Let's talk about succession laws

[Pied-Noir]

Here are some suggestions for succession law types in CK III:

• Rota: this could be based on prestige rather than seniority as the winning factor, and be limited to the East Slavic culture group. Similar to seniority but more random; more prestigious members of your dynasty inherit over those with better claims by primogeniture. There's probably more to it than that, but the nuances would be difficult to represent in game and so you need a fairly generic mechanic for the game to understand. If people have better suggestions for how the game should model rota then I am certainly open to them.

• Limited Seniority: this is something really missing from CK II, although I'm not sure what the best name for it would be; the title goes from the holder to his next oldest brother, and failing that to his sons. It would differ from primogeniture in that even if you had an army of adult sons they would never take priority over your brothers, and differ from seniority because it would not trace back through your entire dynasty and end up with all of your titles going to the same person, but instead be limited to the immediate family of the first ruler who implemented it. It's basically brother-to-brother succession down the senior male line.

• Proclamation: a very simple succession type in which the current ruler picks his successor from amongst his surviving family, with no voting required. The heir-designate is then automatically favourable to the current ruler, but other family members less so, and in particular strong claimants, who would seriously dislike them for it. Vassals would understandably not be big fans of this succession type. Proclamation could exist in both primogeniture and gavelkind forms (like elective does in CK II), and so for example if as William the Conqueror I proclaim William Rufus as my heir with gavelkind, he would receive England (my primary title) and Robert Curthose would receive Normandy (my secondary title); likewise if as Henry II I proclaim John my heir with primogeniture, he would receive all of my titles. In both instances their siblings would strongly dislike both me (the king) and them, although the relations hit would be lower with the gavelkind version. The advantage to this succession type would be being able to hand-pick your heir and keep titles within your dynasty, but at the cost of very unhappy vassals and claimants (because they have no say in the succession) and the potential for intermittent civil wars. Mechanically this should be very simple to implement as it's basically just elective but without the voting. Although you could pick non-dynastic heirs (such as nephews) you'd generally not wish to, even if the AI sometimes might - especially if you've literally run out of dynasty members.

I know that people would like improved or expanded versions of the unique succession types for the Holy Roman and Byzantine empires, but aside from those (which have their own threads, I think) can you think of any other useful/historical succession types that could be implemented?

 

[Lordy's]

Here are some suggestions for succession law types in CK III:

• Rota: this could be based on prestige rather than seniority as the winning factor, and be limited to the East Slavic culture group. Similar to seniority but more random; more prestigious members of your dynasty inherit over those with better claims by primogeniture. There's probably more to it than that, but the nuances would be difficult to represent in game and so you need a fairly generic mechanic for the game to understand. If people have better suggestions for how the game should model rota then I am certainly open to them.

• Limited Seniority: this is something really missing from CK II, although I'm not sure what the best name for it would be; the title goes from the holder to his next oldest brother, and failing that to his sons. It would differ from primogeniture in that even if you had an army of adult sons they would never take priority over your brothers, and differ from seniority because it would not trace back through your entire dynasty and end up with all of your titles going to the same person, but instead be limited to the immediate family of the first ruler who implemented it. It's basically brother-to-brother succession down the senior male line.

• Proclamation: a very simple succession type in which the current ruler picks his successor from amongst his surviving family, with no voting required. The heir-designate is then automatically favourable to the current ruler, but other family members less so, and in particular strong claimants, who would seriously dislike them for it. Vassals would understandably not be big fans of this succession type. Proclamation could exist in both primogeniture and gavelkind forms (like elective does in CK II), and so for example if as William the Conqueror I proclaim William Rufus as my heir with gavelkind, he would receive England (my primary title) and Robert Curthose would receive Normandy (my secondary title); likewise if as Henry II I proclaim John my heir with primogeniture, he would receive all of my titles. In both instances their siblings would strongly dislike both me (the king) and them, although the relations hit would be lower with the gavelkind version. The advantage to this succession type would be being able to hand-pick your heir and keep titles within your dynasty, but at the cost of very unhappy vassals and claimants (because they have no say in the succession) and the potential for intermittent civil wars. Mechanically this should be very simple to implement as it's basically just elective but without the voting. Although you could pick non-dynastic heirs (such as nephews) you'd generally not wish to, even if the AI sometimes might - especially if you've literally run out of dynasty members.

