Princes and marriage

How can I make my Danish princes more desirable for a marriage?

I have 4 princes. I am allied to the HRE, England, France, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Novgorod and Byzantium and there is peace amonsgt the Christians. My king has a decent "Influence" score of about 6 or 7 crowns, but every time I try to propose mariages to princesses of all these factions, I get turned down.

Is there anything I can do to make them more marriable? Am starting to get worried as my king is in his 60's and will probably die soon and I want my new dynasty to be up and running and heirs getting ready to pop out.

You can't really improve your chances other than by increasing your influence...but too much influence can also be a bad thing (I had 11-12 crowns of influence and they all denied me) and the cpu often prefers begging you to marry them instead of you asking them. If you are trying to marry into a larger faction forget it, they won't even pay attention to you. Usually the cpu only accepts marriages if you are making a new alliance with them. Try asking the Muslim factions if they are still around anyway.

One way is to only accept alliances if they come along by princess, as opposed to emisary.

Couple of things that I think help.... Refuse any alliances offered by emmisaries; sometimes the faction will try again with a princess. Also, look around for any "zombie island" factions - factions that have been all but wiped out, and now only exist on an island somewhere. You will often find that they have a big stack of royal knights and a few princesses hanging around, as well as few allies - go an propose a marriage. (This seems to happen to the Sicilians quite a bit - they have been a good source of princesses for me.)

HTH,

I save all my princess to wed to my generals and don't waste them on countries I am just going to have to conquer someday.

Assassinate all of their emmissaries.

Haven't tested this much, but it seems the AI is more likely to marry off its eldest princess first.
If the AI refuses a marriage, it's always worthwhile to look for another, older princess in the same faction and propose again.

Also, I played the XL mod once as the Crusader States and didn't have any problems getting wives for my princes. Has anyone else noticed this in the XL mod?

If you marry them off then destroy the dynasty your princess married into you can claim some of their land along with the troops guarding it.

If you marry them off, then destroy the dynasty your princess married into you can claim some of their land along with the troops guarding it.

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Originally Posted by Draconian

You can't really improve your chances other than by increasing your influence...but too much influence can also be a bad thing (I had 11-12 crowns of influence and they all denied me) and the cpu often prefers begging you to marry them instead of you asking them. If you are trying to marry into a larger faction forget it, they won't even pay attention to you. Usually the cpu only accepts marriages if you are making a new alliance with them. Try asking the Muslim factions if they are still around anyway.

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11-12?

Forgive me for being suspicious...

One thing that seems consistent in my games is that the best time to offer a prince in marriage is just after he comes of age. If he's the 1st son of a king and the Princess is from an allied or neutral faction, they almost always accept IIRC. It's less likely to work if the firstborn is already married and you're offering the 2nd or 3rd prince in the line of succession. I've also had it happen that offering marriage just before the prince comes of age (i.e., when he's 15) works the same way - I guess the offer is made and accepted at the beginning of the next year/turn.

Wouldn't it be nice if asspects of provences affected how easy it was to get Princesses to marry you. You know, the more build up the town, or if it had a tavern the women would be more inclined to marry. Maybe the princesses could have differt stats for 'interests.' So that if one liked 'Horses' they'd be more likely to accept propositions in provinces with stables, 'Jewelry' provinces with gold or silver, or if she were 'kinky' in provinces with brothels...

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Originally Posted by Draconian

Try asking the Muslim factions if they are still around anyway.

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That'd work great if the Muslim factions got princesses. Unfortunately that's not an option. You only really need to marry off your direct heir anyway. It's not going to make a difference whether the others are hitched or not because unless they become king they aren't going to be producing royal offspring.

If you're feeling patient, you can just wait for him to inherit and then marry "a leading aristocrat" and hope he has a son mature in time, or of course if you're really getting really desperate you can always marry him to his sister/niece/aunt. It's pretty twisted, but what mama doesn't know won't hurt her!

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Originally Posted by Yoyoma1910

Wouldn't it be nice if asspects of provences affected how easy it was to get Princesses to marry you. You know, the more build up the town, or if it had a tavern the women would be more inclined to marry. Maybe the princesses could have differt stats for 'interests.' So that if one liked 'Horses' they'd be more likely to accept propositions in provinces with stables, 'Jewelry' provinces with gold or silver, or if she were 'kinky' in provinces with brothels...

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lol, im sorry, but that last line is pretty funny