Marrying off a princess

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

I had once luck in having my faction leader married to a foreign princess. However, I have never had any luck in getting a princess married to a foreign faction leader. Does anyone have a method? Could there be a list somewhere with the eligible faction leaders?

Also just once I vaguely remember getting an option on the diplomatic scroll about marrying a princess to the faction leader of the faction being contacted by the diplomat. Do I remember correctly that the diplomat had to go to the eligible faction leader in person for this option to appear?

Maybe it's lucky I do not get too many princesses.

[tudor93]

However, I have never had any luck in getting a princess married to a foreign faction leader. Does anyone have a method? Could there be a list somewhere with the eligible faction leaders?

There is no list, you can marry your princess to whatever leader (except for muslims, of course) you want as long as he is single too.
There's no specific method, just go with your princess to the leader (or to any other character/city, not sure how this works) and you'll see the option 'Marry princess to faction leader'. If he denies, well ... deal with it; try to add some money/regions etc. to the offer;or maybe he really isn't interested at all in an alliance.

Also just once I vaguely remember getting an option on the diplomatic scroll about marrying a princess to the faction leader of the faction being contacted by the diplomat. Do I remember correctly that the diplomat had to go to the eligible faction leader in person for this option to appear?

I don't think you remember correctly. For example: I have 2 princesses and I go with my diplomat to the single faction leader and the option to marry him to my princess is available; which of the 2 princesses will marry him ? Exactly, you don't know. You have to go with the princess in person for to option to appear.

[Avatar]

The main thing is that the other faction leader needs to be single. Now bearing in mind that the game basically throws brides at any general when he comes of age, and you can see that the chances of a faction leader not having married are going to be pretty slim. I somehow doubt the AI takes any consideration of getting potential princess brides.

[tudor93]

Now bearing in mind that the game basically throws brides at any general when he comes of age, and you can see that the chances of a faction leader not having married are going to be pretty slim.

On the contrary, my friend; the game will give you almost no marriage offers for your male family members. That's the reason why in mods like SS your bloodline is doomed (especially if you are playing an islamic faction): your male family members with pure blood won't get marriage offers so they can't have children and you are forced to adopt guys with no royal blood.

[Avatar]

On the contrary, my friend; the game will give you almost no marriage offers for your male family members. That's the reason why in mods like SS your bloodline is doomed (especially if you are playing an islamic faction): your male family members with pure blood won't get marriage offers so they can't have children and you are forced to adopt guys with no royal blood.

Your experience may differ, and I cant really speak for any of the mods, but I know that in vanilla all of my generals get marriage offers pretty quickly after appearing in the game. I've certainly never been at risk of the family tree dying out from lack of heirs.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Your experience may differ, and I cant really speak for any of the mods, but I know that in vanilla all of my generals get marriage offers pretty quickly after appearing in the game. I've certainly never been at risk of the family tree dying out from lack of heirs.

I think he meant in Stainless Steel. Certainly KoJ in my current campaign (not my faction) have one family member left and he appears to have no children and they have no generals. I have thought of donating them a region, in the hope the AI will give them a free general. But when I did so, they sold it straight away for cash ...

Of course the princess gets no option to mary the KoJ faction leader, so he must be married even though he seems to have no children of age.

Anyway, if any of you can think of a solution for my princess, she is still young and had since the age of 18, 9/10 charm - I have never before seen that. I seem unable to locate unmarried faction leaders. I am playing SS6.4 and my own faction leaders got married late in their lives, were they the only ones? Would marrying her to a foreign family member who is not the faction leader improve relations?

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

I think he meant in Stainless Steel. Certainly KoJ in my current campaign (not my faction) have one family member left and he appears to have no children and they have no generals. I have thought of donating them a region, in the hope the AI will give them a free general. But when I did so, they sold it straight away for cash ...

Of course the princess gets no option to mary the KoJ faction leader, so he must be married even though he seems to have no children of age.

Anyway, if any of you can think of a solution for my princess, she is still young and had since the age of 18, 9/10 charm - I have never before seen that. I seem unable to locate unmarried faction leaders. I am playing SS6.4 and my own faction leaders got married late in their lives, were they the only ones? Would marrying her to a foreign family member who is not the faction leader improve relations?

Well yeah That's suppose to improve relations with the faction you just married your princess. I did have luck in my family tree for at least a long time my second faction leader was married to a princess from the HRE, his son was married to an English Princess, his son was married to a Novogorian Princess and finaly the last son of this last Faction Leader married a Lithuanian Princess and a something terrible happen Lithuania got destroyed 4 turns later and the princess died leaving no male heir to the Throne only a GIRL ! Is this the end of my Bloodline ?

