Marriage AI is utterly broken

[Turean]

Case in point. Playing as a king and I notice that one of my vassal dukes just died and his 23 year-old son inherited the duchy. He's still single for some reason. I propose a marriage to any number of my courtiers but he would not accept. Doesn't matter if she is young and has great traits. Quick, pretty, has double digits in all stats, doesn't matter. "Marrying down" is simply too much of a negative. So I wait a few weeks and what does he do? Marries a 40 year-old with 1-star education because she's from a famous family.

I noticed that the "Marrying down" malus is so high they won't even accept a matrilineal marriage for that 3rd daughter, unless it's to a member of the ruling dynasty.

Which brings me to another point. I was trying to distribute all the lands to dynasty members. Figured it will help with renown. But one thing I noticed us that after just a couple generations they all marry each other. Like 80% of the lords in my kingdom are married to someone if their own dynasty. I know, I know... The CK incest meme is funny and all. But this doesn't seem right.

Does this not bother anyone else? And is this how it's supposed to work, or am I doing something wrong?

 

[IVIephesto]

Steam Workshop::Less Old Wives - AI Men Marry Younger Fertile Women

steamcommunity.com

 

[DamonIsa]

Well giving your own lands to dynasty members won't help with Renown at all. Since they're not independent rulers, which is what matters for that renown gain.

 

[Siamese55]

I'm torn on this one. From a game perspective, with the knowledge available it makes more sense to take the lower born spouse with better traits and stats. However, I doubt historically and realistically it was considered a priority when compared to politics. Why marry the pretty maiden when she only comes with love in her heart when the old hag has land, claims, and prestige? The maiden can simply become a mistress.

So I don't know how "broken" it is, even if the outcome can be somewhat undesirable.

 

[Turean]

Well giving your own lands to dynasty members won't help with Renown at all. Since they're not independent rulers, which is what matters for that renown gain.

The first 100 dynasty members still generate renown simply for being alive. But I was just using that as an example. I'm sure it's not that uncommon to try and keep all the land in the family, even if it's not the most optimal thing to do from a min/max standpoint. And what I notice is that this tends to lead to very unrealistic level of incest.

I'm torn on this one. From a game perspective, with the knowledge available it makes more sense to take the lower born spouse with better traits and stats. However, I doubt historically and realistically it was considered a priority when compared to politics. Why marry the pretty maiden when she only comes with love in her heart when the old hag has land, claims, and prestige? The maiden can simply become a mistress.

So I don't know how "broken" it is, even if the outcome can be somewhat undesirable.

I would agree if that were the case, but the wives that AI likes to pick don't even come with any land or claims. They merely belong to a somewhat reputable dynasty, which seems to carry so much weight that it leads to ridiculous scenarios far too often.

 

[Slimane]

I'm torn on this one. From a game perspective, with the knowledge available it makes more sense to take the lower born spouse with better traits and stats. However, I doubt historically and realistically it was considered a priority when compared to politics. Why marry the pretty maiden when she only comes with love in her heart when the old hag has land, claims, and prestige? The maiden can simply become a mistress.

So I don't know how "broken" it is, even if the outcome can be somewhat undesirable.

I've seen a 15 year old betrothed to a barren 40 year old. Didn't take a screenshot for that one but I took a screenshot for this 14 year old betrothed to some 48 year old. And he was the only son of the Duke in question.

Screenshot

Captured with Lightshot

prnt.sc

 

[Jr. Troopa]

In CK2, the fertility of the wife had a huge impact on acceptance, it seems they've changed that in CK3...

 

[Irisiane]

The incest part is the most frustrating to me. Catholicism should be close-kin taboo at the very least.

Combining the issues leads to the plague of heirs marrying their spinster aunts.

 

[Torredebelem]

In CK2, the fertility of the wife had a huge impact on acceptance, it seems they've changed that in CK3...

Fertility is not an issue anymore when compared with CK2. "Infertile" characters are capable of generating 2 or 3 children in their lives and normal characters go for 6 to 8 children. If you have concubines you can expect to produce 12-15 offspring and which is really off, the vast majority of them able to reach adulthood and die old crones...
This is all so off the mark...

As far as the incest meme, for the most part I am totally fed up with it. I simply try to not look too much about what is happening around me to avoid losing the immersion factor the game provides otherwise.

As far as fixing AI marriages, yes, the mod suggested does a very nice job on it and the author has several other capital mods for the full enjoyment of CK3.

