Help me understand why it happens? (War, I do the work & someone else benefits)

[unmerged(78308)]

Duke of Lancaster is suddenly at war with King of England. As a war crazed duke looking to expand I quickly declare war on Duke of Lancaster AND reaches his demesne province before King of England (actually King of England never reaches this province).

As the duke's army is fighting the english army far away I have my hands free to lay siege to the duke's province (his only). I have used all my prestige to grab his Duke title and count title, I want it all...muahahahah.

And now what I don't understand. The exact moment my army takes control of the duke's demesne everything goes to King of England. Titles, province and the count vassal of Duke of Lancaster. (I am not allied with King of England!)

Why? How? I control the province even if ownership passes to England. If King of England wants it he must fight me, but no. All is lost.

 

[Zsrai]

Was the Duke of Lancaster only a one province Duke/Count? If so, it doesn't matter who controls the siege; any peace deal will go through when the receiving party is 100% occupied. Even if the occupation is by someone else. If you're really speedy, you can manage to pause the game immediately as you finish the siege, send a peace deal, and unpause. It helps to lower the speed to the slowest if you're not using it already.

 

[unmerged(78308)]

Yes he had only this one demesne. And my game speed was Normal as I thought I had nothing to fear in this war, everything was served on a silver plate. So that might be the reason. Actually I've also experienced this in another game where I played as King of Denmark. Here I thought I could annex a German vassal as this vassal declared war on Germany. But again in a splitsecond the province is given to King of Germany instead of me. Next time I'll try with game speed Very Slow.

 

[unmerged(15337)]

You might even be able to get the peace deal before the siege is complete, since a 1-province ruler is often very eager to concede defeat when under pressure. But in any case you need to be lucky with the timing, or so it appears based on my admittedly limited experience.

 

[Zsrai]

Next time I'll try with game speed Very Slow.

You don't have to play 100% of the time on Very Slow. What I usually do in those situations is change the speed when the siege is about 80% complete.

 

[unmerged(217556)]

I play on the fastest setting but with my message settings changed so that every time I successfully siege a territory the game pauses. That way when I take the last territory of my enemy in a war, the game will be paused in that instant and the peace negotiations will always go my way because I do them right then before unpausing.