Speed dating in CK2?

[Zardoz59]

New player here, happily learning the game on Noob island.

Is there any way to get notifications when suitable marriage partners for my offspring become available?

At the moment I find myself pausing every six months or so to use the marriage rings or character finder to locate princes/princesses and unmarried title claim holders in realms of strategic interest. Is that how everyone else does it?

It can be a slow process since often there are not many eligible people of reproductive age and the correct gender available.

Is there any message type I can use to track, for example, when local rulers' kids come of age or when spouses die?

 

[Duskwave]

If you set the other rulers as a "person of interest" (right-click them, and click the star at the top of the menu), you'll get notifications about stuff that happens to them much like you do about your family members (the exact details depend on your message settings). That will tell you some of it. Mostly it does come down to checking regularly, though. The pace tends to pick up about a generation or two in as the game populates better. The starting dynamic is always a little weird.

 

[Vetgirig]

The first 16 years there are very few princesses to marry - they need to become 16 before you can marry them. So first generation is always hard to find suitable mates.

Do it the cavemen way; Find the princess you wanna marry and assassinate her husband and then marry her.

 

[Semigall]

I don't do it. It's just too tedious to enjoy. I simply marry the babes with stats. Usually that's the ones with top stewardship, so I have that sweet demesne bonus + kids good with money.

 

[DPS]

Generally speaking, I don't worry too much about finding a spouse for any of my children before they reach age 16. The main exceptions are when I want a NAP with a ruler; then I'll check his family to see if there are any reasonable candidates for betrothals. In particular, I try to avoid betrothing my primary heir before adulthood--unless there's a genius available to betroth the heir to, there's too much chance of ending up with a dud spouse that way, so I wait until he's 16 and then marry him to a 16 or 17 year old princess. If I have an inheritance system that gives me control over who my heir will be (such as an elective system, or primogeniture with meritocracy), I sometimes wait until all of my children are adults to pick the heir, and then worry about finding him a wife.

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

If you marry for traits or stats, you may just click the rings and find someone suitable
If you marry (your daughters) to grow your dynasty you click the rings as well (and select the matrilinear marriage checkbox)

If you marry for traits or stats (and don't have to care for prestige) you use the character finder to find an unmarried suitable spouse and either marry them (lowborn wouldn't be in the "rings"-list) or (favor)invite to your court and marry them to your children

If you marry for NAPs or claims - click the realm / county you are looking for. Sisters and daughters of the rulers are what you need (assuming that the sister has a claim and is not a half-sister with another father or mother depending on the former ruler). They might also not show up in your "ring"-list (for example because their lord would not marry them to your children because of "policial concerns -----"). You might be able to invite them, but keep in mind that you can not favor invite them if their lord is a close relative.
Sometimes it's better to aim for young married women because they left their brothers court. Kill they husband (antagonize and duel kill or murder plot); then invite / marry them.

 

[Olenksey]

I almost nrver marry characters for traits or stats. I just look through nearby rulers whose lands I'd like to conquer and check if they have daughters/sisters/aunts with claims or possibility to get claims. If they have good traits, even better, otherwise I just ensure they don't have any bad genetic ones.
Only when I don't have such candidates I go to the character finder and search for strong attractive geniuses.

 

[Froggie]

Early game you can find nearby rulers with on 1 or 2 relatives and marry into those families. If you can get Matrilineal then bonus. If not you have a close Ally to wage wars with on your close neighbours.

Failing that try for some young 16 year olds with the best stats.

Mid-Later game you can look for powerful Rulers with lots of children. Just be aware that a Claim for you can usually also result in a Claim for them!

 

[BuddyLove]

Depending on where you are, don't forget the "request Chinese marriage" option from China- it's worth doing at least once every 50 years to keep China away and the Chinese princesses always come with great stats, and you then can raise the 1500 person honor guard for free.

For Europe, no, sadly there is no 'easy' button to notify when a new possible princess becomes available.

 

[Poliut]

If all else fails, just spawn a debutante.

