Crusader Kings 2 Succession Laws – Explained
In this post I will try explain the inheritance laws in Crusader Kings 2 as well as I can.
When a ruler dies he needs a successor, how successors are chosen depends on the laws you have set. Understanding all laws can be a little complicated for newcomers and changing them might not as straightforwards as you might think.
The succession laws are separated into two categories: gender laws and succession laws. Gender laws determine how females are treated and succession laws determine how the successions work, combined these laws determine who's next in line for the throne.
Let me explain gender laws first.
Agnatic-Cognatic
This is the most common gender law. It allows women to inherit but it will prefer men over women. If there is a 10 year old girl and a 6 year old boy the 6 year old will be preferred, even though the girl is older
Agnatic
Under agnatic succession only men can inherit. Women are ignored.
Absolute Cognatic
Absolute cognatic is a special law. It's reserved for rulers with the Basque culture. It will regard women and men equally. It's very rare you will see this in the game.
Now, let's get on with the succession laws.
Elective
With elective succession you and the lower ranked vassals (for example, the counts of a duke) all get one vote to determine the successor. This is obviously tricky because it introduces the risk of losing your titles. If your vassals are happy with you they will generally vote like you vote, but nothing is guaranteed! Vassals like this law, except if you hoard elector titles, but your children who are not elected aren't that happy with it.
There is no crown law requirement for elective.
Gavelkind
Gavelkind is a very common law in the game, it will split all titles between the heirs. The oldest heir will get the primary title (the title by which you are known in the game) and the rest is split up. If you have more than one of your highest titles (for example two kingdoms or two duchies) everything will split up and you will lose control over the second realm. This can be frustrating and make the game harder. That's why gavelkind has some benefits: you can hold 30% more holdings and you won't lose prestige if your adult children have no land. Your children, except the oldest, will like you more.
There are several strategies to deal with the downsides of gavelkind. You can, for example, try to hold only one of your highest titles or assassinate your other sons. But, these strategies have obvious drawbacks. Often, changing to elective succession is the best strategy.
There is no crown law requirement for gavelkind.
Seniorty
Under seniority the oldest member of your dynasty will inherit. This makes the rest of your dynasty happy but your oldest child will dislike it. This will increase the average age of your rulers so you will probably have to deal with a lot of deaths and related problems because of that.
If you have a dynasty with a lot of rulers this law is useful to slowly combine the titles. Everyone will be in line to inherit eventually, even a very far removed uncle who holds a duchy somewhere.
Seniority requires medium crown laws or higher.
Primogeniture
Under primogeniture the oldest child of the ruler will inherit. If he's dead his oldest child will inherit, if the oldest child has no children the second child of the ruler will inherit. If there are no children for the ruler the game will look at the father, brothers, uncles, etc, until the game finds an eligible heir. The heir will like this law but other members of the dynasty will dislike it. This is a very strong law because it keeps the titles very secure and together.
Primogeniture requires high crown authority.
Changing succession laws
All succession laws have up and downsides but there are clearly laws that are better than others. Because of this there are several requirements to change your laws:
- You can only change the laws once during your lifetime
- You have reigned at least 10 years
- You are at peace
- You don't have a regent
- Your vassals like you (barons are ignored except if you're a count)
- Your vassals are not fighting each other
- You must have the required crown authority (if applicable)
Absolute cognatic has another requirement: you must have the basque culture.
There are several laws that require a certain crown authority. Even if you're not king or you're not the vassals of the king of your area you will have to comply with this requirement. This means you don't always have control over the situation, making it a lot harder. But it gives you some incentive to become king yourself and change the laws!
I hope this was helpful. If there are any questions or comments please leave a message!
State of the Channel #1
I guess it's time to tell the world what's happening and what's going on.
Over the past ~2 months I've moved away from doing Let's Play's to a more interactive Let's Stream format. Using my channel at Twitch.tv. This way I can interact with my viewers while creating my video's. It's a lot of fun talking to people, receiving their input and answering their questions. This works great especially because I'm mainly playing games that haven't been released yet.
Subscribing to Twitch and following me on Twitter are probably the best ways to join me while I'm streaming live.
About the games:
I'm really thankful of Paradox Interactive for giving me the Crusader Kings II preview version. A lot of people have watched me play it and to be honest: I'm really loving it. Because they haven't stopped developing the game my game is really looking horribly out of date by now. But no worries, PI to the rescue: they have given me a beta code. So I will probably start playing that (note: because it's a beta and probably updated a lot we probably won't see long dynastic games).
