Should I go Elective Monarchy?

[Angry Soviet]

I'm currently King of Andalusia (result of a successful Crusade), as a well as King of Bavaria. The current inheritance law is Agnatic-Cognatic Gavelkind. Is it worth it to change to Elective Monarchy? What are the pros and cons? I don't want to have all my vassals end up betraying me and ending up without my titles.

[darklord0426]

It comes down to Personal Preference and how desperate you are. For example, that Gavelkind sucession law sounds really painful to me so you might want to take a chance to keep everything under one heir and go Elective. However, I really don't like the idea of Elective, mostly my vassals usually hate me and don't vote the way I want them to, so I like to stay clear of either.

If you want to keep everything under one heir and don't want the uncertainty of an Elective Monarchy, I suggest going Senority. Downside, in the end you get some older characters who take over and don't rule for very long. I don't see this as a downside, just something to adapt to.

Again, it comes down to preference. Technically if you do everything right, your vassals will be voting for you and your family members!

[jaded.tortoise]

I tend to only go elective in a couple cases the common one being I have a kingdom and a small enough realm that I can have all my vassals be counts and up to a maximum of one duke. Since if you are a king only dukes can vote that means the only votes are you and the one duke and your vote will always trump theirs. So you can just choose your successor.

It is also fine when you are starting out and have no vassals for the same reason.

Once you get big enough there are multiple vassals that can vote though I can't stand it. Even if I have vassals at 100 opinion they still vote for others all the time.

[Cryten]

Voting does not follow opinion of the ruler but relies on opinion of the electees as well as being strongly linked to presteige.

[Zorlond]

In other words, Elective successions benefit from having large families with many members being landed. This allows the voters to 'shop around' for a decent candidate, one with +vassal traits and high Diplomacy, and alows potential candidates to play politics to try to get some more votes.

As long as the chosen heir is of your dynasty (and not Inbred or something), there really shouldn't be a problem in making it work for you.

[jfoytek]

Elective is fine if your elector pool is comprised of your dynasty....

Otherwise I prefer Ultimogeniture,

Going with the youngest child will typically give you an entire lifetime of play. It allows you to really build up each character and get the most out of them. The one downside here is regency is possible with a revolt too boot. But if your Dividing the realm out properly to ensure you maintain the troop advantage this typical revolt turns out to be helpfull in afterwards you get the Crushed Major Revolt modifier...

Also you can use Ultimo as a good transition to get your family in place for Elective to work.

[pavig]

Elective tends to work for me because it allows for grooming of an heir. Give your best kid some land and work on their and your prestige. Foster good relations and things tend to go your way. You may need to sabotage any rivals who become too powerful, but that's the case with any succession law. ... also beware any ambitious characters in your realm.

[HellFalcon]

Elective is implemented in worst possible way and just insanely buggy and stupid.
There are no way one should apply it, unless he wants to exploit badly implemented game mechanics.

[HellFalcon]

Originally posted by pavig:

Elective tends to work for me because it allows for grooming of an heir. Give your best kid some land and work on their and your prestige.

Usually that's how your Ironman game ends, unless most of your electors are of the same dynasty as you.

[Sergent H]

gravelkind (kill all children except heir)---->ultimogeniture---->primo

I always do that and always be fine

[Neshamah]

Originally posted by HellFalcon:

Elective is implemented in worst possible way and just insanely buggy and stupid.
There are no way one should apply it, unless he wants to exploit badly implemented game mechanics.

I almost always go Elective when available. The entire focus of my playstyle is dynastic. It's very simple: If just about everyone in your kingdom/empire is a dynastic relative, it doesn't really matter who gets 'elected.' Sometimes you may have to settle for a 'less than desirable' heir, but the game continues, and your dynasty keeps the throne.

[Soteria]

I wouldn't do elective with multiple kingdoms on the line, though. It's not that hard to get them to vote for someone acceptable in one kingdom, but it gets painful to manage the electors of multiple kingdoms--sometimes the strongest candidate in one isn't available in the other. If gavelkind and elective are your options, consider destroying one of the kingdom titles unless you need it for an empire later. At least, consider doing that if it looks like your realm will be divided.

[Neshamah]

Originally posted by Soteria:

I wouldn't do elective with multiple kingdoms on the line, though. It's not that hard to get them to vote for someone acceptable in one kingdom, but it gets painful to manage the electors of multiple kingdoms--sometimes the strongest candidate in one isn't available in the other. If gavelkind and elective are your options, consider destroying one of the kingdom titles unless you need it for an empire later. At least, consider doing that if it looks like your realm will be divided.

Yes. If you are holding more than one kingdom title and don't have an empire yet your best bet is primo or ultra (IMHO). That way all holdings stay with your primary heir. I hate destroying titles, but if it is necessary to keep your holdings together, bite the bullet and go for it. Sometimes you just have no other options.
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One additional note: If you have an empire, Viceroys are great. You can give out a kingdom to a troublesome vassal and when he dies, you get the kingdom back. Not to mention that, because he is so happy to be Viceroy, he now votes for your favorite heir.

[Sergent H]

One additional note: If you have an empire, Viceroys are great. You can give out a kingdom to a troublesome vassal and when he dies, you get the kingdom back. Not to mention that, because he is so happy to be Viceroy, he now votes for your favorite heir.

Emperor elective, i wouldn't risk it. When you're emepror, it's more simple to be in primo and remain it.

Yeah viceroy are great. I thought tool late I could have made elective monarchy on my kingdom title and then give them to duke of the kingdom. This way duke will manage themselves without me and i have got too many kingdom title and viceroy penalty (-2 per each) is like -30...

[Neshamah]

"Emperor elective, i wouldn't risk it. When you're emepror, it's more simple to be in primo and remain it."

Honestly, I don't usually have a problem with it. I concentrate on bulding my family, giving my family increasingly powerful titles. Then, when election rolls around, almost everyone is a dynasty member, so I just vote for my favorite.

Sometimes, if they are upset for any reason (or owe favors, etc.) they might vote for a different heir. But, if worse comes to worse, since it is most likely a dynasty member anyway, I just vote as they do. As I said, sometimes you wind up with an 'undesirable' running things for a while, but now he is YOU, and you can choose to straighten his @$$ out and become a half-way decent person.

That's just my playstyle. Your mileage may differ.

Edit: I should add that I usually start as a count or duke, so I'm building my holdings as I build my family. It does make some things easier.

[Sergent H]

Sometimes, if they are upset for any reason (or owe favors, etc.) they might vote for a different heir. But, if worse comes to worse, since it is most likely a dynasty member anyway, I just vote as they do. As I said, sometimes you wind up with an 'undesirable' running things for a while, but now he is YOU, and you can choose to straighten his @$$ out and become a half-way decent person.

That's just my playstyle. Your mileage may differ.

Your playstyle/ point of view is quite interesting. I play based only on my heir because generally my others males dynasty are a bother : revendicate my titles, vassals want them as emperor etc... So i just let them at abandon (bad education) and marry them somewhere for alliance. Women aren't a problem for heritance for that.
In my current game i'm double emperor and control all North to East europea, from germany to Couman, Sweeden to bulgaria; so after a conquest i give a county somewhere to my other children to get dynasty prestige. I'm 70 old, my heir is bright and his heir is genious, good perspective :D