Strategies for managing Gavelkind succession without cheesing

[Gnolfus]

Hi.

Recently started playing this game, can't believe I haven't bought it earlier.
I have 1300 hours+ in EU4, and while CK2 is fairly different, it didn't take me too long to grasp the general gist of the game.

Currently playing as Kingdom of Noregr, from a 769 start as Svidpod (Sweden), where I reformed to Fylkir before the death of my first king and conquered all of denmark and sweden (but without making the kingdom titles) including Norway, for which I made the Kingdom title, and passed Gavelkind law in favour of Elective Gavelkind (which will make new kingdoms on succession).

Had two sons, and I had to butcher the second one for obvious reasons.

Now, since I only have one kingdom-tier title, my realm will always stay intact on succession. However what annoys me with Gavelkind isn't that my other sons inherit land, it's the manner in which it happens, where my previous desmene which I've invested in will be split apart, and especially my main ducal title being given to other sons leading to a situation where I hold only the capital, but my brother(s) holds the rest of the duchy and claims which always leads to fraternicide from either side.

The "easiest" way to manage Gavelkind is obviously to just make sure you have only one male heir, either through divorcing or butchering your other children. However, I feel that this is a lame way to play, and I'd like to have several sons.

I've read that if you assign appropriate amounts of land and titles to your other sons, you can keep your ducal titles and your two main duchies intact, because the divison of land takes into account existing titles. My question however is how this functions; if my ruler holds the standard kingdom title and two duchies with two sons, and give my second son two duchies, will the succession "algorithm" decide that it's an even split between my primary and secondary heir and we both happily keep our assigned duchies, and my previous desmene structure won't be ravaged?

I feel this would be a much cooler way to play, as more sons essentially means you need more land, and you can actually play a game where your dynasty at least sort of gets along in stead of just killing each other off all while keeping your kingdom intact as long as you only hold one kingdom or empire level title.

Has anyone tried this? Any other tips?

[Valentine Michael Smith]

I find elective gavelkind pretty easy to manage once you understand it. Your primary heir gets elected from someone in your dynasty and it's usually not one of your sons. Like the rest of gavelkind your land is split between the rest of your heirs which will be your sons. The way the game hands out land is it parcels out a duchy to each heir and if there aren't enough duchies to go around it starts splitting them. So the key is to have one full duchy you control to hand down to your primary heir while having excess counties to give to your children.

[Gnolfus]

Originally posted by Valentine Michael Smith:

I find elective gavelkind pretty easy to manage once you understand it. Your primary heir gets elected from someone in your dynasty and it's usually not one of your sons. Like the rest of gavelkind your land is split between the rest of your heirs which will be your sons. The way the game hands out land is it parcels out a duchy to each heir and if there aren't enough duchies to go around it starts splitting them. So the key is to have one full duchy you control to hand down to your primary heir while having excess counties to give to your children.

Yeah elective, my vassals always voted for my first son though.

The problem with elective gavelkind is that upon succession it can create new kingdom titles for your sons, which means your realm wont stay intact. That doesn't happen with normal Gavelkind.

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

I seriously don't worry about it too much. I am either expanding fast enough to replenish what I lost or it doesn't take long for my siblings or other vassals to do something stupid where I can strip them of their titles. I prefer it to primogeniture for the 30% bonus in demense and not having everyone pissed at you for having primogeniture.

[The Cure]

You could have only bastards, and then legitimize the best one. You may consider that a bit cheesy as well though.

[Valentine Michael Smith]

Originally posted by Poofus:

The problem with elective gavelkind is that upon succession it can create new kingdom titles for your sons, which means your realm wont stay intact. That doesn't happen with normal Gavelkind.

you can avoid that by conquering less than you need to form the kingdom and if it does form and does split you still have a claim you can push to take it back.

[that guy]

Originally posted by Poofus:

My question however is how this functions; if my ruler holds the standard kingdom title and two duchies with two sons, and give my second son two duchies, will the succession "algorithm" decide that it's an even split between my primary and secondary heir and we both happily keep our assigned duchies, and my previous desmene structure won't be ravaged?

I don't know how exactly the algorithm functions either. From experience, I feel that a kingdom title is worth much more than a duchy title, which is itself worth a little more than a county title. I'd say that a duchy title worth roughly about 1.5 counties. A kingdom title is probably worth 3 or 4 counties. But that's just a guess. Usually I just keep giving land to my younger sons until I don't get the alert that my lands will split on my death.

[Malvastor]

Not sure if this works for pagans or not, but as Catholic I take free investiture and assign bishoprics to my younger sons.

[Chomp]

I used to just do what you said with the making all but 1 male heir 'dissapear' but i think it's ven easier to just have a small demense and invite noble to court and hand out all the titles to content characters (of a lower tier of course). That way there is nothing to hand out and it's effectively like having primogeniture

[Valentine Michael Smith]

Originally posted by that guy:

I don't know how exactly the algorithm functions either. From experience, I feel that a kingdom title is worth much more than a duchy title, which is itself worth a little more than a county title. I'd say that a duchy title worth roughly about 1.5 counties. A kingdom title is probably worth 3 or 4 counties. But that's just a guess. Usually I just keep giving land to my younger sons until I don't get the alert that my lands will split on my death.

