[CK2] Merchant Republics and how to break them (succession)

[Snackton]

Hello everyone!

 

My first own topic, ooh I'm so excited! Granted, not as excited as I was once I found out how to make those dreaded Merchant Republics have female rulers.

 

I love this mod so much

 

If only there was a way to fuck over those hardcoded things in merchant republics, even subverting them (like, only female instead of only male ruler) it would be so cool

(from the Christianity Mod thread)

 

I'm serious. It's been an exhausting and fun hunt for all of the things, but I've managed to throw together a not-so-very-much-compatible-with-all version of female-enabled merchant republics. You can choose from agnatic, true cognatic and enatic gender succession laws.

 

I've circumvented one of the bigger problems - the AI not following the same gender succession rules - by making three decisions for the player (as the leader of the merchant republic) to enact. I think I've made sure to prevent AI merchant republic leaders from changing the succession laws at all, so once you passed the from-the-start unlocked succession laws, just hit the decision and keep an eye out for when it reappears, as it is set to reappear once any of your titles doesn't follow your primary title's gender succession law or any of your vassals' titles does not follow your primary title's gender succession law.

This is the old version: mrtest.zip

 

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EDIT:

I lied. It's impossible to force an AI patrician to use anything other than agnatic succession, so this time I circumvented that problem by eliminating the patricians altogether. Which kind of defeats the purpose of a republic, but it's one of the very few solutions to ensure that a merchant republic will retain it's gender succession laws. This also means that the player will always inherit the republic! Yay. The decision to change all of your titles' succession laws still exists and has to be enacted for the family palace to inherit the gender law.

The game won't start without a second patrician though, so I've added a decision to eliminate them. Just hit it until he's gone, no new family will emerge.

Disclaimer: Things, like events, might break. Also, Republics could be severely underpowered now.

 

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All of that could probably be sophisticatedly done in some kind of event, but it's 4 AM now and I really want to both go to bed and make this available for people to test, because I'm sure I've botched something. I always do.

 

So, give it a whirl and tell me things! Like, what's not working, what could be done, whatever comes to your mind.

 

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EDIT:

I've added a yearly check to add/remove a non-buildable building in the family palace based on the number of adult female dynasty members at the patrician's court. Scales up to 10 and is not limited by gender laws. (I tried to do it via a character modifier first, but they can't increase the trade post limit so I had to resort to a building)

mrtestv2.zip

[TresBlah]

holy fuck i love you so much, i'm gonna try it when i get home from work

 

btw, vanilla republics increase trade post limits based on number of males in the family, does this remain unchanged or goes to females too?

 

So excited for this. Thanks for your work!

[ngppgn]

holy fuck i love you so much, i'm gonna try it when i get home from work

 

btw, vanilla republics increase trade post limits based on number of males in the family, does this remain unchanged or goes to females too?

 

So excited for this. Thanks for your work!

 

Nah... at least that was hardcoded last time I checked

[TresBlah]

well male rulers for merchant republics was supposed to be hardcoded too 

[TresBlah]

Uhmm okay i tried the mod. While it allows me to make a custom female ruler for Venice, the succession law is agnatic and i don't have the decisions in the intrigue menu to change them :\

 

This is running darkworld reborn, toska, christianity mod. i'l try without or with different combinations

 

Edit: update. I can't get it to work, i always get agnatic succession rule, no decision in traits, can't nominate female heir. No matter if i start male or female ruler :\

Maybe it's dlc related? Which ones do you have other than the republic one?

[Snackton]

Yeah, I'm currently fiddling around a bit, AI rulers seem to dislike being forced to change their gender succession laws.

I have to say as of now it's incompatible with DW and it's submods as well as Christianity Mod, because they too change the succession laws. I might make a version that is compatible when I'm certain that all things I want to work do work.

 

The succession law is changed in the vanilla way, go to laws (f4) -> succession. You should see absolute cognatic and enatic there. The decision will appear then.

 

EDIT:

Alright, I figured out what is happening. After changing the succession laws over and over, doing this, removing that, even preventing agnatic succession from existing altogether I conclude the following:

 

AI patricians are hardcoded to default to agnatic succession, whether they are independent or not. The player can freely change his succession laws, even in a merchant republic, and they will persist. But AI controlled merchant republics and patricians will absolutely always default to agnatic succession.

 

Did the best I could for now and added a new version to the original post. As before, let me know things.

[Zhongda]

It seems the update has broken patrician manors. If I form a MR with it installed, all the houses form as usual but the screen that displays the manors, trade posts, and election campaign are blank.

[Snackton]

It seems the update has broken patrician manors. If I form a MR with it installed, all the houses form as usual but the screen that displays the manors, trade posts, and election campaign are blank.

 

I've seen that too, still working out how to fix that. Can you tell me if that persists through inheritance, because the one time I saw that it fixed itself when I killed my current character to see what else would break

[Zhongda]

 

It seems the update has broken patrician manors. If I form a MR with it installed, all the houses form as usual but the screen that displays the manors, trade posts, and election campaign are blank.

 

I've seen that too, still working out how to fix that. Can you tell me if that persists through inheritance, because the one time I saw that it fixed itself when I killed my current character to see what else would break

 

 

Does it persist through inheritance? Yes and no. My house appears, and the house of the current head of the republic appears, but the rest remain blank. I tried killing the head of one of the other houses, but it did not make that house appear.

[Snackton]

 

 

It seems the update has broken patrician manors. If I form a MR with it installed, all the houses form as usual but the screen that displays the manors, trade posts, and election campaign are blank.

