Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

'Must not marry an infidel'

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Crusader Kings II 69866 Bug Reports 19707 User Modifications 10587 Suggestions 5969 Tech Support 6361 After Action Reports
Status
Not open for further replies.
Show only dev responses
jursamaj said:
I'm not creating the false dichotomy, merely reacting to it in others. Garak there "can't imagine" any ruler not playing the 'cynic' (in game terms), using a religious excuse when convenient and ignoring religion when it isn't. I'm pointing out that there actually were people (including rulers) who took their religion far more seriously than that (without going to the 'zealous' extreme of wanting to exterminate all infidels & heretics). Marinaliteyears agrees, and thinks it likely for people to change religion like clothes.
Click to expand...

Isn't Marinaliteyears basically arguing the same thing as Garak? Basically the whole cynical opportunist type thing? If anything thats more 'free for all' than I'm arguing for, I just think that a blanket ban on intereligious marriage was a really heavy handed way of dealing with the issue.

All that said, I somewhat agree with his point, albeit from the other angle. An actual zealot will likely act as such, but a cynical ruler may well still use zealotry as an excuse when it suits him, and throw it aside when it doesn't. He might not like heathens as such, but he's likely willing to negotiate with them. In game, you cannot create impromptu alliances; marriage is the only way to do so, and as such, the complete inability to marry heathens no matter the circumstance significantly decreases depth in diplomacy at borders between religions.

jursamaj said:
As for your courtiers, while they're technically not slaves, they come damn close. There are a lot of decisions you get to make for them without their input. When you marry in your court to out of court, you and the other ruler have to negotiate.
Click to expand...

I was more suggesting that people shouldn't really be OK with the king marrying a lowborn heathen rather than the lowborn heathen getting a say in the matter.

jursamaj said:
I haven't dealt with the sympathy traits yet, but they seem rare enough not to help what you want much.
Click to expand...

My point wasn't specifically about the sympathy traits. It was that the likelyhood of accepting heathens marriage offers could easily be affected by traits and situation. Presumably it would automatically be difficult to get such a marriage (and impossible unless you were reasonable close to them). Cynical would perhaps slightly offset any hesitance for marrying a heathen, the sympathy traits would eliminate it while conversely, zealous would make it almost impossible. The game could do with more depth from both a character perspective and a strategic one and using traits like this more would provide that.

jursamaj said:
Regarding "best of both worlds", if it's doable, it's easily gamed by players to make such limits fairly academic.
Click to expand...

Everything gameable will be gamed by the player. That said, there is nothing gameable that this will introduce thats not already in the game, and nothing that will harm gameplay. Being able to marry heathens is possible. Raising your child with a heathen to convert is easy. 'Eugenics' won't really increase dramatically just because you have a few more people to attempt to breed super geniuses with. The only thing it would allow you to do that you cannot now, is gain an alliance, which is more realistic than any of the things you can currently use marriages with heathens for.
 
Roguedemon said:
Isn't Marinaliteyears basically arguing the same thing as Garak? Basically the whole cynical opportunist type thing? If anything thats more 'free for all' than I'm arguing for, I just think that a blanket ban on intereligious marriage was a really heavy handed way of dealing with the issue.

All that said, I somewhat agree with his point, albeit from the other angle. An actual zealot will likely act as such, but a cynical ruler may well still use zealotry as an excuse when it suits him, and throw it aside when it doesn't. He might not like heathens as such, but he's likely willing to negotiate with them. In game, you cannot create impromptu alliances; marriage is the only way to do so, and as such, the complete inability to marry heathens no matter the circumstance significantly decreases depth in diplomacy at borders between religions.
Click to expand...
I'm mostly agreeing with your point here, albeit I didn't make it clear. Also, if you were referring to me, she is more appropriate, what with marina being in my username.

Personally, I think the traits of Zeolot, Cynical, and no trait account for the rough range of personalities.. Zeolots represent those who do not, or will not interact with other religions on a peaceful basis, No trait represents Kings who may be willing to fudge rules, should it benefit them, and Cynical would probably represent leaders with no particular investment in their own religion, though I imagine even they are slightly distrustful of 'outsiders'.

