Desirability of Potential Brides

[The Kingmaker]

One thing I didn't like about CK1 was the fact that the desirability of potential brides was based exclusively on their potential for serving in your court. So it didn't matter if the king next door had a real hottie for a daughter, because she had straight 3s for stats. Instead of her, you imported a peasant girl from the other side of the world because she was a "prodigy."

Now Medieval II Total War had a "charm" trait which covered the princesses' physical beauty as well as their charisma. That's not necessarily what I'm advocating here, but perhaps something similar.

There should be a sort of "desirability" trait for potential brides which would be based off of several factors. Here's what I'm thinking:

1. Noble Rank: King's daughters are going to be prime marriage candidates even if the king is long dead or the bride is ugly. There should be a prestige boost to the husband for marrying a woman of higher rank, and there should be some pretty big modifiers drawing potential husbands to the daughters and sisters of the more important men of the world.

2. Beauty and Charisma: The bride's personal traits should definitely play into her desirability somewhat. If your king has just married the medieval equivalent of Helen of Troy, then he should get a bonus amount of prestige equal to all the high-fives he'd be getting.

3. Dowry: A potential bride's "huge tracts of land" should be as great an incentive to the potential groom as, ahem, her other "huge tracts of land."

4. Proximity: Marrying your near neighbor's daughter should be much, much more common than going to the ends of the earth. Those should still be able to happen on occasion, but first your kingdom and the distant one need to have had some sort of reason for such contact. Royal marriages were political alliances, after all.

If a bride has all of these traits, there should then be considerable incentives to marry her. One excellent example is Eleanor of Aquitaine. She had the whole package: physically beautiful and charming, the prestigious ex-Queen of France, bordering Henry II's own lands, and bringing the whole Duchy of Aquitaine and considerable wealth to the table. These incentives should also show up in some sort of menu-- "most desirable/eligible local brides" perhaps, so that you don't have to wade through every single female in the world.

 

[Rysz]

Earlier I saw someone making the suggestion for a kind of "agent" that you could send out to find potential brides, return a list, and that you then can choose amongst them. I thought it to be an interesting idea.

Suppose an agent would look for brides within a certain range. If you are a count, it is highly unlikely you have access to every kingdom to look for the King's daughters. However, you would have access to your own lieges court (both Duke and King). Also neighbouring duchies and counties (especially in the same realm, or bordering on your own) would be places to look for brides. Ofcourse there can be the incidental chance encounter with something too far away or too high in the hierarchy. Like the fact that the King of Hungary married the daughter of a low Count in the Netherlands (Loon).

Then when this agent returns this list, you should have the possibility to rank your brides according to your excellent proposal (noble rank, beauty/charisma, dowry or inheritances), and investigate for yourself the bride's family (for certain skillfully manipulated inheritances).

 

[LordofSaxony]

I made a thread a while back concerning hiding stats for future wives, and it's similar to what you are talking about. Basically, my goal was the get out of the "searching for stats" and instead consider "political opportunities, traits, etc" for marriage. I think the long discussion basically boiled down to.. Showing and searching stats for people that want that, but also provide political and other non-statistical opportunities and reasons, such as diplomatic arranged marriages. I do agree, that there should be other reasons to marry aside from stats, and I think due to the time period the 'arranged marriage' to secure alliances is a vital one.

 

[Woody Man]

Good ideas all round, it would be particularly useful if there was a de jure uxoris system in place.

 

[Anthropoid]

Nice That is what I love about you Paradox gamers you teach me new stuff.

I wonder how you pronounce that word "uxoris?" Would it be "ook shore us" or "ook sur us" or "uhk" instead of "ook?"

 

[Dominatus]

One thing I didn't like about CK1 was the fact that the desirability of potential brides was based exclusively on their potential for serving in your court. So it didn't matter if the king next door had a real hottie for a daughter, because she had straight 3s for stats. Instead of her, you imported a peasant girl from the other side of the world because she was a "prodigy."

