Changing FROM Elective Monarchy

[Ghost Engineer]

So I started playing as Greater Poland with the goal of eventually becoming the King of Poland.
The whole playthrough is a story in itself but now that I am the King of Poland, I have a problem.
To become a King I forced the previous king to institute Elective Monarchy. I then assasinated him and basically elected myself (I don't really know how I had so many votes but I did).
The thing is that I now want to change the succesion laws back to something else (even Gavelkind since I'm very used to managing that + I could use the extra demesne size).

This is probably the first time I really looked closely into the Inheritance tab and I'm not sure if I understand how this works.
Do I really have to change to 'Elective Gavelkind' first and then to something else ? That sounds like a terrible idea. At least I have the Elective Monarchy under control right now.
Is this how it has to go or is there a different path that I don't see ?

[Marcus]

Well done but my advice would be to stay on Elective. I have over 2000 hours playtime on here and trust me Elective is the best and easiest if you planning on wanting a big realm and keeping everyone relatively happy.

One of the key advantages to elective is that you have very few factions and rebellions as the lords and nobles of your realm feel they have a say and a small chance in becoming top liege. It may sound daunting but trust me with Primo the first born son is very seldom the best one to rule and with Gavelking you have the huge risk of your realm splitting up on succession and ending up with siblings inheriting and going independent - all your hard work down the drain.

If you want to increase your demesne size rather increase centralization and improve your stewardship. It also helps alot if you choose a wife with at least 15 stewardship.

To ensure the best one inherits all of your titles nominate a child or kinsman with the highest stewardship and if he has good traits you will see in time that eventually he becomes the chosen one. It can sometimes take a while for everyone to vote for him but I have always had the one I elected as ruler becoming the next ruler!

I often when my ruler is old and got one foot in the grave choose the stewardship focus cause it is great if you can get the depressed trait. So if the race gets tight and your chosen candidate is not yet the next heir but 2nd or 3rd in-line I imprison and execute all competition and then commit suicide - but as I have said I have always managed to get my chosen candidate to be the next heir!

Good luck.

[Ghost Engineer]

Ohhh now I see what I misunderstood.
I saw all the requirements and it says:

All of the following must NOT be true:
• Has the law 'Full Council Authority'
  
• Has the law 'Elective Monarchy'

I thought it meant that both of them have to not be true simultaniously. I did just become the King so it was all greyed out due to my short reign but I wanted to know in advance, what my course of action should be.

[Lantantan]

Primogeniture isn't that great, but Ultimogeniture is amazing! Marry someone old, concubine 3 genius/strong lasses. Keep breeding until you get a genius, then set them all aside. If you're a christian, you can do something similar, you'll just need to use seduce. The great thing about bast-ards and ultimogeniture is that you can legalize the one with the best stats! I guess you could only sire bast-ards with primogeniture too, but often you do want to expand your dynasty.

[Awkward Quetzal]

Originally posted by Lantantan:

Primogeniture isn't that great, but Ultimogeniture is amazing! Marry someone old, concubine 3 genius/strong lasses. Keep breeding until you get a genius, then set them all aside. If you're a christian, you can do something similar, you'll just need to use seduce. The great thing about bast-ards and ultimogeniture is that you can legalize the one with the best stats! I guess you could only sire bast-ards with primogeniture too, but often you do want to expand your dynasty.

Its terrible if you sire a great heir, but die immeditetly after. I can testify this while playing the mongols with the original tribal government and unchageable ultimogeniture inheritance.

[Ghost Engineer]

Well, my character died before I got an opportunity to change it so I gotta wait 10 more years anyway.
I haven't settled on what I'll change to, but to me, having Gavelkind isn't so bad as long as I don't have 2 titles of the same rank as my primary. Even if I lose a county or two on succesion there's always a 'turbulent vassal' with a title to revoke or an assasination to be carried out. For a mid-sized kingdom it's easily managable when employing the same strategies as for Ultimogeniture. Don't have too many sons and NEVER create titles you don't need right now.
I have set up a situation where I hold the largest duchy in the kingdom and my son has the 2nd largest. When I die he gets both and then can immidiately grant the smaller one to his heir. This way his heir is ethernally grateful and never causes any trouble almost no matter what. I've already done this on 2 succesions and it has worked splendidly.
I think in my current situation I can't afford to do Ultimogeniture because there's a whole crowd of kings, dukes and others just waiting to press their weak claims on my kingdom and I'm not gonna risk a regency.
I'm gonna wait until I know how many children I'll have anyway to not screw myself over if there's like 5 sons.

[Lantantan]

Both healthy ways of life and high lvl doctors make it very hard to suddenly die. Because you can still get an heir at age 45 and you typically die at 65-80, you get succesive very long reign bonusses because you tend to rule a full 60 years.

But yeah, gravelkind can be very manageable. Do be carefull, during succesion, titles of the same rank as your primary can get created. For example if also controll all of the kingdom of lithuania (title or no), the second son becomes independant as a full king.