This is in fact the best way of gaining large tracts of territory, but needs a lot to line up in your favour for it to work.Įither way, the process for creating a marriage is easy. With strategic marriages it is possible that you will end up with lands far from home falling under either your own magnanimous rule, or that of your dynasty. The second potential benefit is inheritance. The main disadvantage here is that when one half of that union dies, so does your alliance. Also remember that with excess children, you can always trade away those that won't hurt your ruling line too much. This can be considered worth diluting the gene pool and depending on the threats you face, might even be worth it. Even fairly distant rulers will often come to your aid and you might see the Byzantine Empire attacking Norway because of a simple marriage. Alliances act as a potent force multiplier in wars, especially when you are defending.
First off the immediate advantage, Alliances. We'll go into detail on this process below, but for now we'll play devil's advocate and talk about the benefits of marriage alliances. The fantastic genetics system Paradox have put in place here means that you can craft your dynasty into super humans, providing you pick your spouse carefully. Marriage is by far the easiest way of ensuring a suitable mate, but what should you look for? It can be argued that you should enter into the spirit of the medieval world, marrying for power and alliances, but we would say otherwise. To that end, children are the future and you get them most easily through marriage.
The whole game revolves around ensuring that your blood lineage continues.
Crusader Kings 3 has a lot of features, but the one that permeates down the time-line is your blood.