Now Medieval II Total War had a "charm" trait which covered the princesses physical beauty as well as her charisma. That's not necessarily what I'm advocating here, but perhaps something similar.

There should be a sort of "desirability" trait for potential brides which would be based off of several factors. Here's what I'm thinking:

1. Noble Rank: King's daughters are going to be prime marriage candidates even if the king is long dead or the bride is ugly. There should be a prestige boost to the husband for marrying a woman of higher rank, and there should be some pretty big modifiers drawing potential husbands to the daughters of the more important men of the world.

2. Beauty and Charisma: The bride's personal traits should definitely play into her desirability somewhat. If your king has just married the medieval equivalent of Helen of Troy, then he should get a bonus amount of prestige equal to all the high-fives he'd be getting.

3. Dowry: A potential bride's "huge tracts of land" should be as great an incentive to the potential groom as, ahem, her other "huge tracts of land."

4. Proximity: Marrying your near neighbor's daughter should be much, much more common than going to the ends of the earth. Those should still be able to happen on occasion, but first your kingdom and the distant one need to have had some sort of reason for such contact. Royal marriages were political alliances, after all.

If a bride has all of these traits, there should then be considerable incentives to marry her. One excellent example is Eleanor of Aquitaine. She had the whole package: physically beautiful and charming, the prestigious ex-Queen of France, bordering Henry II's own lands, and bringing the whole Duchy of Aquitaine and considerable wealth to the table. These incentives should also show up in some sort of menu-- "most desirable/eligible local brides" perhaps, so that you don't have to wade through every single female in the world.

+1 Great and very logical ideas

 

[Woody Man]

Nice That is what I love about you Paradox gamers you teach me new stuff.

I wonder how you pronounce that word "uxoris?" Would it be "ook shore us" or "ook sur us" or "uhk" instead of "ook?"

I'm guessing (as we have no real way to know) that it's pronounced ooks-or-rees.

 

[unmerged(54293)]

Very good ideas.

An additional problem of CKI's marriage system was that it worked on a "first-come, first-served" basis. That is, after finding a potential bride or groom for your child, you had to sit on the fence until he or she turned 16, then immediately submit your request, often coming too late.

Of course that's not how it really worked. Parents would carefully consider the marriages of their offspring. To make the system more realistic, one could think of:
- pre-arranged marriages, i.e. the possibility of marriage contracts before both have turned 16, to be confirmed by the parents after this date (this was already proposed in another thread), and
- an official "courtship period", lasting some months or a year after the bride turned 16, during which marriage requests could be submitted and compared by the parents, resulting in a decision at the end of the period (this idea is very much like the "marriage agent" proposal, only the other way round).

 

[The Kingmaker]

Good ideas all round, it would be particularly useful if there was a de jure uxoris system in place.

Definitely. Being able to control, exploit, and generally just muck about in your wife's lands is a must.

 

[Bballman23]

I like these ideas a lot. I especially like the idea of some way to find suitable brides: when I play CK1, I spend forever hunting for women that might fit with my heirs. It gets so tedious that I'll sometimes just find any young (preferably lustful because I love heirs) woman and kill her husband using the console. I could see it being done like the "low legitimacy" tooltip in EU3, sorting the possible wives by some combined rank/beauty/wealth/proximity value.

 

[Count of Reval]

One thing I didn't like about CK1 was the fact that the desirability of potential brides was based exclusively on their potential for serving in your court. So it didn't matter if the king next door had a real hottie for a daughter, because she had straight 3s for stats. Instead of her, you imported a peasant girl from the other side of the world because she was a "prodigy."

Now Medieval II Total War had a "charm" trait which covered the princesses' physical beauty as well as their charisma. That's not necessarily what I'm advocating here, but perhaps something similar.

There should be a sort of "desirability" trait for potential brides which would be based off of several factors.

