Now that you have built your kingdom/empire, how do you ensure it stays together? In Crusader Kings 2, the default would be to change succession to Primogeniture and raise a good heir. Unfortunately we don’t have that luxury in Crusader Kings 3. The Innovation necessary to set that succession law doesn’t even appear until 1200AD and you still need to advance your culture far enough to unlock it.

1. Ck2 Inheritance Laws
2. Ck2 Title Loss On Succession Elective
3. Crusader Kings 2 Inheritance Laws
4. Crusader Kings 2 Succession

If you have gavelkind succession, your titles will be divided between your children. If you have primogeniture your eldest son will inherit all of your titles. Now, lets say you rule more than one kingdom. In that case, each kingdom has its own succession laws.

This guide will go over some basic tips of how to manage your titles upon you current character’s death. Much of it can be difficult to understand at first, but it becomes much more clear once you get the hang of it.

Ck2 Dynasty Guide Most besides Constantinople do not start with all 7 holdings up to the limit built, and that is somethi. Most historians now date the dynasty from 1600-1046 BC when it was succeeded by the Zhou Dynasty. One of the few non-gavelkind succession laws available to tribal rulers (the others being Open, exclusive to Muslims and reformed pagans with either Agnatic Clans or Enatic Clans doctrines, and Eldership, exclusive to unreformed African, Romuva, and reformed pagans with one of the Ancestor Veneration, Defenders of Dievas, or Totem-Guardians doctrines). I am playing as Kaiser Heinrich IV, and I have the title loss on succession warning. It says 'The following titles will be lost on succession: Holy Roman Empire (Duke Ernst of Austria). So I click on it and it brings me to the line of succession page.

This guide pertains to Partition and Confederate Partition Succession Laws

See our Piety and Prestige Guide here, our Beginner Tips guide here, and our Top 10 Tips for Starting as a Count here.

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1. Check the “Title Loss on Succession” tab for heirs you still need to land

This section will essentially be your “homepage” for all things succession related. It will tell you which heirs do not currently have enough land and will begin taking your current Counties away from your primary heir. The worst thing that can happen is to see your entire list of counties going to your random heirs instead of your primary – leaving you with extremely weak military and financial capabilities. Constantly check back to this page to see where your succession is at.

2. Each heir requires a Duchy and a County (typically)

For any ruler that is a Duke or above, the general rule of thumb is that each possible heir will need a duchy and a county to be satisfied. There are exceptions to this rule, but keep this in mind when you are landing your children. The reasoning behind this is that in Partition and Confederate Partition Law, each child receives an “equal” amount of land. If you are Duke or above, you will have a Duchy title that is passed to your eldest son (or child if you have equal laws). Your other children will also want the same to be “equal” and will require a Duchy as well to stay happy.

For Kings and above, you typically will only have one Kingdom to give to your primary heir. The other children will usually still be satisfied with a duchy and county if you land them prior to dying. The more counties and duchies you have, the more lands the children will require to stay satisfied.

In my runs, I typically start off with this general rule of thumb and add more lands as I go to satisfy the other heirs. This method ensures that my primary heir receives the best counties at the heart of the lands that I have spent time and gold developing.

3. Grant newly conquered lands to other heirs

Constantly check back to the “Title Loss on Succession” tab every time you obtain more counties and duchies to pass some titles off. If you are very successful in conquering lands, you will usually end up above the holdings limit and the duchy limit. My default is to just work my way down this list of heirs and grant a duchy and a county to each one until they are no longer there.

These lands will typically be much worse off compared to your original holdings since they are usually a different culture, lower development level, and lower control. Instead of reserving these ones for your primary heir, give them to your other children to satisfy their land requirements.

Giving these lands to your children rather than your vassals also has benefits of keeping the lands within the family. They are easier to call upon in wars and typically have a higher opinion of you.

4. Splintering the realm is not always a bad thing

If you aren’t able to create a Kingdom by the time you finish your first character, you will end up with a splintered realm due to other children being the same rank as your primary heir. This in itself is not a bad thing since the new realms are usually much weaker than the one your primary heir inherits. Your new character also has claims on the old lands that you had and can start a war to get them back.