[Stario]

I had once luck in having my faction leader married to a foreign princess. However, I have never had any luck in getting a princess married to a foreign faction leader. Does anyone have a method? Could there be a list somewhere with the eligible faction leaders?

Also just once I vaguely remember getting an option on the diplomatic scroll about marrying a princess to the faction leader of the faction being contacted by the diplomat. Do I remember correctly that the diplomat had to go to the eligible faction leader in person for this option to appear?

Maybe it's lucky I do not get too many princesses.

Firstly, to marry foreign princesses to player faction leader one has to use diplomats. If the said faction has a princess, and the player factions leader is single the option will be available in the diplomatic screen upon contact with said faction; one can also go directly to the said princess.

Secondly, to get your princesses married to foreign leaders/generals you must click on the said target with your princess (works just the same as assassination etc), and an option to marry will be available if target is single. Best way to do this is to use "toggle_fow" command, then search the map for a suitor and click said target with princess. The benefits of this are twofold- 1. You are not blindly searching for suitors that have the potential to also move around map, 2. Albeit, the suitor might be many hexes away from your princess (might take many turns to reach), once the marriage offer is made he will not get married even if your princess takes 15 turns to reach her suitor. Lastly, depending on the said princesses stats- there is a small chance she will defect to other faction upon reaching target and attempting marriage.

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

If you can, load an earlier game and try to prevent lithuania from being destroyed. I had no idea that if the faction was destroyed the princess you had married to your heir/leader died too.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

I have two other related questions, in case anyone has any ideas:

1. Are the traits of children affected at all by the lineage of their mother (chivalry etc)?
2. If a princess marries a foreign faction family member who is not the heir or faction leader but later on by chance becomes a faction leader, will you then get diplomacy benefits? In essence the foreign ruler will be married to your princess.

[Avatar]

I have two other related questions, in case anyone has any ideas:

1. Are the traits of children affected at all by the lineage of their mother (chivalry etc)?
2. If a princess marries a foreign faction family member who is not the heir or faction leader but later on by chance becomes a faction leader, will you then get diplomacy benefits? In essence the foreign ruler will be married to your princess.

1. No, so far as i remember the list of triggers. When a new general comes of age the game checks against his fathers traits when generating his profile. The same is true of a princess, who gains vices or virtues based mainly on her father.

2. No, and indeed unless its specific to a mod this would result in that General joining your own faction as a family member to begin with.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

2. No, and indeed unless its specific to a mod this would result in that General joining your own faction as a family member to begin with.

I was thinking of a general who will stay with his faction not join mine. Who might by chance become a faction leader of his own faction. Sometimes on the diplomacy scroll you get a number indicating interfaction marriages for certain factions. Would such a marriage count as interfaction marriage, if that character becomes later faction heir or leader?

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

I was thinking of a general who will stay with his faction not join mine. Who might by chance become a faction leader of his own faction. Sometimes on the diplomacy scroll you get a number indicating interfaction marriages for certain factions. Would such a marriage count as interfaction marriage, if that character becomes later faction heir or leader?

Those options only come up when the country you have entered diplomacy with has either FL or FH unmarried, you can use your princess to marry them, but they(the heir or leader) will stay with that faction no matter what, and they wont become leaders of your own faction, you can also use this to marry your own FL or FH to a princess(approach a foreign princess with a diplomat and the option will be there if your FL/FH is unmarried).

By making a marriage such as this you can create a strong alliance, the AI dosent break marriage alliances too often. I wouldnt recommend you only trying to marry your princesses to other factions FL/FH's, you will end up with too many alliances, plus you can use those princesses to get some of your own unmarried FM's married(they cant marry their brothers trough, anything further than in the family tree that works).

I dont know what else to add, its not that hard to understand this yourself.

[Akodo]

I have two other related questions, in case anyone has any ideas:

1. Are the traits of children affected at all by the lineage of their mother (chivalry etc)?
2. If a princess marries a foreign faction family member who is not the heir or faction leader but later on by chance becomes a faction leader, will you then get diplomacy benefits? In essence the foreign ruler will be married to your princess.

1. No. The wife's stats at time of marriage can give the husband new traits. The offspring are influenced by the father's traits.

