[POSSIBLY OUTDATED] Gavelkind Succession and You: A Comprehensive Guide to Gavelkind

A complete, comprehensive guide to Gavelkind and how to use it to your advantage

****NOTE****

I have not been maintaining this guide for several years now - my apologies. I stopped playing CK2 awhlle ago but will definitely be picking up CK3 when it comes out!

Cheers,
-Satanic Doge

Introduction

Hello fellow Crusader Kings! In this guide, I will walk you through the Gavelkind and Elective Gavelkind succession laws. We’ll discuss how they work, their advantages and disadvantages, how to switch away from them, and I’ll wrap up with some of the real history surrounding Gavelkind laws. Because I’m a nerd like that, and you probably are too if you’re playing this game. Gavelkind succession is one of the mechanics in this game that frequently befuddles new players. It’s difficult to manage, but with some cunning and luck, you may not even have to switch away from Gavelkind, and you have some good reasons to keep it if you can manage it!

Before we start, NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER PRESS THE “ASK FOR HELP WITH MANAGING MY TITLES” BUTTON!!!!! It will screw you in every which way possible.

What is Gavelkind/Elective Gavelkind?

Gavelkind succession means that when a ruler dies, his or her titles are divided as equally as possible among their heirs. Gavelkind is the default succession law for most cultures and religions in the game. If you’re tribal, Gavelkind succession is the only succession law that you can have (unless you’re Mongolian, which has ultimogeniture, or Irish, which has Tanistry).

“But wait, what do you mean “primary title?” Good question. It can mean one of two things:

• The highest title you hold - if you have only one Count/Duke/King/Emperor title, this is your primary title
  
• If you hold more than one King/Duke/Count title, you can designate which one is your Primary title on the title screen. Click “Make Primary Title” for the highest level title that you want to be your primary. For example, if you’re the Duke of Leinster and the Duke of Meath, you’ll have to choose which one you want to make your primary title and the one that your primary heir will get.

How Does Gavelkind Function?

Gavelkind Under Feudalism:

Let’s have a hypothetical. Emperor Satanic Doge of the Empire of Scandinavia has three sons: Huey Doge, Dewey Doge, and Louie Doge. Huey Doge, being the oldest, is our primary heir. In our Empire, we have the kingdoms of Sweden (our original kingdom), Norway, Denmark and Finland. Our primary title is our highest title: Emperor of Scandinavia. When Emperor Satanic Doge dies, Huey Doge would inherit the Empire of Scandinavia. Now that there are no more emperor titles to give out, the game moves on to kingdoms:

• Huey Doge, our primary heir, gets our capital county/kingdom, Sweden
  
• Dewey Doge would get Norway
  
• Louie Doge would get Denmark

But wait, there’s 1 more kingdom to give out! So now we go back to our eldest son, Huey Doge, for Finland. Rinse and repeat the process for the duchy and county titles that you hold.

How does this affect your heir’s demense?

In this example, because Satanic Doge only held counties within Sweden (he was a wise ruler and gave out his titles that weren’t within de jure Sweden), Huey Doge will inherit the entire demense. Dewey Doge and Louie Doge (usually) won’t inherit counties that are outside of their kingdoms.

Gavelkind Under Tribalism:

Under tribal government, you have Elective Gavelkind, which is essentially combination of Elective Monarchy and Gavelkind. Your vassals vote on which of your legitimate male children they want to be your heir and then Gavelkind does its magic when you die. The biggest difference between Elective and regular Gavelkind is that under Elective, your junior heirs have the option of becoming independent upon succession.

Note for Pagans: If you both reformed your religion and hold Kingdom or Empire titles, your primary heir will inherit both titles (the religious title AND the political title).

Advantages of Gavelkind

Gavelkind has some pretty significant advantages over other succession laws like Primogeniture:

1. Your demense can a bit larger. The game says 30% larger but the actual math behind it is more complicated. This makes you less dependent on your vassals for money and troops.

2. No Crown Authority requirements to choose - you can switch to Gavelkind succession any time that you’re allowed to change a law.

3. You won’t lose prestige for having unlanded adult sons, the way you would if you had Primogeniture, because they’ll be landed when you die (but the penalty is almost negligible).

4. Ensures that your power, income and military are distributed in a way that ensures that no one of your heirs gets too powerful (this can also be a disadvantage)

5. Titles will always stay within your dynasty, and your dynastic vassals have a +20 opinion bonus

6. Your vassals and not-first sons really like it. Opinion modifiers for Gavelkind succession are as follows:

• All Vassals: +5
  
• Your oldest child: -10 (they would much rather have Primogeniture!)
  
