Boost tax income / unmarried mayors

[Earnie]

Hi !

I noticed that alle of my 3 mayors (in counties I personally own) are unmarried. So I figured if they were married, their state stewardship would increase and maybe their income and, since they are all my vassals, my income too.

First of all: Is that true / would that work ?


Secondly: How do I actually get him to accept the marriage ?

Several problems arise

- I can only pick people at my court to marry the mayor to (so not a lot of choices)
- if I want him to marry someone not in my court I have to get that woman into my court first
- these problems are solvable though
- but the mayor will only accept marriage to my sister, daughter and so on, every other woman gets 'she is too unimportant' (the mayor is lowborn, so I can only propose matrilineal marriage)

Is there a solution to that (if the mayor is lowborn) ?


Thirdly:

Let's say this is unsolvable and I replace the mayor with a highborn character (maybe even a character of my own dynasty) and get him married. What happens if the mayor dies ? Will some random character inherit and I have to do the whole thing over and over again ?

Earnie

 

[Dragatus]

Even if it works, it's probably not worth the effort.

 

[Silver Wizard]

First of all: Is that true / would that work ?

I'd assume so, but since baron-level characters have a simplified simulation, I cannot say with certainty. You could verify this by comparing the personal and state attributes of married barons.

Is there a solution to that (if the mayor is lowborn) ?

Have them marry lowborn women?

Let's say this is unsolvable and I replace the mayor with a highborn character (maybe even a character of my own dynasty) and get him married. What happens if the mayor dies ? Will some random character inherit and I have to do the whole thing over and over again ?

Cities have agnatic open elective succession. So if there is a male in the court of the mayor (e.g. his son), he would inherit. If not, a random character will be generated.

 

[FifthMonarchy]

I've often married young lowborn courtiers to mayors with no problem about them accepting (if I'm playing a minority culture as i often do I want to breed as many compatriots as possible) - perhaps you just have to wait a few years until they decide they'll not find a better offer but as i say, never had a nubile candidate turned down myself.

 

[Earnie]

I don't have any lowborn women in my court. I will try to get some, but suspect they won't accept an invitation to my court. Spending 20 gold on that debutante event is also pointless, since I want to earn more money, not spend it. Will it get easier with time (more dynasty prestige, better chance that they accept the invitation) ?

Thanks for the tip on marrying lowborns to the mayor and also on the succession mechanics for mayors.

 

[Harassercat]

It's not hard to get lowborn women to your court. Even at the start of the game, as a count with almost no prestige and no particular traits. They just need to be "unemployed", i.e. courtiers with no title. Some will still say no, if they like their liege, but there's plenty of these women to go around (though not all with high stewardship). If your religion allows concubines, you can also make use of that to get women to your court by asking their liege to give them to you as concubines; then just set them aside and marry them to one of your mayors.

 

[FifthMonarchy]

Small courts will generate a few lowborn courtiers automagically and then when they're married they'll have kids in turn. You can also marry your commanders to courtiers from elsewhere and quite often find they leave young widows.

 

[Earnie]

I can't get any lowborn into my court, even if I pick the ones who already like me best and give them gifts.
My new tactic is to get lowborn, young women regular married to old dudes who are already in my court. They then come to my court und hopefully are still in childbearing ages when their respective husbands die. Then I will try to marry these lowborn, middle-aged women to other lowborn characters.

 

[Naufragus]

DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT deal with mayors - or baronies for the most part. All you are doing is creating extra characters and bogging down the game engine. You want these minor players to have as small as courts as possible. it can be the difference between a 50 mb save file and a 150mb save file

 

[DPS]

I can't get any lowborn into my court, even if I pick the ones who already like me best and give them gifts.

Make sure the ones you try to get to your court have the same religion as you--almost no one will go to the court of an infidel or heretic. Same culture helps too, but not to the same extent.

 

[Naufragus]

I can't get any lowborn into my court, even if I pick the ones who already like me best and give them gifts.
My new tactic is to get lowborn, young women regular married to old dudes who are already in my court. They then come to my court und hopefully are still in childbearing ages when their respective husbands die. Then I will try to marry these lowborn, middle-aged women to other lowborn characters.

You can also jail or assassinate the husbands to hasten death. But like I said above, you dont want to marry mayors. They are elective and the children just sit around making the save files bigger. You really arent accomplishing what you think you are - IE getting more income. The only way to increase your taxes is to build up the city instead of waiting for the AI to do it. No one will ever marry the lowbies so you have people just sitting around until they die of old age.

Just leave mayors to themselves. Dont ever give cities to anyone with a family name making it hereditary. (unless creating a merchant). The same is also true for baronies. It just makes the save files bigger and bigger and creates issues with inheritance. Its always better to just create an new vassal rather than hand out the title. You can also lose holdings that way. Just let the AI handle everything below county. Bishops should be the only thing you deal with and even then I have seen them have courts of 20 people.

 

[DPS]

Just leave mayors to themselves. Dont ever give cities to anyone with a family name making it hereditary. (unless creating a merchant). The same is also true for baronies. It just makes the save files bigger and bigger and creates issues with inheritance. Its always better to just create an new vassal rather than hand out the title. You can also lose holdings that way. Just let the AI handle everything below county. Bishops should be the only thing you deal with and even then I have seen them have courts of 20 people.

AFAIK, giving someone who's not lowborn a city will not make the mayor's office become non-elective. And anyone granted a barony (whether by the player or by the AI) will gain a family name and no longer be considered lowborn.

And a temple holding with a lot of courtiers in it is very much a rarity in my experience. I usually don't see more than 3 or 4 people in one, and lots of times it's just the temple holder and maybe 1 other person.

 

[Naufragus]

AFAIK, giving someone who's not lowborn a city will not make the mayor's office become non-elective. And anyone granted a barony (whether by the player or by the AI) will gain a family name and no longer be considered lowborn.

And a temple holding with a lot of courtiers in it is very much a rarity in my experience. I usually don't see more than 3 or 4 people in one, and lots of times it's just the temple holder and maybe 1 other person.

What I meant with the Baronies is giving it to a "Great House". Like if you give it to a Karling there will be like a 100 people with a possible claim. And sooner or later it will change lieges.

Its been a while but I really think that if you give a city to an established house it it becomes hereditary rather than elective.

Anyway point is to not worry about marrying the low tier. It just creates needless chugging of the game engine and can lead to crashes and corruption.

 

[Dragatus]

Cities are locked into Open Elective succession. Theonly way they can become hereditary is if they are owned by a Patrician of a merchant republic.

 

[Arsonik]

Somewhat off topic of this post but it got me to thinking how it would be nice if the game simulated friends a step further by having personal friends and family friends. In the way you inherit an opinion of predecessor bonus or penalty you could also have friends of the family for say +50 opinion, building more lasting personal relationships with other dynasties. I often start as a count or small duke and this could do a lot to encourage more interaction with vassals in a small realm where you normally would just ignore them since they have no tangible influence on the realm.