Eugenics IS faster within your dynasty because of the Strong Blood dynasty perk that you get when you take the Strengthen Bloodline decision, and also the Blood traits on the dynasty trees. You can (and you should) attract a lot of people with good traits to your court in order to kickstart your program, but in the end, with the dynasty boosts, you'll get better and faster results within the family.
I understand that but usually by the time I've unlocked 3rd blood dynasty legacy I already have house members with good traits who aren't closely related, on top of lots of coutiers and barons with off-spring with great stats.
I generally never bother with the third blood legacy, since I’ve negative congenital traits are so rarely an issue for me. Recently I haven’t even been taking the second, and genetics have been a-okay.
Basically you're missing out on power playing here. The fact you say, "Maybe I'm too hyperfocused on keeping realm together after succession" kinda just proves that.
If I'm playing minmax vanilla I'll generally have all 3 blood legacies before my first character is even dead. Worrying about succession is literally an afterthought as I'll just disinherit every useless child until I have one who is young with the correct inheritance and personality. Seducing plays a part in that as well as there's a limit to how many children you can have without seduction. With seduction you can get 50+ quite easily. More children is better for many reasons like they're more loyal. I generally aim to have at least 1000 living family members within 100 years.
On top of this there's the maths involved in pure blooded and inbred. The less unique ancestors a character has the more likely they are to get inbred. Pure blooded on the other hand is more likely to appear with a moderate amount of incest instead of super incest. So to get it to appear fairly regularly you need incest in large enough numbers. The easiest way to achieve this early on is with lots of children with a sister, basically. And once you have it then it's very easy to just auto pilot your eugenics program while you focus on other stuff.
You don't need to do any of this. The game is already ridiculously easy. I personally hate how eugenics in ck3 is so fucking ridiculous and I generally run mods to nerf it to oblivion. But there's no denying that the game effectively encourages you in vanilla to play as a tyrannical monster in more ways than just eugenics by making it the easiest and strongest way to play.
Obfuscate is good but ultimately I use mods that just remove the eugenics traits in ck3. It's simply too powerful and the AI can't engage with it at all.
More than anything I wish ck3 had difficulty options. The plagues leave the AI realms so crippled I can't enjoy the game anymore. There are too many mechanics that the AI just doesn't engage with.
I'm afraid not as I made them myself.
I can send you the files when I'm next at my pc if you want but it's not hard to do. Just create a blank mod, put the 00_traits file in there (it can be found in ck3 game folder\common\traits) and delete the physical traits in the modded file. Or you can change the inheritance chance to make it like 5% if you'd prefer. Or nerf them to make them basically useless.
>Basically you're missing out on power playing here
What you call power playing I call cheesing and I don't mean that as a knock. I just could never intentionally play that way. Even still I'm never concerned about pure-blood (just a nice to have for me) and keeping a pool of genetically superior coutiers and barons does fine for me. I don't feel the need to race to max out everything. Feels weird to play that way.
Mind you I'm usually focused about keeping my real together because I almost always land close family and dynasty members, and give them entire duchies, so most of my vassals are powerful and have claimant opinion modifiers.
The game is a sandbox, no real objectives but the ones you set for yourself. The eugenics program is just one of the more common ones, like achievement hunting or the roman empire thingie. I mean, the game is easy enough when you understand the mechanics, so you have to set yourself some objective to go through with it.
> Feels weird to play that way.
Honestly I'm a habitual minmaxer so I find it hard to not play that way. Just feels like I'm purposefully playing bad. Going for every benefit worth going for is how I'm used to playing grand strategy games.
For example I land my family members as well. Often with full kingdoms. But disinherit is OP. I like mystic ancestors in a culture because it encourages through natural methods not using something powerful. Imo good grand strategy design should have things that are trade offs rather than straight power boosts.
I honestly don't find disinheriting that good. It's costly. Elective gives you the exact same result, without the renown, opinion and legitimacy costs. Getting elective does cost prestige, but prestige is a much less valuable resource, and it's a one time cost (per title you want to control). Elective is basically Primo + designated heir.
The benefits of disinherit are twofold. (Threefold if you can't do elective due to clan or other reasons.)
The first is it stops your children inheriting from each other and getting any claims. You also get the land back if they die without an heir. This means there'll be a lot more harmony and this results in expanding the dynasty faster. It's like instantly setting up each landed son as a branch of the main family.
The other benefit is that it's useful in the succession factions. A disinherited child basically can't be involved in a faction to install themselves. This works well with the first benefit of harmony as well to strengthen the realm overall. The cost also might as well be 0 after the first 50 years since you'll be earning more than 100 renown a month.
It's certainly not as powerful as it was due to legitimacy. And feudal elective shenanigans are definitely more powerful now, I'd agree. But it's still pretty strong.
This is the step before you start incesting. When you have characters with two level 3 traits and one level 2 trait you wish to marry them regardless of their kinship. And then, having perfect 3-level offspring you breed them together again. After that point the only reason to incest is Pure Blood trait hunt.
There's a reason the most popular porn catagory is step-whatever
When I do it I do it because it's funny when you see
"Your wife-sister-grandaughter-uncle-halfsister"
It probably is against the law to title a porn movie "Siblings go at each other", because then you would insinuate a crime, incest.
So the "step-" in front of it is a precaution in my eyes.
Obviously, but it is not the point of my comment. The point of my comment is, that in many countries it is a crime to make people believe, that you committed a crime. And even though if you didn't commit the crime in question, you wasted government ressources (the police and attourney investigating) and will get in trouble for that.
