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I'm exactly two counties away from being able to declare myself Emperor of Britannia. I have a stack of courtiers and other nobles with claims on various bits of English real estate, including several claims on duchies, which I've verified through looking at the claimants for titles.

Unfortunately, I can't go to war against the King of Scotland for any duchies that he has; instead, I have a pile of excuses to go to war over various single counties. I've snipped off duchies before, and I distinctly remember having my choice of duchies to fight over the last time I went to war, but suddenly I'm no longer able to. What changed?

(Note: I have 46 Casus Belli against Scotland. About six of them are about a duchy with a single county in it. Have I run out of Casus Belli?)

SevenSidedDie
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PotatoEngineer
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    Is it possible that those single-county duchies are just de jure duchies and no-one in Scotland actually holds the title? – SevenSidedDie May 26 '13 at 16:31
  • The single-county duchy is weird; it's the duchy of Slavonia. When you look it up, the map goes to near Croatia, but the single county is Breifne, in Ireland. Anyway, the rest of the duchies definitely exist, I definitely have claims on them (through my vassals), and are definitely owned by Scotland (either the king or one of his dukes). As a side note, I made it to Emperor, so now I have excuses to claim the Kingdom of Scotland itself. I now have 61 available Casus Belli, so it must not be a simple limitation on those. – PotatoEngineer May 26 '13 at 22:26
  • @PaulMarshall Regarding the Duchy of Slavonia. Remember that a duke does need to rule at least one county, before he can be made duke – however, there are no restrictions that says the county has to be within that exact duchy. Possibly the AI made him a duke (for whatever reason). It is also possible he held counties in Slavonia, and lost those, but got to keep the title of duke, considering he had an estate in Breifne. Anyway, since Slavonia is not de jure part of Scotland, you can't declare war over it from the Scottish king. – Nix Jun 06 '13 at 21:43

2 Answers2

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I. Weak claimants can only press their claim under specific circumstances

  • Regency
  • Male claimant against female ruler
  • There is already a war in progress disputing the title
  • Claimant is currently a pretender (2nd or 3rd in line to inherit title)

II. Females cannot press claims against titles with agnatic succession laws.

So, when you see a claim that is not available as a CB

  1. If the claimant is female, verify that the title succession law is agnatic-cognatic or absolute cognatic
  2. If the claim is weak, verify that at least one of the specific circumstances apply
  3. Male claimants with strong claims can always press their claims
Aaron Kurtzhals
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    Thanks! It looks like I need to change my strategy when grabbing claimants, then; no more "just take whoever's willing to show up." Gosh, I might actually have to spend money on gifts! – PotatoEngineer Jun 01 '13 at 18:53
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It is possible to claim duchies. The most straightforward (although not necessarily speedy) way is to send your chancellor to fabricate claims. Most of the time he will get a claim on a county, but there is a small probability that he will obtain a claim for the whole duchy. This option should always work, but it takes a while (unless you are Catholic and your target is the pope). Sometimes you will also get plots to fabricate a claim. I find that these usually work quite well.

Another, potentially a lot more complicated way is to find a claimant to one of the duchies who are either your vassals or of your dynasty and pressing their claims. If they are not of your dynasty or your vassal, the duchy will not join your realm after the war (although the claimant still gets the title). If the current duke is adult male, they need a strong claim, otherwise a weak claim works as well.

You can get a list of claimants by clicking on the coat of arms of the duchy you want (or a county in that duchy and then navigating to the duchy by clicking on the CoAs at the top of that screen), then clicking on the claimants button. All of those with a green thumbs up will accept an invitation to your court. If you are lucky enough that they are of your dynasty and have a strong claim you are all set. Invite them to court and press their claim.

However, most of the time you will not be so lucky. If they are not of your dynasty then give them a title somewhere in your kingdom - this will make them your vassal. If their claim is heritable and you don't want to give them a county inside your realm you can also marry them (matrilineally if they are male) to a member of your dynasty. Their kids will then have a claim and be of your dynasty.

Finally, you need to check if their claim is weak or strong. If weak, then arrange for the duke to be either female or a child. This can be done through assassination.

If none of the above options work, then take one of the counties in a larger duchy that will allow you to usurp the duchy title (you need over 1/2 of the holdings in the duchy).

Also, if you are loosing claims to duchies, this could be for a number of reasons. Firstly, it could be that last time you went to war the weak claims were applicable (ie. some of the relevant duchies may have had female or child rulers). If the claims you had last time were fabricated by the chancellor, note that they are not heritable. However, non-heritable claims become heritable if you press them in a war (even if you loose the war).

(As an aside, once you are an emperor you can vassalise the pope. This is great.)