 

[tsr-aph]

There is another aspect to which this is broken in a very similar way. If you give your player heir a barony say to help them build prestige for when they take over, their children are seen as the children of barons and are only "worth" as much in terms of marriage (So they tend to end up in marriages which aren't all too favourable), whereas if your heir has no land at all, their children are the grandchildren of dukes, kings, emperors, so seem to get much better marriage options. The person second in line to my primary title should be treated as such and not as though they are only the heir to some lowly barony.

 

[CrabHelmet]

Contemporary accounts show royal families rating the prestige of their marriage partners incredibly highly. Here is King James I of England in his letter to his son:

"Remember also that marriage is one of the greatest actions that a man doth in all his time, especially in taking of his first wife; and if he marry first basely beneath his rank, he will ever be the less accounted of thereafter... if a man will be careful to breed horses and dogs of good kinds, how much more careful should he be for the breed of his own loins? So shall ye in your marriage have respect to your conscience, honour and natural weal in your successors."

Here is Alfonso X of Castile:

As soon as they are of age the king and queen should endeavour to marry them well and honourably, and, in doing this, they should exert great diligence, paying careful attention to four things. First, that those whom they marry are persons of distinguished lineage; in order that the family from which they are derived may become still more noble.

Both of them list the most important characteristic of a spouse as being the standing of their family (and associated inheritances)!

However, the second most important characteristic was according to James I:

Neither marry ye for any accessory cause or worldly respects, a woman unable, either through age, nature, or accident, for procreation of children; for in a king that were a double fault, as well against his own weal as against the weal of his people.

Alfonso X agreed entirely.

Interestingly, they also chose the same two final qualities, although disagreed about the order. These characteristics were beauty:

The more beautiful sheis, the more he will love her, and the children which he has by her will be more handsome and graceful; which is very fitting for the children of kings, in order that they may make a good appearance among other persons.

and good grace/good courtly habits.

These are two writers separated by 350 odd years and from different countries, so the fact they picked identical traits and rated the first two traits in the same way when describing marriage patterns among European nobles is quite indicative. You'd be surprised to the extent to which "marrying down" was taboo, although a young lady (and therefore presumably a fertile one) of exceptional beauty and good grace might sway the calculation.

However, you are right the AI simply should never be risking marriages with poor chances of children, particularly due to the age of the partners.

 

[Lollipop_but_rock]

My favorite one is the king of Leon in the 1067 start, who choose to marry the old mother of the hre 9 times out of 10, 50ish years old, while he have no child.
So if you start as the king of Castille you just have to wait for him to die to reunite Spain.....

 

[Zhetone]

I can't believe people here are replying, and having others agree with them, to say that a young man marrying middle aged women is "historically accurate." Men almost never married older women in this period and especially not to that extent, nor would they have ever married someone incapable of bearing many children. That would be far too great a risk politically for the continuity of the dynasty/realm

It should basically never occur that a man who is not very old himself marries a woman more than 5 years older than him, or near 40 years old. Yet the AI constantly does this. I've even seen it marry old women who are lowborn before because the marriage logic is so terrible.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I can't believe people here are replying, and having others agree with them, to say that a young man marrying middle aged women is "historically accurate." Men almost never married older women in this period and especially not to that extent, nor would they have ever married someone incapable of bearing many children. That would be far too great a risk politically for the continuity of the dynasty/realm

It should basically never occur that a man who is not very old himself marries a woman more than 5 years older than him, or near 40 years old. Yet the AI constantly does this. I've even seen it marry old women who are lowborn before because the marriage logic is so terrible.

Men certainly did marry women older than them! The most famous example is probably Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was 11 years the senior of the then-Duke of Normandy, later King of England, Henry II. He was 19 and she was 30 at marriage. There are other examples - Henry III of Castile, 6 years younger than his first wife Catherine of Lancaster; Henry VI of the Holy Roman Empire, 11 years younger than his wife Queen Constance of Sicily.

I agree that when it starts closing in on 40, that should become an increasingly heavy negative factor, though.

 

[Guizdo]

I can't believe people here are replying, and having others agree with them, to say that a young man marrying middle aged women is "historically accurate." Men almost never married older women in this period and especially not to that extent, nor would they have ever married someone incapable of bearing many children. That would be far too great a risk politically for the continuity of the dynasty/realm

It should basically never occur that a man who is not very old himself marries a woman more than 5 years older than him, or near 40 years old. Yet the AI constantly does this. I've even seen it marry old women who are lowborn before because the marriage logic is so terrible.

I concur, it seems that many people here got an F in their history class. Rarely when marriages with a big age gap between spouses were a thing, didn't matter how powerful the dynasty from which the woman comes from was; what's the point of having a strong alliance if you can't have heirs and your dynasty dies out after you yourself die?

