Please Fix the Marriage Logic

[Anonymous01]

There's a woman from a small dynasty whose father created a custom kingdom so now she's queen. My dynasty controls most of the map. I like to invite junior sons/daughters and grandchildren from distant branches of my family to my court so I can marry them off here and there to further spread the dynasty or keep titles from passing out of the family. I have 3 or 4 grandchildren of kings in my court, including at least one who's second in line to become a king himself. But this woman won't marry any of them because, 'desires a better alliance.'

Now we all know that after holding onto that 'get married' ambition for another 5 years or so, she's finally going to throw up her hands and marry the first low born courtier she can find -- patrilineally. So not only will she be without the 'better alliance' she turned down the most eligible men in the world for, but she'll also likely end her dynasty which she and her father fought several wars to bring to prominence. Whereas if she had just agreed to marry the king's grandson I suggested to her, she would 1, be married to a guy who'd be king within 40 years, 2, pass on two kingdoms to her heir instead of one, and 3, ensure her heir is allied to nearly every kingdom and empire on the map.

I know it's been said many times before, but allow me to add my voice to the fray:

There should be a step between 'must marry a prince matrilineally' and 'my biological clock is ticking so I'll marry the first nobody I see, stat!'

And that step should involve considering things like, 's/he's not a prince/ss, but their mother or father is,' or 'I'll get my alliance, but I'll just have to wait 20 years for it,' and 'losing my dying dynasty in exchange for joining the most powerful family on the map isn't the worst deal I've ever heard.'

 

[NewbieOne]

The game needs more emulation of human behaviour and common sense (or, of course, a lack of it) and less pure game rules in character behaviour.

 

[Dirt McStain]

How about a mechanic where the malus decreases by 10 every 2 (or whatever) years? Let's say, you start with -30 (----), and in 8 years the malus will go away. Then, it'll start ticking up every X years as a bonus. Meaning that the character will overlook other maluses simply because they're desperate to get married. If Pdox wants to get more creative with this, character traits could play into how quickly the malus goes away and the benefit builds up. For example, an ambitious character will be less quick to settle for a less than idea alliance.

 

[Dirt McStain]

On second thought, just have a separate bonus tied to age. As the character ages, the bonus increases, eventually canceling out the better alliance malus. It might even allow for some older characters to mary outside the religion. This was always the bigger problem with ck2 marriage. It's completely historical to secure marriage alliances with different religion states, as what happened with ERE and Rus.

 

[NewbieOne]

The point first of all is that — if the character is in any way supposed to resemble a human being — there should not be a clear-cut magical point in time where from 'the Frankish emperor's firstborn son and heir is not good enough for our Basileus's daughter' they switch to 'some count somewhere is okay for regular marriage'.

And please no nonsense like princesses from BYZ somehow wanting a matrilineal marriage with the Franks instead of regular, even when they have brothers to continue their dynasty.

 

[Anonymous01]

The point first of all is that — if the character is in any way supposed to resemble a human being — there should not be a clear-cut magical point in time where from 'the Frankish emperor's firstborn son and heir is not good enough for our Basileus's daughter' they switch to 'some count somewhere is okay for regular marriage'.

And please no nonsense like princesses from BYZ somehow wanting a matrilineal marriage with the Franks instead of regular, even when they have brothers to continue their dynasty.

Yes, exactly. The characters should just be accounting for a wider array of considerations RE: marriage at all times. Very much like the AI does regarding war. The AI always wants more territory. But it picks and chooses its moments to strike out for it based on the prevailing political conditions of the moment. The marriage logic should be just as or nearly as thorough.

 

[NewbieOne]

Yes, exactly. The characters should just be accounting for a wider array of considerations RE: marriage at all times. Very much like the AI does regarding war. The AI always wants more territory. But it picks and chooses its moments to strike out for it based on the prevailing political conditions of the moment. The marriage logic should be just as or nearly as thorough.

Perhaps the point to consider, though, should be: what would a real-life king/emperor/other have done in the circumstances? — Rather than: What should the AI do in CK2 for balance/mechanics to work.

 

[Azarias59]

+1

Also, grandchildren/grandparents, as well as uncles/nephews, should have an alliance. Perhaps it wouldn't be a strong one, but it should still exist.

In the case of a marriage to your heir's children, those should be a strong alliances.

 

[Zaltys]

Yes, definitely.
I'm surprised that this doesn't get suggested more often, considering how bad the AI is at marrying.

Would be good if it was tuned to be less stupid, but it'd be far better if we had some basic modding for it. The current system is troublesome for many mods, especially for total conversion mods that add things like new races (since there's no easy way to discourage them from intermarrying). :glare: