5 years on, maternal relatives still cannot inherit in CK3

[ZoCurious]

Information​

I have verifed my game files (Steam only)​

Yes

I have disabled all mods​

Yes

I am running the latest game update​

Yes

Required​

Summary​

5 years on, maternal relatives still cannot inherit in CK3

Description​

Maternal relatives cannot inherit in CK3. When a female ruler is succeeded by her child, the child's heir is now his father or paternal relatives with no claim to the title. This is ahistorical. CK2 got it right: the child's heir would be his or her closest maternal relative.

Steps to reproduce​

Start the game as a king with two daughters, Matilda and Alice. Matilda is the king's heir. When the king dies, Matilda inherits and Alice is her heir. When Matilda has a son, Thomas, he becomes her heir and Alice is second. After Matilda's death, Thomas inherits. Thomas's heir is supposed to be his aunt Alice (and it is so in CK2), but instead his heir is his father or some other irrelevant paternal relative.

Game Version​

every version since 2020

Platform​

Windows

Additional Information​

Affected Feature​

• Gameplay

Save Game​

Other Attachments​

 

[ZoCurious]

To illustrate this with a real-world example of maternal succession I have turned to a bookmarks mod to select Queen Isabelle II of Jerusalem. Do not come at me, this is not a mod-related issue. You can reproduce it in the vanilla game.

Now, Isabelle II inherited her throne from her mother, Maria. In CK2, as well as in history, Isabelle II's heir was her aunt Alice, the eldest of Maria's younger half-sisters.

In CK2, as well as she was in history, Alice is followed in the line of succession by further half-sisters. All of them are the children of Queen Isabelle I, but by different fathers.

But in CK3 the heir to Isabelle II is her father, Jean de Brienne, who has no claim to the kingdom. This is because maternal relatives are barred from inheriting in CK3.

In fact, Alice could not be her half-sister Maria's heir either: although their claim to Jerusalem comes from their shared mother, Isabelle I, the half-sisters have different fathers and only paternal relatives can inherit in CK3. Of course, in CK2 Alice is Maria's heir before Isabelle II is born. We can see this in another example, Brittany. Duchess Alix was the daughter and successor of Duchess Constance. Constance had had children by two husbands. Alix's heir in CK2 is her older maternal half-sister.

But in CK3 Alix's heir is her younger full sister instead. Indeed, if Alix's father were to have a son by another wife, this half-brother would be the heir despite having no connection to the previous dukes of Brittany!

Back to Jerusalem now. Some may suggest that this is the result of male-preference succession. It is not and it should not be. We had male-preference succession in history and in CK2 and maternal relatives still inherited what they were supposed to inherit. Alice's descendants inherited the kingdom after Isabelle II's line died out. But for the sake of the argument I gave Jerusalem equal succession. Let's see what happens.

The heir to Isabelle II is still her father, followed by an irrelevant paternal cousin. But interestingly her maternal aunts now appear in the line of succession, although behind the entire (dynastically irrelevant) paternal family. This gives me hope that this is something that Paradox can address.

This has been a major grievance of mine for years. I hope it can be fixed. Cheers!

 

[christopher0936]

Love threads like this that go all in on a niche issue. Hopefully this can get fixed. For gameplay reasons and since historically the kingdom was bouncing around matrilineally they should maybe also change the history files for some of the Jerusalem queens to matrilineal, since that's what any player would do in the situation and it seems to better reflect history.

 

[ZoCurious]

Love threads like this that go all in on a niche issue. Hopefully this can get fixed. For gameplay reasons and since historically the kingdom was bouncing around matrilineally they should maybe also change the history files for some of the Jerusalem queens to matrilineal, since that's what any player would do in the situation and it seems to better reflect history.

Thanks for bearing with me. I see how it can be considered a niche issue, but to me a correctly working succession mechanic is pretty essential in a dynasty simulation game! I just cringe every time I see titles pass to irrelevant characters, especially when the earlier game gets it perfectly right. Historians refer to these queens by their father's names (Maria of Montferrat, Isabella of Brienne), but matrilineal or not does not matter to the succession mechanic.

A title that had come from the mother simply should not pass to the father. We see this codified in Coutumes de Beauvaisis, a 13th-century French law book, which says:

"If I have realty which came from my father and my father dies and then I die without heirs of my body, my realty which came from my father does not pass to my mother, but it passes laterally to my closest relative through my father, even if he were at the fourth degree of lineage; for my mother is a stranger to the realty which comes to me from my father, and my father is a stranger to the realty that passes to me from my mother."

 

[elpibeuruguayo]

Hope this receives the attention it deserves, there is no excuse for succession working historically in CK2 and it just not working in CK3

 

[oleigork98]

Glad this was pointed out, hopefully it finally gets corrected, a game about dynasties and succession should have accurate succession mechanics imo. Also implementing correct and accurate succession calculations would also make gameplay a lot more interesting as you cannot just murder your way to a title you’re not in the line to inherit (like if your son marries a title holder and their kid, your grandchild, inherits the title trough their mother you’re currently able to murder them and have the title pass to your son.) and instead actually have to think strategically and keep your successors alive in order to consolidate titles trough inheritance alone. Thank you for bringing this up.

 

[ZoCurious]

Hope this receives the attention it deserves, there is no excuse for succession working historically in CK2 and it just not working in CK3

Glad this was pointed out, hopefully it finally gets corrected, a game about dynasties and succession should have accurate succession mechanics imo.

It looks like we cannot even get the developers to acknowledge this at all. This is not the first attempt either.

 

[Ache]

inheritance bug appeared at the first day since this game out, they fixed part of it once, but looks like they have no interests do any further

 

[ZoCurious]

inheritance bug appeared at the first day since this game out, they fixed part of it once, but looks like they have no interests do any further

Apparently the bug you are referring to is that maternal half-siblings would inherit titles they were not supposed to, e.g. a queen dowager remarries and has children with her new husband and these children would be in the line of succession to the throne of her first husband. But the way they "fixed" this was to blow up maternal succession altogether so that only paternal family can inherit, i.e. maternal half-siblings cannot inherit from one another even when the throne passes through their common mother.

I am honestly baffled that something that works so well in CK2 could have been messed up so bad in CK3, not to mention that this thing is succession, something so essential in a game about dynasties.