Harmonious succession mechanics

[hail kraken]

I am trying to figure out how harmonious succession work. It says primary heir will get at least three quarters of titles. I have kingdom of Mesopotamia, duchies Samarra, Free Basra (got this during peasant rebellion I supported, it has no de jure titles) and Baghdad where my capital is. I recently conquered duchy Kermanshah. Then it showed that my second son will inherit it along with all other counties in it. Until that conquest of Kermanshah, my succession screen was just like this.
So if primary heir has to get at least 3/4, means my other heirs will get only every fourth title? So in this case when I got fourth duchy, primary heir will get his three, and then fourth one will be given to second one. If I had 5 duchies he would get 4, with 6 he would 5, with 7 maybe 6 or 5, and then with 8 duchies he would get 6, as that is 3/4. Is my logic here correct or some other logic applies?
If yes, why am I not losing any counties in this succession? Because in Samarra, I have three counties, so following top logic all should stay with me. No counties in Basra. And in Bagdhad I have four counties. Shouldn't forth county go to my second or maybe third son?


Almost 1000 hours spent on this game, and I still can't grasp on how exactly these successions work.

 

[hail kraken]

And small update, which doesn't really support my logic above it seems. My son2 died, son1 inherited. All of a sudden, my son3 stands to inherit 4 titles.

 

[Greifental]

And small update, which doesn't really support my logic above it seems. My son2 died, son1 inherited. All of a sudden, my son3 stands to inherit 4 titles.

Seems right if the three county titles are part of the duchy title son3 stands to inherit. Duchies are inherited in packages of duchy plus the counties under it where possible. The four top tier titles are split. Son1 gets a kingdom and two duchies (=3/4), son3 one duchy (=1/4).

 

[Greifental]

If yes, why am I not losing any counties in this succession? Because in Samarra, I have three counties, so following top logic all should stay with me. No counties in Basra. And in Bagdhad I have four counties. Shouldn't forth county go to my second or maybe third son?

Your second son is already landed it seems. If you give a son their rightful share while you are alive, they won't inherit anymore (only if you would conquer many more titles).

 

[hail kraken]

Seems right if the three county titles are part of the duchy title son3 stands to inherit. Duchies are inherited in packages of duchy plus the counties under it where possible. The four top tier titles are split. Son1 gets a kingdom and two duchies (=3/4), son3 one duchy (=1/4).

Yes, those counties are part of the duchy son3 is to inherit. But in first photo, I also had same 4 top titles, kingdom and three duchies. In that case son2 didn't stand to inherit anything. Shouldn't he then inherit that same duchy with all counties underneath it? If I didn't landed my son2, son3, and son4, I would have total 1 kingdom, 6 duchies and x counties. So that would be total of 7 titles for distribution, and 3/4 of 7 is 5.25. Not sure is this rounded then to higher number or lower? IIRC it was always rounding it to higher number, but I might be mistaken there.

Your second son is already landed it seems. If you give a son their rightful share while you are alive, they won't inherit anymore (only if you would conquer many more titles).

This part I understand. But as you can see in second photo, I landed all my children. Shouldn't that treat me all equal as they don't have anything? First photo might be confusing. If it's easier, you can pretend son2 along with his title doesn't exist. So only ruler and his son1, son3, son4, and titles mentioned in first post. In that case, there would be no splitting of inheritance, all would be going to son1.

 

[Greifental]

Yes, those counties are part of the duchy son3 is to inherit. But in first photo, I also had same 4 top titles, kingdom and three duchies. In that case son2 didn't stand to inherit anything.

I don't know how it would look if you didn't land anyone and hold kingdom and six duchies. But in first photo son1 gets all because son2 already got a quarter by landing. Rest is for primary heir. The other sons don't inherit anything. Then son2 died and his titles were not seen as part of the inheritance anymore. So the game calculated again, giving son3 a quarter.

This part I understand. But as you can see in second photo, I landed all my children.

Did you land them with duchies or counties? Since one of them stands to inherit a duchy, landing them with a county is not enough to put them off the inheritance list.

 

[hail kraken]

I don't know how it would look if you didn't land anyone and hold kingdom and six duchies. But in first photo son1 gets all because son2 already got a quarter by landing. Rest is for primary heir. The other sons don't inherit anything. Then son2 died and his titles were not seen as part of the inheritance anymore. So the game calculated again, giving son3 a quarter.


