Someone explain to me the art of marriage...

[Omellette]

Try as I might, I am constantly getting bogged down when playing Christian factions, trying to get my King's heirs married.

For example, in my current English game, I have asked every available princess, from every available faction, for their hand in marriage. NO dice. It's not like my King has a bad reputation (8 Influence), nor am I at war with anyone currently (not even a minor faction). But I can't get my kids a bride!

Grrrr...

Does anyone have advice about this? I get so annoyed with it, that I just end up bagging Christian campaigns, and play a Muslim faction again.

[pdoan8]

Have the largest land so the smaller factions will consider to marry off their princess in order to claim a piece of your land.

Have the large army so the other fear you.

Start asking from the smallest and weakest faction because the larger and stronger faction won't be so interested.

You should have higher success rate.

If you play as Muslim, don't bother.

[ravenking]

If you are using your emissaries to ask the other faction's princesses it might have something to do with thier valor. The higher valor an emissary has, the more likely he is to succeed in whatever he is doing. To increase the valor just use him succesfully more often in minor exchanges (allying with nobody factions, ex. Novgorod when you are spain. you are no threat to them).

[Omellette]

Thanks for the suggestions, but honestly, I've done all that.

I've sent my Emisarries traipzing all over the known world, and never can I get a single princess to look at my King's sons. Guess they are butt ugly...

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/tongue.gif

Anyways, thanks for the tips. I was primarily wondering if there was any "trick" to it that I simply couldn't figure out...

[maroule]

simple answer : don't bother
marry your princesses to your generals to boost loyalty
& wait for other factions to propose

anyway, even marriages won't prevent backstabbing from your allies, so...

[Soapyfrog]

This is kinda wierd but...

I have the impression that if you can get your heir married to a foreign princess, when the heir becomes king HE will have more male heirs...

Just casual observation, I could be waaaaay off base.

BTW, to get foreign princesses to marry into your family, the foreign power should generally be very small compared to you or desperately need your alliance against a larger foe.

Those are usually the conditions under which not only will they accept your proposals but will actively offer up their princesses for marriage.

[NagatsukaShumi]

Tip one, don't title your topic like that, it gives the wrong impression http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

------------------
Power to the Sultan!
-Clan Seljuk

I don't know Akech, can't trust Mithrandir with the newbies, he may try and create a Miny Mith.-NagatsukaShumi

[hoof]

I think in four campaigns so far, I've had maybe one or two successful marriage requests of foreign princesses in several dozen attempts (the rest were other factions requesting marriage). I do not recall any of my heirs ever being married before taking the throne, all my leader's wives were "the need for heirs is too important to wait". Of course, I've had almost zero success when asking for an alliance or cease-fire as well (again maybe 1 or 2 successes in dozens of attempts). This is on Normal with 8-influence rulers.

I also notice that the far majority of the time, when a nearby faction attacks, the allies of that faction almost always choose that faction over me. I spend an eternity building up good relations with most of the factions, then a border faction decides to send a raid-sized party into my territory and suddenly I have no friends.

It doesn't seem to matter how big or small I am, or whether I have huge armies on the borders or not. Its like there's a huge negative diplomacy factor when a human faction deals with an AI faction, unless the AI initiates something first.

It gets particularly frustrating when factions launch a half-hearted attack on one of my provinces, or attempts to sink my ship. I'd understand it if suddenly 3/4ths of the faction's forces suddenly landed in my territory (thus this would be a premeditated, all-out attack), but almost all my wars playing as the Byzantines were started by the other side sending in a small raiding party. Since you have almost zero success with any of your emmissaries doing almost anything (despite sky-high faction leader influence), it's nearly impossible to get a cease fire, so I then find myself in a life-or-death struggle to the end with this faction. So far I've been forced to completely annihilate four factions simply to get peace after a small border incident that they started.

I used to think that the game's diplomancy was good. Now I'm considering not wasting my money on emissaries, and assuming the world will gang up on me and attack at any time. It's not like they can do anything other than act like spies anyway.

[hoof]

Now princesses, on the other hand, work great. I've had a 30-50% success rate (I'd estimate) attempting to marry them off to another faction. Of course, the usual message sequence is:

"We're sorry, we cannot remain allied to you because your neighbor attacked you and thus we choose him despite your power, influence, and military might."

followed by:

"the faction's ruler accepts your marriage proposal".

Thus one princess gets wasted. The only time this isn't so bad is when you were at war with this faction, afterwards you're at neutral which is the only way I've found to remotely reliably get a cease fire once a faction starts something.

Hmmm ... maybe the true purpose of building emmisaries (how do you spell that?) is for Assassin training ... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[ravenking]

Now there's a pretty picture, turn your royal palaces into victim farms for assassins.

[Norseman]

I usualy get my heirs married, depending somewhat on which faction I'm playing. This is what I do:

1) Gain influence(8-9). (Crusades, taking land, being agressive expansionist)
2) Don't agree to an allience, unless you realy have to. The princess is used to build good relationships between factions. So if you're already allied with a faction, the factions King won't waste his daughter on your heir.
Ex: If you're Spain, answer no when the Polish emisary comes begging for an allience. In the next 5 years, a Polish princess might appear asking to be wed with one of your heirs, or at least you won't be turned down that easily if your'e sending your emisary to ask for her hand. Make sure the new allience is broken as soon as possible; then repeat the process under a new King with new heirs.

Things to look out for when searching for a bride:
1) Weak factions, with low influence kings, like Aragon, the Polish and the Danes.
2) The weaker faction in a bordering province.
3) Factions with their "back against the wall", desperately looking for allies and friends. Ex: The English, if they are about to be overrun by the French.
4) Excom. factions in need of friends.
5) A faction you're about to overrun! Get the bride in one year - giving the illusion of peace, then kill the faction in the next.