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Advanced Marriage (Guide) - Crusader Kings II Wiki

Advanced Marriage (Guide)


From Crusader Kings II Wiki
One of my favorite kinds of games to play is a game in which I attempt to replace the royal bloodline of every major landed title, preferably with as
remote and unheard of a bloodline as possible. You would think that this kind of game is something that can be accomplished using normal game
mechanics given the emphasis on the importance of your dynasty. But unfortunately, due to the limitation of game mechanics for more than basic actions
and the complete inflexibility and unmoddable nature of diplomacy, this kind of game is very meta and requires a lot of gamey tactics. Maybe some day
the mechanics will be polished up to the point of this being a legitimate game strategy and/or diplomacy will be unlocked for modding.
For now, though, here are some advanced marriage tactics with the overall goal of seating your dynasty everywhere you can and not attempting to inherit
them, though that would not require too much additional consideration.

Contents
1 How does this benefit ME?
2 Setup
2.1 Feudal Elective
3 Children
3.1 Fertility
3.2 Education
4 Marriage
4.1 Males aka Sperm Bombs
4.1.1 Landed Females are Dumb
4.1.2 Considerations
4.2 Females
4.2.1 Matrilineal Betrothals
4.2.2 Heir
4.2.3 The Meat
4.3 Remarriage
5 Conclusion
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How does this benefit ME?


A valid first question is "why would I want to do this?". Besides the obvious satisfaction at seeing the Basileus of the Byzantine Empire being of the House
of Iceland, there are gameplay benefits as well, best illustrated by the Rurikovichs. If you've ever seen a tiny 2-province independent realm in the Russia
area and thought it would make a great addition to your lands and declared war thinking it would be pretty simple, you will then have noticed that you are
now at war with a half a dozen local rulers. These are the other Rurikovichs who answered the call from their automatic alliance from being in the same
dynasty.
Once you get some successes you will not only have a large list of allies to call on but also be able to get involved in pretty much any war that you have
an interest in by offering to join, which is only available if you are already allied (or is a holy war). Having such a large list of allies makes you extremely
powerful even if you individually are not particularly powerful. This is of course assuming that you are not an awful Kinslayer with 0 diplomacy as they still
have to like you.

Setup
Generally speaking I tend to pick a remote location, Iceland is one of my favorites. You want somewhere that is not going to require a lot of
micromanagement to rule and has little chance of being invaded. Get your realm under control (see another guide for this), and scan your neighbors.
However, unless both you and they start with premade children initially there will be little opportunity. This kind of game doesn't really start until your first
generation grows up.

Feudal Elective
Feudal elective is almost a must for this type of game, for a few reasons. First and foremost if your decided heir dies and/or screws himself or herself up
to the point of unsuitability (Kinslayer, Arbitrary etc) all on their own, you are not totally out of luck. Second, you will probably need to dodge some
inheritances. This type of game is not about attempting to inherit France, rather it is about keeping France autonomous with your bloodline ruling it. And
finally you can use your ability to set an heir to a female to make them more suitable if the normal tactics don't work to find a matrilineal marriage.

Children
Obviously in order to have a game in which your bloodline goes anywhere, you have to have one with children to spare.

Fertility
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You are somewhat at the mercy of the RNG here but certain things can help such as picking women with hedonism, lustful, or either of the 2 education
traits that add fertility. Feel free to also use the Ruler Designer to make a ruler with super sperm but more than likely that will only last the first generation.

Education
If possible, educate your children who will not be your heirs with a high intrigue Elusive Shadow. This is because, more than likely, half the court will at
some point attempt to kill them or their children and the ruler they marry having half their intrigue, if it is high, will help a lot. The alternate method is to go
for the high fertility educations to make sure it sticks.

Marriage
Now you have a brood of children, maybe with high intrigue or maybe with high fertility, ready to go out into the world and propagate your bloodline these are specific strategies to get as advantageous a marriage as possible.

Males aka Sperm Bombs


By far the simplest way to get your dynasty going somewhere else is to simply regular marry your sons to landed females. Their children will be of your
dynasty and the requirements for this are ridiculously low, if you are king-level or above then basically the sons which are heir and pretender (first 3) will
be able to marry just about any landed female and this can easily be done just via the normal marriage rings.
Landed Females are Dumb
Unfortunate, but true. In addition to the above, most landed females you find will be underage. If you can get a regular betrothal then great, but when
trying to marry off your 4th son as the Duke of Nowhere, they may actually suddenly develop standards. However, this doesn't matter because even if
you matrilineally betroth your sons to an underage female, when they come of age they will accept a regular marriage. So if your son can't get a regular
betrothal to a Duchess don't despair and just matrilineally betroth him because when they come of age you can still do a regular marriage just fine.
Considerations
Your married male family members are by far the largest threat to your continued autonomy as if you marry your son to a Queen she may suddenly
decide she wants your land and presses his claim. Though this wouldn't end your game it would certainly put a large damper on it. To that end, try to
make sure that you are on good terms and/or they are unable to press or too far away to consider it. This should definitely not override potentially great
opportunities, though, it is simply a consideration. It has only happened to me once ever, I don't think it's a very high priority for the AI.