Just wanted to point out an obvious, that at least in CK1 the traits are binary (a character either has a particular trait or doesn't). Maybe that's going to change in CK2 and traits will come in degrees, don't know. From a measuring aspect, your proposed variable reminds more like a current Loyalty with its dynamic and decomposable nature.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

There should be a sort of "desirability" trait for potential brides which would be based off of several factors. Here's what I'm thinking:

I made a thread a while back concerning hiding stats for future wives, and it's similar to what you are talking about. Basically, my goal was the get out of the "searching for stats" and instead consider "political opportunities, traits, etc" for marriage. I think the long discussion basically boiled down to.. Showing and searching stats for people that want that, but also provide political and other non-statistical opportunities and reasons, such as diplomatic arranged marriages. I do agree, that there should be other reasons to marry aside from stats, and I think due to the time period the 'arranged marriage' to secure alliances is a vital one.

Actually that could be directly tied to your proposal by having a hidden desirability/comeliness/charisma/appearance stat and those with higher stats being the first ones found out about in any given situation. Thus someone very desirable would be known throughout Europe, possibly even breaking the religious boundary. On the other hand those less so would not be as much and you might have to dig a bit deeper or look a bit closer to home to find a hidden gem...or just someone if you can't find that.

 

[Calgacus]

This is a good start for an alternate system. Definitely picking partners based on their traits as courtiers is too out of sync with reality; it was probably an unintended side effect to aspects of the gameplay that weren't properly thought through for CK1.

I wouldn't make attractiveness too important. Rulers normally have plenty of concubines for the sex. The wife's role is political and socio-biological, certainly in the part of the CK map everyone here is obsessed with, to be the wife of the ruler and the mother of heirs. I'd also attach households to noble but titleless "courtiers". Very common in Norman expansion was for rulers to offer their daughter to Norman knights, and the knight would enter the ruler's household with his men attached and subsequently stand a chance of inheriting the land (Strongbow, Comyns of Buchan, and so on) ... but in the mean time the ruler would have a larger and better number of soldiers at his disposal for his short-term needs.

 

[The Kingmaker]

I wouldn't make attractiveness too important. Rulers normally have plenty of concubines for the sex. The wife's role is political and socio-biological, certainly in the part of the CK map everyone here is obsessed with, to be the wife of the ruler and the mother of heirs.

Definitely. In fact, that was my major issue with the Medieval II system - that it focused solely on attractiveness. My point here was just that it was still a factor to be considered, if only one among many. One example would be King John, choosing the more attractive Isabella of Angouleme over Isabella of Gloucester despite losing lots of land in the process.

I'd also attach households to noble but titleless "courtiers". Very common in Norman expansion was for rulers to offer their daughter to Norman knights, and the knight would enter the ruler's household with his men attached and subsequently stand a chance of inheriting the land (Strongbow, Comyns of Buchan, and so on) ... but in the mean time the ruler would have a larger and better number of soldiers at his disposal for his short-term needs.

This is a very good suggestion. Hopefully something like this will be implemented with the Baron system?

 

[unmerged(2456)]

This is a good start for an alternate system. Definitely picking partners based on their traits as courtiers is too out of sync with reality; it was probably an unintended side effect to aspects of the gameplay that weren't properly thought through for CK1.

I wouldn't make attractiveness too important. Rulers normally have plenty of concubines for the sex. The wife's role is political and socio-biological, certainly in the part of the CK map everyone here is obsessed with, to be the wife of the ruler and the mother of heirs. I'd also attach households to noble but titleless "courtiers". Very common in Norman expansion was for rulers to offer their daughter to Norman knights, and the knight would enter the ruler's household with his men attached and subsequently stand a chance of inheriting the land (Strongbow, Comyns of Buchan, and so on) ... but in the mean time the ruler would have a larger and better number of soldiers at his disposal for his short-term needs.