• The rest of your children who can inherit: +10
  
• Other dynasty members: +10

Disadvantages of Gavelkind

Disadvantages of Gavelkind Succession

Most players hate Gavelkind for the following reasons

1. If you have more than one heir, your realm seriously risks fracturing and you are likely to lose land upon succession

2. If you have Elective Gavelkind and two or more sons, the younger sons always have the option of becoming independent upon succession

3. You cannot destroy titles, taking away one powerful tool for stabilizing inheritance and your realm.

4. It's the LEAST stable of all succession laws - succession crises are inevitable if not managed properly

5. Elective Gavelkind is by far the worst, least-stable form of succession in the game (but it's the only one available to tribes!)

If Disaster Happens and Your Realm Breaks Up or Your Demense Shrinks Dramatically

Don’t panic yet! When succession happens, every heir gets a strong, uninheritable claim on everyone else’s titles. So you lost a kingdom in your empire? As long as you either built up your own kingdom OR have a better intrigue score than your brothers, you don’t have much to worry about. You can declare a de jure or claim war against your siblings or just murder them (and their heir if they have one) to get the land back. If your brother becomes more powerful than you upon succession, you screwed up somewhere and now you can panic (unless your intrigue score is higher than his, then he should be panicking...).

You can also [threaten to] stab your brothers in the chest instead of in the back. If your younger brother inherits lands that are comparably powerful to your's, move your levies/retinues next door to his land and arrest him (make sure to put your Marshall on his county to "Suppress Revolts" to further increase your arrest chance). If you get him, great, throw him in the Obuilette and wait until he dies and you get his land. If not, your army is already there and ready to crush him.

Managing Gavelkind: Exploiting your Family

Keeping your realm together under Gavelkind can be difficult, but there are several ways to ensure that your realm doesn’t fall apart when your ruler dies. For all cultures/religions:

• If you have the Legacy of Rome DLC, retinues are your friend. Your primary heir gets ALL of your retinues and you can use that to threaten or reclaim land from your brothers when you inherit.
  
• Have fewer children. More children = more problems for Gavelkind, and if you have only one heir, Gavelkind defaults to Primogeniture. “But what if my only son dies?” Simple: have affairs! If you have the “Way of Life” DLC, don’t get married and set your focus to seduction and sire bastards. You can legitimize your bastard sons as needed.

1. After your first son is born, imprison your wife. You can't bone her if she's locked up.
2. If you’re Pagan, Hindu or Zoroastrian, don’t take concubines, as their children are considered legitimate.
3. If you’re playing a religion with no religious head (unreformed pagans), divorce your wife after your first son is born
4. Marry women over 45, as 45 is the “menopause” age where women can no longer have children in CK2.
5. If you have a son and your wife dies, don’t remarry at all.

• Kill your unwanted heirs

1. Imprison and execute your unwanted sons. This will get you “Kinslayer” and “Tyrant”, so wait until you’re knocking on death’s door before you do this. You cannot murder your children anymore, sadly, but you can murder grandchildren if your heir and his wife got a little too feisty.
2. Put your sons at the heads of armies and send them on suicide missions to disease-ravaged counties or certain military defeat.
3. If you have the Way of Life DLC, spy on your sons. You'll have opportunities to kidnap or arrest them (and then throw them in the Obuilette until they die) and/or have them murdered.

• Disqualify your other sons from inheritance

1. If you’re Catholic and have Free Investiture, make you unwanted sons Bishops - joining the clergy will disqualify them from succession - or banish them to a monastery (Sons of Abraham DLC).
2. If you’re Greek, castrate or blind your unwanted sons. You’ll take a massive opinion penalty but you won’t be called a kinslayer or tyrant. Eunuchs can’t inherit anything.

Managing Gavelkind: Astute Title Management

Let’s say Satanic Doge just became the King of Sweden and he has the ambition of forming the Empire of Scandinavia. In order to form an empire, you need to have two kingdom titles plus 80% of the de jure counties in that empire. In order to create a kingdom, you need 51% of the counties within that de jure kingdom. And here’s where our ambitions will inevitably conflict.