It is usually a good idea to immediately declare war on your siblings right after you start the new character since their counties are typically weaker at the start. In most of my games, I haven’t encountered many difficulties with this method of gaining land back. However, it is a bit of a pain having to do this each time and it eats up valuable time that could be spent conquering new lands.

Worst case scenario, your splintered realm remains splintered and you now have another independent Duke in your Dynasty. This actually adds more Dynasty prestige according to the current calculations – allowing you to obtain powerful Dynasty perks faster.

5. Counties are the most important titles

If all you have is your single capital County, you likely won’t be able to defend your entire Kingdom/Empire. With how Levies and Taxes work, your Counties are the absolute most important titles in Crusader Kings 3. Your vassals may be able to provide you with these resources, but things can quickly go sideways once they start joining factions. The Faction Strength is based off of a percentage of your own strength and it is infinitely harder to maintain control when you only have 2-3 thousand men at your command.

Prioritize 2-3 highly valuable counties (in addition to the capital) to be passed down to every single character you play. Give away as much as you need to in order to satisfy your other heirs before you die so that these core Counties remain in your direct command.

This will make your life a ton easier when putting down rebels and fighting your other siblings for control. The larger you expand, the more careful you have to be in ensuring that you stay in command of your powerful base of operations.

6. Partition is better than Confederate Partition at preventing realm splintering

In Confederate Partition, if your child has enough land then they will automatically create a higher tier title to match yours. For example, one of my sons can have the Duchy of Brittany and enough lands to create the Kingdom of Brittany. Upon my death he will automatically create that Kingdom and split off from the Kingdom of France under Confederate Partition. In Partition, this would not happen since titles are not automatically created.

Going with Partition instead is almost exactly the same succession law except for not creating new titles. If you are at a Kingdom level, then it is worth considering changing the law to avoid having another Kingdom to deal with. Like mentioned in Tip #4, it isn’t always a bad thing but it can get tiresome having to constantly fight after each inheritance.

The downside to this is if you do not have enough Gold to create a Duchy title and you are only a Duke, your heir will take the County and remain a vassal. This can be a big problem since you can’t just go to war with them as in Tip #4, and you end up losing that County for good. Make sure to avoid this by either rushing to the Kingdom stage or by managing your Gold properly to ensure titles are granted appropriately before your death.

7. Send your other sons to War as Knights

Unethical and very disturbing, but you can get rid of your other unwanted heirs by “Forcing” the Knight status and sending a small group of them to fight a much larger enemy. Crusader Kings 3 is ruthless at killing off Knights with poor Prowess and your sons are no different. You also don’t get any penalties from this method other than increasing stress due to your children dying.

The biggest downside to this method is that you are placing all of your eggs in one basket. If your primary heir dies, it is game over for you. If you ever want to consider doing this, then make sure to “Forbid” your primary heir from being a Knight.

8. Avoid Disinheriting, Murdering or Imprisoning your other heirs

The penalty for Disinheriting is far too high for this to be a manageable method of controlling succession. You lose a ton of prestige each time you do it and if you have 5-6 viable heirs you will be in a huge amount of prestige trouble.

If you have the sadistic trait, the intrigue option of “Murder” then becomes available to use on your children. However, if you get found out then the Kinslayer penalty for most cultures can be fairly harsh. Repeat this process for another 4-5 other children and it quickly becomes an issue. Like mentioned above in Tip #7, having your children die is a very risky choice since it can quickly result in a game over if your primary heir dies.

Imprisoning and executing is another method to remove heirs from your dynasty. This incurs a huge amount of tyranny to accomplish for anything more than 1-2 heirs. Like above, this runs into issues of being a Kinslayer and increases the potential risk of a game over.

9. Grant Titles to the heir of your heir

If there are no other ways to resolve your current succession issues, granting titles to the heir of your heir enables you to use those Counties at a later point in the game. You can’t grant everything to your son due to the succession law, but it still works for your grandson. One other benefit to this is if your grandson dies, typically the titles transfer back to either you or your heir according to their succession law.

Keep in mind that this method is typically a last-resort since the Counties you are granting are far more useful if they are directly controlled by you. Only do this if you know your character is about to die and no other tip on this list is going to work.

