The seriousness of marriage alliances

**Maurus** · 02-02-2007, 19:35

In one of my spanish campaigns (H/H), I had a marriage alliance with bith the danes and the french,

Now the french were being destroyed by the relocated english (they had been kicked out of the british isles by the scots), so I decided to do something about it, and attacked english holdings in northern france (after getting military access from the desperate french), however I didn't wanted to take any chances and so I decided to reinforce my french frontier garrisons and I sent a diplomant to give money every turn so to keep the relations at perfect with the french, also I gave the first territory that I got conquered back to france, however before I could get a seconds one, the french attacked one of my frontier cities and thus betraying me, needles to say I apologized to the english and proceeded to wipe the floor with france

Evere since that, I never bothered again with marriage alliances, though I may give it a try again as this happened before the patch, perhaps with the patch the AI actions will be a little more logical

**grapedog** · 02-22-2007, 03:21

I haven't really had a long time to test it, but I had an alliance with the Polish. I got a princess and married her off to the faction heir of poland, when I mouse over the little faction description where it shows reliability and relations it now shows that we have an alliance and 1 marriage between us. I'm hoping they honor it, I have quarrel with the Polish nor was I planning on it. Perhaps a marriage can strengthen a current allaince, but a marriage between two factions who were not allied previously is not as strong?

Kind of like the point system for guilds for example. having an alliance is 10 points towards not stabbing you in the back. Having an alliance then adding a marriage strengthens that bond? I don't know for sure, I'll have to see how plucky the polish are feeling in another 45 turns or so.

**Sapper** · 02-22-2007, 12:04

I have fought a couple of campaigns as French on vh/vh and have found the marriage alliance resulting from marrying off the French princess to Rufus, the English heir, in Caen at the start an excellent way of reducing the number of fronts you have to fight on.

**edbenedict77** · 04-01-2011, 15:41

Late to the party as usual, I now have a marriage alliance with the Milanes, (i'm playing as the English), My King Rufus the Tyrant is at the ripe old age of 60, will have to see if Milanese will break this marriage alliance once my king dies, cos i do have a common border with Milan.

**Beggarman** · 04-02-2011, 04:26

At best, it seems you can get two marriage alliances. But Marriage Alliences do seem rather robust: I went from being poor or abysmal with england as the HRE, to being Good, and it held for a fairly long time. It's important to make sure you're not untrustworthy, If you can stay remotely normal or even nice to people, you can maintain marriage alliances for a long time.

Then again, as the HRE I've been able to hold an Alliance with the Pope and Hungary for 50+ turns. Gifting "attack rebels" to both and the occasional 1k or so florins(about every turn for a while, often alternating), I've been able to keep the Pope and Hungary very happy, giving me a rather free hand in Italy. Strangely enough, remaining friends takes more effort than teeing people off :D

**Myth** · 04-04-2011, 08:14

It depends on your difficulty setting primarily. On VH your relations with other countries decline with time no matter what. Therefore even if you have 3 princesses married to them and two of theirs are to you the AI will still backstab you.

**Beggarman** · 04-04-2011, 22:43

Yeah, well, in order for an alliance to last for a while, you have to put effort into it. I only play Very Hard Campaigns(battle difficulty may vary), and I can usually maintain atleast ONE alliance for the majority of the game. I do make an effort to keep my Faction Leader Chivalrous, and if my Heir starts getting too Dreadful, I'll crusade/jihad to fix that problem. High Chiv Faction Leaders help your relations. Then I make as many alliances as possible, as soon as possible, and try to keep them going. In Europe, it's pretty easy to get a host of alliances early on, though maintaining them with expansion is problematic. In the Middle-east, it's not so easy: there's no Neighbors except rivals. And with the Mongols on the way, I can't let the Turks or Egypt sit on their lands and manage them poorly: I'm going to need that money, as either faction. And gifting a few K of florins every now and then goes a loooong way. In my HRE game that I never finished, the Hungarians turned on me after 70ish years of Alliance, but I maintained healthy relations with them for that long, by tributing them every now and then.

Try it sometime. If you keep a high Chiv King, don't start ANY wars, and have around 5 alliances, you can generally salvage atleast 2-3 by the mid-game. Also, don't expand too fast, or everyone will hate you! Also, Avoid taking territory that you ally considers "theirs". This means you can't go expanding into Metz and Dijon as the HRE, for example. The French consider those territories "theirs" and will eventually attempt to reclaim them.

Seriously, try a campaign where you DONT start wars, Maintain a high Chi

**edbenedict77** · 04-25-2011, 01:18

sorry about late posting, but in my present game as h/h hre, my starting marriage alliance with danes, lasted 15~18 turns Only :( they came knocking at frankfurth with a big army heahed by a captain so easily beat them back with 3 start general :) the trick is to attack the "captain's unit and kill/capture him, the rest just routs :D, i'm taking the game quite slow. So far 18 regions at 59th turn, and have been excommunicated Only once for 1 turn when i took rome, with pope defending it :) :) (my "game win" requirement as HRE!) and now trying to get into a marriage allaince with the poles but since i have a common border province they are quite reluctant and my heir is becoming an old bachelor :( i think it's quite hard to get marriage allaince later on in the game, but then again i maybe wrong :)