Expanding under confederate partition as tribal king

[Silent Ember]

Hi, all.

I'd like to get some options/suggestions on whether to expand from where I am, and how to do so.

Situation: 867 start with the tribal count of Temne, in Guinea (west Africa). Religion is Roog Sene, which has gender equality by default. Quickly consolidated the Duchy of Sapi, and then conquered all the territories within the Kingdom of Guinea, which I formed. I held on to all of the four counties in my primary duchy; gave away all the non-capital counties to councilors and content courtiers; and planned to give the duchy-capital counties to my children (successfuly made my second son a duke, and I'm holding off to the last duchy until my first daughter/third child comes of age). I disinherited my first son who had ♥♥♥♥♥♥ stats, so now my duke son is also going to inherit the kingdom and the primary duchy (I tried to get the first son killed by sending him alone as a knight to fight enemy armies, but he just got imprisoned).

Goal: I wanna form the Empire of Guinea, which consists of 8 kingdoms. To create the title, I need 77 de jure counties and 2 kingdom titles.

Obstacle: Confederate partition. As a tribal ruler, it seems I can't even get regular partition easily, so if I have enough de jure counties in a kingdom that hasn't been created, the title will be created for my children, splitting my blob. In a previous game, I conquered enough land to form the Kingdom of Toro, and I gave the capital duchy to my fifth child (who had good congenital traits). However, I didn't double check the succession pane and my second son, who was a duke in Guinea, ended up inheriting the Kingdom of Toro and taking three of Guinea's counties with him.

What are my options for expansion? Do I just take a few bordering counties, keeping it below the kingdom-formation threshold and then stop? Is there a way to guarantee that certain children (who won't inherit titles within my main kingdom) will get secondary kingdom titles? It would be nice to get 8 kings/queens of my own dynasty and have an alliance with everyone, but it seems impossible to make that happen.

[gidro]

You are right, staying below the kingdom formation threshold is an option, until it's not enough to form your empire. Don't know about Guinea, but in britain it was not possible to form it with only two kingdoms and half of the rest, at some point i had to take risks.

Managing your sons is the best way and you should get used to that part of the game asap. Don't have too many kids, send the sons you don't want into battle so they can die sometimes, or disinherit as a last resort because the cost is not nice. ( If you're head of your dynasty only )

And prepare for a tense moment where you know one ruler will have to grab the land you need to create the empire, and can't die mid way in his conquest if you have more than one son. Better be quick about it :)

Also, for having 8 people from your dynasty ruling over the 8 kingdoms at some point, sure why not. Once your empire is created, murder, claim, revoke, do what it takes to make it happen, you'll have all the time you want.