More Resilient AI Dynasties

[SacremPyrobolum]

Is there a mod or a way to make dynasties less likely to die out or be overthrown by making them marry off more family members/making them smarter about who they marry matrilinearly? I hate how historical dynasties with cool symbols and names keep getting replaced by shitty randomly generated ones.

I noticed that this was a result of either the female ruler marrying into her husbands house, making her children descendants of his dynasty instead of the ruling one, or the AI failing to marry off males who were not in line for succession, making them dynastic dead ends and resulting in me not being able to "revive" dynasties.

 

[Steel_atlas]

Is there a mod or a way to make dynasties less likely to die out or be overthrown by making them marry off more family members/making them smarter about who they marry matrilinearly? I hate how historical dynasties with cool symbols and names keep getting replaced by shitty randomly generated ones.

I noticed that this was a result of either the female ruler marrying into her husbands house, making her children descendants of his dynasty instead of the ruling one, or the AI failing to marry off males who were not in line for succession, making them dynastic dead ends and resulting in me not being able to "revive" dynasties.

Ehh then people bitch about Charlie marrying some random courier.

Now the AI will sit around with a wife for years and die off.

I didnt mind the AI marrying lowborns, perhaps unrealistic but yes I like having pretty vassal dynasty flags for vassals besides random blocks or wolfs heads.

 

[RykaS]

I think too many players hate matrilineal marriage to start with for Paradox to ever make the AI better at it. I give up and just get gamey, invite the last living female heirs and matri-marry them myself so cool dynasties have a shot at living on.

I am getting legit tired of kings annihilating their line because they refuse to take the prestige hit, though. There needs to be some rule that if the number of living dynasty members dips below some threshold, AI will go into emergency mode and marry basically anyone.

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

Perhaps remove the prestige hit for lower marriages. I don't think that's really necessary for incentive's players now that you have alliances and non-aggression pacts tied to high level marriages.

 

[SaphireSeas]

Is there a mod or a way to make dynasties less likely to die out or be overthrown by making them marry off more family members/making them smarter about who they marry matrilinearly? I hate how historical dynasties with cool symbols and names keep getting replaced by shitty randomly generated ones.

I noticed that this was a result of either the female ruler marrying into her husbands house, making her children descendants of his dynasty instead of the ruling one, or the AI failing to marry off males who were not in line for succession, making them dynastic dead ends and resulting in me not being able to "revive" dynasties.

In history, there is almost no dynasties that last the game in one piece....
In fact one of my greatest critisims of CK2 is that the ERE almost never changes dynasty.

But I agree. I like to see the Habsburgs or the Salians hold on to their titles.
I however must state that the Karlings must die. No matter how cool their CoA is.

I think too many players hate matrilineal marriage to start with for Paradox to ever make the AI better at it. I give up and just get gamey, invite the last living female heirs and matri-marry them myself so cool dynasties have a shot at living on.

AI dynasties can and do use Matrialinneal Marraiges. However, this tends to be if no-one of decent power has made an offer, and they are desperate.
Baroness almost always Matri-marry, while countess and duchess usually don't. Finally Queens and Empresses often do. However, this is my experiance before HL when Matrialinneal marriages for the AI were accidentally removed in the rework.
I'm not sure how this works in Conclave

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

Nah man, I don't care about historical accuracy in this case. I wanna have one family rule over Crete for over 500 years.

 

[Rascar Capac]

I am getting legit tired of kings annihilating their line because they refuse to take the prestige hit, though.

Is that it? That's why those AI Jews in Semien won't marry anyone now?

 

[Mike Louis]

AI dynasties can and do use Matrialinneal Marraiges. However, this tends to be if no-one of decent power has made an offer, and they are desperate.
Baroness almost always Matri-marry, while countess and duchess usually don't. Finally Queens and Empresses often do. However, this is my experiance before HL when Matrialinneal marriages for the AI were accidentally removed in the rework.
I'm not sure how this works in Conclave

The AI matrilineal marriage bug was finally fixed when the 2.5 patch accompanying the Conclave expansion came out.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Is that it? That's why those AI Jews in Semien won't marry anyone now?

"Must not marry an infidel", combined with a lack of other Jewish courts to marry sons to.

