Why are spouses/small children still randomly wandering off to wherever

[EphemeralToast]

OK so I haven't been keeping up with The Discourse for a while but I seem to recall a lot of complaints back in the day about how spouses and kids will end up in other courts for no good reason, and it seems like that is still happening. My son got married, then my daughter-in-law's sister was enthroned in their home country. Boom, she teleports back home to sit around doing nothing in her sister's court and absolutely will not leave for anything. I've lost my best tutor, and she and my son have lost a chunk of their fertility score because they are not in the same court. Yes I could spend years of my life investing in otherwise useless to me Intrigue so I can abduct her but why should I have to do that.

Or like, my sister married the king of France. Now, I go out of my way to only marry my kin to decent folks who won't murder them or whatever. I figure it's the least I can do if I'm gonna use them as bargaining chips for more power. So the king is virtuous and Forgiving, they have traits in common, I taught her his language, so they have a very high numerical approval of each other. I click over there to check on them one day and I see she's pregnant and traveling to the Hungarian court for... some reason? She arrives there as a guest and just stays there for months, still a guest, giving birth to their kid who then also becomes a guest. Like... what? There is no information available to me about why this happened. I invited her and the kid to my court, and from there sent the kid back to dad, more or less, by offering him guardianship. But my daughter cannot be made to go home to be with her apparently still loving husband. So he's missing her as a council member and a regent, etc.

Why is this still happening? Why are affectionate married couples and underage children being sent randomly about the map to disrupt normal court functioning, guardianship, etc.? Is there an event that is known to causes such problems? Is there some way to fix it that I'm not aware of? I'm extremely confused and annoyed!

 

[Voy]

I find that there are two primary reasons why families are broken up in CK3

1. Succession. If a close relative gains a title, it is not uncommon for siblings to be transported to them, no matter who they are, as long as they're not rulers.

2. Events. Some events pull relatives, random courtiers or pool characters to a random court. It means that a wandering family can easily be broken up by recruiting knights or personal physicians decisions. It's not uncommon for that to happen.

If the devs want to fix it, they would have to make sure that the core wandering family is respected and that characters have a chance to wander back home if they are lost. Currently, wandering characters are forbidden to go back to a court they left for guest variety.

 

[Herennius]

Yes, that's something I run constantly into as well. Similar to many events having a tendency to draw in unfitting characters. My guess is that it is a lack of proper/enough checks and restrictions, when the games needs to decide whether a character is teleported or can be target for an event.

 

[EphemeralToast]

1. Succession. If a close relative gains a title, it is not uncommon for siblings to be transported to them, no matter who they are, as long as they're not rulers.

Right, that's what happened to my son's wife, and I hate that it does this.

As for events I only know of two. One is the spouse is being beaten or abused and asks their family member to help them escape--IIRC it's only for the ones you'd expect, high-cruelty personalities, def not what happened here. And there is, or was, an annoying event that would remove your spouse to their sibling's court to make an artifact for them. Also not what happened to my sister, as she didn't have an artifact inspiration and didn't create anything. So what could make her randomly wander off to bear the heir to all of France as a guest of the Hungarians, I'm stumped.

 

[Voy]

There are many more, quite a few of them are court activity events.

Such as when a claimant comes and ask for you to press their title. It doesn't check if they are in a patrilineal or matrilineal marriage. It is possible for them to be spouses of rulers. You get to either recruit them or if you dismiss them they are added to the wandering pool.

It happens a lot in 1066 when the aunt of the Piasts and wife of Ruthenia comes to your court asking to take over Poland for her.

 

[EphemeralToast]

It doesn't check if they are in a patrilineal or matrilineal marriage.

We are now entering The Cool Zone

Because like. If this is the problem then there's no way to even report this as a bug bc what am I gonna say, "please check every single event in the game to make sure it accounts for the participant being the non-dominant partner in a marriage"

I mean, I guess I can, but they aren't gonna do that, right. ughghghgh this game and its events, man

 

[Voy]

We are now entering The Cool Zone

Because like. If this is the problem then there's no way to even report this as a bug bc what am I gonna say, "please check every single event in the game to make sure it accounts for the participant being the non-dominant partner in a marriage"

I mean, I guess I can, but they aren't gonna do that, right. ughghghgh this game and its events, man

There are more sophisticated umbrella triggers available. It's just a matter of priorities and even if I want a seamless courtier / wandering system, it doesn't affect the game thaaaaat much. I get that having heirs, spouses of heirs, wander off is annoying, but most can be invited back or will be teleported on succession.

I hope they get to it one day soon though.

 

[DiabloDeVille]

I'll never forget a deposed scottish princess I wanted to restore, suddenly teleporting to mongolia.

 

[Rubidium]

A few more common causes:

• If they are landed and lose their last title (other than by abdicating to their immediate heir), they become either adventurers or wanderers, even if they have landed close family around.
• If they marry while traveling, the travel destination is still active, and once they would have arrived, they will move back there, rather than staying at their new spouse's court (this means that both halves of the married couple will likely be at different courts). Most commonly seen if you betroth someone who is being tutored at a different court and hit the marriage icon as soon as they come of age; they marry, move to your court...and then move back to wherever they were coming from, leaving their new spouse behind. At which point they are in a foreign court, and subject to all the vagaries that can happen there.
  • This means that if you do betroth someone in another court, make sure they have finished traveling back to their home court before you hit the marriage icon at the top of your screen.