I know that people would like improved or expanded versions of the unique succession types for the Holy Roman and Byzantine empires, but aside from those (which have their own threads, I think) can you think of any other useful/historical succession types that could be implemented?

Limited seniority is a very good idea (especially if you play some dynasty like the Karlings). Although I expect seniority to be more interesting in CK3 anyway, since I believe it will have something to do with the "dynasty heads" (and potential plotting).

As for Proclamation: I think that the way you propose it it is still too good (or would need very restrictive opinion penalties, but that's no fun either). So how about another twist, which would also make sense from a logical point of view: When you just pick your heir, you could pick any dynasty member. So, naturally every dynasty member should become a claimant upon inheritance (they will say: He could have picked me) (or make it so that every dynasty member gets the option to have a claim - so content members will not get one). This way, as a counterbalance to you having an awfully overpowered heir (you pick the genius one with good stats, obviously) all other halfway decent (let's say the quick ones) might fight against you.
So the cost of having this succession would be higher the more (capable) dynasty members you have, which is fair since the benefit of this succession also depends of the number of available successors.

 

[Pied-Noir]

That's a very good idea @Lordy's and I have no problem with it as an amendment. I agree that offsetting the idea of hand-picking heirs with there being a larger number of potential claimants makes sense, and would be good for balance.

The way I envisaged it (even without your suggestion) is that you're basically guaranteed to have to fight at least one succession war once the current ruler dies, and so the throne is always unstable to some degree. There are plenty of examples of this but I go back to William I and Henry II, as they're relevant for CK II bookmarks.

Having the Proclamation succession type also seems like an obvious motivation for claimant factions being more common.

 

[ogarrr]

With regards to William I and proclamation, it wasn't that he preferred Rufus it was actually that he still saw the Duchy of Normandy as the main holding which was why it went to Robert. His children saw differently, but William still viewed himself as Norman first and foremost.

With Henry II, it was mostly because he was a dick. He just thoroughly enjoyed playing both courtiers and his sons against each other, he learned that from his Mother.

 

[Pied-Noir]

With regards to William I and proclamation, it wasn't that he preferred Rufus it was actually that he still saw the Duchy of Normandy as the main holding which was why it went to Robert. His children saw differently, but William still viewed himself as Norman first and foremost.

With Henry II, it was mostly because he was a dick. He just thoroughly enjoyed playing both courtiers and his sons against each other, he learned that from his Mother.

Yeah, I understand this, but they make practical sense as succession laws and if balanced reasonably could be fun.

 

[Arizal]

I really would like more succession laws and perhaps a mechanic by which they would change organically depending on what happens, meaning :

- If you start with an elective law, and each generation your eldest son is elected, then the relative difficulty of changing the succession law to seniority would be decreased, since everyone would already expect it.

- If at some point a daughter ends up on the throne, this would open the possibility of a cognatic element in the succession and throw in disarray people believing only agnatic succession works.

- I suppose you could also imagine a scenario in which for 5 successions in a row brothers and cousins would take the throne, approaching the succession law from seniority or tanistry.

There could be a value like "stability" showing the strenght of your succession laws. When its stronger, it would mean your heir would have a more secure position and succession laws would be difficult to change, while when its weaker, the pretendants would have more legitimacy and it would be easier to change the succession laws.

 

[Serenity84]

Just picking some heir was very common in the early middle ages. And yeah, it naturally led to a lot of civil wars. More clearly codified laws and primogeniture was meant to prevent these wars, but after the middle ages it also led to gigantic wars involving all European powers fighting over various thrones.

Making your opponents really powerful - like giving them full levies or maybe even event troops - could work as a balance. It's tricky though as a player is still often at an advantage in such wars. It would lead to interesting games though. Better than the reunification wars of gavelkind and certainly better than a completely stable succession under primo.