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[Grim Portent]

Thanks to Seniority succession when my current king (the one who lost Jerusalem) dies his Nephew, the ruler of the Byzantine Empire will be next in line for the throne of Scotland, leading to a huge boost in manpower but a hellish time trying to control my vassals from the different religion and foreigner penalties.

Is it worth letting things progress into a Scot/Byzantine nation or should I change my succession laws to prevent that?

I could always start trying to mass convert Scotland to Orthodoxy or try to convert the Empire to Catholicism, which would be helpful but time consuming, and the glut of wealth I should get will let me throw plenty of parties and hunts to try and placate my vassals.

[BFEL]

Is it worth letting things progress into a Scot/Byzantine nation or should I change my succession laws to prevent that?

NEVER turn down free empire

[PanH]

Is it worth letting things progress into a Scot/Byzantine nation or should I change my succession laws to prevent that?

NEVER turn down free empire

Well, depends on what you want to do. Sometimes, it's just more hassle than fun, so that's why I try not to get too big.

[Rolan7]

Plan 100% successful.  In order to gain the legitimacy necessary to create the Roman Republic, I found some 50-year-old Cathar in my realm and took her as concubine, AKA publicist.
She taught me the secret voodoo words, and it was done:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=479675347
Here's another image just to show off Scotland:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=479676285

Carthage says hello, bitchez!
Anyway now I have a very important decision.  Thanks to donating several thousand to the Spirit Guardians the day before my "conversion", I have plenty of piety to go right back to West African.  If it's anything like the Byzantine Empire, the game only cares about your religion when you form the title in the first place.  So I can switch back, and my massively powerful barely managed prince-mayors won't be inclined to murder me.  I go on to SPQR in the name of The Spirits and The Ancestors, who got me this far.

Or...  I stay Cathar.  Which seems painfully ironic for a trade republic, a literal patriarchy so locked into agnatic that mods can't fix it (much like Itqa).  Buuut, my retinue is about as large as all my vassals put together.  They've been running popular independence factions almost since I left Africa, but never fired (despite me squandering hundreds of thousands of my retinue in my haste).  So I mean...  I could just revoke their kingdoms.  My retinues are costing about 2.5k gold at full reinforcement...  I have 266k.  Even with 1500 family dues, I could go north korea for about 60 years!  And I don't even need too because of seniority - ever 5-15 years I "die" and all is forgiven.  Which brings in even MORE gold from all those family dues coming back to me.

And once I revoke the kingdoms, I hand them back out as feudal, Cathar viceroyalties.  I can't force them to go absolute cognatic, but hopefully some will.

...  I was going to ask whether I should go Cathar or West African, but I think I talked myself into Cathar.  I might not finish before the save-breaking patch - but screwit, what do I care for some S.P.Q.R achievement?  I've come too far to do the sane thing

[Descan]

I think I'm going to do a Venetian SPQR in the new patch.

[Rolan7]

...  Aw hell.  Whatever you do, don't use the "Move Capital To Rome" decision.  It literally makes Rome your capital, and Rome is... obviously... a castle rather than a city.  No more republic 

Had to click through about 30 messages of vassal kingdoms spawning their great houses.  I'm surprised it wasn't more...  5 of the prince mayors are happy to continue serving me as merchant kingdoms (Serene Republics), but with no great houses involved that I can tell.  I'm beginning to think that I am pushing the limits of the game.  Just a little.

For the record, I went with Cathar.  The option to grant viceroyalties disappeared - maybe after I unpaused and it realized I wasn't a feudal emperor?  So I just abolished city taxation (well, minimum) and practically everyone was happy to convert with me.  For about 10 years the Roman Republic stood strong, reclaiming some bits of land (Scotland still owns Zarma on the south edge, though).

Then I guess I accidentally the Rubicon.  Oh well!  Time to hammer the crown authority so I can try Imperial Administration.  And hey...  This way I can actually use the Cathar-ness to get Absolute Cognatic!

[Digital Hellhound]

Please tell me you eradicated that Italy, though. It pains me to see it breaking your beautiful Roman blob. So do the Abbasids and whatever's going on Iberia, too. Germany could use some cleaning up, too. How can you live with such ugly, ugly borders?

Impressive, though! I really should get around to actually playing a Republic for once.

