Setting Heirs to your preference

[konny]

Following a faction leader's death, the next heir chosen is the family member with the most Authority points.

Ok, this is working.

Following a faction heir's death, the next heir chosen is random/ignores Authority points.

Interesting find.

Because the system I had set up with assigning authority based on relationship to the king works so far without me noticing that something is strange when the heir died before the king, it nevertheless seems to be somehow tied to authority.

Let's return to the example of the first post:


When I had played this campaign I had not made any changes to EDCT but given all sons of the king the traits GoodDiplomacy 4 and FathersLegacy 3 via console to grant them with +7 authority.

At one point the game made the son-in-law to the left heir, because he had alot of other traits that gave him authority, while the son of the king in the middle branch had several traits that took authority. In fact this, because I had beforhand noted that this in-law had the most authority of all 15 family members, made me discover that this might be tied to authority.

This heir died before the king, because he was much older than the king. As you can see, the lineage switched back to the (tuned) royal family after that by always skipping the middle son with the many negative Authority. The son of the one heir out-of-the-line was never picked as heir himself.

May be, it works that way that the engine makes a "snapshot" of the ranking in Authority of all family members when a character becomes faction leader? The succession would then be set up in this order, until the faction leader dies and a new character becomes FL. That way, changes in authority during the reign of a king would not affect the succession.

[Pnutmaster]

This heir died before the king, because he was much older than the king. As you can see, the lineage switched back to the (tuned) royal family after that by always skipping the middle son with the many negative Authority. The son of the one heir out-of-the-line was never picked as heir himself.

The next heir chosen was not the son of your current heir, and not the middle son with lower Authority. He could have still been chosen randomly/on a parameter other than Authority. Based on my "theory", if current heir's son had more Authority than anyone else, he could have still been skipped by the engine.

May be, it works that way that the engine makes a "snapshot" of the ranking in Authority of all family members when a character becomes faction leader? The succession would then be set up in this order, until the faction leader dies and a new character becomes FL. That way, changes in authority during the reign of a king would not affect the succession.

From what I've observed, this is not the case. I have made last minute changes (e.g., I switched the heir_orb ancillary to a character who had only come of age two turns ago) before killing the faction leader and, afterward, it is always the character with the heir_orb that becomes faction heir.

I only bring this "finding" forward to 1) confirm it, 2) see if there is any rhyme or reason to heir selection when the current faction heir dies, and what we can do to influence it as well.

[konny]

The next heir chosen was not the son of your current heir, and not the middle son with lower Authority. He could have still been chosen randomly/on a parameter other than Authority. Based on my "theory", if current heir's son had more Authority than anyone else, he could have still been skipped by the engine.

I don't think that in this case it is either random or unrelated to authority. In the case above the complete family tree had two more branches and around 15 male FMs of age. Of these only two were "boosted" in authority for being sons of a king. It would have been a rather low chance that the engine had picked one of these two randomly.

I will keep in an eye on those incidents in my campaigns, may be I'll come behind the secret when having more heirs dying before leaders in larger family trees.

[Pnutmaster]

I don't think that in this case it is either random or unrelated to authority. In the case above the complete family tree had two more branches and around 15 male FMs of age. Of these only two were "boosted" in authority for being sons of a king. It would have been a rather low chance that the engine had picked one of these two randomly.

Indeed, I am too wary to declare anything random.

It seems, when the heir dies, that the next heir is always one of his sons (but not necessarily the one with the highest Authority. In my campaigns it is never the son with the highest Authority). If the heir has no sons, the engine then selects the oldest available male FM.

[Pnutmaster]

In my last two campaigns, (almost) every death of a faction heir has been followed by the ascension of the character with the highest Authority (heir orb ancillary, in my case). Coincidence, or lack of other overriding factors?

e.g., my current heir died. At the time of his death, his daughter was married to a stolen Spanish general. The game chose to make the Spanish general the next heir, rather than the former heir's oldest son (who had more Authority than the Spanish general). Perhaps coronation was part of the dowry ?

[konny]

In my last two campaigns, (almost) every death of a faction heir has been followed by the ascension of the character with the highest Authority (heir orb ancillary, in my case). Coincidence, or lack of other overriding factors?