See, If you have two kingdom titles and two sons, upon succession, both kingdoms will become independent of each other because why should one king listen to someone who is of the same rank as him? We can avoid this problem by exploiting that 51% mechanic: don’t conquer more than 51% of any kingdom’s de jure territory until you’re ready to commit to forming the empire. **If you hold more than 51% of a de jure kingdom when your character dies, the new kingdom will form automatically/for free upon succession.** So even though there was no Kingdom of Norway, because you hold more than 51% of Norway upon succession, Norway will form automatically and, unless you’re already Emperor, become independent. So when I’m King of Sweden, I’ll make sure to conquer less than half of Finland, Denmark and Norway so that if my character dies before I can form Scandinavia, I won’t get lose my conquests and can pick up from where I left off with my heir. It’s risky, but conquest is risky in general! You can apply this same strategy to forming any de jure empire/kingdom.

Never hold more than 2 Duchy titles at a time (You get opinion penalties for holding more than 2 anyways). Those titles WILL be given out upon succession if you have more than 1 son.

Don’t create Duchies (or kingdoms) unless you’re at your vassal limit. Dukes are harder to control than Earls (and beware characters who hold multiple Duchy titles! Imprison or assassinate them ASAP!). Also, scheme to revoke counties from Earls/Dukes that get too powerful.

Managing Gavelkind: Other Strategies

If you're not down for all of this murdering, scheming, backstabbing, mutilating and intrigue, you have some other more humane options for managing Gavelkind.

One counterintuitive strategy allows you to have as many sons as you like. What you need to do keep them 1. unlanded and 2. unmarried until you die. Upon succession, your new ruler and his brother are all unmarried and titles are divided. Now, here's the weird part: Kill yourself.

Yes, kill yourself. I've gone over several ways for how you can accomplish this above (suicide military missions, disease, Commit Suicide intrigue event if you're depressed, not stopping plots against you, random character events can risk death, etc). The reason for this is that when your unmarried character without a child dies, you will then control his younger brother AND he will inherit his older brother's titles!

There are two major downsides to this strategy. First, because you're having fewer marriages, you'll have fewer alliances and less opportunities to marry for claims. Second, because you're not marrying off your sons, you'll have fewer dynasty members overall which will make it harder to gain dynasty prestige. Of course, maybe you don't care about dynasty prestige, so this strategy may work for you.

Finally, you can embrace what Gavelkind succession was meant for: expansion, and lots of it. Had a new son? Conquer another county! As long as you have counties to give out to your secondary heirs, your main demense should hold together.

For this, it's also recommended that you hold only ONE duchy title and build that duchy up like crazy. The reason being that since your primary heir will inherit your Duchy (and main kingdom and emperor titles, if you have them), all that's left to give out to your other sons will be the counties OUTSIDE of that one duchy, ones that you have conveniently not built up! Now sometimes, wacky things happen (especially if you have more than 3 sons) and you'll lose counties within that Duchy upon succession, but you'll have an easy time getting those counties back. If you lose a county within your Duchy, plot to revoke it; if you have a strong claim on it, just revoke it outright. Tyranny if for winners in this game.

Summary

1. Gavelkind forces you to expand rapidly and in proportion to how many sons you have.
2. Gavelkind distributes your titles "evenly" among your heirs
3. You can manage Gavelkind through humane and inhumane methods, depending on your play style/mood at the time
4. If you use Gavelkind, your vassals will like you more by default
5. You can successfully manage Gavelkind with one son or many sons, just adjust your play style accordingly.
6. If you want to play as the Norse/are interested in The Old Gods DLC (because it's bloody awesome), you must know Gavelkind
7. Hold on to 1 of each "higher" title (Empire, Kingdom, Duchy) for maximum stability
8. Build up your capital county ONLY and then other counties in your capital Duchy
9. Intrigue is your friend (revocation/assassination)
10. There are multiple, legitimate ways to kick serious ass and have Gavelkind succession.

The Absolute Tl;Dr of Gavelkind is:
Don't get married or take concubines, take seduction focus, sire bastards, legitimize as needed.

Good luck, fellow Crusader Kings! For Odin!!!

Gavelkind in History

When we talk of "Gavelkind" by name, we are actually referring to something very specific at a specific time and place. If we want the bigger historical context, what we're really interested in is the idea of "Salic Patrimony" which existed throughout the Germanic (Northern European) world.

Salic Patrimony was easily the most common form of inheritance in early medieval Europe. In this system, when a father died, his lands were divided up amongst his male sons - women could not inherit at all. If he had no sons, then land would be divided up among his kinsmen, his tribe. In general, the oldest brother of the dead man would be the preferred heir.

