What is the point of authority?

[rvg]

As far as I have seen, it has no visible influence whatsoever and a zero authority cuckold can be just as successful of a monarch as a 10 authority tyrant. I remember that back in the MTW1 low influence had a potential to plunge a kingdom into a civil war, but now that does not seem to be the case. So, is it good for anything at all?

[FactionHeir]

Quite similar.
Higher authority means your units and generals are less likely to go rebel or be bribed away, i.e. the chance at each end turn is lower.
High authority also means that your leader's princess daughters start with a trait or ancillary that may increase their charm a bit, which is a bonus.

Other than that, authority does nothing.

[ReiseReise]

The main advantage is that your armies led by captains are less likely to turn rebel. If you have a 0 authority King a lot of your captain-led armies will turn on you, especially (maybe?) if they are in rebel territory. Usually not a problem if all your armies are led by generals with at least 4 loyalty, but if, for example, you decide to keep a pure family tree and don't adopt anyone, you will be short on generals, and the ability to use armies led by captains without worrying about them turning rebel is a nice advantage.

Aside: What is the loyalty of a captain in terms of the dice rolls for bribery/randomly turning rebel?

[Paradox]

Aren't the ones with the highest Authority/Influence chosen automatically as faction heirs?

[Zarky]

Aren't the ones with the highest Authority/Influence chosen automatically as faction heirs?
It´s always oldest son, if no sons then most likely first son-in-law (no matter if it´s youngest Princesses husband). Or does it go to brother if there´s no male heir?

[ReiseReise]

It not based on authority, only bloodline. Zarky's question is a good one.

[Alpedar]

Authority is important. I was amused when in my new Portugal campaign I seen one french army going towards one of my cities and one turn away turned rebel (which prevented war with France for at least few turns).

[FactionHeir]

Heir mechanics are fairly random.
Usually goes to your current king's oldest son (or if the king died, the heir's oldest son), but not even that stands true all the time.

[ReiseReise]

There must be some set-in-stone rules for the heir. We just apparently don't know them.

[Guru]

I've always thought the heir system was quite logical. I usually plan out my family tree and see who generals need to disappear to make the king's young (read: underage) son to become the heir when he comes of age. I always keep kings and heirs as left as possible in the family tree. It's quite easy since that's what the game wants to do, too.

Let's imagine a situation:
There's an old king(1) whos got some sons and perhaps a daughter or two. His oldest son is the heir. The oldest son, prince(2), has a few kids. Now the old King(1) bites the dust. If the new king(2) has a son(3) whos 16 or over, the son(3) becomes the heir. If none of the king's(2) sons are of age, then his brother(4), the next son of the first king(1), becomes the heir.
So now the new king's(2) brother(4) is the heir. Should the prince(4) die, the heir will jump to the leftmost living male family member, which is the king's(2) son who recently came of age. If the king(2) has still got no sons old enough, his (dead) brother's(4) oldest son (if 16+) will become the heir. If the dead brother had no sons old enough, the first kings third son will become the heir and so on... Adopted sons do not seem to differ from this pattern, while they got their own bloodline, (as FH kindly told me) they seem to be treated like real sons when it comes to the heir system.
It's not entirely clear but it's easier to figure out in game.

- Guru

[FactionHeir]

You certainly want to tell me why in a recent SP English campaign, when William died and Rufus has a son that was of age (adopted actually), that adopted son was not the new heir but Henry (the youngest of William's sons) became heir?

This has nothing to do with him being adopted btw. "Normally" they get to become heir in such situations, but its peculiar that it did not happen in that case (I wasn't able to reproduce it though in another campaign). So there seems to be a random element involved.

[Guru]

Well that's pretty strange. In my games the heir system always follows the pattern I've tried to present so I've never seen such oddities. That "random element" could be a bug, though, while I don't deny that there can be a random factor involved. I believe bloodline (adoptions) cannot be totally closed out as long as there is not real evidence whether it affects the system or not.

Guru