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Females
Females are somewhat trickier as you can't simply marry them off, you need a matrilineal marriage and those are extremely difficult to do. Sometimes you
can get a matrilineal marriage that the AI will actually accept but more often than not you have to pull some tricks out. Here are some strategies specific
to getting these marriages.
Matrilineal Betrothals
Quite simply, they don't work correctly (as of 1.06b). You may be overjoyed to find a 15 year old Duke who agrees to matrilineally marry your sweet
princess daughter but then next year when you attempt to make good on this you get a hell no (in the form of 'Duke Liar is too high in the line of
succession' negative diplomacy modifier). Prior to 1.06 you could at least rely on courtiers to be reliable matrilineal betrothals but they now also are
extremely difficult to make good on because 1.06 added diplomacy modifiers like 'He is our Steward', regardless of how great she is or how powerful
the empire is she is inheriting, which make it impossible. To make it worse, they don't cancel the betrothal and constantly send you regular marriage
proposals until it breaks (default age is 20) and you have to either break the betrothal and eat the diplomatic penalty or wait it out.
To summarize: in order for a matrilineal betrothal to actually be honored as a matrilineal marriage when they come of age - he has to be not at all in the
line of succession, not good at anything and not used for any council position even if he's terrible. In other words, worthless. Don't use them.
Heir
A very basic method to actually getting a matrilineal marriage that the AI will legitimately agree to is by using your Feudal Elective government to elect
your daughter heir. You may of course use it to elect your niece/cousin/other heir but the AI will not even recognize that they matter so it's your daughter
or nothing. This makes it so when you open the marriage screen it's automatically matrilineal. Be warned though that this has very slim pickings regardless
of how powerful you are or how great she is. You may however get lucky so it's worth looking at least.
The Meat
The meat of this strategy is fairly simple: find heirs that have claims and/or extreme daddy issues and invite them to your court. Once there, they cannot
refuse a matrilineal marriage and you also have the added bonus of having them in your court so that you can protect them until they inherit. Be warned,
however, that if they are extreme foreigners and/or unlikable someone in your court will probably randomly decide to kill them and practically the entire
court will back them, so you must be vigilant.
How to find these is fairly simple - when you go to your daughter's character screen you attempt to regular marry her, or at least open that screen. Sort
by rank (crown) and scroll down past the landed guys and right below them will be princes. Hover over them to see if any of them are the heirs to the
kingdom and if so take a look if they might be a possible option. Don't discount the guys below the princes as they may not have a minor title but be heirs
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to a large duchy. This is the easiest way, for the more complete way (these are only the ones that are willing to marry you which may not be half of them)
you go to character finder (ruler:no, male:yes, married:no, greathouse:yes) and sort by rank, all the unlanded princes will be at the top underneath
mayors/bishops.
To be willing to come to your court they either need to absolutely hate their father, which is not unusual given the AI's seeming preference for bad ruling
traits, or already have a claim which means they were alive and a pretender when the previous monarch before their father died.
It is actually relatively easy to get these guys as the combination of having a title claim and how much the AI loves to give itself arbitrary/cruel/etc there is
probably more than a 50% chance that any given unlanded heir will like you better, assuming you are a likable ruler yourself.

Remarriage
Whenever you marry off your children/eligible kin to someone with the intention of spreading your bloodline, mark their spouse as a person of special
interest (right click -> star on the left). This will notify you if they die so that you can retrieve your guided dynasty missile for reuse somewhere else. I
have had brothers that established my dynasty in 3 different places before they died, but keep in mind that if they did have a child they will probably not
want to come back so you may need to "hook" them with a marriage if female with a low intrigue courtier that you immediately assassinate when they
come home and/or gift them if male. If they are male and the heir and/or regent then definitely just leave them there for now and check up on them when
their child grows up, if they are female definitely do everything in your power to get them back as there is only a certain window where they can have
children.

Conclusion
Don't despair if your carefully crafted bloodline replacement goes awry. A significant percentage of the time some random bishop will methodically
murder every one of the heirs that would have been of your dynasty and there is nothing you can do about it, really.
However if it takes and you get past the first generation then all of a sudden their interests are your interests, namely keeping your dynasty in power. Do
what you can to help them out like putting down the inevitable rebellions and especially keep an eye out for usurpers. In addition, since the ruling dynasty
is yours, if somehow the entire royal family dies out (mysteriously) then it will now look at your dynasty for possible inheritors.
Once you get to the 2nd generation you are more or less free to worry about your other "colonies" as the bloodline is mostly established. Feel free to
invite your own bloodline over to you like you did their grandfathers to make sure they get decent marriages and/or intermingle the royal families so that if
they do lose the royal family they will search others of your dynasty.
Hope this guide helps and feel free to post feedback on the discussion page.
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