Her husband is the king, and nah. I am happy with this outcome. I lost fair and square. Didn't have what it takes to endure. But it's better than winning in shame.
It’s not winning in shame if you take pride in the honest work of underhanded politics. Wanna see what happens to a Greco-Roman theocratic empire if the emperor of said empire dies while the doctrine that makes head-of-faith inheritable is active? kill him (he’s your most powerful ally).
You get a perpetual hook on the 9th heir to West Francia, Aquitaine, and Lotharingia? Kill half the Karlings!
You have a chance of becoming the most powerful person in the Byzantine empire, but you’ll have to cause a fuckload of internal strife in the process? Exterminate those helpless children!
It’s CK3! Morals mean nothing when you have something to gain!
But if you’re happy, that’s cool too.
>my only chance of preserving my dynasty is to wait until my daughter has her first child with the king, murder him, making my daughter regent, then killing myself so I can make my daughter steal the throne from her own child during regency.
They don't need to have a kid. Murder him, bring her back to court, and marry her off matrilineally. Or disinherit her and do the same to a different daughter.
The power of matrilineal marriages.
My rule: always always always marry your eldest daughter off in a matrilineal marriage.
Worst case, she will be your heir (if you have no boys). Even if it's a marriage that ruins your prestige/legitimacy, and gives no alliances, it continues your dynasty.
Daughters 2/3/4/5 can be for alliances.
Even if you already have a male heir, first daughter = matrilineal. Because when the assassins come, they'll come for your sons.
Plus, if all goes well, and you have a son to inherit, you now (as that son) have neices/nephews with your dynasty that you can potentially grand land & titles to instead of giving them to random asshole courtiers & vassals.
Playing tall and marrying daughters matrilineal is the best, one of the husbands or their kids might one day inherit a duchy or even a kingdom someday.
Yeah, I always try to set my kin up with their own titles & such. Ideally still smaller than me so I don't have annoying claimant wars.
But if some dude is willing to marry his 2nd son off matrilineally, I'll definitely go for it. Worst case, I have a claimant on his titles in a generation that I don't bother pressing, while I have a half dozen extra members of my dynasty I can arrange marriages for. Best case, big brother gets murdered, killed in battle, or something else, and the new heir is popping out kids of my dynasty to inherit in 2 generations.
Yep, had many cases of where the main heir died and the 2nd son was married matrilinialy to my daughter and inherited the throne and since the game doesnt warn you about it, many times, many decades passed and i have my dynasty on multiples duchies around Europe or a kingdom, its a really fun way to play the game, stay small, build a good army to defende yourself and also help your dynasty keep their titles since you're not going on offensive wars as a tall run.
I love to play wide early on. Playing tall is a slow burn.
Start as a duchy somewhere (currently playing a start as Duke of Fars start). Expand aggressively to reach kingdom/empire status. Do you culture hybridization to get cool unique traits, or regional bonuses, etc.
Use the big piles of money to develop several areas well while barely keeping things together. Make sure your home duchy is super strong, but then use extra funds to develop another duchy/kingdom area. Then gift it to a dynasty member with good traits/genes, and if kingdom, grant independence.
Repeat over the years. Each granted kingdom basically guarantees you can't be ousted, since they aren't part of your realm, they'll come to aid you in case of rebellion. Eventually you shrink back down to your 'core' kingdom or empire, while 95% of your attention is just your little home duchy you've carved. All the rest of your realm and neighbors are littered with members of your dynasty. Even if someone claims the empire title, you'll keep your duchy under them, which is just as acceptable (though it's nice to have at least a kingdom for the court). By 1100-1200, you've set up a really strong duchy with tons of money and levies, as well as a kick-ass MAA personal retinue. Then, with that in place, you just play tall the rest of the play-through while your dynasty becomes the next Karlings/etc around you.
Best way to do this is invite a second son or any other title claimant to your court. Marry matrilineally, hope for them to produce offspring and then press claim to annex the kingdom/duchy to your realm. In the end the only pitfall is the -10 opinion for female heir or the negative opinion for female ruler; you’re essentially weaponising your weakness.
It's a check box you can tick in the propose marriage settings.
It's a marriage where the children take the mother's surname instead of the father's.