 

[H.A.S.E.V.I.R.]

I'll never forget a deposed scottish princess I wanted to restore, suddenly teleporting to mongolia.

"likes bad boys"?
Or hopes to bloodbond and marry some mongol so she can become the mother of red and white dragons or some such..

 

[DiabloDeVille]

"likes bad boys"?
Or hopes to bloodbond and marry some mongol so she can become the mother of red and white dragons or some such..

Bobby b was in diplo range of daenyrs to try to assassinate her, ck3 has a travel system its meant to use

 

[EphemeralToast]

It's just a matter of priorities and even if I want a seamless courtier / wandering system, it doesn't affect the game thaaaaat much.

Yeah I'm sure there are more critical bugs to be dealt with, but this has been happening for SO long and it actually does affect the game in a variety of ways. The King of France in fact had to give up a county because he lost my sister's help with Stewardship. She's not there to give him random health boosts, she's not there to be his trusted regent, his rule is generally weakened because of her absence.

It also makes my sister unsafe. As a wanderer she's lacking court protections from plagues, murder plots, and anything else that wants to kill her out there. As a guest, she could be captured or killed in a siege and her "liege" at the guest court will not care. If she dies, there goes our alliance with her. (Also just a bummer because she's like, my sister, man.)

Etc etc. Like is this as bad as having the game randomly crash, no, but I feel like it affects the game enough to be worth addressing and it's been long enough that it really sucks that it hasn't been by now.

What makes this so frustrating to me is

1. I don't know of a good workaround. I invited my sister to my court so at least she's safe-ish, but I tried to send her back to her husband with the Offer Courtier function and she doesn't even show up on the list. Blargh

2. Usually when something in the game bugs the crap out of me I put a suggestion in the appropriate forum and some of them have actually been implemented, and that is very cool. But I don't even know what to suggest for this. Like, maybe the game needs to do more checks on being married in events that force travel, but which events? Or maybe stop automatically teleporting siblings to the court of a new ruler, or make them less impervious to the Invite command once there? Make wandering children do a periodic check for a landed parent and automatically return to them? Make AI rulers check for absent spouses/children and attempt to Invite them?? There's many different potential problems and potential solutions here and I'm not good enough at computer to know what would actually be helpful to suggest.

 

[DiabloDeVille]

There are more sophisticated umbrella triggers available. It's just a matter of priorities and even if I want a seamless courtier / wandering system, it doesn't affect the game thaaaaat much. I get that having heirs, spouses of heirs, wander off is annoying, but most can be invited back or will be teleported on succession.

I hope they get to it one day soon though.

Having the travel system be implemented fully is important, as it eventually leads to people being around to inherit titles, with it being seized by others if you dont arrive in time.

 

[Flockingbird]

1. I don't know of a good workaround.

Here’s a thread from 2022 about different ways to retrieve missing family members (it varies depending on whether they’re guests, members of another court, wanderers, or technically your courtiers but stuck in another location).

Warning: a lot of them are not achievement compatible.

Heir's Wives Leaving Court?

So I started a Bohemia game and twice my heirs wife left court. The first time I just killed her because I couldn't get her to come back and needed to ensure succession. The second time she off and left while pregnant and won't come back with the...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

I play in debug mode, and this issue is one of the primary reasons I intend to continue playing in debug mode.

For your situation, you can probably get her back to her husband’s court quickly in debug mode by switching characters to him (pin your own character first so it’s easier to switch back), clicking on her portrait, and mousing to the “add to court” line. (Do the same for any progeny of theirs.) Then switch characters back to your own pinned character.

I haven’t played in a few weeks (computer problems) and don’t remember exactly where that line is, but @vandevere might. You’ll find it if you poke around.

 

[vandevere]

Here’s a thread from 2022 about different ways to retrieve missing family members (it varies depending on whether they’re guests, members of another court, wanderers, or technically your courtiers but stuck in another location).

Warning: a lot of them are not achievement compatible.

Heir's Wives Leaving Court?

So I started a Bohemia game and twice my heirs wife left court. The first time I just killed her because I couldn't get her to come back and needed to ensure succession. The second time she off and left while pregnant and won't come back with the...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

I play in debug mode, and this issue is one of the primary reasons I intend to continue playing in debug mode.

For your situation, you can probably get her back to her husband’s court quickly in debug mode by switching characters to him (pin your own character first so it’s easier to switch back), clicking on her portrait, and mousing to the “add to court” line. (Do the same for any progeny of theirs.) Then switch characters back to your own pinned character.

I haven’t played in a few weeks (computer problems) and don’t remember exactly where that line is, but @vandevere might. You’ll find it if you poke around.

@Flockingbird Fix really works wonders. Every time somebody essential to me leaves my court I use Flockingbird's fix. I've never seen it not work...

 

[EphemeralToast]

Here’s a thread from 2022 about different ways to retrieve missing family members

Well well, look at me posting in that thread three years ago and the same issue is still happening today. lmao but also ugh

Anyway thanks for the reminder, I am actually gunning for a cheevo right now but I'll keep it in mind for the future.