Ideally, I would think Zeolots would get the 'must not marry an infidel!' While neutrals would get a penalty, but could still try for it, and Cynics could dp so with the least difficulty.. assuming cynical represents being cynical of religion, rather then jsut cynical in general, which would be different anyway.
 
jursamaj said:
I'm not creating the false dichotomy, merely reacting to it in others. Garak there "can't imagine" any ruler not playing the 'cynic' (in game terms), using a religious excuse when convenient and ignoring religion when it isn't. I'm pointing out that there actually were people (including rulers) who took their religion far more seriously than that (without going to the 'zealous' extreme of wanting to exterminate all infidels & heretics). Marinaliteyears agrees, and thinks it likely for people to change religion like clothes.

As for your courtiers, while they're technically not slaves, they come damn close. There are a lot of decisions you get to make for them without their input. When you marry in your court to out of court, you and the other ruler have to negotiate. I haven't dealt with the sympathy traits yet, but they seem rare enough not to help what you want much.

Regarding "best of both worlds", if it's doable, it's easily gamed by players to make such limits fairly academic.
Click to expand...

You're twisting what I said to fit a strawman, and ignoring my last counterpoint to your reasoning. If you just don't like the idea, that's fine, but don't try to argue it's ahistorical and then ignore people who point out it's not.
 
Marinaliteyears said:
I'm mostly agreeing with your point here, albeit I didn't make it clear. Also, if you were referring to me, she is more appropriate, what with marina being in my username.

Personally, I think the traits of Zeolot, Cynical, and no trait account for the rough range of personalities.. Zeolots represent those who do not, or will not interact with other religions on a peaceful basis, No trait represents Kings who may be willing to fudge rules, should it benefit them, and Cynical would probably represent leaders with no particular investment in their own religion, though I imagine even they are slightly distrustful of 'outsiders'.

Ideally, I would think Zeolots would get the 'must not marry an infidel!' While neutrals would get a penalty, but could still try for it, and Cynics could dp so with the least difficulty.. assuming cynical represents being cynical of religion, rather then jsut cynical in general, which would be different anyway.
Click to expand...

Funnily enough I had vaguely noticed the 'Marina' part, and was going to use 'they' just incase it was 'Marina' in the sense of a name rather than an allusion to boats or whatever else, but I must have managed to forget that by the time I finished the first paragraph.

I think I kind of misunderstood your point. That said, even if you had been making the argument I thought you were making (I thought you were saying that anyone should basically be allowed to marry anyone), that would still be a preferable solution to what we currently have in my opinion - at least from a gameplay standpoint. I was more saying that I wasn't specifically arguing for that, rather than arguing against it. Indeed, the main problem with the 'free for all' marriages was people making ridiculously ahistorical distant marriages to unimportant people, which wasn't actually solved when marriages were restricted, while at the same time the reliance the game puts on marriage for diplomacy means that intereligious interaction became rather one dimensional, basically a completely adversarial situation with no regards to situation or character.

I basically agree with you on the traits. I don't know whether zealots should outright be banned from such marriages, or just get such a high penalty that unless the stars align they simply won't get one. I would say that cynicism probably represents general cynicism to some extent as it does increase intrigue. I think its purposefully vague, but I think here it means cynical in the sense of questioning or at least not particularly likely to just beleive what they are told, which while possibly likely to mean they will be less observing of religious traditions (hence less piety) doesn't necessarily mean they are less religious than a lustful gluttonous drunkard or any other character who is not exactly a bastion of christian piety. That said, its still a decent trait to reduce penalties for interreligious marriage. Perhaps combined with the correct sympathy trait it would reduce any penalty so as to be minimal, while either would reduce it a little on their own; I think perhaps a default of 3 '-' signs by default with cynical and sympathy adding 1 '+' each could work quite well. Combined with a generalised penalty for distant marriages this could work quite well IMO - the penalties would tend to stack up at distance allowing for fairly distant marriages of the same religion but keeping it rarer than it is currently, while the combined penalties would mean that intereligious marriages would rarely be feasable at any major distance.
 