Did you land them with duchies or counties? Since one of them stands to inherit a duchy, landing them with a county is not enough to put them off the inheritance list.

Here is the timeline. I had all titles as in first photo (1K, 3D, 7C), all children were unlanded. Inheritance was as in the first photo as well, all going to son1. Then I took duchy of Kermanshah. My inheritance screens shows changes, duchy of Kermenshah and all its counties are going to son2. I give duchy of Kermenshah and its counties to son2. That is where I made first photo.
After that, I inherit one of the counties from some guy going dead. Still everything goes to son1. I give that county to son3, create duchy (that inherited county was in) and give it to son3. Later I conquer another duchy and give it to my son4. At this point son1 stands to inherit all my land. Then son2 dies in some peasant rebellion. My son1 inherits duchy from son2, along with all the counties in it. And inheritance is changed so that son3 now inherits my second duchy. This is where second photo is made.

So before I landed any of my children, everything was going to son1. And after I landed each of my sons with duchy each, then son1 loses one duchy and its counties.

 

[Greifental]

Then I would assume it's as I said:

Then son2 died and his titles were not seen as part of the inheritance anymore. So the game calculated again, giving son3 a quarter.

And since you gave the other two sons a duchy before son2 died - at a time they didn't stand to inherit anything - the landing wasn't seen as premature inheritance but just like the landing of a random vassal. I'm not completely sure but I don't have a better explanation.

 

[hail kraken]

Then I would assume it's as I said:



And since you gave the other two sons a duchy before son2 died - at a time they didn't stand to inherit anything - the landing wasn't seen as premature inheritance but just like the landing of a random vassal. I'm not completely sure but I don't have a better explanation.

Thanks for helping me understand this. I am thinking, if his title isn't seen as part of inheritance, then it's even less titles to be given around, which in turn means that son1 would be inheriting more, not less. As I don't understand it either, from my point of view, either first or second photo makes sense, but not both.

So in Harmonious succession primary heir gets 3/4 of titles, and this number is rounded to closest number (maybe not?).
So in first photo, 4 titles to be given, he gets all 4.
If it's the case you are mentioning, there is 6 titles (2 preinherited, 4 additional). Out of 6, according to harmonious succession, he should get 4.5 total (which should be rounded to 5).
And if all is counted into succession, that should be 7 titles total, son1 should get 5.25, so let's round it to 5. Means 2 will get by other heirs, but they are getting 3.

I am guessing there is some other mechanic involved where it doesn't look at total number of titles distributed, but probably something involving stuff you already have.

 

[Greifental]

Another guess.

At first son1 stood to inherit 1K (primary title, always to primary heir), 3D. Then you got a fourth duchy, which would have went to son2 (a quarter of the duchies). Son2 got landed with the duchy, rest to son1. That's easy and understandable.

After the death of son2 you still hold 1k and 3d, but now a duchy is lost to son3. Clearly a contradiction to before. But: Son1 was the heir of son2. That means he's the one who holds the prematurely given duchy now and it may still count as prematurely given. So from the 3 duchies he stood to inherit he already has one, gets two after your death and the fourth (a quarter) goes to the next son in line.

Problem still are the newly aquired duchies you gave to sons3 and 4. Do you know the succession after you acquired them and before you gave them away? But as I already said the only explanation I can imagine for it is, that they didn't count as part of inheritance because they were given at a time where sons 3 and 4 didn't stand to inherit anything and the recalculation after son2's death only included the original 4 duchies because of it.

 

[hail kraken]

I've looked through some videos regarding partition, but unfortunately not a lot of them go into specifics of high partition even less clan partition, which are basically same - other than the percentage of the titles shared. For clan, from what can be seen from code and text description in game, first two levels of clan unity are regular partition, middle one gives you at least 25% titles, fourth level gives you 50% (which is equal to high partition) and then last one giving you 75% of titles. So at least we know that in game description isn't wrong, it's just my interpretation of what is wrong.
Also, one important thing worth mentioning is that what is looked upon is the end state of what you leave behind. So in that sense it doesn't matter if son2 died before or whatever, it just matters what will you end up with after your ruler dies and it's calculated based on that. Game makes distinction between inheritance and personal demesne. However, things outside of your realm are excluded from it. So if you have kingdom and you give your son2 kingdom and he becomes independent, he will still require some land inside your realm.