 

[jonjowett]

I actually find "pressing the ring button" to be an inefficient way to find future spouses: it doesn't include people who will say "no", which is often a sizeable portion of the candidate pool. (It also doesn't include everyone who will say "yes" - eg. if you're looking for a strong/attractive wife for a lowborn genius man in your court.)

Instead, I use the character finder (male/female, not imprisoned[1], not married[2], not a ruler, in diplo range. Sometimes I require adults, sometimes not.). Search for the trait you want (genius, quick, strong, attractive), or sort by stat (eg. stewardship descnding). Nearly everyone who appears in this list is available for marriage somehow.

You can:

• Arrange a marriage as normal, without any special actions
  
• Send a gift to their liege, if a small difference in opinion will make the marriage possible
• Send a gift to the potential spouse, if it will make them accept an invitation to your court
• Buy a favour from their liege, for a non-matrilineal marriage to a kinsman in your court
• Buy a favour from the potential spouse, if it can be used to invite them to your court

For genius women (or those with deisrable bloodlines), I sometimes take those that are married and assassinate their husbands. Beware: you may have to marry them to their new spouse on the same day that their previous spouse dies. (Or they may leave your court to stay with a relative.)

For children where I want a matrilineal marriage, I check whether they like their liege. If they dislike their liege, I may be able to set up a non-matrilineal betrothal. Then, when they come of age, I can invite them to my court and do the marriage as planned - except matrilineally.

There are still a few characters that cannot be married this way. The most common cause of this is when the potential spouse can't be invited to your court and their liege won't sell you a favour. This is quite rare.

[1] Unless you have concubinage, in which case you should check your prisoners.
[2] Sometimes it's worth setting this to "married" to check for concubines. Lieges are sometimes willing to arrange marriages for their own concubines.

 

[Zardoz59]

All good advice thanks. Stopping every now and then and checking who's out there is just part of the gameplay, clearly.

Killing the spouse of a suitable marriage partner is the only thing I haven't tried yet. Targeting such people is an alternative to periodically searching for the young and unmarried. Noble yungsters do see to get married quickly.

Apart from that I think I've got the hang of marrying into territorial claims and alliances. Any I've got my bene gesserit breeding program going to boost my dynasty. I'm trying to crank out content midas-touched geniuses to run my territories.

 

[Zardoz59]

It's useful to be clear on the different marriage search functions as well. There seem to be three options, but have I understood them correctly?

1. Right-click on a character in my realm and select Arrange Marriage. That gives me candidates also in my Realm.
2. Click the rings. That gives me noble candidates... from everywhere?
3. Use the character finder and filters which gives me everybody everywhere.

 

[Duskwave]

Basically, yes.

Arrange Marriage/Arrange Betrothal will show only candidates you fully control- basically courtiers in your court and I believe close relatives you've checked the "control marriages" box for. In other words, only the target that you right-clicked has to agree, the person you select from the list is someone who has to take it.

The rings show sort of a filtered "good matches" list, falling back to basically all options if there aren't many. By "good" matches, I mean it sorts by similar criteria to what the AI uses, as I understand it. It can include lowborn courtiers if eligible, but generally it prioritizes rank by default. It's not all the possibilities (I've had some where I wanted to marry one of my children who was a landed vassal to one of my courtiers, and neither showed in the rings for the other, had to use Arrange Marriage to do it). So it's not complete, but it's usually good enough.

The character finder searches literally everyone who exists, yes. Using the filters wisely is important. (Sidenote: I wish the "Join Court" option, while it was a HUGE improvement when added to be sure, had two more settings: one that included those who could be persuaded if they had a higher opinion, and one that also included those who could potentially be invited by using a Favor)

But in most circumstances unless you have something very specific in mind, the rings are usually best. Keep in mind in both the rings view and character finder, you can type trait names into the search bar too, getting a list of all the Genius, Quick, or Strong possibilities can be very useful.

 

[Karlington]

The character finder searches literally everyone who exists, yes. Using the filters wisely is important. (Sidenote: I wish the "Join Court" option, while it was a HUGE improvement when added to be sure, had two more settings: one that included those who could be persuaded if they had a higher opinion, and one that also included those who could potentially be invited by using a Favor)

This is seriously one of my biggest dreams for this game.