?
Looks fine to me: highest authority defines the heir.

e.g., my current heir died. At the time of his death, his daughter was married to a stolen Spanish general. The game chose to make the Spanish general the next heir, rather than the former heir's oldest son (who had more Authority than the Spanish general). Perhaps coronation was part of the dowry ?

I cannot confirm that as a general rule: In the new descr_start I have set several rather old heirs when the ture heir was under age. In all our tests it so far worked as intended: the old guy dies of age short after the true heir has come of age, and the young man becomes heir. Strange occasions of in-laws or unintended sons of those "placeholder heirs" becoming new heir is close to "0" (I am saying so, in fact I cannot recall any occasion when that had happened).

Tripple check your hidden traits too, may be there is an overlooked heir boost (for example by an undocumented Authority bonus for RoyalTies).

[Pnutmaster]

No hidden Authority boosts (Authority is crucial to the "Offends the Nobility" trait in BBB). I only witnessed the in-law ascension once, but the in-law definitely did not have more Authority than my preferred-heir of choice.

Heir-selection following the King's death has remained consistent. It's quite a reassurance

[konny]

ok, let's say it works by 85% to 90%

[Squid]

Did you check the wife's authority?

[Theodotos I]

This is very interesting. I think this holds the answer to something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

[Userpro]

@konny
Great finding even with only 90% of success. We will test it soon in our mod and if our tests confirm a 90% possibility to select the faction heir, then we'll implement it in RAE!
Compliments, thanks and +rep for sharing your findings with all of us!

And thanks to all the other peoples for posting their test results here, too!

[konny]

Great finding even with only 90% of success. We will test it soon in our mod and if our tests confirm a 90% possibility to select the faction heir, then we'll implement it in RAE!

The 90% is the absolut minimum. FH dying before FL seems to cause sometimes problems. But this might also be a bug, as I have seen in a complete different situation: usually the character with the highest piety should be governor, but this seems to be occasionally outruled by characters with insane high chivalry.

[Userpro]

The 90% is the absolut minimum. FH dying before FL seems to cause sometimes problems. But this might also be a bug, as I have seen in a complete different situation: usually the character with the highest piety should be governor, but this seems to be occasionally outruled by characters with insane high chivalry.

Thanks for your further advices. You're great ...

[Sir Walter]

If you add Authority to all traits like "Aspiring Commander" then does your greatest general automatically become heir?

[Augustus Lucifer]

If you add Authority to all traits like "Aspiring Commander" then does your greatest general automatically become heir?

In theory, yes. It depends on how you determine what your greatest general is. Remember that the Authority attribute only logs up to 10 levels, if someone has 12 Authority I've yet to see it make a difference(if someone has other evidence I'd be welcome to it). As such, you want to set up the system so the absolute max threshold is 10, and every other contributes into the authority value but not necessarily in increments of 1, or you'd potentially have a bunch of 10 Authority generals.

[konny]

Yes, adding authority here and there wouldn't make much sense because this will only add to the randomness of the system, in particular when adding authority to traits that everyone can acquire. If you have a mod where different factions should have different approaches in finding the next heir you should make a "next heir" trait with several levels that would be the only one to have authority. That way you can assing characters of different cultures "points" in that trait based on culturaly individual triggers.

[Sir Walter]

Yes, adding authority here and there wouldn't make much sense because this will only add to the randomness of the system, in particular when adding authority to traits that everyone can acquire. If you have a mod where different factions should have different approaches in finding the next heir you should make a "next heir" trait with several levels that would be the only one to have authority. That way you can assing characters of different cultures "points" in that trait based on culturaly individual triggers.

I've no idea how to do that, I was hoping to simply attach Authority to good command so my best general becomes king

[konny]

I've no idea how to do that, I was hoping to simply attach Authority to good command so my best general becomes king

This is no problem, but you should also remove any other instances where Authority is given, otherwise the effect would not be as desired.

[alhoon]

I also encountered the problem where the Heir died and the next heir wasn't the one with the highest authority. It works with kings though.

As another note, I don't think that when the heir dies, the next heir is chosen randomly. Perhaps it's tied with loyalty then?

[konny]

As another note, I don't think that when the heir dies, the next heir is chosen randomly. Perhaps it's tied with loyalty then?

May be. But if that's the case I would advise to not give desired heirs lost of Loyalry or take it from other characters because that would seriously influence the game. In particular the AI might run into extreme problems with tons of characters rebelling.