After the death of son2 you still hold 1k and 3d, but now a duchy is lost to son3. Clearly a contradiction to before. But: Son1 was the heir of son2. That means he's the one who holds the prematurely given duchy now and it may still count as prematurely given. So from the 3 duchies he stood to inherit he already has one, gets two after your death and the fourth (a quarter) goes to the next son in line.

I think I am trying to understand what you are trying to say, but then son3 was to inherit 1 duchy and he already has 1. So why does he get second.

From the info I could find, we have like a round where each of the titles is given up. So as soon as ruler dies, son1 gets 1K, and 1D that has capital in it. So now we have situation where son1 has 1K 2D, son3 1D, son4 1D. Means there are two more duchies are to be given. 3/4 of 2 is 1.5, which means he should get 2 of them.

	son1	son3	son4
ruler live	D1	D2	D3
ruler death	K1, Capital, D4
first round	D5, D6
total	K1, D1, D4, D5, D6, Capital	D2	D3

Other way to calculate it is like you mentioned where it would maybe look like this. In this scenario, I don't get why it calculates D1 from son1 and says ok you have 4 titles, but it doesn't calculated from son3 in same manner.

	son1	son3	son4
ruler live	D1	D2	D3
ruler death	K1, Capital, D4
first round	D5	D6
total	K1, D1, D4, D5, Capital	D2, D6	D3

Only way it would make sense is if it would look at titles that were remaining to give, so 1K and 3D, and say ok you will get 3/4 of that. But that still wouldn't explain me why did I got the same inheritance as it was in first photo (before I conquered and gave that duchy to my son2).

Problem still are the newly aquired duchies you gave to sons3 and 4. Do you know the succession after you acquired them and before you gave them away? But as I already said the only explanation I can imagine for it is, that they didn't count as part of inheritance because they were given at a time where sons 3 and 4 didn't stand to inherit anything and the recalculation after son2's death only included the original 4 duchies because of it.

I don't recall screens at that time and it was ironman game, so I don't have older save game to check it out. :/

 

[Greifental]

I fear the only solution is someone looking into the game's code. My assumption is that D2 and D3 from son3 and son4 are for whatever reason not part of the calculation. I agree that it should have looked like your first table otherwise.

 

[hail kraken]

So I deleted one duchy , just to see what happens. I removed Basra (titular title basically), and still son3 is getting duchy on his own along with counties. I am starting to believe that all of this is bugged actually.

 

[hail kraken]

I am now even more sure that this is bugged, not sure is it just in my run or in general. I captured few more territories. In the meantime son5 was born as well. Capturing new territories and creating new duchies would change inheritance, in either case son1 getting nothing. It would all just go to other children.
After I imprisoned him and took all his titles, inheritance is like on the first photo where he basically gets 5 duchies, and sixth one goes to son5. So from what I could get is that if he already has titles, it would switch to regular partition. If primary heir has no land it would behave as expect, where he would get 75% of titles as shown in picture. But if I do the math, it still doesn't add up, because in total there would be 1K and then 8D. So total of 9 titles, of which 3/4 6.75 or rounded to 7 titles.

Unfortunately, I corrupted my save file, so no further testing could be done with this.

 

[MummyMonk]

There was that old issue that the tooltip said Harmonious succession gives main heir 3/4 of all titles, while in the code it was 2/3 – idk if it's fixed yet.

But it is certainly wonky as hell (I haven't figured it out for myself yet), worse than regular feudal partition it feels like, and it's beyond silly that we can't decide what goes to whom and have to rely on some sort of automatic calculation – 10/10 immersion.

 

[hail kraken]

There was that old issue that the tooltip said Harmonious succession gives main heir 3/4 of all titles, while in the code it was 2/3 – idk if it's fixed yet.

But it is certainly wonky as hell (I haven't figured it out for myself yet), worse than regular feudal partition it feels like, and it's beyond silly that we can't decide what goes to whom and have to rely on some sort of automatic calculation – 10/10 immersion.

I usually use that one mod inheritance or something like that. But this was run without mods. But it's silly that even after all these years, fundamental part of game is not really clear or bugged.
Luckily that was fixed. Checked it in code and it says primary_heir_minimum_share = 0.75.

I managed to start save again, guess I didn't corrupted it. And when I took all the stuff from children, it works as it says it would. 9 titles in total, 1K and 8D. So son1 gets 1K and 6D (3/4 is 6.75), and son3 and son4 gets 1D each. Son5 gets nothing, because everything is already given. Giving titles prematurely definitely messes things up. Or at least it isn't clarified on how it exactly works.