How does meritocracy work exactly?

[SKull]

I got my first succession and it divided up almost all of my starting duchy so I had to spend a few years getting land back. The male heir I had groomed was suddenly voted king of Pommerania, my other son became the Duke of Sjaelland under the king of Saxony and my daughter got the main kingdom in Norway with three of nine counties. I also lost four kingdoms, although that was more expected.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1582564218

Gerdr turned out to be amazing though, and probably the best commander I've ever bred. But I would like to know how meritocracy works before she dies, if poss. Trying to conquer England quickly so I can form the empire there instead of in Scandinavia. That became a total mess after the last succession, and her father got murdered so all claims were lost there. But I'm running out of time in Britain, which is half conquered by France so the wars get a bit bigger.

[Azunai]

meritocracy is a copy of the heir designation feature of the buddhist and jain religions.

if you don't have the india DLC, i think it doesn't work at all (probably not intended - but wasn't patched yet afaik)

if you have the DLC, you should be able to designate one of your children as the main heir. if you run primo or ultimo, the kid gets all. if you run gavelkind, they become the main heir / next character, but sibllings still get their share.
the system also can't bypass gender preference - ie. you can't designate a female if a title is agnatic-cognatic and there are also male children available.

the actual designation process is simple - there's a button icon where there would normally be the "heir" crown symbol. you click that button on the sheet of the kid that you want to designate.

doesn't have any effect at all when you run an elective succession type (tanistry, elective gavelkind, elective feudal, new HRE system, new byz system, new eldership system). not sure about seniority. maybe that gets disabled altogether as an option.

[SKull]

I do have the India expansion. I get the small crown on my heirs' portrait, but I can't click it. I guess I need to switch to primo or ultimo first. Haven't gotten that far yet.

[Azunai]

if you're still in elective gavelkind, it doesn't work. you can't designate heir in any of the elective successions - just nominate your preferred candidate through the "nominate" function on the succession law screen.

should work for regular (hereditary) gavelkind, though.

[SKull]

Right, that's what I thought. But I still haven't figured out why my starting duchy was divided up so badly. I had Norway, Denmark, Saxony, Lappland and Pommerania + misc outside it and only four siblings. Yet everything was handed out to more distant relatives, which usually doesn't happen just with gavelkind.

[Azunai]

haha yeah gavelkind can be pretty crazy. I've played the game for about 700 hours and i still honestly can't predict how gavelkind will butcher my realm.

i'm under the impression that your main heir usually gets to keep all counties in the capital duchy if all his siblings already have at least one county. so landing the kids in freshly conquered lands is usually a way to (somewhat) preserver the core of your demesne.

but that's just a general observation. there are also weird rules i don't really understand. my solution is usually to try and limit the gavelkind period to 1-2 generations (or switch to some sane law right away if that's possible from the chosen start)

[Random]

Gavelkind divides up titles outside of your duchy first and if none are available or if you have more children then titles it will then start to divide your primary duchy counties up.

EG: you are ragnarr. your duchy has 4 counties. you conquest out a heap of finland and personally hold onto the titles up to ~9 your demesne max.

You have 5 male sons. your first born son will get your duchy with the 4 counties in it. your second son will get 2 counties in finland and likely become the duke of finland. your 3 remaning sons will receive 1 county each in finland and be transfered to vassals of the new duke of finland.

Your first 3 sons will receive strong claims against eachother for the duchies in question, meaning your first born son can immediately attack the 2nd born finland son for his title thus re-uniting your realm again.

Now, if you however gave away a bunch of titles in finland to say nobels or spawned vassals. and you only kept your primary duchy with the 4 counties in it. your realm instead will divide the primary duchy amongst your 5 kids by having the first born in your capital county, and the following 3 sons in a county each within your duchy, while leaving your 5th son landless in your court. In this scenario however you will not get claims, but you will be able to plot to revoke all the 3 sons inside your primary duchy. This isn't as bad now with tribal retainers as you will still have a sizeable standing army.

The point of gavelkind is you need to expand for each generation in order to secure land for each heir outside of your primary, so that you do not lose access to your primary duchy.

If you secure more land outside your primary title than you have sons, it will instead give even more to the second and beyond son, so in the case of you only have 2 sons, the second son would get everything in finland from my previous example and you will still be reduced to a single capital duchy with 4 holdings. In this particular case it would be wise to spawn nobels and land them in a few of the counties so that the second son only receives 1 or 2 counties weakening him for your future re-conquest.

[SKull]

Yes, but that's the thing. I had four kingdoms that I all lost and one duchy. I also had three different siblings taking land inside the duchy after succssion. But my father only had four children. They were all inside the duchy while all the kingdoms and the duchy were given to cousins and things. Didn't make any sense.