Question for medieval marriage experts!

[bbbbb]

Heres one for you:

So I'm trying to play a "pure-blood" campaign with the English i.e. I'm not allowing any adoptions in an effort to keep every king a direct decendent of my original king...

Under this self imposed rule, what should I do with my princesses? Should they marry foreign princes, as was one of the main traditional things they did at the time?... (and if they do, does the princess disappear from my family tree or do I gain the foreign prince as another heir) or should I make them marry English generals, and keep it completely English? (and in this case, if the general she married became king, and his son then did, would he keep the "Of English Blood" trait, and would he truely count as of royal blood? - vital for a "pure-blood" campaign!)

Anyone know the proper course of action I should take here for both historical accuracy and to keep it "pure-blood"?

b

[Arceus]

I'm not sure if this works for you but in my byzantine campaign i usually marry my princess to their cousin or uncle, for example my current emperor have four sons, the first son had a daughter then I married her to one of her father's younger brothers

[bbbbb]

I realise thats all good and legal, but seems a little incestuous to me ... any other ideas or historical knowledge people want to bring to the party?

b

[TheBard]

If your campaign goes long enough, it will be almost impossible to have it be pure-blood the whole way through. You'll spend a lot of time killing off incorrect heirs that were made heirs when your king had no children (or no children of age). You'll also get unlucky sometimes and have only girls, or have several generations in a row that don't work out quite right.

I'm not sure exactly how the "Royal Ties"/"Of English Blood" trait works, though, so that might be possible. I tried to hold strictly to salic law in my Portugal AAR, and it has mostly worked, but there have been a few awkward successions strewn about. I suppose that's pretty historical, though.

[el Cid]

If you want your bloodline to remain pure there are a few things you should do:
1. No adopting
2. No Man of the Hour
3. No marriage accepting
4. Try to marry your princesses into other factions, this will make her disappear and her husband won't be in your faction.
5. Try to marry your princesses to her cousins. This might look like incest, but was very common in those days.
6. Do not marry your princesses to generals, this will make their children have different names, and your bloodline will be messed up.

Actually pretty easy, so good luck.

[The Source]

its going to become pretty much stuffed up by the time you get past turn 120'ish so if i was you id accept marrige propasals to your family members except your heirs who if you like could marry princesses, this keeps your heir branch pure and if it corrupts then you can always have the next branch to go on which will still have english bloods. also dont do incest or you will get heaps of negative and deformed apperance traits.

[bbbbb]

Thanks for the replies so far guys! Ok so heres what I got from that in terms of trying to apply some fairly historically accurate rules, while keeping the "pure-blood" theme, and not wrecking my game in the process (based around el cids rules tweaked a little):

1) No adopting.
2) No Man of the Hour.
3) Princes can marry foreign princesses, as his kids then keep the "Of English blood" trait.
4) Try to marry princesses into other factions, this will make her disappear and her husband won't be in my faction.
5) Try to marry princesses to her cousins. This might look like incest, but was very common in those days - obviously not an option at the start of the game when there are not many branches. Not sure about this one, still seems a bit weird to me but marrying your cousin is legal even today... also tough decision as it is historically accurate...what do you guys think?
6) Do not marry your princesses to generals, this will make their children have different names, and your bloodline will be messed up. Again a contentious one, as its not like an English queen has never taken a husband and then her sons went on to become king while still considered "pure blood" - there are loads of examples of this happening!...comments on this?... will the game still give out "Of English blood" in this case?

This hopefully gives a balance between historical accuracy and not messing up the game. What do you guys think?

Edit: Also just noticed that Stephen de Blois has married into the English royal family at the start of the game, with a son not yet of age, so presumably I should kill the son off ASAP as he does not fit with the criteria above?

comments/suggestions welcome,

b

[el Cid]

Thanks for the replies so far guys! Ok so heres what I got from that in terms of trying to apply some fairly historically accurate rules, while keeping the "pure-blood" theme, and not wrecking my game in the process (based around el cids rules tweaked a little):

1) No adopting.
2) No Man of the Hour.
3) Princes can marry foreign princesses, as his kids then keep the "Of English blood" trait.
4) Try to marry princesses into other factions, this will make her disappear and her husband won't be in my faction.
5) Try to marry princesses to her cousins. This might look like incest, but was very common in those days - obviously not an option at the start of the game when there are not many branches. Not sure about this one, still seems a bit weird to me but marrying your cousin is legal even today... also tough decision as it is historically accurate...what do you guys think?
6) Do not marry your princesses to generals, this will make their children have different names, and your bloodline will be messed up. Again a contentious one, as its not like an English queen has never taken a husband and then her sons went on to become king while still considered "pure blood" - there are loads of examples of this happening!...comments on this?... will the game still give out "Of English blood" in this case?

This hopefully gives a balance between historical accuracy and not messing up the game. What do you guys think?

Edit: Also just noticed that Stephen de Blois has married into the English royal family at the start of the game, with a son not yet of age, so presumably I should kill the son off ASAP as he does not fit with the criteria above?

comments/suggestions welcome,

b

I did not know about the bad traits, in that case you'd better just marry them to other factions. It was very common in those days, but this is a personal decision.

About your second point, this has indeed happened, it will however screw up your family name (Plantagenet) as the children will get the surname of the father. These people were of course pure blooded, but my goal always is to have the family name live on. I do not know about the "Of English Blood" trait.


His son will be named de Blois like his father. I do however not yet know if you really want the family name to live on or just to have your family pureblooded, but still with different names?

[The Source]

im near certain the stephen de blois is of english blood so i guess you could use that as a back up branch

though the thing is when i was playing with england 6.4 early era is that the youngest son of the current king had no last name and neither did his heirs?

[bbbbb]

el cid: TBH I'm not too fussed about the last name of the monarchy changing, as historically this has happened in England LOTS! I guess my key hangup is the following - If a princess marries, say, one of my generals, will their son inherit the "Of English blood" trait if only his mother posesses it?... or can it only be passed down through the males?

Also, is there a way to choose your next heir?

The Source: Do other factions' leaders have last names? If so then this is a bug that should be reported right?!

[bbbbb]

bane - please feel free to delete this thread, I will ask the question at the bottom of this in a new thread as it is now somewhat different to the original point Iwas making

[bɑne]

bane - please feel free to delete this thread, I will ask the question at the bottom of this in a new thread as it is now somewhat different to the original point Iwas making

Deletion is something I tend to avoid

el cid: TBH I'm not too fussed about the last name of the monarchy changing, as historically this has happened in England LOTS! I guess my key hangup is the following - If a princess marries, say, one of my generals, will their son inherit the "Of English blood" trait if only his mother posesses it?... or can it only be passed down through the males?

It is possible to pass blood through the mother (unless I'm missunderstanding you).

Also, is there a way to choose your next heir?

Next Heir Ancillary -NHA- (Setting Next Heir) - [RELEASED] Mod for SS6.2 / 6.3 / 6.4 (Updated)

The Source: Do other factions' leaders have last names? If so then this is a bug that should be reported right?!

Depends on the faction. England in Early Era has none for example.

[The Source]

^just to add something in on banes response-you can also change the files so that the family members have a different last name, plantagenet for example

[bbbbb]

And how exactly would I go about doing that?

[The Source]

you would find that in the mod workshop