I was really hoping they'd fix this mess with RoI, but it looks like that's not going to happen. There are so many great fixes they're implementing (decadence, civil war, etc) but the total lack of inter-religion marriage and, by extension, diplomacy, is the one BIG thing that has caused my CK2 addiction to wane after hundreds of hours.

Please, Paradox, for the sake of all of us who love your games and will continue to fork over cash to one of the few great developers around, implement at the very least a system like the one suggested above. Let Khazaria be a mad struggle for influence between intermarrying Tengriist, Jewish, Slavic and Orthodox tribes and subnations, as it was historically. Let the Norse states mix and convert one by one, with marriage to a christian noble as a powerful bribe for opening to missionaries, as in history. There are so many stories and adventures left in this game, and all that's needed to release them is a simple fix.
 
I support a system that generally leads to more/easier marriages within a character's religion group and also providing for inter-faith marriages if strict requirements are met.
 
Roguedemon said:
Funnily enough I had vaguely noticed the 'Marina' part, and was going to use 'they' just incase it was 'Marina' in the sense of a name rather than an allusion to boats or whatever else, but I must have managed to forget that by the time I finished the first paragraph.

I think I kind of misunderstood your point. That said, even if you had been making the argument I thought you were making (I thought you were saying that anyone should basically be allowed to marry anyone), that would still be a preferable solution to what we currently have in my opinion - at least from a gameplay standpoint. I was more saying that I wasn't specifically arguing for that, rather than arguing against it. Indeed, the main problem with the 'free for all' marriages was people making ridiculously ahistorical distant marriages to unimportant people, which wasn't actually solved when marriages were restricted, while at the same time the reliance the game puts on marriage for diplomacy means that intereligious interaction became rather one dimensional, basically a completely adversarial situation with no regards to situation or character.

I basically agree with you on the traits. I don't know whether zealots should outright be banned from such marriages, or just get such a high penalty that unless the stars align they simply won't get one. I would say that cynicism probably represents general cynicism to some extent as it does increase intrigue. I think its purposefully vague, but I think here it means cynical in the sense of questioning or at least not particularly likely to just beleive what they are told, which while possibly likely to mean they will be less observing of religious traditions (hence less piety) doesn't necessarily mean they are less religious than a lustful gluttonous drunkard or any other character who is not exactly a bastion of christian piety. That said, its still a decent trait to reduce penalties for interreligious marriage. Perhaps combined with the correct sympathy trait it would reduce any penalty so as to be minimal, while either would reduce it a little on their own; I think perhaps a default of 3 '-' signs by default with cynical and sympathy adding 1 '+' each could work quite well. Combined with a generalised penalty for distant marriages this could work quite well IMO - the penalties would tend to stack up at distance allowing for fairly distant marriages of the same religion but keeping it rarer than it is currently, while the combined penalties would mean that intereligious marriages would rarely be feasable at any major distance.
Click to expand...

mostly, I was arguing against revoking titles based on religion precluding marrying between faiths, without actually putting out my opinion on who specifically shouldn't be allowed to do so, since as far as I recall, Zeolots aren't the only people able to revoke infidel titles, which is what my statement was based on.. though I admit, I may simply be misremembering.

And yeah, I bought the game after that particular change, but Im almost certain Id prefer everyone going crazy with marriages over the adversarial approach done now, but I would prefer some kind of comprimise between the two before even that!
 
+1 from me for sure. Playing as Israel with several seriously scary mega-empires around me, marrying and allying with one of them would be really nice which, of course, is largely impossible.
 
+1. I never reply to posts but I feel very strongly about this particular feature. Like the original poster has stated, give a malus towards marrying different religions but not completely impossible to marry outside of your religion. One of the Devs have stated in a diary that war is a form of diplomacy. I would like to add that intrigue is also another form of diplomacy. I want to marry a distant relative who has little chance to inherit the throne, but with a little help from me she manages to do so. Please never mind how this would make the game easier due to inheriting kingdoms. The game is always breeze the longer the game goes on but that is not a bad thing. We're playing a game to have fun not show off to the e-world of our e-accomplishments.
 
+1. Interfaith marriage is historically acurate and was feasible in older patches of the game. Now it should be possible at least between characters that have the tolerant trait.
 
