Marriage Proposals/ Alliances

**Ripken** · 11-01-2006, 17:50

Ok, I've got a couple of probably fairly dumb questions:

1) Why will no-one marry me?! I'm the Spanish, I'm a (fairly) good Catholic, but people I'm not even at war with keep 'regretfully declining' me!

What's that all about?!

2) Is there actually any point marrying off your princesses/ marrying other people's, apart from when you need to be having heirs? I've certainly never found myself with a claim on any lands as a result? Or have I just misunderstood how the whole thing works?

**macsen rufus** · 11-01-2006, 18:24

How big is your empire? If you're a major force on the map you will find it hard to get alliances, and so the same applies to marrying off your princesses. You'll never live to see the other factions getting a claim on your lands -- by definition it will only happen after your (male) royal line dies out and your game is over.

On occasion you might have a claim on the lands of a faction whose princess one of your princes is married to though. It's never happened for me, but there are people in the Org who've won in that particular lottery!

The only other thing I can suggest is that maybe your princesses are all old trouts with body odour, too much facial hair, and green teeth

edit: and welcome to the org, btw!

**Kavhan Isbul** · 11-01-2006, 18:30

Occasionally, I would be able to get one of my princesses married to a faction, whose leader is heirless, and not yet married in his late thrities, for example. It happens to re-emerging factions, otherwise the AIs spawn heirs like crazy and they get quickly married to other AI princesses (AIs stick together well). However, as soon as I do, the next turn I get a message that so and so cannot be allied to you because you are in war with his good ally...
Then I have never had the patience of eliminating the faction's leader and heirs - whenever I try I simply start losing high valour assassins and the targets develop virtues (or vices, depending on how you look on it) that make them extremely hard to assassinate.

**Martok** · 11-01-2006, 22:02

Welcome to the Org, Ripken.

Sometimes the AI is just plain stingy with their princesses, no matter what you do. It's true that being too huge (where you own a third of the map or more) makes it almost impossible to get your sons married off. If you're only moderately big, however--around 15 provinces or so--that can work in your favor, as your faction leader is likely to have higher influence (which helps with securing royal marriages). Ironically enough, smaller factions have fairly good luck with getting princesses to marry their heirs--although why this is, I've never fully understood. You're also more likely to get princesses from factions whose borders aren't directly touching yours.

Still, none of these things guarantee your son will be able to obtain a wife. I've had a number of games where I couldn't get my sons married off, no matter what I did! It's unfortunate, but them's the breaks.

Originally Posted by macsen rufus

On occasion you might have a claim on the lands of a faction whose princess one of your princes is married to though. It's never happened for me, but there are people in the Org who've won in that particular lottery!

I would be one of them.

Expansion by marriage/inheritance is quite nice!

**Ripken** · 11-02-2006, 10:02

Thanks people

Being too large sounds about right at the moment, I must be close to the 60% and I'm basically just going easy on everyone else because I'm waiting to get some Lancers (incidentally, is it just me or does it take forever to get the buildings you need for them?!).

But marriage, like spying and assassination, is something I've never really got to grips with in the 3 campaigns I've played, so I thought I'd ask...

**Ironside** · 11-02-2006, 12:10

You can often have one faction that will let thier princesses marry your princes for centuries, but eliminating them by assassinations isn't usually smart, as they tend to be small and isolated, making the married princes more valuable.

**macsen rufus** · 11-02-2006, 14:24

It seems there are some faction preferences -- can't remember which faction I was playing, but in one particular game I found the Sicilians were really up for it, never refused. If I'd tried marrying my swineherd to their princess royal, I think they would have agreed

Well, it helped to keep my sons busy and mellowed out

**Alexios** · 11-03-2006, 00:22

Originally Posted by Ripken

Being too large sounds about right at the moment, I must be close to the 60%

Yes, unfortunately this is one of the realities of the game: once you get to about the 25 to 30% range (my own personal guestimate) in World Conq. mode, that's when things starts getting a little lonely - no one wants to be your ally, and no one wants to marry any of your princesses.

Anyway, when it gets to that point, what I do is send my princess on a spying mission to one of my adversary's provinces. Then, just before she gets the "Spinster" title, which I think is around 34 or 35 yrs old, I'll marry her off to one of my leading generals that doesn't have any bad vices. This practice will raise the level of loyalty your generals will have to your King.

BTW, welcome to the Org, Ripken!

**Kralizec** · 11-03-2006, 00:46

Originally Posted by Ripken

Why will no-one marry me?!

Maybe they're not ready for total commitment to you?

Sorry Ripken, I just thought that particular bit was amusing.

Just so you know, there's another purpose for princesses: marrying them to your own generals increases their loyalty. There's no way to be sure now, but I believe that I avoided civil war on some occassions by giving important generals the hands of my princesses.

**BrSpiritus** · 11-15-2006, 21:37

In my current game as the Byz Emp/early/normal, I have the Eastern Roman Empire Secured and nailed down tight. My empire is one of the biggest streaching unbroken from Tuscany to Georgia to Morocco. The other 2 empires are Spain and Kiev. Spain and I fought an on again off again war until I got sick and tired of them jumping on my back every time I got into a war with someone else. I sent my specialist 3 man teams of 5 star assassins after every member of the royal family while simultaneously erdicating a large part of their armed forces in North Africa. End result is their empire shattered and went rebel. Anyhow back to princesses, Kiev and I have been allied since the begining but it's an uneasy alliance between superpowers. They throw every princess my way and I throw my Princesses their way so that our families are so intermarried now it ridiculous. That doesn't stop them from sending assassins and spies into my empire (Always get caught by my secret police force), and I send Spies and assasination teams into their empire. It's quite interesting, I don't want to get rid of them entirely because they're a buffer against the Horde, but I do keep them off balance so they don't get designs on Crimea or Bulgaria.