When a family needs a new head — its old one died, became leader, took a
religion's mantle, or got locked up — the game does not simply crown the
eldest. The selection has a strict order, and only the final fallback is
random. Transcribed from Player.updateFamilyHead and
Character.canHeadFamily in the game source; numbers from
trait.xml and globalsInt.xml.
The selection order
- The sitting head keeps the job for as long as they remain eligible. There is no re-election — a head is only replaced when something disqualifies them (death, becoming leader, religion headship, imprisonment, exile…).
- Royal succession claims it first. The game walks your dynastic line of succession (in succession order, honoring your succession law's gender rules); the first person in it who belongs to the family and is eligible becomes head — ahead of every ordinary family member.
- Otherwise it's a weighted random roll among all eligible
members. Each rolls 1–1000, then adds:
- +400 if older than 30
- +200 if seated on the Council
- +200 if holding a job (governor, general, agent, …)
Trait modifiers
Applied as a percentage to the character's final total in step 3 — schemers and the ambitious push their way to the front.
| Trait | Selection weight |
|---|---|
| Power Hungry | +30% |
| Affable | +10% |
| Corrupt | +10% |
| Cunning | +10% |
| Schemer (archetype) | +10% |
Who is eligible
From Character.canHeadFamily — every check must pass:
- An adult member of that family, alive and in your court
- Not your current leader
- Not the head of a religion
- Carrying none of the disqualifying status traits below
- Not mortally ill — characters with a death-probability trait are skipped when picking a new head (a sitting head who falls ill is not deposed)
Mechanic transcribed from Player.updateFamilyHead and
Character.canHeadFamily in the game source; the age
preference (FAMILY_HEAD_PREFERRED_MIN_AGE), trait weights
(iFamilyHeadModifier) and disqualifying traits
(bNoFamilyHead) are read from the game's XML each patch.
Both source functions are hash-watched, so a patch that changes the
weights trips this site's drift alarm. See also
Families.