Leo IV 'the Khazar', Byzantine emperor whose mother came from a royal marriage between Khazaria and Byzantium agrees with removing this from the game.
 
Right now we can either stop any marriage between religious groups or allow them all, am I correct?

Is there a way to limit the allowability depending on a specific religion or wether the one marrying outside the religion group is male or female?

I ask this because in this time period it would be very, very difficult for a muslim to allow a muslim woman to marry a non muslim man, because this would violate the very first condition of marriage, it would be as prohibitted as trying to marry his own daughter or sister, and muslims would view that simply as a sanctioned adultery. Even more than that, if a muslim man married to a muslim woman converted to another religion their marriage would imediately be considered anulled. So even the most cynical muslim would think twice about marrying his daughter to a non muslim and risk a huge prestige loss. On the other hand I doubt most if any of the pagan faiths would have any problem, with christians probably in a middle ground.

The current system also cannot represent the fact that a Zealous sunni man would never marry a shia woman or another muslim heretic but he would marry a christian or jewish woman.
 
Last edited:
Amalamanhado said:
Right now we can either stop any marriage between religious groups or allow them all, am I correct?

Is there a way to limit the allowability depending on a specific religion or wether the one marrying outside the religion group is male or female?

I ask this because in this time period it would be very, very difficult for a muslim to allow a muslim woman to marry a non muslim man, because this would violate the very first condition of marriage, it would be as prohibitted as trying to marry his own daughter or sister, and muslims would view that simply as a sanctioned adultery. Even more than that, if a muslim man married to a muslim woman converted to another religion their marriage would imediately be considered anulled. So even the most cynical muslim would think twice about marrying his daughter to a non muslim and risk a huge prestige loss. On the other hand I doubt most if any of the pagan faiths would have any problem, with christians probably in a middle ground.

The current system also cannot represent the fact that a Zealous sunni man would never marry a shia woman or another muslim heretic but he would marry a christian or jewish woman.
Click to expand...

Again with my Khazar examples, after the First Arab-Khazar war the Ummayads and Khazars had a royal marriage to bring around peace.
 
Amalamanhado said:
Right now we can either stop any marriage between religious groups or allow them all, am I correct?

Is there a way to limit the allowability depending on a specific religion or wether the one marrying outside the religion group is male or female?

I ask this because in this time period it would be very, very difficult for a muslim to allow a muslim woman to marry a non muslim man, because this would violate the very first condition of marriage, it would be as prohibitted as trying to marry his own daughter or sister, and muslims would view that simply as a sanctioned adultery. Even more than that, if a muslim man married to a muslim woman converted to another religion their marriage would imediately be considered anulled. So even the most cynical muslim would think twice about marrying his daughter to a non muslim and risk a huge prestige loss. On the other hand I doubt most if any of the pagan faiths would have any problem, with christians probably in a middle ground.

The current system also cannot represent the fact that a Zealous sunni man would never marry a shia woman or another muslim heretic but he would marry a christian or jewish woman.
Click to expand...

"From the time of the Umayyad conquest of Hispania and throughout the Reconquista, Spanish royals married Muslim Umayyad princesses, to seal trade treaties between Christian kings and muslim caliphs. Through these marriages, such as that of Alfonso VI of León and Castile and Zaida of Seville, it is believed that most Europrean royalty can trace their ancestry back to the family of the prophet Muhammad, though this remains controversial."

"The marriages of Ottoman sultans and their sons in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries tended to be with members of the ruling dynasties of neighboring powers. With little regard for religion, the sultans contracted marriages with both Christians and Muslims; the purpose of these royal intermarriages were purely tactical. The Christian Byzantines and Serbians, as well as the Muslim beyliks of Germiyan, Saruhan, Karaman and Dulkadir were all potential enemies and marriage was seen as a way of securing alliances with them. Marriage with foreign dynasties seems to have ceased in 1504, with the last marriage of a sultan being that of Murad II and Mara Branković, daughter of the Serbian ruler Đurađ Branković, in 1435."

Richard proposed his sister to marry Saladin's brother. Byzantium Kamenos married daughters to Muslims.

So while I agree that Muslim women married Christians less frequently, but those marriages existed. Especially when Muslims felt threatened by Christians.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom
Back