 

[Trey353]

The issue of young men marrying 40 year old women is pretty ridiculous. Yes Eleanor of Aquitaine exists, but you can't pretend like marrying a 28 year old Duchess of half of France is equivalent and the AI should really calculate more on remaining years of fertility. However, it's also completely reasonable that the AI didn't want to marry your random courtiers. Aristocrats did not choose marriage like a min-maxing CK player, focusing on intelligence or looks. They married for political alliance, which is why when you handed out land to all your family they intermarried (which I also just noticed you said after a couple generations which definitely makes it nowhere near incest by CK logic). I suppose I just find this thread very muddled. People keep evoking the big "History", but when mixed with concepts like "1-star education" and matrilineal marriages it seems like a futile exercise.

To put it plainly, young men marrying nearly infertile old women is definitely a problem, as well as some other stuff I've seen like Princes with counties marrying like Counts, but refusing to marry down as well as interbreeding to maintain political power is just aristocrats being aristocrats.

 

[CrabHelmet]

The issue of young men marrying 40 year old women is pretty ridiculous. Yes Eleanor of Aquitaine exists, but you can't pretend like marrying a 28 year old Duchess of half of France is equivalent and the AI should really calculate more on remaining years of fertility. However, it's also completely reasonable that the AI didn't want to marry your random courtiers. Aristocrats did not choose marriage like a min-maxing CK player, focusing on intelligence or looks. They married for political alliance, which is why when you handed out land to all your family they intermarried (which I also just noticed you said after a couple generations which definitely makes it nowhere near incest by CK logic). I suppose I just find this thread very muddled. People keep evoking the big "History", but when mixed with concepts like "1-star education" and matrilineal marriages it seems like a futile exercise.

To put it plainly, young men marrying nearly infertile old women is definitely a problem, as well as some other stuff I've seen like Princes with counties marrying like Counts, but refusing to marry down as well as interbreeding to maintain political power is just aristocrats being aristocrats.

Eleanor of Aquitaine was 30 on her marriage, but yes, I broadly agree. I was more responding to the person who said "men marrying women more than 5 years older than them should basically never happen", because this is very definitely not accurate. I've highlighted a few examples of quite large age gaps. They weren't the norm, but they weren't unusually uncommon either.

However, what unites these age gaps is that the male partner is very young, and therefore, although the female partner was in some cases over a decade older, none of them was older than 30. This is perhaps a little closer to the real criteria - it's very hard to find marriages where the female partner was over 30. There are effectively none for women over 35; excepting second or third marriages to men already possessing of heirs.

I'd suggest relative age doesn't matter, and what is importance is simply a penalty beginning to kick in around 30 that becomes effectively absolute by 40.

However, even then there are some exceptions. I might introduce you to Katherine Neville:

Katherine Neville, Duchess of Norfolk - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Her fourth and last marriage was infamous, known by contemporaries as the "diabolical marriage". She married John Woodville, brother of Queen Elizabeth. He was 19 years old at the time of their marriage, while she was 65. Nonetheless, she survived him, as he was executed in 1469 after the Battle of Edgecote, on the orders of her nephew Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, during a Lancastrian rebellion against Edward IV. Whether or not she was forced into her final marriage against her will is unclear, but the unsavoury details added to the deep dislike of the Queen's family among the ruling class, which greatly weakened the Yorkist dynasty.

This is an interesting one where the logic doesn't work for CK3. John Woodville was married to Katherine Neville in the expectation that, given all her children had predeceased her, and given her age, she would die fairly shortly and her property would pass to John Woodville, who could then remarry as a titled gentleman. Of course, in CK3, property never passes from a wife to a husband!

 

[klopkr]

Honestly the real issue is that there's not enough noble women to go around because there's simply not enough nobles from all the culling.

I know this game needs character culling but it also needs a way to regenerate those culled characters when needed (generating noble wives).

 

[Zhetone]

maybe there should be some kind of "generate spouse" decision (though dressed up a bit) that could produce a "minor noble" who could be imagined as too unimportant to be represented beforehand, but of greater significance than lowborn courtiers. the AI could use that when their best calculated option is a lowborn spouse or a noble too old for childbearing/without titles

 

[Turean]

maybe there should be some kind of "generate spouse" decision (though dressed up a bit) that could produce a "minor noble" who could be imagined as too unimportant to be represented beforehand, but of greater significance than lowborn courtiers. the AI could use that when their best calculated option is a lowborn spouse or a noble too old for childbearing/without titles

CK2 actually had that option. "Present debutante" or something to that effect. Not sure why they removed it.