When does it become possible for a duke (or heir) to marry a queen or king's heiress?

[NewbieOne]

Another question that arose in my most recent game where absolute crown authority made me focus on mini-blobbing inside the realm. When does the "too low rank for regular marriage" disappear or become sufficiently offset for a duke or son & heir? What about the other tiers? (Count to duchess, king to empress.)

(Yes, I know it's easier to just invite heirs to your court.)

 

[User4035]

As a lowly count i can marry my daughter to the heir of the kingdom. Not matriliniarly of course. AI will NEVER marry their heir and kill their dynasty.

 

[tdpatriots12]

As a lowly count i can marry my daughter to the heir of the kingdom. Not matriliniarly of course. AI will NEVER marry their heir and kill their dynasty.

Only way I've been able to do this - got France and England under my Empire this way, actually - is when the heir is a brother or sister or other non-progeny family member, usually in a different court. Then either hope they die before they have kids of their own, or help them into the grave.

 

[Beelz]

Just try to build family prestige: look for Karlings, de Normandies, Salians etc. If you can leech some prestige from them by marrying off your extra family members it might boost your chances.

 

[grisamentum]

As a lowly count i can marry my daughter to the heir of the kingdom. Not matriliniarly of course. AI will NEVER marry their heir and kill their dynasty.

Yes it will.

 

[cyrileom]

Matilda does it a hell of a lot, normally marrying some 60 year old ass-clown.

 

[Talq]

For all her virtues, she's still a duchess, so dukes are same rank. OP is asking regarding higher ranks.

 

[NewbieOne]

Just try to build family prestige: look for Karlings, de Normandies, Salians etc. If you can leech some prestige from them by marrying off your extra family members it might boost your chances.

The Karlings! I actually forgot about them in the context of marriages. I'd routinely go for the Doukas etc. when weddi-blobbing but it never occurred to me to go to Vermandois for their 2000 prestige.

Does it change much when you don't marry for stats or land but consequently continue to marry solely the highest-prestige families?

For all her virtues, she's still a duchess, so dukes are same rank. OP is asking regarding higher ranks.

Yeah, I'm asking about situations when you want to go one tier up from your own main title, i.e. duke marrying a sonless king's eldest daughter, king marrying a regnant empress and this type of stuff.

Yes it will.

It does happen a lot when you're equal in rank. If you leave the woman alone, the AI will likely matri-marry her, but if you make the proposal, you (as in, a landed character of the same title tier as she is) will tend to be accepted, possibly also your heir and even a younger son. I remember marrying my younger son to a regnant queen of Finland when I played as Poland (just 1 kingdom).

 

[A_Dane]

Yes it will.

Not direct heirs of kings, atleast not in my experience.

They will sometimes marry off male sons who are second or third in line matrillinarily, but not the direct heir.

 

[NewbieOne]

Not direct heirs of kings, atleast not in my experience.

They will sometimes marry off male sons who are second or third in line matrillinarily, but not the direct heir.

I mean women. As in, he's 40, so is his wife, they only have that one daughter at 15 years old, maybe some younger daughters. A king or son of king will tend to be accepted (barring political concerns, age/skills etc.). I wonder at which point a duke (from a (multi-)ducal family) will be able to overcome the "too low rank for regular marriage" modifier.

Example: Will a Karling count of Vermandois be accepted by a duchess? Or some 50K dynastic score Doukas doux by an upstart queen regnant?

 

[A_Dane]

Pretty sure it dosn't change anything. I've never been able to accomplish that atleast.

As an example, I had a game a while back as the Karlings, tried to get my self the duchy of Aquitaine, no way he'd accept it. (try and start up the game in 1066, and ask for a betrohal.)

I'm pretty sure it's just the reverse of the male situation: If the Heir is a woman, the AI won't accept anything but a matri-marriage unless you're a king yourself.

I havn't come across a situation where it was otherwise atleast.

EDIT: The only work-around I've ever come across was matri-marrying a relative of mine who simply loved me, invite him back so the wife comes along, have him murdered and then marry the woman to the desired person. Not exactly clean, nor is it falesafe.

 

[NewbieOne]

Pretty sure it dosn't change anything. I've never been able to accomplish that atleast.

As an example, I had a game a while back as the Karlings, tried to get my self the duchy of Aquitaine, no way he'd accept it. (try and start up the game in 1066, and ask for a betrohal.)

I'm pretty sure it's just the reverse of the male situation: If the Heir is a woman, the AI won't accept anything but a matri-marriage unless you're a king yourself.

Younger son will do! Younger sons are treated differently from heirs and heirs have it slightly worse than actual holders of titles, but a younger son will be able to marry a woman of the same rank as his father (although not every single one of them, possibly only a small subset but it happens; I've married some younger sons of my duke to duchesses apart from that Poland-Finland example).

I havn't come across a situation where it was otherwise atleast.

I kinda wish some queens would marry multidukes regularly if only to regularise their status. Aragon and Barcelona comes to mind. IMHO the AI shouldn't have the same artificial metagaming dynasty-saving concern the player does.

EDIT: The only work-around I've ever come across was matri-marrying a relative of mine who simply loved me, invite him back so the wife comes along, have him murdered and then marry the woman to the desired person. Not exactly clean, nor is it falesafe.

Or the adult grandson. Eldest son of eldest son never gets as much rank as the reigning grandpa. If you invite a disgruntled heir and his own son reaches adulthood in your court, you can basically make sure your next liege shares your surname. Almost worked for Kadoc's descendants about 1120 in a certain game.

 

[A_Dane]

Good to know, looking forward to when we reach that point then!

 

[Battle bunny]

I've never had success marrying higher rank women, but as a king, I can regularly regular-marry myself or my heir to single queens. It's so gamey, I've stopped doing it at all (I now only marry lower-rank noblewomen, and even those, only when I feel like it'd make sense for her to let the titles slip out of her dynasty).

 

[grisamentum]

Pretty sure it dosn't change anything. I've never been able to accomplish that atleast.

As an example, I had a game a while back as the Karlings, tried to get my self the duchy of Aquitaine, no way he'd accept it. (try and start up the game in 1066, and ask for a betrohal.)

I'm pretty sure it's just the reverse of the male situation: If the Heir is a woman, the AI won't accept anything but a matri-marriage unless you're a king yourself.

I havn't come across a situation where it was otherwise atleast.

EDIT: The only work-around I've ever come across was matri-marrying a relative of mine who simply loved me, invite him back so the wife comes along, have him murdered and then marry the woman to the desired person. Not exactly clean, nor is it falesafe.

Nope, wrong, just wrong. The AI will marry its female heir off in a regular marriage all the time.

Hell, Queens will marry themselves off in regular marriages all the time.

 

[NewbieOne]

Nope, wrong, just wrong. The AI will marry its female heir off in a regular marriage all the time.

Hell, Queens will marry themselves off in regular marriages all the time.

I just dislike seeing the AI get worse matches than whatever it tells the player it desires a better alliance than.

 

[A_Dane]

Nope, wrong, just wrong. The AI will marry its female heir off in a regular marriage all the time.

Hell, Queens will marry themselves off in regular marriages all the time.

Then you're experiencing something which I am not.

I have yet to see the AI marry of a female heiress to a lower rank than itself, it'll marry off a female heir to someone of equal rank, yes, but that's not the thing being discussed

(If this was unclear in my previous post, then I apologize)

 

[Kaiser Ludwig]

AFAIK dynasty score isn't THAT important for the marriages, and while the Karlings do have a lot of prior prestige, this translates to the individual child but not to the dynasty. Dynasty prestige is affected by the number of titles your dynasty has held.