10. Make sure your son’s marriage type is NOT matrilineal

This is a little bit off-topic, but it should still be mentioned in case any new players are reading this. All of the marriages you arrange for your sons should NOT have the matrilineal option ticked since that means any of their children will be of a different dynasty. It is usually safest to arrange for a marriage even when they are children to secure alliances and to ensure that the children still belong to your dynasty. Once they are adults they can marry other people on their own unless you restrict their marriage freedom.

Conclusion

Succession laws are vastly different in Crusader Kings 3 than they are in Crusader Kings 2. It is one of the biggest adjustments to make, but once you get used to it the story of your characters become much more interesting. I hope that this guide has helped you with organizing your realm and ensuring your lands stay strong!

Thank you all for reading and happy conquering 🙂

See our Piety and Prestige Guide here, our Beginner Tips guide here, and our Top 10 Tips for Starting as a Count here.

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Are you new to Crusader Kings 2 and don’t know where to start? You probably encountred the tip to start from Ireland for the begging but the game is still slow and/or confusing? Fear not for this guide will show you how to create a kingdom in one character!

Chapter 0: Before We Start

Before we start let’s clear something out that can be confusing for new players:

Cassus Beli is a reason for war. Without it you can’t fight. You can wage war against someone who has lands you or one of your courtiers have claim on and few other reasons, but for the sake of this guide we will need just Claim and De jure.

De jure means “by law”. Every duchy consists of counties, every kingdom is made of duchies and so on. If you have duchy title, but not all of it’s de jure lands belong in your realm, you can wage war against outside holders. Winning De jure war always results in realm coming to your realm (but if you are the king it’s not always for you, I will describe it later).

Claim is “legal” right for the land. Legal is in quotation marks since they can be fabricated (important!). Pressing a claim means wage a war in a name of person having the claim agains person holding the title. Winning the war not always result in land coming to your realm! If you are not claimant there are two conditions that must be met to get a land through Claim war:

• Claimant must already have land in your land (barony will suffice).
• The title you are pressing claim on must be lower than yours.

For example, if ou are a duke and you press claim on a duchy for someone else, that person will be independant. But if you are king and press a claim on duchy for your vassal duke, then duke will have two duchies and you still are his liege.

That should be enough to get you starting.

Chapter 1: Starting Up

Step 1: Choosing your character.

For begginers, Ireland with a starting date of 1066 is a good choice for couple of reasons. Most rulers are count-tier which means they have up to 3 counties which is low. That gives you early advantage since you can easly gain more lands and be the most powerful person in the land.

Easiest characters are:

• Murchad ua Brian, duke of Munster – he is a duke with a single county, two vassals, a De jure claim on a nerby county, male heir and, what’s most important, a historical bloodline. That bloodline can be passed to his descendants which give ua Brians an advantage over other Irish rulers.
• Aed ua Conchobair, duke of Connacht – an old guy with realm of two is weaker than Murchad, but still relevant since he is duke, but he lacks the bloodline and lands. His advantage lies in his position. West Connacht has a double battle modifer giving your troops advantage and giving enemies disadvantage at the same time (attacking from here gives our troops disadvantage though).
• Murchad ua Cheinnselaig, count of Dublin – his start is a little bit trickier than the last two since he is a count and has no de jure claims. But he has two things other counts hasn’t at that is county of Dublin which is both duchy and kingdom de jure capital (it gives nice modifier to troops) and is an heir for county of Leinster, which makes him triple count. His dad has to die first though, by natural means, or your scheming. He is old, so you can just wait up.

For the sake of simplicity, the rest of the guide will be made as if ua Brian was chosen to play.

Step 2: Council. First thing you do is checking your council.

• Set your chancellor to Fabricate claim job on whatever county near you, but in case of Desmond it’s not needed(you already have De jure claim on it so it ‘s not neccesary, but if you fabricate claim you prevent a civil war, more on it later).
• Set your marshal to train troops in your capital
• Set your steward to collect taxes in your capital
• Set your spymaster to Study technology in another country (if you are ua Cheinnselaig and are plotting to kill your father set him to Build Spy network in Leincester)
• Set your chaplain to improve religous relation with any of your bishops.

If any of your council members has their stats below 15 here is a quick way to change it:

Go to Find character.

Set join court on yes and search all (remember that only men can be in council, exception is rulers wife who can be spymaster).

