Succession is a mess

[Artur]

One thing I really hate about this game, it's a mess created after succession if playing as tribal pagan.
Just wanted to say it.

[Immortalis]

Not really.

When your character dies your titles get divided amongst your children (typically your sons and your daughters get something only if you have no male heir).

If you have a single title that is of a higher rank your eldest gets that title and the other remain as his vassal. If you have more titles of equal ranks (or the potential to create them and you’re using elective gavelkind) those get divided as well.

Your heir (the character you’ll play) gets claim on all titles that were given to others during the succession.

It is quite a linear system as well as one that is absolutely in line with what happened historically, with even powerful kingdom getting divided amongst the children of the former king and falling into obscurity within a couple of generations.

[Artur]

Originally posted by Immortalis:

Not really.

When your character dies your titles get divided amongst your children (typically your sons and your daughters get something only if you have no male heir).

If you have a single title that is of a higher rank your eldest gets that title and the other remain as his vassal. If you have more titles of equal ranks (or the potential to create them and you’re using elective gavelkind) those get divided as well.

Your heir (the character you’ll play) gets claim on all titles that were given to others during the succession.

It is quite a linear system as well as one that is absolutely in line with what happened historically, with even powerful kingdom getting divided amongst the children of the former king and falling into obscurity within a couple of generations.

Not really. If my ruler dying, his titles divided chaotically.
King of Chernigiv can get land in Croatia, while his brother, who got primary title Italy got land near Kyiv.

Game doesn't know how to give neighboring land and it's historically inaccurate. Rulers would not give lands like that to their children, because it's can't be protected.

So, why not to give player right to divide his land among his children?
That would be historically accurate, as this is how it was done in real life.
And player would see what land he should concur to make his son's kingdoms strong and survivable.

[bri]

You can pretty much fully control what stuff goes together when you understand how the system works actually. It's not all that complicated, really, de jure stuff stays together, if possible, and "the rest" gets lumped together.

Of course it's also entirely possible to completely avoid the situation absent some bad luck.

[Immortalis]

Originally posted by Artur:

Not really. If my ruler dying, his titles divided chaotically.
King of Chernigiv can get land in Croatia, while his brother, who got primary title Italy got land near Kyiv.

Game doesn't know how to give neighboring land and it's historically inaccurate. Rulers would not give lands like that to their children, because it's can't be protected.

So, why not to give player right to divide his land among his children?
That would be historically accurate, as this is how it was done in real life.
And player would see what land he should concur to make his son's kingdoms strong and survivable.

But they are not divided chaotically at all. They are divided equally. That’s the entire point of gavelkind. If you have three kingdoms and three counties, that’s what is going to be given out, even if those counties sit halfworld away from the kingdom they inherited.

And historically it has never worked like you would like: the reason why every single feudal lord, no matter his rank moved away from such succession and opted for “the heir gets everything, the rest get nada” is precisely because dividing your lands (in real life even counties were divided, even barony, even individual fields) weakened the family so much that a couple of generations could see it standing in the shadow of complete ruin.

Just look at the situation the Charlemagne and his brother start in and you’ll easily see that “ensuring each can defend himself” was not the top priority here.

For what you want to do, handling out the succession and eventually divide your titles before your death you must move away from gavelkind and opt for a more advanced succession law; which in turns require you to move away from tribalism and on to a proper feudal system.

[Artur]

Originally posted by Immortalis:

Originally posted by Artur:

Not really. If my ruler dying, his titles divided chaotically.
King of Chernigiv can get land in Croatia, while his brother, who got primary title Italy got land near Kyiv.

Game doesn't know how to give neighboring land and it's historically inaccurate. Rulers would not give lands like that to their children, because it's can't be protected.

So, why not to give player right to divide his land among his children?
That would be historically accurate, as this is how it was done in real life.
And player would see what land he should concur to make his son's kingdoms strong and survivable.

But they are not divided chaotically at all. They are divided equally. That’s the entire point of gavelkind. If you have three kingdoms and three counties, that’s what is going to be given out, even if those counties sit halfworld away from the kingdom they inherited.

And historically it has never worked like you would like: the reason why every single feudal lord, no matter his rank moved away from such succession and opted for “the heir gets everything, the rest get nada” is precisely because dividing your lands (in real life even counties were divided, even barony, even individual fields) weakened the family so much that a couple of generations could see it standing in the shadow of complete ruin.

Just look at the situation the Charlemagne and his brother start in and you’ll easily see that “ensuring each can defend himself” was not the top priority here.

For what you want to do, handling out the succession and eventually divide your titles before your death you must move away from gavelkind and opt for a more advanced succession law; which in turns require you to move away from tribalism and on to a proper feudal system.

But they do decided chaotically from geographical perspective.

And historically, even though it was a mess and always weakened ruler, but not that mess.

It's always the ruler who decided how land should be divided.
Yes, it could be strange, but it was ruler decision.

For example, when Yaroslav the Wise divided his lands among sons, he didn't give to one of them duchy near Novgorod, and another duchy near Crimea.
He separated his country that all inherited territories would be together.

And I specifically wanted to play tribal, not fudal. Because I want to face challenge of divided country, not challenge of broken vase that doesn't make any sense

I'm going to try now another game, and have only as many duchies as I have sons. Seems it's the only way to avoid that mess

[Absurd]

im glad you said it, cause up untill now i was wondering when you would say it, and now that you've added it to the history of things that needed to be said, i feel better, thanks man.

[Langkard]

It's risky, but I try to avoid having more than one son as a tribal pagan. Then as a ruler, when my son has kids I prune the extra boys. Might need to do the same for grandson if long-lived. Usually works out. Only have to deal with succession issues occasionally. The downside being that since I play only ironman, all it takes is one bad RNG and it's game over, man.

[bri]

Originally posted by Artur:

But they do decided chaotically from geographical perspective.

Only if you don't have demesne provinces to go with the higher tier provinces. It gives de jure titles whenever possible, if it can't give a county within a duchy's area because you don't have one then it picks one (or more) of your available counties. If you want it to be neat then make sure you have the required counties for it to be neat.

[Artur]

Originally posted by AngelVVhore:

im glad you said it, cause up untill now i was wondering when you would say it, and now that you've added it to the history of things that needed to be said, i feel better, thanks man.

❤️

[Artur]

Originally posted by bri:

Originally posted by Artur:

But they do decided chaotically from geographical perspective.

Only if you don't have demesne provinces to go with the higher tier provinces. It gives de jure titles whenever possible, if it can't give a county within a duchy's area because you don't have one then it picks one (or more) of your available counties. If you want it to be neat then make sure you have the required counties for it to be neat.

Or, if I have county but not de jure duchy.
Or if I have less sons then de jure titles
Or if I have less kingdoms
Etc. Etc
As a result inheritance looks like somebody spit on the map.
So I have constantly be aware of amount of sons and titles. Because I can't give to one of them for example England and Scotland, and for another Poland and Litvonia.
They definitely will get Poland and England vs Litvonia and Scotland.
And then will travel across entire map to protect this shattered world.
I'm trying now to keep like you said, by having necessary amount of sons and titles. Will see how it will work.
But it's unnecessary tedious

[Artur]

Originally posted by Langkard:

It's risky, but I try to avoid having more than one son as a tribal pagan. Then as a ruler, when my son has kids I prune the extra boys. Might need to do the same for grandson if long-lived. Usually works out. Only have to deal with succession issues occasionally. The downside being that since I play only ironman, all it takes is one bad RNG and it's game over, man.

I used to do the same, I used to have only girls up to 50, and then son.
In some societies there is an event, you can choose not to have a child up to certain age.