Faction Heir designation system discovered

[N3rull]

I finally found out why the hell the most retarded people in your Family Tree get selected as Faction Heirs. I haven't seen a clear answer to that question on TWC, so I'm posting it for you to take into account in your games.

The system is quite simple in fact, once you get to know the trick. First, I'll throw in a few definitions. I'm not English and elaborating about genealogy meets a few gaping holes in my vocabulary. I wanna make sure you get what I mean.

Definition: When John is Howard's son's son's son's ... son's son, we'll call John a Howard's male line descendant. They're all "sons of sons". Particularly, a husband of the King's daughter or any of her male children are NOT male line descendants. However, an adopted man is.
Definition 2: If John is a son to Howard, I'll call him Howard's 1st grade male line descendant. Howard's 2nd grade male line descendant is William who is a son to John, for example.

So:

1. The game takes the King and selects his eldest living 1st grade male line descendant to be Heir (i.e. his eldest son alive).
2. Should the King have only dead sons, the game will search for his sons' male line descendants, prioritising the eldest mature one*.
3. Should there be no male line descendants of the new King, the game jumps up to the person who was the King before him and starts again at point 1, checking the former King's sons and their sons....

So basically the new Heir is going to be the edlest male line descendant to the most recent King who actually has one . Obviously, the actual King is excluded.

I have no idea what happens if none of your former Kings has any male line descendants alive and mature. I mean, I have no idea who is going to be selected - an eldest male line descendant of the King's eldest daughter or just any bastard the game feels like throwing at you.

* I'm not sure yet if the game prioritises male line descendants of the eldest son over those of the younger ones. The most obvious algorythm that moves to my mind that I wrote in Secondary School at IT classes (gods damn you, CA, if you took that sort of a shortcut) would select the first living male line descendant of the eldest son.

To those who get that kind of stuff, the game understands the family tree as a.. tree and uses a recursive search algorythm, looking for living male line descendants. The search begins at the current King, and if fails, starts over from the man who was the King before him, and so on...


Hope anyone understands and finds it useful.

Cyas.

[eggthief]

Nice find, but I doubt that it is easy to manipulate this system and why are u always trying to find every flaw in this game?

[Sokar Rostau]

In other words it's historically accurate.

By the way, John Howard was Prime Minister of Australia for almost 12 years until last October... I found your name examples rather disturbing...

I had four kings die in four turns last night. The Doge was a great man who lived a long and prosperous life, he will be sorely missed.

[shoshenq]

yeah its accurate, its called salic primogeniture IIRC

[Double A]

stupid "De-heir-ed" trait...

The developers should have made a system when you leader dies, YOU pick the heir because the message shows up!

[Queen Annes Revenge]

Well just the thing I dislike about it is that it makes no distinction between sons of blood and adopted ones. I like to keep the bloodline going.

[SonOfThunder]

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense! Still stupid though...I'm currently sending my faction heir off to die, because the son of the current king just came of age...I don't know why the game wouldn't switch faction heirs at that point.

[N3rull]

This system is good, but only *to a point*. If the game selects the first son of a King, it's ok. If the game selects the King's brother, when the King has no sons, it's OK.
But when the game selects a mentally-retarded, men-loving offspring who separated from the main royal bloodline over 120 years ago, just because this simplistic algorythm finds him as the eldest living male-line descendant of a King from a Century before and doesn't allow a pure genius grand crusader husband of the current King's only daughter, well then come on...

I understand male-line descendants had priority, but to some extent. A man who is a husband to the King's daughter is now a Prince, a part of the family. He may not be more eligible for the Crown than the King's firstborn son, but he's certainly more eligible than a representant of a bloodline whose closest relationship with the King is their common and long-dead great great grandfather.

This too simple algorythm works well only if your King breeds well.

Conclusion - pay heavy attention to who you let into your family. Limit the number of far relatives (by not accepting 'bride presented', 'candidate for adoption' or 'suitable husband' events for those far offsprings) because their numbers reduce the chance for your main royal line to develop. Take good care of your King's children, let them command in battles and govern cities with academies and without taverns.
Or, another idea, do not use your first Princess to make an alliance but give her an 'evented' husband. That way, she'll begin a branch of the family who will be the least likely of all to ever become Heir - a branch of meat shields, governors and free* heavy cavalry.

[RMSN NIKE]

I think the heir selection is different than what you posted, or I miss understood what you wrote. This is what I got from gamefaqs when the game first came out.

Ex: when William the conqueror dies, Rufus become the king. Since his first born son is under aged, then his brothers, or in-law, with the highest authority will be selected as the heir. And when Rufus dies, the new king's eldest who had come of aged became the heir. If no come of aged eldest, then the one with the highest Authority will be selected again, probably an old man, who had more time to collect more authority. That is why some time the second, third or the fourth child can become the heir and the king.

Edit: Crap, late by 5 minutes, but I think my post answered the question why a retard could be selected has the heir.

[N3rull]

I disagree, I haven't seen it happen. My theory is based on analysis of about 10 Crown passes in three of my Campaigns and it explained the Heir selection well.
I especially disagree with the Authority-priority, I've had a King's brother with a total of +4 Authority traits not selected, while his older brother with an overall of -1 Authority did.

I also had the heritage jump from one branch to another over several generations to a 17-year olds... so it can't be authority-based. Should be, but can't be.

[John I Tzimisces]

Aaaand this is why I prefer salic consanguinity over any form of primogeniture in Crusader Kings

[DIM67]

This thread is hilarious.

[RMSN NIKE]

OK, I might be wrong. My memory is rusty, since I modded the family for every campaign so that the heir already has a son and will come of age before the original king dies of old age. And always allow all future kings to has a grand son before he is 44. This will always keep the crown on top of the first born of the senior branch of the family.

[Sokar Rostau]

I don't see the problem anyway. It's part of the game (and historically accurate) for some monarchs to be worse than others. Infact, I miss the way succession was handled in MTW - everytime your monarch died there was a period of time when your empire was in danger of falling apart due to a lack of loyalty. I've had one General rebel because he didn't like the new King... kind of dull when compared to the succession hassles in MTW.

[501st Legion]

I don't see the problem anyway. It's part of the game (and historically accurate) for some monarchs to be worse than others.

The problem is not that the faction leader or heir is an idiot, but that someone who is not the eldest son of the eldest family member closely related to the previous king becomes the faction heir.

I'll give you one of the Scottish family trees I had during a campaign as an example. King Malcolm has 3 sons. Malcolm dies and Prince Edward becomes king. Edward dies without kids and his brother Dauid become king. Now Dauid has no sons who are 16 and above, but his brother Alexander has 4 of them. Guess who's the faction heir? The youngest of Alexander's sons!

Now there's your problem...

All the same, the system in this game, admittedly... uh... SUCKS!

I couldn't agree more - if they only had retained the "choose faction heir" option...

[malcolm mcdowell]

if the kings has a son half way through his reign, who then becomes eligible, will he become the new heir, or will the heir remain someone else?

[SonOfThunder]

The heir will remain someone else...which is really stupid. So you can have a king take the throne, but since he has no eligible sons, he has some other faction her...so even when his sons become eligible, too bad. Then you just have to kill that faction heir off. *evil grin*

[loquar]

Lets just invent parliament early and leave kings as figureheads, then it wont matter nearly as much

[King Yngvar]

This could all be resolved if CA had not been so "wise" to cut out the feature of letting you select your own faction heir.

[simple]

well, thats the way it was in medieval times, or not?