 

[Avalon8782]

Yeah, the House of Gideon has limited prospects for marriage.

 

[StarSword]

Is that it? That's why those AI Jews in Semien won't marry anyone now?

"Must not marry an infidel", combined with a lack of other Jewish courts to marry sons to.

Yeah, the House of Gideon has limited prospects for marriage.

Pretty much this. I know for a fact the only marriage option for the Duke of Semien in the Charlie start is this lowborn woman he's educating his son with (his dead wife's lady-in-waiting?).

Though being de jure part of Coptic Abyssinia sure as hell doesn't help.

 

[Arsonik]

Perhaps remove the prestige hit for lower marriages. I don't think that's really necessary for incentive's players now that you have alliances and non-aggression pacts tied to high level marriages.

I think the prestige hit has more to do with a high-born title holder marrying lowly peasantry then any kind of game balancing concerns. Role-playing reasons if you will.

one of my greatest critisims of CK2 is that the ERE almost never changes dynasty.

AI dynasties can and do use Matrialinneal Marraiges. However, this tends to be if no-one of decent power has made an offer, and they are desperate.
Baroness almost always Matri-marry, while countess and duchess usually don't. Finally Queens and Empresses often do.

Post conclave after quite a few games it's my experience that the Ere ALWAYS changes dynasty. It usually doesn't go further then two generations down from what I have observed. Isauros doesn't necessarily dye out every time, but they always lose the Empire level title.

As far as my experience with matri-marriages, the AI seems to manage well enough. It seems that female rulers take matri marriages at least half of the time. I will agree with your observations about countess and duchess tier being particularly worse then the others. I have also noticed that if you try and go a generation down the line to marry a female who is likely to become a ruler (perhaps with your help) they will often cancel the betrothal and arrange a normal marriage, but only in the case of my sons, never as my active ruling character.

 

[Avalon8782]

Pretty much this. I know for a fact the only marriage option for the Duke of Semien in the Charlie start is this lowborn woman he's educating his son with (his dead wife's lady-in-waiting?).

Though being de jure part of Coptic Abyssinia sure as hell doesn't help.

Yeah, I prefer the 1066 start, and your choice is a Slothful Grey Eminence, or the lowborn young girl she's tutoring.

 

[gdj]

In history, there is almost no dynasties that last the game in one piece....
In fact one of my greatest critisims of CK2 is that the ERE almost never changes dynasty.

Are we playing the same game? I have not seen a single campaign since around patch 2.4. where Byzantium did not become elective, and changed dynasty all the time. Since Conclave (2.5.x) Bytzantium becomes elective around 10 years into the game.

The AI simply does not prioritize keeping their dynasty alive. It is infuriating when one of your side branches dies out because Duke Moron III married his only son and heir to a 38 year old chaste homosexual, and all his daughters regularly to another dynasty. I personally hardly ever use matri-marriages myself, but the option to marry at least a distant kinsman to keep your dynasty alive has precedence. The AI on the other Hand cares almost exclusively for 1) Prestige and 2) having a NAP with some unimportant duke on the other end of the world.

Edit: the most nasty part of this is the behaviour of AI counts. I always land all my sons, if possible, but when one of my sons only has 1 county and no duchy title, disaster is almost inevitable: he will never find a proper spouse for his sons because he is a "relative of a king/emperor" and takes prestige hits with almost everyone, while on the other hand he is only a count. So, he will do insane things like marrying his heir off to the 40 year old queen mother of a distant realm to avoid prestige loss. Consequently, my sons either become dukes, or Bishops (if they are particulartly inept), eveything else simply doesn´t work.

 

[mazurian]

The AI simply does not prioritize keeping their dynasty alive. It is infuriating when one of your side branches dies out because Duke Moron III married his only son and heir to a 38 year old chaste homosexual, and all his daughters regularly to another dynasty. I personally hardly ever use matri-marriages myself, but the option to marry at least a distant kinsman to keep your dynasty alive has precedence. The AI on the other Hand cares almost exclusively for 1) Prestige and 2) having a NAP with some unimportant duke on the other end of the world.

