The plague of dornish primogeniture

Here we find a list of requirements for potential heirs.

1) can_inherit_titles_trigger = yes means that a bastard, a septon, a maester or a disinherited person can't inherit themselves

(then the "OR" part begins)

2) dynasty = ROOT means that all members of the dynasty of the current ruler are candidates

3) is_child_of = ROOT all children of the current ruler (even if they are from a different dynasty?) are candidates

(then the part on close relatives begins)

4) first, the parents and grandparents of the wrong dynasties are thrown out (are half-brothers or cousins considered close relatives? if so, they should be thrown out too)

5) now we've finally come to the central part, to the whole point of the dornish succession:

NOR = {
mother_even_if_dead = {
trait = disinherited
dynasty = ROOT
}
mother_even_if_dead = {
mother_even_if_dead = {
trait = disinherited
dynasty = ROOT
}
}
father_even_if_dead = {
mother_even_if_dead = {
trait = disinherited
dynasty = ROOT
}
}
}
So not only the disinherited person can't be the heir, but also the child or grandchild of a disinherited person can't be the heir. Actually, a greatgrandchild can bypass all of this and still inherit the throne

-------------------------------------

This mechanic isn't needed in the vanilla game because there is no disinheritance in the base game - only monks and bastards. It wasn't needed in AGOT versions before 1.8 because the same mechanic (disinheritance + "dornish primogeniture") was applied only to Dorne (probably tied to cognatic inheritance). Since version 1.8 the "dornish primogeniture" is introduced and at the same time it stopped being purely dornish - since version 1.8 this mechanic is applied throughout westeros at least (not sure about the rest of the world, but it could be universal). So the name is really misleading. "The no longer dornish-only primogeniture" would be a more fitting name. "Great House primogeniture" would also be ok, since (I think) all this stuff doesn't apply to counts... Or does it? Then maybe "Stable primogeniture", since this mechanic is meant to make dynasties more stable? "Stable primogeniture" makes me think of all the ck2 horse jokes, though. "Dynastic primogeniture"?

So this is the problem. We have generic AI stupidity that creates problems for dynastic stability everywhere. We have the cognatic dornish tradition that creates additional problems for dynastic stability. Before version 1.8 the mechanic described above was used only for Dorne (only maybe I should say for titles with cognatic succession). After 1.8 it is used everywhere.

And I really hate it. This creates a plague of broken disinheritance decisions, and a plague of dornish succession everywhere, even where it should not turn on at all. See my posts above. e.g. The last dynasty member dies and the king inherits the title (and decides what to do with it next). But the king inherits the dornish succession along with the title - and a bunch of his relatives get randomly disinherited!

Actually right now I'm thinking about loading the 1.7 version again. Seriously, this stuff has already broken 2 games in a row - and I've spent many hours on both of them.

Finally, several ideas on how to deal with dynastic stability.

1. Do not by any means force the players to use the dynastic stability mechanics until they are really well-polished and universally accepted. The previous attempt to introduce dynastic stability ended up as a game option ("dynastic stability" option that changes the dynasty of characters upon inheritance). This was a good way of doing things.

2. There are 2 main groups of titles that (I think) need to be dealt separately. First, lowly dornish counts (and all other counts that use cognatic law) should get some kind of dynastic stability support, compensating for the stupidity of the AI. If and only if we are really happy with how we deal with this, we can expand this mechanics to agnatic-cognatic and maybe even to agnatic (disinheriting matrilineally-married sons).

3. Second, there are several very important realms that deserve special attention . We could give the 9 kingdoms of westeros and the iron throne (or 9 empires in times before aegon's conquest) a special succession law right from the start - instead of making long lists of events that switch the succession law in the middle of the game, causing lots of bugs.

If we concentrate on a small number of most important realms instead of trying to fix the AI globally, we could polish this system really well. For example, we could make separate disinheritance traits for every kingdom of westeros. Then if the child is disinherited by his mother, the queen of the Vale, the child could still be a successor to the duchy of Duskendale, for example, or to any other land his father (or his father's relatives) rule. This would probably require making 9 separate (but identical) succession laws for the kingdoms of westeros, but it seems to be relatively easy. If this system is applied, then the disinherited trait could be made inheritable, which solves almost all the problems.