2. If a princess marries a foreigner, he basically disappears from that family and reappears in yours. Just like if some foreign hottie make one of your leaders disappear, he'll never reappear even if he'd be in the line of succession. Wouldn't that suck if you loose your king and faction heir and then POOF the grandson of some guy who ran away with Miss HRE 50 turns ago becomes king.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

1. No. The wife's stats at time of marriage can give the husband new traits. The offspring are influenced by the father's traits.

2. If a princess marries a foreigner, he basically disappears from that family and reappears in yours. Just like if some foreign hottie make one of your leaders disappear, he'll never reappear even if he'd be in the line of succession. Wouldn't that suck if you loose your king and faction heir and then POOF the grandson of some guy who ran away with Miss HRE 50 turns ago becomes king.

That's as you say.

But just to make it clear, what I meant was a princess, let's say an HRE princess, finding no available royal suitors marries let's say an available 18 year old French guy named Capet in Paris. Let us say he is a charming guy and our HRE princess is lost to that faction. I expect (but have not checked it) from now on that Capet will show as being married, i.e. he is married to your princess who has disappeared. With a little bit of luck that Capet may at one point become the Heir or Faction leader of France. Would you get a diplomatic benefit?

My suspicion is that when your princess is lost, the game engine makes no note who she had been married to, so it would not remember that the new French Heir had been married to your HRE princess.

I guess one way to test this would be to generate a dozen princesses with a script and marry them all to all the available French faction members (not the heir) and see if at some point in the future you get the diplomatic scroll showing you have a marriage alliance with France. But most of the posts tend to suggest this would not work, so I have not bothered. If someone knows otherwise, please let me know.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Most of that is quite obvious I agree. In my current campaign I have yet to identify in these first 60 turns or so an unmarried foreign faction leader or heir even after lifting the fog of war. So my initial question was if there was a list or table somewhere listing unmarried foreign leaders and heirs - in case I was missing something. Since there is not and I cannot identify any suitable suitors, I was hoping for suggestions if there was some other way to achieve diplomatic benefits with a princess, based on the interfaction marriage trigger. Has anyone had a princess married to a foreign faction member who later became heir or leader of his faction and definitely did not get any diplomatic benefits when that happened?

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

Has anyone had a princess married to a foreign faction member who later became heir or leader of his faction and definitely did not get any diplomatic benefits when that happened?

You cannot marry your princess to a foreign factions family member in a manner in which you are talking about, if you try to marry him via strategy map(no diplomacy) he will either join you, reject her offer or make your daughter fall in love with him and force her to defect to his faction, thus leaving you 1 priness short.

Most heirs are already married when they recieve thir position as heirs, so you could try assasinating a few FH's or FL's (i would go with a FH, they have higher % of sucsess to be killed), to get some completely new FM to be in the position, so you can marry your princess to him, it might take a few assasinations bfore you get a young/new enough FM in that position.

Also, in the very beggining of the game there are quite a few heirs unmarried, you have to be fast in order to get to them before they marry, there are also some good princesses wandering around in the very start.

[Rero]

Tomorrow I will post pics of when i married two of my princesses to the King of France and the heir to Denmark.

Away for the weekend.

[Akodo]

There are two basic types of marriages in MTW2.

#1 are diplomatic marriages. Marriage is either to king or heir on one side and an available princess on the other side. This seems to be mainly influenced by the desire of the faction to form an alliance or bargaining chips presented (cash, regions, etc) Alliances formed as such seem to hold a lot longer. I think it is just a case where you immediately get a few bonus points toward how well that faction likes you, which means it takes longer to run down low enough for them to back-stab you. In both cases the princess disappears but no new leaders appear.

#2 are 'she's a hottie' marriage. Your princess simply tries to get a leader's attention using her charms (how many hearts she has). She disappears and a new general appears. I do this for tactical reasons. I can infiltrate an enemy I am planning on attacking. I have an army on my land close to one of his cities. I have a princess deep in his land. I marry a leader of his. I attack his border holding with my army. I buy mercenaries for the new leader, and attack a city in the soft underbelly. Often the city/castle in the soft underbelly will have just 1 leader plus 2 units to hold it, so just a few mercs and the tides have turned! I've had one occasion where the leader was the only unit in a castle, so once he became my leader, I just marched into the 'abandoned' castle.

be aware that a proposal may 'backfire' and rather than the leader joining you, your princess just joins his family (disappears, and foreign leader is now married). However a princess will be declared an 'old maid' and disappear at some time anyways, I don't see this as a big loss.