No it shouldn't be the sole concern. My point was to have be the one where finding a bride beyond your borders would be the easiest to look for if you didn't want to put much effort to it. That and dowry would be the two "easy" ways for your intelligence network to find out and much easier in most cases for the appearance since that info is readily available in most cases. Dowry size, unless its been sweetened purposefully, is unlikely to attract any obvious such attention.

Thus proximity is strill the primary factor, but this would put attractiveness as a contender for second for gathering info. Dowry size, which would include titles, would also be up there. Line of succesion, age, traits, etc should also play a part.

 

[Calgacus]

Status of the bride should be second to proximity. CK1 didn't really have a concept of "status" (prestige was close), but in a bride (rather than a concubine) status was the most desirable thing in general. Status is always a hard thing to map because it is very complicated (people "just know" someone's status), but having status in the game would be good in theory for these purposes. It should be related to rank, but obviously a daughter of the duke of Saxony would have higher status than a daughter of the king of Scotland or Navarre, a sister of the count of Flanders higher status than a sister of the "duke" of Orkney; someone [believed to be] descended from Charlemagne or Riurik higher status than someone not; and so on.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Status of the bride should be second to proximity. CK1 didn't really have a concept of "status" (prestige was close), but in a bride (rather than a concubine) status was the most desirable thing in general. Status is always a hard thing to map because it is very complicated (people "just know" someone's status), but having status in the game would be good in theory for these purposes. It should be related to rank, but obviously a daughter of the duke of Saxony would have higher status than a daughter of the king of Scotland or Navarre, a sister of the count of Flanders higher status than a sister of the "duke" of Orkney; someone [believed to be] descended from Charlemagne or Riurik higher status than someone not; and so on.

Well a lot of that is a problem of history. Alternative history's would not have have had those same results for status level of each title.

 

[Zan Thrax]

Well, if we want to have an important Duke's daughter have more status than a minor King's daughter, it can simply be based on the power & prestige of her father; although I'd also think distance should matter. Saxony may be more important than Navarra overall, but if you're a Catalan count, Saxony's a long way away.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Well ideally you could have rankings by which you could go, like the OP suggested:

Going purely by CK1 criteria:

- Rank / Status of the potential bride
- Inheritance possibilities (with a filter to display only those with possible inheritances of "neighbouring province", "close province" (2-3 provs away) or "any inheritance")
- Age and virginity (i.e. has she been married before?)
- Education
- Possible dowry (i.e. her father's wealth)
- personal attributes (filter to prefer IN, ST, MA, DI, piety, or prestige)

The AI would employ a search agent which has as default settings a weighted sum of rank, possible inheritance of close provinces, and personal attributes. An already powerful king in need of prestige could forego inheritance and look solely for young, high ranking brides (i.e. Emperor Otto wanting a purple-born Byzantine bride for his son). Low ranking characters would prefer rich brides (i.e. inheritances and wealth) and also accept widows or elder women.

I very much like the idea of a "bride finder agent" that presents you with a list of 8 (or so) brides, by the way! That's a really great idea. A "Find a bride for my son" menu where you can set search priorities (perhaps even set weights for a weighted sum type objective?) and get a limited but good list of choices, to save you the hassle of browsing through the ledger if you so desire.

 

[nwinther]

The opposite could also be desirable. Depending on how the game will work, it could be just as desirable for a father to try and marry his daughter to a powerful-to-be prince etc. rather than just sitting around waiting for this agent to turn up.

This would require that the game actually provides real influence and that relationships between counties/duchies etc. really means something - not just a 10 point positive/negative with some distant count.

Being able to set terms for a marriage would also be cool. "If my daughter marries your second son, I will provide a dowry of 2400 pieces of gold. Within one year, you will make your son (my daughters husband-to-be) count of X (and duke of Y). If my daugher marries your eldest son (and heir), I will provide a dowry of 3500 pieces of gold and join you in your current war against Z." etc. etc.

That way your daughter (or possibly son) won't end up being some anonymous courtier in a back-water duchy, or countess in a ruined county waiting to be usurped by the overlord.