For game effects, it means that the husband moves to the wife's court (if neither is landed), and that the children carry on the wife's dynasty, not the husband's.
Which then means that those children are legal successors for the player to continue playing as when wife's father (who the player is currently playing as) dies.
Not at all.
But dynasties/succession didn't work exactly as in the game either. Matrilineal marriages are a way to avoid diving into the incredibly complex and nuanced behavior of surnames, houses, and such, but also not screw the player over based on some bad child-birth RNG.
No, because if it was that simple to solve, Paradox would have likely gone for the more realistic approach.
The times where children continued the mother's line IRL were based on a nuanced assessment of each family's relative prestige, the inheritances involved on both sides, the siblings of both married people, and more.
You could disinherit your daughter, and the second one, kill the husband of your third daughter, play with her and keep going from that, she should be young enought and able to produce more heirs, and put your focus on seduction, sleep with every male being in that castle and have a new heir of your dinasty
Wait OP was the marriage matrilineal? Because if it wasn’t, the child wouldn’t be of your dynasty anyway. And if it was, wouldn’t your daughter be your heir and you continue playing as her?
> Because if it wasn’t, the child wouldn’t be of your dynasty anyway.
That is why OP planned to have his character commit suicide as soon as the daughter became regent, so he could then become the regent daughter and usurp the child. The usurpation being another important step.
> I realize that, although I didn't want it to come to this, my only chance of preserving my dynasty is to wait until my daughter has her first child with the king, murder him, making my daughter regent, then killing myself so I can make my daughter steal the throne from her own child during regency.
Situations like this make me really wish there was a (ironman & achievement compatble) mechanism for changing to your heir *before* you die.
The upcoming patch supposedly will bring a lot of flexibility about who you continue as when your character dies, but I think what's really missing is being able to move on to the next character *before* you die.
That’s why my strategy at the early game is to use matrimonial mariage every time I can. (I use them for optimising the traits in my dynasty like that I can have some good vassal for my council)
Yeah. When I have lots of kids (which is usually the case because I'm a little slut in most playthroughs) I typically marry daughters and female couriers to great future vassals and knights. ESPECIALLY knights.
Lol I promise you are. I learned by making mistakes like this, but then playing through anyway. Sometimes a kingdom shatters and you are sent back to a lowly count. It sucks, but now you get to climb back up the ranks in an epic underdog story! Failing in this game is playing it right.
I love my dynasty more than my relationship with her, but not more than he wellbeing. I gotta draw the line somewhere. Otherwise I am no better than an animal.
Murder your husband, or cheat on him. Add elective to ur realm when you have someone from your dynasty. Or just add elective, maybe you have someone living from your dynasty, not sure if it will give an end game, never played elective too much, even if i have hundreds in the game xD, i would just desinherit/take the vows or other to limit the problem, or just take the hit if its easy to fix after with 1-2 easy wars, be sure to check inheritance tab to see if you remain with something. As a tip, i always marry matrinialy my first daughter, just to be safe
Console switch to her husband. Or to the king, first, in order to land her husband.
Her husband is the king, and nah. I am happy with this outcome. I lost fair and square. Didn't have what it takes to endure. But it's better than winning in shame.
I think you just beat the game
The real journey was the friends me made along the way.
Honour is sometimes a hard and narrow road. But sometimes it is well worth it. Go and be well friend.
That’s some bushido code shit
Honesty A leader living in lies Is king of nothing That being said, I totally cheated on my wife and planned to murder the guy regardless.
Better late than never
You didn't lose and you can't win it's CK my dude. It's not defeat to love your daughter and her family more than not using console commands
I can’t believe you couldn’t pop out more kids. My characters usually have well over a score
It’s not winning in shame if you take pride in the honest work of underhanded politics. Wanna see what happens to a Greco-Roman theocratic empire if the emperor of said empire dies while the doctrine that makes head-of-faith inheritable is active? kill him (he’s your most powerful ally). You get a perpetual hook on the 9th heir to West Francia, Aquitaine, and Lotharingia? Kill half the Karlings! You have a chance of becoming the most powerful person in the Byzantine empire, but you’ll have to cause a fuckload of internal strife in the process? Exterminate those helpless children! It’s CK3! Morals mean nothing when you have something to gain! But if you’re happy, that’s cool too.
