Partition vs High Partition

Question

Is there a clear example of the difference between these two succession laws? I understand that the major difference between confederate partition and regular partition is that with confederate partition it will automatically create new titles. This can split you realm if, for example, your ruler is a king and also has enough of counties from some other kingdom that they could create a new kingdom out of it. Even if they don't create that new kingdom it will be created on succession and handing to their second son. With partition that won't happen and so long as you don't create that second kingdom, your realm won't split.

But what high partition is supposed to do is still a mystery to me. It says here that the player heir will always inherit at least half the late Ruler's titles (it doesn't say that in game which is annoying). But I was on partition and looking at the succession tab I looked to be losing 10 titles on succession. However, after switching to high partition it still says I'll be losing 10 titles. What gives? I'm not even inheriting half of my counties since 7/10 are going to heirs other than my player heir. And of those 7, one is de jure part of my primary empire title, my kingdom title and the one duchy title that my player heir is supposed to get, but yet is still slated to be handed to somebody else which supposedly shouldn't happen.

Also, does it matter what your children already hold? I know you can't grant a title to your heir that they weren't already entitled to, but you can grant to their heir. So, for example, as an emperor I have granted a kingdom to my grandson. Will that count in the partition calculations when my son (after inheriting from me) eventually dies too? (For what it's worth, my current player heir is King of Georgia, a title given to him by my father)

Answer 1

First of all, your titles are more than just counties. Every duchy, kingdom and empire is also a title. If you hold 1 empire, 2 kingdoms, 2 duchies and 10 counties, that's 14 titles, so your heir under high partition would inherit half of that, if he gets the empire, kingdoms, one duchy and 3 counties.

The only difference between high partition and normal partition is, that your heir gets at least 50% of your titles, while under partition, the heir only gets your primary title down to the realm capital (i.e. your capital county, the duchy it is in, the knigdom that is in and the empire that is in) guaranteed.

Yes, it matters, what your children already hold. A child is only eligbile to inherit, if they don't already hold a title of the same or higher tier. Only when every child has at least 1 title of that tier, they become eligible again. As such it's a good idea to not give your primary heir any titles whatsoever, as that increases their gains during succession. If you were to give each of your children a duchy or kingdom for example, while your heir has nothing, you'd only lose 1-3 counties on succession. At least, that's the method I used to get almost all my titles to my heir during high partition.

Another method you can employ is elective. For kingdoms, elective is difficult, as you have to handle a lot of vassals usually, but for Duchies, you hold only yourself anyway(you really don't want direct count tier vassals in an empire), employing elective is a guarantee to get the duchy to your primary heir. With the duchy in hand, you can easily make a claim on the county and revoke it from the child who gains it after the succession without repercussions within a year.

Answer 2

After searching some more, I can across this thread which is extremely dense, but seems to shed some light on the subject:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/succession-laws-explained.1419049/

I think the key points for high partition are:

Primary Heir will inherit the lion’s share (as much as possible but not more than 50%)

So it's not a straight 50%, it's a maximum of 50%. Also:

Each subsequent lower tier Title follows the same rule as the previous step where the Primary Heir will get the lion’s share of the remaining Titles of that tier

So the rule is applied to each tier separately but is complicated by the fact the lower level titles that are de jure part of a higher level title that has already been inherited by a child will go with that child and be taken off the table for this round.

And on the subject of children:

Note 1: If an Eligible Child already held Title(s) of that tier when the Succession happens, that Title will also be included in the count to determine eligibility for every Round.​

So my player heir with two kingdoms will automatically get my primary kingdom title (because it contains the capital) but would be ineligible for any other kingdom titles until every other heir has at least three kingdoms.

The one thing that continues to puzzle me is that my ruler has his capital in the duchy of Magadha (in India) and owns all four counties therein, the duchy title, the kingdom title (Bihar) and the empire title (India). But it looks like one of my non-player heirs is set to inherit the county of Gaya which is de jure part of the duchy of Magadha. My reading of the rules is that that shouldn't be possible?