I'm also looking forward to A House Divided, the Victoria II expansion. I don't know exactly when I'm getting the preview version but it's close. I will probably be halting CKII for a while to explore it.
And lastly: Magicka. I heard a lot of great things about it but I never had the time to play it. I have the game and all its DLC's (thanks Paradox Interactive 
) so I think I will try it sometime soon. Can't have good games go to waste, can I? I'll let you guys know when I boot it up for the first time. You guys might actually be able to help me get a little kick start.
The final chapter:
After doing this for almost 3 years I have come to the conclusion that this hobby isn't cheap at all. It's not only the computer hardware and the fast internet connection but I also pay for my blog, the streaming and video editing software and as you guys might have noticed my microphone quality has gone down a lot recently because my great microphone died. The ads on here and on a few Youtube video's definitely help me out but it's nowhere near covering the costs of this operation. Plus, I'd like to improve the quality over time.
Although I never liked asking for stuff I've recently added the ability to donate to me. And a few people already have, thanks a lot! The money will go to improving and maintaining what I'm doing. First on my shopping list is a 2 year license for XSplit. If you'd like to help out check out the little widget below.
As a thank you I will try to give donors little perks. Right now donors get the right to name a child in Crusader Kings II (no guarantees of survival or becoming a non-crazy character). Which obviously has the potential to turn epic.
Crusader Kings II AAR — Duke of Bohemia (preview version)
[This AAR is based on the preview version. The game can and probably will change between now and the release]
It's January 1st 1187 and Bedrich I is the duke of Bohemia. He is a vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor and he owns a large area on the eastern border of the Empire.
The laws of the duchy tell us that the oldest male of the dynasty will inherit. Count Konrád of Znojmo, Brno and Olomouc. I don't have any male children at the moment but that does mean that if I die that my children will inherit nothing. Because I'm more loyal to my children than to a far away cousin I will seek to change this unjust law.
Our liege is the Holy Roman Emperor. The crown authority is very low, meaning that the emperor has very little to say and that his vassals can do almost anything they want. The succession laws are favorable to us, the Emperor's vassals will vote on the males in the realm. This means that if we get popular enough we might have a shot at inheriting the throne.
But before we know it the greedy emperor decides to change the laws of the realm giving him more power in the realm. We see this as a problem because we want as little interference in our rule as possible. We ignore his request to approve the change in the law, but there are undoubtedly enough weaklings in the realm to approve this change. We vow to do something about this situation.
Our liege asks our daughter's hand in marriage. This marriage will increase our standing in the realm and create an alliance between us and the Holy Roman Emperor. And because our succession laws don't allow women to inherit there is no real risk for us here. We bid our daughter farewell and send her on her way to the emperor.
Even though the Emperor is our son-in-law and our ally we prepare a plot to take his throne. He will understand our need to acquire more power to secure our family's continued safety. Besides, the Emperor is quite old and in case he dies it would be beneficial for us to have everything prepared to strike during the inevitable confusion resulting from his death.
Our first co-conspirators are the Doge of Genoa and the Duke of Lombardia. Trusting the latter proves to be a mistake because he fails to keep our plot secret. Luckily the Emperor doesn't send his marshal to arrest us, maybe he doesn't want to upset his wife? Or even better, he might fear our retaliation.
Konrád complicates our plans because he becomes the Duke of Moravia. We lose access to his troops and changing our succession laws to primogeniture becomes more complicated. We will need to do something about this in the future.
We are invited to a grant feast at the Emperor's estate. During the feast Bishop Cataldo challenges us to a dual. We are a little embarrassed by his behavior but we have to accept to preserve our honor. We kill him in a fair fight.
We suspect that Konrád found out about our plans to relieve him from his lands and inheritance and decides to strike first. After several close battles we come out on top and he gives up in disgrace.
Following this treachery we decide to change our laws and deny Konrád his inheritance. After instituting primogeniture our half-brother Vladislav becomes our new heir.
Despite our continued efforts to plot against our liege we are awarded the honorary title of Seneschal. This gives us prestige and coin.
One day after Christmas of 1197 our liege dies. This must be an omen! But we're not the only plotters to recognize the weakness of our new liege. Duke Friedrich VI of Swabia wants to get rid of elective succession to improve his own inheritance chances.
Without any intervention from us the Pope excommunicates the Holy Roman Emperor! This is excellent for us! The current Emperor is now an excommunicated minor, his vassals will not be pleased and they would want to join our plot. Almost the entire Empire sees that the realm cannot prosper with the current leadership. Most vassals join us now and we actually have more than twice the power the Emperor has. We send the Emperor a letter with an ultimatum: give the title to me or see our troops ravage his lands. He refuses.