 

I've seen that too, still working out how to fix that. Can you tell me if that persists through inheritance, because the one time I saw that it fixed itself when I killed my current character to see what else would break

 

 

Does it persist through inheritance? Yes and no. My house appears, and the house of the current head of the republic appears, but the rest remain blank. I tried killing the head of one of the other houses, but it did not make that house appear.

 

 

That sounds like it's kind of working as intended. You see, there's no way to force the AI to adhere to any other gender succession law than agnatic (permanently), so I've reduced the number of patrician families per merchant republic to 1, to see how far I can take a "female" merchant republic.

It's unfortunately hardcoded that AI merchant republics always switch back to agnatic, no matter what you do, so for now I chose to enable the player to be the only patrician family in a MR, which will retain it's succession laws once changed. It's definitely not intended that no family at all appears though, yours should of course be there.

[Zhongda]

 

 

 

It seems the update has broken patrician manors. If I form a MR with it installed, all the houses form as usual but the screen that displays the manors, trade posts, and election campaign are blank.

 

I've seen that too, still working out how to fix that. Can you tell me if that persists through inheritance, because the one time I saw that it fixed itself when I killed my current character to see what else would break

 

 

Does it persist through inheritance? Yes and no. My house appears, and the house of the current head of the republic appears, but the rest remain blank. I tried killing the head of one of the other houses, but it did not make that house appear.

 

 

That sounds like it's kind of working as intended. You see, there's no way to force the AI to adhere to any other gender succession law than agnatic (permanently), so I've reduced the number of patrician families per merchant republic to 1, to see how far I can take a "female" merchant republic.

It's unfortunately hardcoded that AI merchant republics always switch back to agnatic, no matter what you do, so for now I chose to enable the player to be the only patrician family in a MR, which will retain it's succession laws once changed. It's definitely not intended that no family at all appears though, yours should of course be there.

 

 

Well, even if they do not appear on that screen, the game still creates the same number of houses and it doesn't seem to be any more likely than normal that the player will actually inherit the republic. When I tested to see if the succession made my house appear, it was one of the other houses that took over the republic instead of my brother. And that other family's house appeared on that screen once they inherited the republic.

 

I have to say, though, even if it did work I'm not thrilled about the idea of losing the other patrician houses, I think it will take a lot of the flavor out of playing an MR. The building you created sounds interesting, though. You might consider releasing it as a stand-alone, there are not many good mods that are both updated and add building options to MR mansions and it would probably be quite popular.

 

[MeMe]

This is an interesting attempt. I have a thought, but I've never seriously played merchant republics so take it with a lot of salt.

 

What if you code your own "succession laws"? If republics have fake agnatic/cognatic/enatic decisions, then I would try assigning (on ruler change) the dogedom to the dynasty's most senior female with 0%/50%/100% chance, respectively.

 

Alternately, I see that there's an override system in place with the Designated Heir honorary title, title_patrician_heir. What if this is changed to be assignable to women? What if a title containing 'patrician_heir = yes' is autoassigned to ALL women, or everyone for that matter? Does it then choose the heir from among those with the title, or just break? Unfortunately, I took a quick look and it looks like patrician_heir doesn't work for women.

[Snackton]

 

Well, even if they do not appear on that screen, the game still creates the same number of houses and it doesn't seem to be any more likely than normal that the player will actually inherit the republic. When I tested to see if the succession made my house appear, it was one of the other houses that took over the republic instead of my brother. And that other family's house appeared on that screen once they inherited the republic.

 

I have to say, though, even if it did work I'm not thrilled about the idea of losing the other patrician houses, I think it will take a lot of the flavor out of playing an MR. The building you created sounds interesting, though. You might consider releasing it as a stand-alone, there are not many good mods that are both updated and add building options to MR mansions and it would probably be quite popular.

 

 

 

Neither am I. The other families are such a big part of playing a merchant republic and I'm kind of annoyed that the game auto-defaults AI to agnatic. If that wasn't the case, everything would work just flawlessly, but nooo.

To be fair I only did quick test (and a lot of them!), mostly using the 1066 start with the doge of venice. Here I had only one other patrician, who I removed with my decision and ta-daa, I was the leader of a "republic" with only one candidate to choose from. I guess the idea of 5 patricians is too much embedded in the game, which would make re-writing all of the events and the other things more work than it would be worth.

I really, really wanted to break the game, and maybe got a bit too excited about being able to institute a female ruler in a MR. That idea might have to be scrapped (or abandoned, I'll keep the file up) but I might take you up on those buildings.

 

This is an interesting attempt. I have a thought, but I've never seriously played merchant republics so take it with a lot of salt.

 

What if you code your own "succession laws"? If republics have fake agnatic/cognatic/enatic decisions, then I would try assigning (on ruler change) the dogedom to the dynasty's most senior female with 0%/50%/100% chance, respectively.

 

Alternately, I see that there's an override system in place with the Designated Heir honorary title, title_patrician_heir. What if this is changed to be assignable to women? What if a title containing 'patrician_heir = yes' is autoassigned to ALL women, or everyone for that matter? Does it then choose the heir from among those with the title, or just break? Unfortunately, I took a quick look and it looks like patrician_heir doesn't work for women.

 

I've tried a lot of things, even disabling agnatic succession altogether. The problem lies not within the gender succession laws for the player - they work absolutely fine. It's the AI that's giving me headaches, and they won't even adhere to forced succession law changes via decision or event. The next day, they default to agnatic. Every day. There's some hardcoded failsafe.

 

The designated heir is actually working if you have true cognatic or enatic succession and "force" the succession laws on all of your titles (via the intrigue menu decision).