Completely do agree. I get tired as well, when I need to rescue my dynasty ruling in other realms, because they don't prioritize the most basic thing: keep the family at steer. Normally any, even semi-abitious person would look for interests of his own kin; however this doesn't happen with AI. Also AI is intrinsically incapapble of using for its advantage kinsman - for example I have a kinsman ruling as a King of England. The Island is divided between him and Scotland right now, however 2/5 of scottish dukes are of our dynasty. AI King of England doesn't do anything to try to influence the situation in Scotland, using these highly ranked vassals over there. Basically I need to plan for him, how to make it that he can unite the Island and become an emperor.

 

[Ruwaard]

In general I'm not in favour of the AI marrying random lowborns (most likely still lower nobility, so lower in standing than a count or even baron), provided there are enough candidates of rank around. Rank is a also relative, a baron could marry a lowborn, but would prefer to marry into a comital (or if possible even higher) family. Royal and imperial families normally shouldn't prefer to marry lower than someone with a comital rank.

Matrilineal marriages should IMHO give some prestige hit, if only to prevent exploits, but more importantly it should limit the number of interested candidates. In most cases that should probably still be someone of a not too low family, who doesn't have real prospects of inheriting something of his own.

Though perhaps under specific circumstances, when there are too few candidates of your culture, but more importantly religion, within range, there should be something to offset the prestige hit of marrying too low.

@SaphireSeas: why do you hate the Carolingians so much? (I'm from the Frankish part of the Netherlands. )

@RykaS: an emergency mode, within reason, might work; OTOH dynasties did go extinct and it allowed other new dynasties to flourish. In an emergency mode could even work in stages. Let's say a king wouldn't normally marry below families of at least comital rank, the AI should now first consider baronial families before lowering the bar even further. However as noted dynasties did go extinct, though often it was because the last heir never reached adulthood, the marriage remained childless or the last member had joined the priesthood etc.
Also an emergency mode bride probably shouldn't get a warm welcome form all the nobility and/or other rulers.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

One of the problems is that a concern for "your dynasty" is a relatively modern concept, in the form we see in game where it's effectively a surname.

The important thing was that your grandson would be King one day, whether that was via your son or your daughter. There were examples where specific arrangements would be made to keep a (personal) coat of arms alive, rather than it becoming the second coat on a joined set of arms, but those were few and far between - and generally late in the period.

One thing that was seen was the adoption of the bride's father's territorial arms by the husband, but that was generally only on assumption of her title, and more importantly he would also retain his personal arms (unless a specifc arrangement had been made).

A King would be far more willing to marry "beneath him" than to let his personal line die out, and not have any heirs at all. A Queen would be particularly so.

Overall though, it's difficult since there needs to be something to guide inheritance and game over situations, but "dynasty" isn't always a thing even at the original start date. What a noble would be referred to would change with his highest title, or his main manor if he relocated. As such over time a family that started out as "de Gunnislake" (a small village in Cornwall) might eventually be known simply as "Essex" if the line had migrated and now held Essex as their main title. Virtually no-one would remember them as being the "de Gunnislake" family, and indeed particular members might be named for the place they were born.

Henry II of England thought of himself as the heir of the de Normandy family, is considered to be the son of the d'Anjou dynasty, but could be considered the first Plantagenet (although some sources would give that to Henry III, and make Henry II and his children d'Anjou or Angevin, depending on the rendering of the name). Henry III being known as "of Winchester" after his birthplace. Other examples exist, even just counting the English throne.

 

[Ruwaard]

@DreadLindwyrm: to whom one could pass their inheritance was connected to the tradition of the land and/or title. Especially in feudal times, where an inheritance often consisted of an accumulation of various titles, there were potentially a number of heirs too. Certain titles could be passed to the female heir an/or through her line (her son), other titles would go to the nearest living male heir and some would revert to the crown. Just like how in certain areas primogeniture would develop relatively quickly, whereas in other areas joint rule and a potential division of the inheritance was more entrenched. OTOH even under primogeniture younger siblings generally got a smaller share of the inheritance.