Vassals who initially refused to join my plot now see the foolishness of their decision. We ask them again if they want to replace the current unholy Emperor with someone who can lead the realm to greatness. Most accept and the Emperor has almost no one left to defend him. Even the King of France and the Pope himself fight for our cause.
After a little over a year the Emperor surrenders and hands us his title. Now begins our perilous task to secure our position. Even though a lot of the vassals supported us with our mission the only reason they did was because the previous Emperor was so terrible, and they probably didn't want to end up on the losing side. A lot of our vassals don't like us, especially the German dukes don't like to be ruled by a Bohemian Emperor. It will be hard to stabelize our Empire and secure succession.
[Note how our name changed to Bedrich II because a previous Emperor was called Friedrich]
Ask me anything about Crusader Kings II
I've been playing the preview version of Crusader Kings II for about a week now. If you have any questions about the game please post them in the comment section below and I will try to answer them all as well as I can. Please note that this is a preview version, meaning that things may change before the final release!
And a second note: I'm working on a small AAR right now. Stay tuned.
Crusader Kings II Streaming event today — I’ll be there
I get the feeling that I'm repeating every Paradox Interactive press release but I really believe that everything concerning Crusader Kings II is extremely relevant to my readers and subscribers.
Anyway, tonight at 7:30pm CET there will be a live stream of Crusader Kings II at twitch tv. I will definitely be watching and if possible I'll also be in the chat. I'd like it if some of you guys would join me.
UPDATE:
The stream is over. The video's are uploaded on Youtube. Check it out:
Not selected for the CKII beta *sniff*
Rats, I wasn't entered into the CKII beta. Too bad, I'm probably not good enough at selling myself. Maybe it's better I'm not in the beta because I don't want the NDA to get in the way of talking about the game. Especially once the preview version gets distributed. But I was really looking forward to breaking the game and complaining about it. Oh well, that'll have to wait for the preview version.
RANDOM BLURB: Can’t wait for Crusader Kings II
There isn't really anything to report but to say that I can't wait to get my hands on CKII. Over the last couple of weeks a few people got their hands on the preview code, some of them even made youtube video's. The game looks great even though the release is set for all the way back in February. Paradox is really taking their time with this one.
As soon as I get my hands on the preview version I'll upload some great youtube video's on it. I bet I can outdo the people who already have their hands on it.
The Walking Dead Season 2 — my opinion and review
The Walking Dead is a TV show based on a group of survivors during a zombie apocalypse. The second season recently started on AMC and the intertubes really need to hear my opinion on it.
The Walking Dead is, contrary to standard zombie stories, not exclusively about gore and scaring the viewers. A lot of time is spent on the individual character's back story and on solving problems the group has. Of course, a TV show like this has to watch out that it doesn't turn into As The World Turns with zombies. In my opinion they got close into turning into a soap opera during the second half of season 1 and I was close to not liking it anymore. But they managed to pick up the pace again and air a great first episode for the second season. They took some time to develop interpersonal-relationships but I never felt that the episode was slowing down.
One of the main problems the group has in the first episode is that they lost track of one of the characters during a zombie 'attack', normally I hate stories about finding people that are in danger, stories like that feel forced and unoriginal. But for some reason they executed it well and I had a great time watching the episode. The first episode had some horror clichés and a few inconsistencies but overall these points are minor to the overall quality of the episode.
What dissapoints me is that they introduced Lennie James' character Morgan Jones during the first season but we haven't seen him back yet. I doubt we'll see him again but it annoys me a little.
If you like zombie or post-apocalypse movies I highly recommend The Walking Dead. The first episode of season 2 definitely gave me the impression that they're doing a great job.
Naval War: Arctic Circle closed beta signup open
Another beta for a Paradox Interactive published game is available right now. Signups for Naval War: Arctic Circle are open until Friday October 28th here: http://beta.paradoxplaza.com/.
The only thing I know about the game is that I've seen the trailer, which looked pretty cool.
Attention: Crusader Kings II beta sign up applications open!
Beta sign ups for Crusader Kings II are open once again. You can send in your application until October 17th. You will be notified if you're accepted into the beta on October 24th.
Just a little note: the beta isn't a way to get early access to the game. You will be expected to actually find bugs and report them. Playing an unfinished game isn't as fun as it may sound. So make sure you're committed to it before you sign up.
You can sign up here: http://beta.paradoxplaza.com
