Marriage AI is utterly broken

[DamonIsa]

Funny enough in CK2 I found most people said that things like Present Debutante was not only worthless, but wasteful. Since you got nothing out of it and there were plenty of potential marriage candidates out there. So it makes sense in that regard that they'd cut it in CK3, when no one respected/used it. Or at least not a majority. I know I used it from time to time, but only because I was part of some incredibly small minority and I wanted to make sure I could grab someone of the right culture and religion, one that basically didn't exist outside potential incest risks.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

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.

Sure it will.

The single best way of gaining renown is only handing out land to dynasty members and granting some of them independence. You will soon have a large dynasty maxing out the renown bonus from number of dynasty members as well as gaining a lot from all the independent dynasty nobles.

Furthermore, all the 5% increases to renown gain from buildings in a province go to the dynasty of the province controller, which means that so long as you spread your dynasty just about everywhere you'll get all the 5% bonuses regardless of whether the provinces are currently within or outside your empire once you've established control there one time and given it to a dynasty member.

And when some of your independent dynasty realms get conquered by other members of your dynasty that are part of your empire, you can just create the independent realms again should you so desire.

Also, by doing so you'll soon gain the Dynasty of Many Crowns, which is a nice bonus.

Admittedly, this does present a rather blood-soaked approach to empire building, but the competition is in the empire's best interests to stave off decadence, I'm sure.


PS: Admittedly there is a downside. Opening the dynasty panel to see the family tree grows painful when you have a sufficiently large dynasty

 

[The Norman Yoke]

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?

Cousin and daughter uncle marriage should be less common (cough papal mechanics cough), but what else did you expect if the majority of your vassals are your dynasty?

 

[tsr-aph]

Perhaps another problem with this, my landed son who was also my PH just eloped with his 50-year-old lover, leaving his 16-year-old bride (he was 21) alone. For one, my Pope should never have allowed such a divorce (and I'm not sure if divorce for elopement goes through the Pope or not?), and secondly, in what world is that realistic?

Oddly, he kept the alliance from his first wife even though I lost it.

 

[Turean]

Cousin and daughter uncle marriage should be less common (cough papal mechanics cough), but what else did you expect if the majority of your vassals are your dynasty?

It's not like I took over the entire map and there were no other noble families left in the game. When looking for a bride for my heir I am often scrolling through pages and pages of excellent candidates that are young and have great traits/stats and present great opportunities for alliances. All I want is for the AI to at least pretend that it goes through the same process. For a such a critical feature that is really central to the game, is that really too much to ask?

 

[gavinjdow]

Why doesn’t the AI use the same logic as the marriage finder does when you sort by relevance? I rarely find my perfect match at the top of the list, but it’s usually a credible one.

 

[anonymous_jones]

Slightly off topic, but I would like to see some sort of "accepting suitors" type of event chain. Where a very prestigious fertile, heiress or heir gets to accept a certain amount of proposals. Then based off the decisions, traits, power and wealth your proposal was accepted or denied. I don't like how it's a "first come first serve" type of option if you check all the boxes. It could be so much more fleshed out considering marriage was one of the most important political moves a medieval family would make. This could lead to duels and or rivalries.

 

[The Norman Yoke]

It's not like I took over the entire map and there were no other noble families left in the game. When looking for a bride for my heir I am often scrolling through pages and pages of excellent candidates that are young and have great traits/stats and present great opportunities for alliances. All I want is for the AI to at least pretend that it goes through the same process. For a such a critical feature that is really central to the game, is that really too much to ask?

Marrying within the realm secures alliances to help your faction grow in power, as well as letting you push your wife's claim possibly
Historically most marriages would be within the realm or to a neighbouring realm so it's good to see the ai bring semi historical in approach, although the incest debuff does need to be a bigger marriage malus

 

[Fierabras]

If we're talking about historical realism, perhaps removing the "Marrying down" modifier if there is just a singular difference in title rank (so that kings could marry dukes, dukes could marry counts etc. without the AI being affected by the modifier) would help.

This would actually be more historical, as such marriages were absolutely common and not seen in any way as improper (just look at the marriages of the Capetian dukes of Burgundy, who often married women from comital backgrounds, even when there was no prospect of inheriting their families' lands). It's true that rank and prestige was important, but marriage culture wasn't as clear-cut and inflexible as the game currently portrays it.