SMeznaric
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    This doesn't answer the question. The OP already has claims on duchies. The question is why aren't they available as Casus Belli for war. – SevenSidedDie May 30 '13 at 14:39
  • I have added a paragraph on why the claims may have disappeared. However, note that the question is "How can I go to war to claim a duchy rather than a county?". He wants to get the imperial title, and for that he needs applicable claims. I think my post answers that question. – SMeznaric May 30 '13 at 15:03
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    You can't just answer the title of the question: that's called "not answering the question." You must also read the body of the question, and answer that, else you're not actually helping the asker. Details you've missed: the claims haven't disappeared, they just don't show in the Declare War screen. – SevenSidedDie May 30 '13 at 15:07
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    There, now the title more closely describes the body of the question. – SevenSidedDie May 30 '13 at 15:10
  • I stated in several places that weak claims cannot be pressed under certain circumstances, which are also described in detail. Perhaps you should take your own advice and read the body of my answer before you decide that the question wasn't answered. – SMeznaric May 30 '13 at 15:12
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    I fixed your answer. Now it is an on-topic guess at answering the question, and there isn't a lot of off-topic noise. I find it unlikely that all six claims were weak and had child/female rulers or were fabricated by now-dead people last time he went to war, but it's not impossible. I'd still like to see a definitive answer to this Q. – SevenSidedDie May 30 '13 at 15:18
  • I don't appreciate my answer being changed. Also, if you think I said all claims were weak, you clearly haven't read my answer. – SMeznaric May 30 '13 at 15:22
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    Then my downvote and off-topic flag stands; that's too bad, it wasn't a bad answer anymore. (If you've missed the part of the site that says answers are editable by other users to improve them, then you should go read the FAQ.) You should have kept the spelling fixes though. – SevenSidedDie May 30 '13 at 15:25
  • You first claim answer is off topic, then when I point out the title you edit the question to fit to what you claimed, delete a huge chunk of my answer. Seriously dude, you need a better hobby. – SMeznaric May 30 '13 at 15:29
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    Here we answer the actual question asked, not something vaguely related or something that was cherry-picked out of the whole text. Read the question, not just the title. Off-topic rambling is off-topic. I won't edit war to keep it out of the answer, but someone else will come along and remove it eventually. Please read our FAQ and perhaps our About page if you're confused about how the site operates. If you are still confused, drop by chat or ask on Meta. – SevenSidedDie May 30 '13 at 15:31
  • The actual question is about how to gain the duchy, losing the duchy claims is just an aside. This is also emphasised by the choice of a title, which you conveniently changed to fit with your story. – SMeznaric May 30 '13 at 15:33
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    The asker knows how to gain duchies. If you had read more than the title, you perhaps would have noticed that he knew he had plenty of other ways to become Emperor (and has since done so). Becoming Emperor is not the problem being posed: why these particular duchies were not available as a method of doing so is the problem. The actual question is why the expected Casus Belli weren't available. If you don't want to focus on answering the actual question, fine, but it makes it a bad answer. If this were a riddle, the sphinx would be eating by now. The story is not mine: it's in the question. – SevenSidedDie May 30 '13 at 15:36
  • Perhaps you are not familiar with the use of titles in English language? They are usually used to emphasise the main point of a text. I did read the entire post, by the way, but not answering the question that is posed in the title might be a bit off topic, wouldn't you say? Oh, except it's not in the title anymore. – SMeznaric May 30 '13 at 15:44
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    As I said, perhaps you are confused about how this site operates. Titles are not the question. The titles are written by fallible human beings who are not professional writers, unlike how most titles you usually encounter in daily life are created. As such, we who have earned reputation have the power to edit them to better do exactly as you say: emphasise the main point of a text. Have you read the text? Go do that now. If you can't be bothered, good day. – SevenSidedDie May 30 '13 at 15:48
  • As I said, I did read the main text to begin with. The main text further explores the topic of the title, filling in the details and asking additional on the side but relevant questions (as it was before you edited it). I have not only answered the question in the title, but also the asides. – SMeznaric May 30 '13 at 15:56
  • If that's last you were going to say, then I would very much appreciate if you can change the title back to what it was, so as to not confuse the other readers. – SMeznaric May 30 '13 at 16:04
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    No. I have been belligerent in comments, yes, as that is my weakness when frustrated, but I don't believe I have made any edits in error. If you would like to go over my head (which is totally encouraged and standard operating procedure when users have a conflict—this site isn't a tyranny), do please ask a question on [Meta] about this question, the change I made to the title, and whatever other issues you identify. – SevenSidedDie May 30 '13 at 16:16
  • @SevenSidedDie If it's debatable whether the post is or isn't applicable as an answer to the question, let's all err on the side of caution and leave it as is. Anyone is welcome to up- or down-vote it, but meanwhile it will remain. – Oak May 31 '13 at 19:22
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    @Oak At the time of flagging it didn't address the answer at all, just gave a beginner's course on gaining and pressing claims. Once the paragraph was added at the end it was at least on topic. – SevenSidedDie May 31 '13 at 19:45