Suggestion on cuckoldry

[Holy.Death]

So what I'm suggesting instead is: on succession if it happens that your oldest son is not actually yours, he still inherits (because everyone around think they are), but you as a player end up playing the closest dynasty member who is its member in actuality and not just belief [among the landed ones for now, but since they said unlanded gameplay is not impossible in the future, imagine trying to retake the throne from an unlanded position].

This then makes it actually important to give land to your sons, since you can't be 100% sure which of them you'll end up playing as. And then when it happened you can try and regain the throne by pushing your claim, and you can plot against the main heir to discover and expose that they are a bastard, which should give them a large enough opinion malus for more vassals to back you in your faction.

This is really interesting.

Mainly because it makes you care about your dynasty as a whole (I know I was trying to land as many of my relatives as possible by giving them less important baronies/counties/duchies in order to get as much of the realm in the hands of my bloodline), rather than attempt to have one perfect heir to whom you give everything. But it also spices up the political intrigues, which is what keeps the game always interesting, no matter how powerful you are.

 

[PhilzuNeide]

My idea would be something similar to what is done in CKII AGOT. Basically you can investigate someone’s parents via plot. If you can find enough evidence (or fabricate it) you can accuse someone. Depending of the success of that this could have different effects ranging from a small diplomacy hit to weak claims being able to be pressed against you. The same could be used in reverse so that your unknown bastards could investigate their own parents and potentially discover you which would give you opinion penalties and them a claim on your lands after you die.

 

[sortulv]

Also there could be "semi magical" test for kids like injeting faters blood and see how they organism react to it, if there is no impact child is theirs if child will become ill or dies then child is not theirs. Couse most cases childs inherit parents bloodtype, yeah there is change you kill of by randomness your legal child.

This sounds like witchcraft to me. Blood type was not a thing during the medieval era (discovered in 1900), so from a medieval pov it is no different than checking if the child can swing his fathers sword or if the shoe fits.

 

[Hanako Seishin]

This sounds like witchcraft to me. Blood type was not a thing during the medieval era (discovered in 1900), so from a medieval pov it is no different than checking if the child can swing his fathers sword or if the shoe fits.

Hm, while they didn't know what a blood type was, the "blood relation" isn't called blood relation for no reason, they definitely associated kinship with blood. Which means it's pretty plausible someone might have thought of such a way to test for relation, and they could even conclude that it worked, from seeing that it works more often on related people than on unrelated. But the real problem is they probably didn't have tools that would allow to do it without getting infection in (or knowledge that they even need to avoid infection), which means the child would always just die of infection, same blood type or not.
But it actually sounds quite interesting, so if I'm mistaken and there was a plausible way to transfuse blood in medieval time without infection, maybe disinfecting tools with alcohol? Disinfection wasn't a common thing until much much later, but it might be not impossible to imagine that some sole individual could figure it out. Then it might be included in the game as a rare event, maybe if your court physician has very high learning.
P.S. Like how ancient Egyptians (and apparently ancient Greeks too as I've just double checked in wikipedia) used antibiotics. They didn't know what a bacteria was or what an antibiotic was, they just noticed a certain type of mold could cure diseases and used it.

 

[rklrj]

the most obvious solution is game over if you ended up not really having genes of your original dynasty

on succession if it happens that your oldest son is not actually yours, he still inherits (because everyone around think they are), but you as a player end up playing the closest dynasty member who is its member in actuality and not just belief

I'm not sure I understand, wouldn't this also give you unfair and random game overs if there simply is no one eligible to switch to?

 

[sortulv]

Basically all this would mean is that one should aim to either play as female characters (the children will always be yours, even if there is some fooling around), or try to move the titles to your bastards, since you have a much higher chance of knowing who the father is for mistresses. I guess trying to get your brother to fall for your wife would be a nice trick too. It becomes less about keeping the line pure, and more about knowing who is fathered by who...

 

[Hanako Seishin]

I'm not sure I understand, wouldn't this also give you unfair and random game overs if there simply is no one eligible to switch to?

More reason to spread your dynasty.
Speaking of which, it would be nice if it didn't game over as long as you have any landed characters of your dynasty (or house, I suppose), so even if you lose all of your own land you can continue as some distant relative you've happened to put on a neighboring throne. Or not even landed, given the possibility of unlanded gameplay.

 

[Hanako Seishin]

I think I've just got another idea how it could work, a compromise of sorts.

So let's say your heir happens to be a secret bastard, when he inherits at first you keep playing him as normal.
But then given the hooks system the vassals might want to investigate their new ruler to see if they can find any hooks on him.
And when it's revealed the new ruler isn't legitimate, since at this point the player will become aware of that too, they are presented with a choice to switch to a legitimate heir. (*)
...
What if they too happen to be a secret bastard though? That would be disappointing. So maybe the investigation should reveal all the bastards, or at least all from the same lover, at once?


Also what if it's possible for the bastard to (sometimes?) know that he is a bastard. In this case when he inherits, it makes the player know too, and so they can be presented with the same choice.


(*) As far as I understand how the hooks work, once one character discovers a hook on another, he immediately confronts him saying "look what's I've found, from now on be aware that I might reveal it if you act against me". This comes from the mention that you might want to keep the hooks for yourself instead of instantly revealing for the purpose of keeping the other character from acting against you. And the only way it might keep them from acting against you is by then knowing what you have in them. Which means as soon as someone discovers you are a bastard, they tell you that they now know it, and by that you now know it too.

 

[ChaosOnline]

What is up with you and cuckoldry? This is the second post you've made about it.

 

[Karlington]

I didn't search for a genius wife to exchange her later, not as long as she can have kids anyway.
And even the kid isn't mine, there's still a chance she'll pass her genius train onto it (especially if I'm not yet genius myself, then there's really no difference if the child is mine or not).
And even if the child isn't mine, it's still beneficial to pretend it is, for the sake of alliances, claims, spare heirs in case the main one dies, etc, basically it's always better to have more kids (except in gavelkind, but nowadays it too can be solved with duels), especially given how in CK3 it'll be actually important to spread your dynasty wide.

Edit: also, see how my suggestion makes it actually important to have more of your sons landed. In CK2 you just get an "unlanded sons" warning, but the malus it gives to prestige is so meaningless, there's no reason not to ignore it.

Not to mention that being cuckolded can add much-needed genetic diversity. I tend to engage in heavy-duty bloodline breeding where I use the Seduction focus to impregnate tons of women with secret bastards, and then there are intermarriages to combine and pass on bloodlines.

Because of this my rulers virtually all have some level of inbreeding, so for me to get new offspring with fresh, completely unconnected genes from one parent is a huge boon and saves me the trouble of having to take the occasional generation off from bloodline breeding to stop the inbreeding from getting so bad that the kids start getting the Inbred trait.

 

[Karlington]

I'm not sure I understand, wouldn't this also give you unfair and random game overs if there simply is no one eligible to switch to?

The game should probably be set up so that in that case your primary heir just inherits as usual.

This whole mechanic could also be behind a game rule so that people could have it the good ole "normal" way or play with this mechanic. That way it causes no undue frustration for anyone.

 

[Hanako Seishin]

What is up with you and cuckoldry? This is the second post you've made about it.

You mean my second suggestion in this same thread? But it's only natural after seeing people's opinion on my original idea to think of a way to improve it.
Or do you mean another thread? It wasn't by me, but it inspired me to start this one. First I commented on the other thread saying it should be improved somehow, and then after thinking about it for a bit I came out with an idea of how exactly to improve it and posted it in this separate thread so that it doesn't get lost among all the comments in that other thread.