Plus, it would widen the pool of acceptable marriages for the AI, thus reducing incest. And that's good, right?

 

[brainiac1530]

In my experience, it gets even more broken if you mod out the tier modifiers, sadly. Byzantine emperors constantly betrothing their (primary!) heirs to wanderers who end up imprisoned in Sweden or somewhere.

It sure looks like, if they don't want an alliance, then they try to find a marriage that gets them prestige, or at least costs them the least prestige. Since usually the latter conflicts with the former, they end up choosing a random character who doesn't create an alliance. Usually this is just some courtier, but courtiers who aren't employed don't stay put. It sure doesn't look like they actually use many of the criteria that the relevance sorting uses, or in fact any at all except alliance desire and prestige. I think it's even simpler than the set of criteria the game uses for marriage acceptance.

 

[The Norman Yoke]

If we're talking about historical realism, perhaps removing the "Marrying down" modifier if there is just a singular difference in title rank (so that kings could marry dukes, dukes could marry counts etc. without the AI being affected by the modifier) would help.

This would actually be more historical, as such marriages were absolutely common and not seen in any way as improper (just look at the marriages of the Capetian dukes of Burgundy, who often married women from comital backgrounds, even when there was no prospect of inheriting their families' lands). It's true that rank and prestige was important, but marriage culture wasn't as clear-cut and inflexible as the game currently portrays it.

Plus, it would widen the pool of acceptable marriages for the AI, thus reducing incest. And that's good, right?

Why is the marrying down being removed for dukes who marry counts necessary, you already have so many other bonuses you can get to swing the marriage. The more important malus is the 'dear to me' which I don't get because then the ai turns around and marries their lovely daughter to a balding man with crap stats whilst my virtuous ruler is stopped even with max opinion of the bride's father towards me

incest should be reduced with papal mechanics, other regions and religions might be accurate in having such levels of incest

 

[Sooko]

I've really struggled with my vassals' marriages, especially before I can prevent land from leaving the realm with crown authority. Usually I remedy this through concubines, but if I am a Catholic ruler I've only been either able to murder the infertile woman or try and revoke the title through tyranny. I do think lots of killings may be related to this issue, though. A few wars, especially in smaller realms, have left me without enough people to put in a council in the past. Not sure why the AI doesn't just import someone young from a neighboring realm, though.

 

[vnth]

It's not like I took over the entire map and there were no other noble families left in the game. When looking for a bride for my heir I am often scrolling through pages and pages of excellent candidates that are young and have great traits/stats and present great opportunities for alliances. All I want is for the AI to at least pretend that it goes through the same process. For a such a critical feature that is really central to the game, is that really too much to ask?

most of the nobility were related to each other because of logistical realities and they didn't actually try to avoid cousin incest either because they didnt know about the biological issues with incest. marrying overwhelmingly within the dynasty was uncommon but could happen too if theres a reason for it. the capets went crazy for each other since the 13th century because,a mong other reasons, it was prestigious to be descended from multiple sides from saint louis. obviously, the problem is that game doesnt understand this at all and is just broken.

it was only the catholic church which imposed the restriction against cousin incest on the nobility but people didnt care for it, so papal dispensation continued to be a thing.

 

[Sparticulous]

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.

I tend to like elective law, so having your vassals as dynasty members help.

 

[TempestM]

Funny enough in CK2 I found most people said that things like Present Debutante was not only worthless, but wasteful.

It was wasteful because of ridiculous price scaling that was making you emptying your whole treasury if you're trying to generate noblemen and noblewomen as a rich realm. The only valid button there was generating clergyman because it had fixed price in piety

 

[r3xm0rt1s]

It was wasteful because of ridiculous price scaling that was making you emptying your whole treasury if you're trying to generate noblemen and noblewomen as a rich realm. The only valid button there was generating clergyman because it had fixed price in piety

Partially true. But usually it was easier to find better characters for free.

 

[TempestM]

It was cheaper, but I wouldn't agree it was easier. You just spam button 10 times and then right from your court window you can give them titles one by one, without thinkin can they get some nasty inheritance or previous bad opinion

 

[x4077]

Partially true. But usually it was easier to find better characters for free.

When you were starting out as a small count in the middle of nowhere the recruitment decisions only cost 1 coin each and were a decent way to get non-lowborn characters if you had a need for one. But I still agree that it was preferable to cherry pick the character(s) you wanted via the character finder.