Filter them by what ability you need and invite those with best. Profit!

Having done that let’s go to the next step, which is…

Step 3: Stabilizing your realm using a civil war.

Yes you read that right. You are going to cause a civil war to get the counties your vassals have. We are doing it because if you control the county, you get all the troops, if it’s your vassal, it’s 40% at best. How do you do that though? There are 2 ways: the way of tyrant and the way of intrigue.
The way of tyrant is simpler one, but crippling your opinion. Just revoke the titles one by one and crush them. Be careful though, this impose tyranny (-40 opinion, ouch).
The way of intrigue takes longer but doesn’t impose tyranny:

• Go to intrigue (F7).
• In My Plots you have a table, click on the blue “Choose a plot”.
• Choose “Revoke county of …”

To succeed you need 80% plot power and at least 1 backer (that’s why your chaplain works on improving relations). If you meet the requirements, there is decision to revoke the county. By revoking them in this way vassals usualy rebel, which means you have to apply good old way of crushing them to bits. You should have more troops from your one county and vassal so it’s no worry.

When you hold all counties in your realm you can get to next chapter.

Chapter 2: Conquest and Creating the Kingdom

So you have your realm stabilized. Good. Next step after winning the civil wars is more wars.

Step 0: Press your de jure claim on any counties that are outside of your realm and proceed to do with them what you did in chapter 2. If you are over your demense limit, raise the centralization law

Ck2 Inheritance Laws

Step 1: Fabricate Claim.
This is the reason most people don’t play as Ireland when they learn to play. Other countries can gain lands by pressing other claims, but Irish usually have to do without it at the beginning, which is bit tedious.
If you managed to fabricate the claim, just press it and win war and proceed to next step.

Step 2: Foregin Climants.
If you didn’t or you don’t want to wait for Fabricate to work then find a county you want to conquer. Click on it’s shiled and it will take you to the realm page. There is a button named “Claimants”. If it’s grey then though luck, try elswehere. If it’s blue, then let’s get to party. Clicking the button shows you the list containing all people with claims to that realm. If beside their portrait is green thumb up, then you hit a jackpot and can invite him to court. You can now press his claim in war, BUT DON’T DO THAT YET! If he doesn’t have land in your realm, he will just become new independent ruler, so first you have to give him something (even a barony will suffice). Then press the claim and win the war. If you are short on counties to give (leave at least as much as your most powerful vassal have to yourself), then just chapter 2 someone. Repeat this step until you have 10 counties in your realm, and then…

Ck2 Title Loss On Succession Elective

Step 3: Long live the king!
You can create a kingdom now, but don’t be so hasty, there is one last thing to do before making kingdom! Your deflaut succesion law is Gavelkind which means all your sons get some of your lands when you die. You want to change that to ethier Tanistry or Primogeniture.

When I wrote Tanistry, I felt the fanbase howl in hatred at me, but please just listen.
Both succesion laws make it so all your ladns go to your heir after your death. Difference is that in Primogeniture your heir is always your eldest child (usually son) and in Tanistry your heir is Tanist.
Tanist is chosen by you and your vassals from your dynasty (they tend to favor the elders). So you ask why the hell would I want that. Answer is simple: usually you don’t, but there are two exceptions:

• If your realm is full of counts of your dynasty, it enables you to gather all your familys land back togheter (not quite, since vassals usually favor landless heirs, but it’s possible).
• Primogeniture gives all your not-eldest child -10 opinion on you, which means nothing, unless they are also your vassals.

For the rest of the land, ethier conquer them with de jure claim or offer them vassalization. Many accept if you haven’t waged war on them.

Chapter 3: What Next?

Crusader Kings 2 Inheritance Laws

When you become the king, you should already have a knack on this game, so ethier go play someone else, or become emperor of Britannia.

Crusader Kings 2 Succession

To become emperor, just do what you did earlier on dukes instead of counts. Best order of conquering the British isles is Wales, Scotland and England. Wales are just a bunch of dukes, like Ireland was before you happend, but it has less land than Ireland, so it’s not a best start. Scotland is already a kingdom, and it can kick your ♥♥♥ quick if you don’t watch it, but getting it piece by piece is quite easy. England is trickier due to it’s size, but doable if you have Wales or Scotland under your thumb.