Your right that dynastic names changed, certainly early in the period covered by the game; it also occured when they didn't move away to newly gained lands, but it also happened when they choose a new residence within the lands they controlled. For instance the house of Wittelsbach were counts of Scheyern before they moved to Wittelsbach. Or the 'Gelre branch' of the Flamenses, who initially were lords of Wassenberg, but later moved their main castle to Geldern/Gelre/Gelder/Gelderen and became lords, later counts and eventually dukes of Gelre. Or the Brabantian branch of the Reginar dynasty, who first were known as van Leuven (de Louvain/von Löwen) (their main seat and (allodial) county) and later as van Brabant (de Brabant/von Brabant) (after their duchy of Brabant, after Lower Lorraine was basically turned into a mostly honorific prestigious title).

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

@DreadLindwyrm: to whom one could pass their inheritance was connected to the tradition of the land and/or title. Especially in feudal times, where an inheritance often consisted of an accumulation of various titles, there were potentially a number of heirs too. Certain titles could be passed to the female heir an/or through her line (her son), other titles would go to the nearest living male heir and some would revert to the crown. Just like how in certain areas primogeniture would develop relatively quickly, whereas in other areas joint rule and a potential division of the inheritance was more entrenched. OTOH even under primogeniture younger siblings generally got a smaller share of the inheritance.

True - it was more meant as an indication that most rulers would rather their child took the throne than that it go to a distant cousin from the same great-grandfather. It wasn't always allowed by the laws of the society, but certainly if titles could pass to any child, rather than only males of the dynasty, the preference would be to give it to the daghter and her husband over a more distant relative who was only nominally related. I'm also looking at the simpler case of following one title under default conditions, such as they are, and that dynasty is almost entirely a modern invention.

That's all messed up of course by the (practically) agnatic tanistry successions, or anything that even smells like seniority (or the rota system), but they're a different problem entirely.

Your right that dynastic names changed, certainly early in the period covered by the game; it also occured when they didn't move away to newly gained lands, but it also happened when they choose a new residence within the lands they controlled. For instance the house of Wittelsbach were counts of Scheyern before they moved to Wittelsbach. Or the 'Gelre branch' of the Flamenses, who initially were lords of Wassenberg, but later moved their main castle to Geldern/Gelre/Gelder/Gelderen and became lords, later counts and eventually dukes of Gelre. Or the Brabantian branch of the Reginar dynasty, who first were known as van Leuven (de Louvain/von Löwen) (their main seat and (allodial) county) and later as van Brabant (de Brabant/von Brabant) (after their duchy of Brabant, after Lower Lorraine was basically turned into a mostly honorific prestigious title).

And this of course makes tracking some of these dynasties "fun"...

 

[gdj]

One of the problems is that a concern for "your dynasty" is a relatively modern concept, in the form we see in game where it's effectively a surname.

The important thing was that your grandson would be King one day, whether that was via your son or your daughter. There were examples where specific arrangements would be made to keep a (personal) coat of arms alive, rather than it becoming the second coat on a joined set of arms, but those were few and far between - and generally late in the period.

One thing that was seen was the adoption of the bride's father's territorial arms by the husband, but that was generally only on assumption of her title, and more importantly he would also retain his personal arms (unless a specifc arrangement had been made).

A King would be far more willing to marry "beneath him" than to let his personal line die out, and not have any heirs at all. A Queen would be particularly so.

Overall though, it's difficult since there needs to be something to guide inheritance and game over situations, but "dynasty" isn't always a thing even at the original start date. What a noble would be referred to would change with his highest title, or his main manor if he relocated. As such over time a family that started out as "de Gunnislake" (a small village in Cornwall) might eventually be known simply as "Essex" if the line had migrated and now held Essex as their main title. Virtually no-one would remember them as being the "de Gunnislake" family, and indeed particular members might be named for the place they were born.

Henry II of England thought of himself as the heir of the de Normandy family, is considered to be the son of the d'Anjou dynasty, but could be considered the first Plantagenet (although some sources would give that to Henry III, and make Henry II and his children d'Anjou or Angevin, depending on the rendering of the name). Henry III being known as "of Winchester" after his birthplace. Other examples exist, even just counting the English throne.

From a purely historical point of view i would certainly agree with you (hence i clicked on "agree"). The problem remains though that the AI and the player pursue different goals. Unless the player goal changes (i.e. you can switch dynasties as long as you play as a relative) or AI behaviour changes (being more mindful to keep their dynasty in power), the game has a fundamental weak spot.

Besides, marrying an infertile spouse for prestige does not fit to the " an heir no matter what" approach you described.