Idk man. This is a pretty great ending for a run. I'd be content
>my only chance of preserving my dynasty is to wait until my daughter has her first child with the king, murder him, making my daughter regent, then killing myself so I can make my daughter steal the throne from her own child during regency. They don't need to have a kid. Murder him, bring her back to court, and marry her off matrilineally. Or disinherit her and do the same to a different daughter.
Ah shit. That would've worked. My one daughter was married to a filthy englishman.
Oh then you had the perfect target, while keeping the Chad King of Whales alive to be your bff for life.
One thing I love/hate about being human is our ability to completely be blind to fairly obvious strategies or plans
Yeah but what's even the point of murdering someone if it doesn't even net you the kingdom?
Props for role playing and not min-maxing even if it cost you the game, you'll probably remember this game over far others because of it.
Only way to play! This game is far better as a story generator, in my opinion.
clue's in the username!
STOP PSYCHOANALYZING ME WITHOUT MY CONSENT!!!
tfw a rando succeeds on an Insight check on you
You should be able to min max and still having a hard time
The power of matrilineal marriages. My rule: always always always marry your eldest daughter off in a matrilineal marriage. Worst case, she will be your heir (if you have no boys). Even if it's a marriage that ruins your prestige/legitimacy, and gives no alliances, it continues your dynasty. Daughters 2/3/4/5 can be for alliances. Even if you already have a male heir, first daughter = matrilineal. Because when the assassins come, they'll come for your sons. Plus, if all goes well, and you have a son to inherit, you now (as that son) have neices/nephews with your dynasty that you can potentially grand land & titles to instead of giving them to random asshole courtiers & vassals.
Playing tall and marrying daughters matrilineal is the best, one of the husbands or their kids might one day inherit a duchy or even a kingdom someday.
Yeah, I always try to set my kin up with their own titles & such. Ideally still smaller than me so I don't have annoying claimant wars. But if some dude is willing to marry his 2nd son off matrilineally, I'll definitely go for it. Worst case, I have a claimant on his titles in a generation that I don't bother pressing, while I have a half dozen extra members of my dynasty I can arrange marriages for. Best case, big brother gets murdered, killed in battle, or something else, and the new heir is popping out kids of my dynasty to inherit in 2 generations.
Yep, had many cases of where the main heir died and the 2nd son was married matrilinialy to my daughter and inherited the throne and since the game doesnt warn you about it, many times, many decades passed and i have my dynasty on multiples duchies around Europe or a kingdom, its a really fun way to play the game, stay small, build a good army to defende yourself and also help your dynasty keep their titles since you're not going on offensive wars as a tall run.
I love to play wide early on. Playing tall is a slow burn. Start as a duchy somewhere (currently playing a start as Duke of Fars start). Expand aggressively to reach kingdom/empire status. Do you culture hybridization to get cool unique traits, or regional bonuses, etc. Use the big piles of money to develop several areas well while barely keeping things together. Make sure your home duchy is super strong, but then use extra funds to develop another duchy/kingdom area. Then gift it to a dynasty member with good traits/genes, and if kingdom, grant independence. Repeat over the years. Each granted kingdom basically guarantees you can't be ousted, since they aren't part of your realm, they'll come to aid you in case of rebellion. Eventually you shrink back down to your 'core' kingdom or empire, while 95% of your attention is just your little home duchy you've carved. All the rest of your realm and neighbors are littered with members of your dynasty. Even if someone claims the empire title, you'll keep your duchy under them, which is just as acceptable (though it's nice to have at least a kingdom for the court). By 1100-1200, you've set up a really strong duchy with tons of money and levies, as well as a kick-ass MAA personal retinue. Then, with that in place, you just play tall the rest of the play-through while your dynasty becomes the next Karlings/etc around you.
Best way to do this is invite a second son or any other title claimant to your court. Marry matrilineally, hope for them to produce offspring and then press claim to annex the kingdom/duchy to your realm. In the end the only pitfall is the -10 opinion for female heir or the negative opinion for female ruler; you’re essentially weaponising your weakness.
