Infinite prestige exploit from unfaithful wife

[Mindel]

So I married the sister of an emperor as a lowly count. This gave me a 300 prestige boost. Later on, I discovered her cheating on me, so I got a divorce. But all of her relatives had died off by then, so she remained in my court. I remarried her and got another 300 prestige. As it turns out, the pope was willing to let me divorce her again, for the same cheating incident as before (I did not discover any more cheating after the first time). So I divorced her again, and she still remained in my court. Rinse and repeat.

I was getting dumps of 300 prestige as quickly as my divorce proceedings could travel to the pope. My on-and-off wife hated me for it, of course. But aside from that, there didn't seem to be any disadvantages.

I think the simplest fix would be to set characters to gain (or lose) prestige from marrying a given person only once. Remarriages shouldn't net extra prestige.

Also, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to divorce someone multiple times for the same cheating incident.

 

[StephenCoffey]

IMO You probably just shouldn't be able to marry the same person multiple times at all.

Are there any examples of medieval rulers remarrying their ex after divorcing?

 

[Rags17]

Easier fix - obtaining a divorce should cost you opinion with the Pope, once you get to 2-3 divorces the Pope simply going to say, sorry buddy, you two work it out with God's help.

 

[Admiral Fischer]

Easier fix - obtaining a divorce should cost you opinion with the Pope, once you get to 2-3 divorces the Pope simply going to say, sorry buddy, you two work it out with God's help.

This may work but what about those pagans?

 

[Rags17]

This may work but what about those pagans?

Good point - maybe you should lose prestige equal to the prestige that you WOULD have gained at that point in time, maybe doubled. This means that of your bride nets you say 300 Prestige now to marry her, then you want to divorce her in two years you may lose 400 prestige, 600 prestige or some other amount. Same day marriage and divorce would thus be very costly, the doubling effect would also help stop "marriage arbitrage" whereby you marry someone when their prestige value is high and divorce them when it is low.

Or is that a feature and not a bug ?!

 

[Emikke88]

Easier fix - obtaining a divorce should cost you opinion with the Pope, once you get to 2-3 divorces the Pope simply going to say, sorry buddy, you two work it out with God's help.

I think they should fix the divorce option. It should first of all be annulment for Catholics, not divorce. And it should be a lot more difficult, the pope would not have granted annulment for adultery. The Orthodox Church does allow divorce, but it's very strict, and the divorced are not allowed to remarry. Cases when divorce is permitted is if one of the spouses converts to a different religion. The Coptic Church only permits divorce in the case of adultery.

For the Danes (vikings) marriage was a legal contract between the bride, and groom, and the family. But it was possible for either part to declare a divorce, which would mean that their personal assets would be split between them, which would mean a monetary loss. It was not seen as shameful so it would probably not harm either party's prestige. Though a publicly exposed cheating wife probably would harm his prestige, and adultery was definitely seen as grounds for divorce, and even grounds for adulterous wife's execution. Which would be a nice pagan feature.

Buddhism has no religious marriage. Chinese/Taoist marriage does permit divorce. In Islam divorce is permitted but must be overseen by an Islamic Scholar. Zoroastrians did not allow divorce. Hinduism and Jainism does not permit divorce. Judaism does permit divorce.

 

[Rags17]

It sounds to me like we need a marriage and divorce themed DLC !

Seriously, I think that all of the above could be implemented in game simply by adding two or three new mechanics to each religion or government definition. We already have the brideprice mechanic for MRs, maybe we need to add annulment_allowed = yes/no, assets_split_on_divorce = yes/no and religious_head_approves_divorce = yes/no.

I'm sure with a bit of thought we could flesh this out with maybe just one or two more and that would be sufficient to cover 99% of the world's religions.

 

[Emikke88]

It sounds to me like we need a marriage and divorce themed DLC !

Seriously, I think that all of the above could be implemented in game simply by adding two or three new mechanics to each religion or government definition. We already have the brideprice mechanic for MRs, maybe we need to add annulment_allowed = yes/no, assets_split_on_divorce = yes/no and religious_head_approves_divorce = yes/no.

I'm sure with a bit of thought we could flesh this out with maybe just one or two more and that would be sufficient to cover 99% of the world's religions.

I would hope to see different legal systems, religious and secular, and I'd love to see a cultural one too. It would allow for very different and distinct ways to play the game when mixing the three. And to manage a balance between them, like which legal system should be above the other? It would make interesting internal conflicts between cultures, religion and the state.

But, I'm always dreaming