early game it's easier just to let them build up their new land a bit, and then arrange marriages with your cousins so the land comes back under your direct control.

(I'd also advise against moving your capital out of your dejure kingdom because it really does make 'border gore' when you die)

[Phoenix]

Thank you very much, you might have given me a few thoughts and led to a sudden breakthrough in understanding what's going on.

One of the duchies (Duchy of Poiters, which my firstborn looses on a capital move) is indeed not de jure part of Kingdom of Brittany.

But it seems the problem was moving the original capital, which was de jure part of Duchy of Poiters, to a city which is de jure outside of it.

The game literally states that player heir receives "Primary Title, Realm capital and any de jure titles associated with it".

I was assuming that the only title which could "associate" with the capital is the county title. But it turns out, while I move the capital anywhere within Duchy of Poitiers, my 1st son will retain Duke of Poitiers title. If I move it outside the duchy, he looses the title. So, as far as I understand, my capital is "associated" with duke title. If I move it to Anjou, which duke title I don't own, it's not "associated" anymore.

So, initial split of two Duchies between 1st and 2nd son, which I considered "fair and by design", was not how inheritance was intended to work. I assumed that all title tree "levels" will try to split equally (and, since we only had two Duchies in family, of course they were meant to split between 1st and 2nd son).

But it turns out, both Duchies were originally meant to split between 2nd and 3rd son. It's just my original capital placement was preventing it, grabbing "an extra Duke" for my 1st son.

Damn, that's hilarious. I still feel like it's just a weird gimmick that just allows me to grab some "unintended" title for my heir. If this is an actual game design, this needs a waaaay better explananation within the game.

But at least I'm no longer having a seizure trying to figure out WTF is happening in this game. Thank you for the tips!

[ShepherdOfCats]

It's rather confusing but I've done so many restarts in the 867 date that I've got a decent understanding of confederate partition.

There's a trick you can do as a count though, to cheat your heir an extra county simply by moving your primary title and then moving your capital, then giving your heir a county he *isn't* supposed to inherit, and then switching your primary title to another county, and moving your capital to that one (the game will let you move your capital as long as you are switching your primary county title to the one you want to move your capital to, because it will be considered moving it back to its "De jure capital"). It's super cheezy. It gets harder to do as a duke or king because you have to have an equal title (and not already have a vassal occupying the counties you want to manipulate in this way)

[VipreRX]

I can't explain the specifics but that makes sense, it's sort of "anticipating" based on your new capital that your primary Duchy title will be Duke of Anjou and resorted the title inheritance based on that.

[Phoenix]

Publicado originalmente por VipreRX:

I can't explain the specifics but that makes sense, it's sort of "anticipating" based on your new capital that your primary Duchy title will be Duke of Anjou and resorted the title inheritance based on that.

My primary title is the King. As far as I get it (now), the future king (my firstborn) kinda isn't "supposed" to have a Duke title at all, by the game rules (unless, maybe, there are "extra" duke titles left after every other son received one, which is too much work to test).

I have four sons now. Even if I, let's say, usurp Duke of Anjou now, as current king, it won't be inherited by my 1st son anyway. It will go to the other sons. As it supposed to.

So, the game grants a firstborn a Duke just because realm capital is "de jure" inside one of my Duchies. Or doesn't if it's not. I can choose the said duchy at will. Doesn't it feel strange?

My realm capital isn't even "de jure capital" of the said duchy. It's just a random place where I own the city. That's why it feels like a joke to me. The game doesn't allow me to grant a single blasted county to my firstborn because he's "not meant to inherit it". But I can grab a random Duke title which grants the whole level of authority over the area and a whole bunch of vassals, basically for free.

[jerrypocalypse]

Publicado originalmente por VipreRX:

I can't explain the specifics but that makes sense, it's sort of "anticipating" based on your new capital that your primary Duchy title will be Duke of Anjou and resorted the title inheritance based on that.

Yeah..if you grab enough titles to make the Anjou Duchy (assuming it doesn't exist yet), your eldest son will inherit that duchy title if you move your capital back there again.

[jerrypocalypse]

Publicado originalmente por Phoenix:

My primary title is the King. As far as I get it (now), the future king (my firstborn) kinda isn't "supposed" to have a Duke title at all, by the game rules (unless, maybe, there are "extra" duke titles left after every other son received one, which is too much work to test).

Not quite. Think of your primary title as a chain up from your capital. If you have a de jure duchy under a kingdom, making your capital a county in that duchy will give your heir the capital county, the de jure duchy to that capital will also go to the heir. The issue here is when you changed the capital to the new county you took, you didn't have the de jure duchy associated with it. If you did, your heir would get that duchy as well.

[Phoenix]

Publicado originalmente por jerrypocalypse:

Not quite. Think of your primary title as a chain up from your capital. If you have a de jure duchy under a kingdom, making your capital a county in that duchy will give your heir the capital county, the de jure duchy to that capital will also go to the heir. The issue here is when you changed the capital to the new county you took, you didn't have the de jure duchy associated with it. If you did, your heir would get that duchy as well.

Yes, and that's exactly what's bothering me a lot. It's not explained anywhere how my capital is "associated" with anything except the obvious county it sits in. In a situation where I normally can't even affect who gets which county, I can freely throw a Duke title to one son or another. That doesn't seem right to me :-). Does it to you?

My 1st son even have a county in Duchy of Poitiers but can only inherit Duke of Poitiers title because I have a capital there. If I leave it as it is, when he inherits the title, I guess he is free to move it anywhere in the future and continue being a Duke.

[The Former]

Only thing I can figure is it's because County Anjou is outside the de jure of any of your formed duchy titles, so giving him a duchy title would require giving him an unfair amount of counties (since Anjou would be added to what he gets).

It's almost surely something weird to do with the combination of the fact that partition creates new titles for your sons if you have enough counties to do so, and tries to divide titles as evenly as possible between your sons.

[Phoenix]

Publicado originalmente por Lockfågel, Paradoxriddaren:

Only thing I can figure is it's because County Anjou is outside the de jure of any of your formed duchy titles, so giving him a duchy title would require giving him an unfair amount of counties (since Anjou would be added to what he gets).

It's almost surely something weird to do with the combination of the fact that partition creates new titles for your sons if you have enough counties to do so, and tries to divide titles as evenly as possible between your sons.

Thank you. We already identified what exactly is going on. It has nothing to do with amount of counties sons get (they just rearrange). It's literally just my capital placement.

Currently, it's a random city de jure in Duchy of Poitiers. While it stays within said Duchy, heir will receive Duke of Poitiers. If I move it into de jure land of Duchy of Brittany, heir will get Duke of Brittany. If I move it into Anjou which is de jure part of Duchy of Anjou territory, my heir won't receive any duke titles since Duke of Anjou currently belongs to some other guy. Other sons will get both duke titles. The situation blows my mind still.

[VipreRX]

Publicado originalmente por jerrypocalypse:

Not quite. Think of your primary title as a chain up from your capital. If you have a de jure duchy under a kingdom, making your capital a county in that duchy will give your heir the capital county, the de jure duchy to that capital will also go to the heir. The issue here is when you changed the capital to the new county you took, you didn't have the de jure duchy associated with it. If you did, your heir would get that duchy as well.

Exactly. A chain is the perfect stand-in. From capital County, to de jure Duchy title of the capital county, to Kingdom title.