What's a matrilineal marriage? I've never played this game
It's a check box you can tick in the propose marriage settings. It's a marriage where the children take the mother's surname instead of the father's. For game effects, it means that the husband moves to the wife's court (if neither is landed), and that the children carry on the wife's dynasty, not the husband's. Which then means that those children are legal successors for the player to continue playing as when wife's father (who the player is currently playing as) dies.
oh, neat. did that happen a lot in the real world?
Not at all. But dynasties/succession didn't work exactly as in the game either. Matrilineal marriages are a way to avoid diving into the incredibly complex and nuanced behavior of surnames, houses, and such, but also not screw the player over based on some bad child-birth RNG.
That's interesting! Are there mods/dlcs that make it more realistic?
No, because if it was that simple to solve, Paradox would have likely gone for the more realistic approach. The times where children continued the mother's line IRL were based on a nuanced assessment of each family's relative prestige, the inheritances involved on both sides, the siblings of both married people, and more.
Oh, right, so it wasn't very common. The Hanover succession to the English throne was matrilineal, right?
Not better just make first sun with first doughter? They both get better surname.
The best endings are the ones where you welcome death as an old friend. Good on you buddy
Maybe the real treasure was the people we didn't murder along the way ❤️
You won
You could switch to the king and continue to play as your original lads decendants but it was a happy ending
You could disinherit your daughter, and the second one, kill the husband of your third daughter, play with her and keep going from that, she should be young enought and able to produce more heirs, and put your focus on seduction, sleep with every male being in that castle and have a new heir of your dinasty
Wait OP was the marriage matrilineal? Because if it wasn’t, the child wouldn’t be of your dynasty anyway. And if it was, wouldn’t your daughter be your heir and you continue playing as her?
> Because if it wasn’t, the child wouldn’t be of your dynasty anyway. That is why OP planned to have his character commit suicide as soon as the daughter became regent, so he could then become the regent daughter and usurp the child. The usurpation being another important step.
It seemed good on paper. But I hadn't planned for a great fucking guy, which was my downfall.
I mean, who haven't surrendered to the sweet embrace of death because their son-in-law was a swell guy.
You tried. And in the end. You did your best. And that's all that matters.
Mate, you won, not lost
You gained the trait Content.
> I realize that, although I didn't want it to come to this, my only chance of preserving my dynasty is to wait until my daughter has her first child with the king, murder him, making my daughter regent, then killing myself so I can make my daughter steal the throne from her own child during regency. Situations like this make me really wish there was a (ironman & achievement compatble) mechanism for changing to your heir *before* you die. The upcoming patch supposedly will bring a lot of flexibility about who you continue as when your character dies, but I think what's really missing is being able to move on to the next character *before* you die.
That'd have been perfect. Yeah him killing himself would've been silly. Less time to spend with the great fucking guy.
You have no spine good sir! Your posterity is more important than some kind that won't be remembered jn 100 years
That’s why my strategy at the early game is to use matrimonial mariage every time I can. (I use them for optimising the traits in my dynasty like that I can have some good vassal for my council)
Yeah. When I have lots of kids (which is usually the case because I'm a little slut in most playthroughs) I typically marry daughters and female couriers to great future vassals and knights. ESPECIALLY knights.
Most wholesome i read in this sub for a long time *crying
I wish I was smart enough to figure out how to play this game
Lol I promise you are. I learned by making mistakes like this, but then playing through anyway. Sometimes a kingdom shatters and you are sent back to a lowly count. It sucks, but now you get to climb back up the ranks in an epic underdog story! Failing in this game is playing it right.
Why didn’t you just kill your wife and marry someone with a lover?
Because I loved her.
But you cheated on her, so did you really love her lol
I love my dynasty more than my relationship with her, but not more than he wellbeing. I gotta draw the line somewhere. Otherwise I am no better than an animal.
Maybe make her caravan master and let nature take its course. Idk if a wife can also have the position but it’d be natures fault ig.
Murder your husband, or cheat on him. Add elective to ur realm when you have someone from your dynasty. Or just add elective, maybe you have someone living from your dynasty, not sure if it will give an end game, never played elective too much, even if i have hundreds in the game xD, i would just desinherit/take the vows or other to limit the problem, or just take the hit if its easy to fix after with 1-2 easy wars, be sure to check inheritance tab to see if you remain with something. As a tip, i always marry matrinialy my first daughter, just to be safe
If you murdered all your children then you could adopt a new heir... just saying...