Gavelkind succession by that name existed mainly in Kent, England, but it was also used in Wales and Ireland as well. Gavelkind actually remained the law of the land so to speak in Kent until it was abolished formally in 1925. Land was to be divided, as in the game, equally among the deceased landowner's heirs, with preference given to males.

One example of Salic Patrimony in practice involves the sons of Harad Hadrada, the King of Norway, who was defeated and killed at Stamford Bridge on 15 September 1066. Harad had two sons, Olaf and Magnus, the former was at Stamford Bridge (he survived, obviously) and the latter stayed in Norway. The Kingdom of Norway was considered to be the property of King Harald, so when he died, both Olaf and Magnus were entitled to rule half of Norway each. When Olaf returned to Norway, this is exactly what happened: Olaf got northern Norway and Magnus got southern Norway. But then Magnus died less than 3 years later and Olaf took control over all of Norway.

The word "Gavelkind" is thought to come from the Saxon word "Gafol", which means "rent", so "Gavelkind" is "land that yields rent".

In Kent, Gavelkind functioned as follows:

• If a landowner was convicted of a felony, their lands were not confiscated by the central government (the Crown)
  
  
• If a widow had no children, she was entitled to half of the estate
  
  
• If a landowner died with more debt than assets (intestacy),
  
  
• Women could inherit, but were given second preference
  
  
• After the Norman conquest in 1066, Kent was actually allowed to keep its system of Gavelkind (the Normans used Primogeniture) in what they considered to be a concession from William the Conquerer.
  
  
• Further reading about Gavelkind in Kent: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol1/pp311-321

Gavelkind also existed and functioned similarly in Wales, one exception being that in Wales, illegitimate sons could also inherit normally. In Wales, Gavelkind was called "Cyfran", because the Welsh need silly words for everything. By the time of King Edward I of England (early 1300s CE), land in Wales had been divided up so much by Cyfran that, in the words of Welsh historian Philip Yorke:

"Our laws of gavelkind, had ill effect, applied to the succession as the freedom of the State; it balanced the power and raised the competition of the younger branches against the elder; a Theban war of Welsh brethren ending in family blood, and national destruction."

Land had been divided up so much that Wales could not mount an effective resistance to the English conquests. Cyfran was officially abolished in the 1500s when Welsh law was fully replaced with English law, including Primogeniture succession. Notice how Kent was able to keep its Gavelkind laws until the 20th century.

Credits/Updates

Guide written entirely by me, Satanic Doge. Input and corrections came from /r/CrusderKings, specifically /u/ProSkink, /u/Powermac8500 and /u/taw. They are cool and helpful.

19 September 2015 - FINALLY added section about Gavelkind in History

8 February 2016 - Added comment about Way of Life DLC to "Exploiting Your Family"

[GioGio]

of course the welsh got fucked

[JerkyCone]

absolute mad lad

[Satanic Doge]

@Rocket Redfern what if I told you that I'm 1) a lefty and 2) my spouse is Taiwanese?

[SilentWarden98]

This guide is really useful and give in depth explanations to why Gavelkind works the way it does.

I didn't see this in the guide, so this is my opinion on how to deal with gavelkind:
1) Use ruler designer and the broken guardian system to create mega military people, turn diplomacy all the way down, you don't need it.
2) With the first character, make a mega realm, I recommend playing as a pagan, because then you can always keep fighting.
3) Use title won to buy your vassals support, so they give you more men to fight with. Aim for having as few direct vassals as possible.
4) Lots of kids who your title will be spread among.
5) When you did, your realm will be fractured, *but* you get claims on all lost titles. Go fight your family to reclaim lost titles, using titles won to buy your vassals support for more men.
6) If your ruler doesn't die, once your realm is reunited, go expand, have more kids, and repeat.

[Skorkus]

Simple, just arrest and put your son in Obuilette.

CK2 players are the best XD

[Rocket Redfern]

nice guide, terrible name. liberate hong kong? seriously...bloodthirsthy MAGA chuds everywhere

[YOUNGBOY NEVER CIRCUMSIZED AGAIN]

I was once so desperate for a piece of land that me and my friend went on a mass killing spree of half my family members just so i can control everything. And i had a large dynasty

[Joe]

Gavelkind is exactly why the poster for CK3 is a snake in a crib.

[skeemnave]

hand all your titles to your eldest son on your deathbed. this worked last time I tried it

[Uncle Pockets]

I don't often rate steam guides but when I do - they deserve it. Great job dude. Would be nice if you updated it for 2018 but not much has changed in the gavelkind land so it's not a necessity.