[Rolan7]

Partly I was in a hurry to grab Byzantium, but also I keep thinking I can rely on my vassals to serve their own interests.  I'm letting them have large kingdoms, even double-kingdoms after all...  I *want* them to get greedy and declare a few holy wars.  It's really rare though.  They'd rather infight, or sit there getting rich.

I also kinda threw up my hands after granting Britannia independence.  I just accepted that most of southern Spain, plus a couple of counties in Mali and Mauretania, would always be ridiculously British...  And I would control Northern England.  Utterly ridiculous, I wish it was possible to trade dejure lands like that.  Britannia's been incompetent though.  Losing Ireland to the Aztecs was understandable, but Scotland?  Now Wales is leaving too, but not Andalusia, nooo they're fiercely loyal.

Best part is, that incompetent screwball is my heir now that I'm feudal.  At least it'll fix the map up a lot.

[Karnewarrior]

Partly I was in a hurry to grab Byzantium, but also I keep thinking I can rely on my vassals to serve their own interests.  I'm letting them have large kingdoms, even double-kingdoms after all...  I *want* them to get greedy and declare a few holy wars.  It's really rare though.  They'd rather infight, or sit there getting rich.

I also kinda threw up my hands after granting Britannia independence.  I just accepted that most of southern Spain, plus a couple of counties in Mali and Mauretania, would always be ridiculously British...  And I would control Northern England.  Utterly ridiculous, I wish it was possible to trade dejure lands like that.  Britannia's been incompetent though.  Losing Ireland to the Aztecs was understandable, but Scotland?  Now Wales is leaving too, but not Andalusia, nooo they're fiercely loyal.

Best part is, that incompetent screwball is my heir now that I'm feudal.  At least it'll fix the map up a lot.

sounds like history.

Messy borders bug me too. Especially when the AI doesn't take advantage of absurd enclaves. The abbablob has had enclaves in Anatolia for centuries now, doing jack all, and for almost 20 years they've been *ahem* induced to collapse through cunning application of saves and afghan culture. And yet, there are tiny sunni towns in Anatolia,  just sitting there, being heresy.

The AI in this game seems to like making ugly borders

[Rolan7]

Don't even get me started on the leftover holy-order castles.  Tens of thousands of heavily armed soldiers popping out of secret bases in my own territory each time I invaded somewhere...  Mainly just annoying but still. 

[Digital Hellhound]

Tangentially related (I was gonna grant freshly-conquered Persia independence, but chancellor grabbed a province and ruined the borders), is the 'ask councillor to manage new titles' decision actually supposed to be useful?

I tried it thinking it'd help assign them to random courtiers or something - not for my councillors to randomly take a few provinces for themselves. Why on earth would I want to give my vassals piecemeal counties that are likely to be halfway across the realm? Who thought this was something useful? Ah, well. The long and hard way of giving provinces manually it is...

(That particular problem solved itself, though - vassal king Persia fought de jure conquests to take the provinces stolen by my council back. I might even release them like I intended now, though... they're so well-behaved... what can a few extra kingdoms hurt? I only stretch from Bohemia to the Persian Gulf, after all. I'm not corrupted by power, ssh.)

[Descan]

I could have sworn that the intrigue decision worked as "Go through your new provinces, selecting to randomly create a new courtier or give it to a new one, until you worked through back to your de-jure limit and/or the end of your "new" provinces"

[Dorsidwarf]

Yeah, its for stuff like Crusades, where you'll suddenly take 30+ holdings, most of them the wrong type, and nobody likes sorting through a dozen cities creating a dozen mayors.

[Digital Hellhound]

There is the possibility that it does, but I've just impatiently messed with it by manually distributing the provinces right after choosing the decision. In any case, the effects have been councillors getting them and keeping them.

[scriver]

I've never used it myself, as I usually have my "important people" tab full of potential people to grant new lands to (or when it comes to churches and cities, just use the character finder to sort all the unlanded people in the realm by the highest relevant stat), but I think I might've been on the councillor side of it a few times. Iirc, you are for each county presented with a choice between giving it to somebody else, giving it to a relative, or keeping it for yourself. I'd assume the AI chooses between these based on their traits and stats.

Bear in mind that I think I've only had this happen to me in the GoT mod, which may very well have changed this function to fit their own vision.