It splits the titles among your heirs. It splits them as evenly as it can among tiers. So it'll check emperor titles and split those, then kingdom titles and split those, then duchys and split them and then counties. Every heir gets a county unless they're disinherited (ie made a bishop or join a holy order) but it won't split up duchies if there are enough counties to go around.

[Sergent H]

It's why after you reformed you change succession law, like in reality nobility realised that its better to concentrate your title and not split

[Azunai]

in my experience, if you're king or emperor, gavelkind tries to hand out counties outside your capitals duchy first and will leave your main duchy to your heir if you have enough other titles to hand out (ie. spare counties outside your capital). and it tries to split up top tier titles if you have multiple of those.

in the long run, it's best to have only 1 top tier title (1 kingdom or 1 empire) so it won't split your realm on succession and to pick a nice large captial duchy as your demesne which is (mostly) safe from being butchered and have some additional demesne counties outside the capital which will be handed to your surplus kids on succession (ie. you have to revoke or conquer some new extra counties afterwards to prepare for the next succession).

you can also hand out titles to spare sons before you die. sons that already received land while you still live will not necessarily get even more land from the succession. if you already gave each spare son a newly conquered duchy for example, then chances are that the succession law will not even touch your demesne at all and may even allow you to keep multiple kingdoms.

the worst time for gavelkind law is the transition from 1 kingdom to 1 empire, since it's hard to make that switch without holding multiple kingdoms for a while. if succession happens at that stage, it sucks. but once you have your empire title, it's really not that bad since the split will be an internal affair that won't release your hard earned kingdom titles into independence automatically.

[Gnolfus]

Yeah, got two sons now.

Strangely the second only wants for one kingdom title (I have two, created empire of scandinavia) and one duchy title, as long as I only hold two duchies + empire and two kingdoms.

Going to try to create another kingdom title (Ireland) because I'd rather have him set up there, I am guessing that once that happens he might want for more because I'd have 3 kingdom titles in total.

Giving away your land to your sons beforehand until the "titles lost on succession" is gone seems like the best approach.

[that guy]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1309941770
This is a screenshot of one of my games. I put numbers next to the lands held by the sons (2 = 2nd son, 3 = 3rd son, etc). I don't remember why I gave the kingdom of Denmark to the 4th son outright, but it did not split off because of succession.

[Hasefrexx]

I've read that if you assign appropriate amounts of land and titles to your other sons, you can keep your ducal titles and your two main duchies intact, because the divison of land takes into account existing titles. My question however is how this functions; if my ruler holds the standard kingdom title and two duchies with two sons, and give my second son two duchies, will the succession "algorithm" decide that it's an even split between my primary and secondary heir and we both happily keep our assigned duchies, and my previous desmene structure won't be ravaged?

I don't have the specifics in mind and they changd how it functions many times, however what I do is that when I have revolts, I systematically revoke titles and hand them out to sons. Succession gets updated ingame quickly after each time I assign new titles so I know what I will keep and what I will lose. I think that primary duchy (duchy of your capital) SHOULD go to your main heir if there are enough lands for a decently fair split., and the game tries to keep titles together (so if you hand out a county in a duchy you own, then it will designate that heir to inherit the duchy in which it has the county).

Anyway, just keep feeding, at some point your main duchy will be fully inherited by your primary heir. You can have two strategies for the rest of your duchies: either you keep dummy duchies, in essence you don't care which duchy it is because you will lose it, so you don't invest in it, you just get one through revocation at some point. The other way is to hand out a real duchy that you develop to your main heir, though you will need to feed more to other sons and you risk losing the duchy if your heir dies before you.

Lastly, don't be affraid to REVOKE. Since you have claims on inheritance on titles lost, you take no tyranny for it. If you manage well your powerbase, your main heir will always be the strongest, so even in situations where I end up with 3 kingdoms and 3 or more heirs but no empire, I can still easily get it all back in a few years in two wars. I just keep the best duchy in the best kingdom for main heir, then have an easy war with weakest heir for its kingdom, and then I have two kingdoms to fight a single one, so yet another easy war. Ofc always keep a small war chest before dying for emergency mercs and you're set.

[Azunai]

also worth noting that your primary heir will always inherit all your money and your retinue, so even if the succession butchers your demesne, he'll still be in a superior position to reclaim the lost titles.

retinue is more of a feudal thing, though. i think tribals can also have one (not sure), but the max size of the retinue is based on the number of holdings in the realm and for tribals that number is much lower (usually only 1 tribe per province + occasionally also a single temple).

and you can always plot to revoke counties in your capital duchy. may result in a revolt war, but you won't get tyranny for that action and if others join the revolting brother, you get to revoke some of their stuff for free after you crushed the revolt, too (since they are traitors and sit in your dungeon).