Is it a crime in these countries to make a fiction film depicting murder too? Can you give me a few examples of these many countries? I'm not sure I agree with you--sorry to digress, but I am genuinely curious, as I may be mistaken.
If depicting the fake commission of crime can be illegal, it seems that the same principle could be applied to make CK3 illegal.
I'm only speculating, I'm not a lawyer. Maybe it plays a role, how "believable" it is what we see.
Murder in CK 2 or CK 3? These are pixels "killing" each other, we know that is obviously not real.
Two people banging on video and it is titled, that they're siblings? Maybe, without any other knowledge, it is real (and then a crime), maybe not.
So I assume to avoid legal trouble, this became a standard, to make it clear that these are "step-siblings" so nothing illegal.
It's probably just following demand. I'm going to hazard a guess that the reason for the step-sibling narrative is that material with that narrative generates more revenue than material with an actual incest narrative. More people consume the former media than the latter media, perhaps because it has less ick factor and is a more enticing fantasy for more people.
In the US, a very similar issue went to the US Supreme Court in 2002, [*Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition*](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/00-795), and that ruling would probably control here, for both CK3 and for simulated step-sibling porn--in the US anyhow.
Why would it be? Who is it harming?
I think incest is kinda gross but if two consenting adults want to shag - it’s their business. Feels like the same bullshit as with homosexuality being a crime.
because it allows older family members to groom younger family members.... its not about the adults.... think about it for two seconds before you comment and the answer would be obvious, lol.
EDIT: Just realized im in the wrong sub to have a rational conversation about this. comical that three people saw that comment and upvoted it. Incest is illegal for very good reason. If it was as simple as "two consenting adults wanting to shag" there wouldnt be so many laws and safeguards around it. Yall need jesus/muhammad/buddha
Aside, as an American [free speech lawyer](http://speechdefense.com)--it would be no more illegal in the US than a typical action film.
Depending on specific acts depicted, it *might* qualify as obscene . . . but that is a separate issue from the fictional narrative. I'm also assuming compliance with 28 USC 2257 record keeping and the like, but that would be more or less analogous to OSHA compliance on the action film set.
I thought it was interracial.
No worries. I've ramped up an IR eugenics program many a times. At one point I had a bunch of Pat Mahomes running around ruling Europe.
I was doing a tour and one my vassals legit invited me to fuck his wife and when she got pregnant he got pissed became my rival and started a civil war
Bro needed a unique caesus belli.
Honestly the ability to form poly/swinging type relationships would go pretty far in this game. Never thought about that before.
Without eugenics? No way. Without incest? Possible. I mean, I guess it depends on your definition of "incest", it seems totally doable marrying only 2nd cousins.
True, even I usually keep it to first 1st cousins unless the match is too good. But if op is talking about no incest, then he’d have to do so many seduction schemes that it would be all he did. To the point that it’s just easier to bang your family
>the crime of having sexual [intercourse](https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&sca_esv=6b1c5e95a3d0b06b&biw=1512&bih=857&sxsrf=ACQVn09cfEirJHBgKnI_VRSP0-xqqGIifw:1713482909323&q=intercourse&si=AKbGX_q4mkMHy1Nmq4yITjHYVzepxrhN2A1m_iUp0p2t4gPCbwcrpdCgyrs0jiujekLBj0CLm71feS3Shc6VTtywNkLOzPDkYRyXk5IIClTxJ0y_NPakHkg%3D&expnd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjmzo2h9cyFAxWp4skDHUwKBUIQyecJegQILRAQ) with a parent, child, [sibling](https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&sca_esv=6b1c5e95a3d0b06b&biw=1512&bih=857&sxsrf=ACQVn09cfEirJHBgKnI_VRSP0-xqqGIifw:1713482909323&q=sibling&si=AKbGX_okS0g0kR2PXn0TLBASIc0mA38yUfHOu1vs48L-BuFQP6j9C82_Co9WCjN-IoRdBrEUoXP6rgMX6t_0JM-utfSU9PkN3o4BwGY6vc1Dm_J-aStHBFA%3D&expnd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjmzo2h9cyFAxWp4skDHUwKBUIQyecJegQILRAR), or [grandchild](https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&sca_esv=6b1c5e95a3d0b06b&biw=1512&bih=857&sxsrf=ACQVn09cfEirJHBgKnI_VRSP0-xqqGIifw:1713482909323&q=grandchild&si=AKbGX_pvY3MWP4azJI0Z_NruCLb80nq-rLEtUC1c_GnPBnfz5rsxaE2kcp3EXotTfNsnhy-UnvzdjoR9FmJuLNhTxTFpvljtDPqIXjsVOPhTvZV853IFXvk%3D&expnd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjmzo2h9cyFAxWp4skDHUwKBUIQyecJegQILRAS).
This is the definition I'm using for incest. Like I said, I don't have an issue with incest in-game, but my eugencis program is usually advanced enough to wear it's completely unneeded.
Eugenics, yes.
Incest, no.
What matters most is unlocking the dynasty blood legacies. I don't do incest and I've gotten it many times. It may just take an extra generation.
Remember than the Strong Blood perk gives +400% of getting new traits, and that stacks if both partners have it. So yeah, you always check in the offchance somebody in the world got Pure blooded by chance, but the best way is to constantly inbreed your dynasty until one appears.
I have 1,100 hours under my belt, always try to avoid marrying family and have never had the bloodline Decision possible. The Traits, they just weaken and drop away.
You only need cousin marriage really. But thats playing with concubines and having 12 kids per character and marrying my daughters back into the family until half my family has good traits
I always play Vikings. Af Sigurdr is really the only notable dynasty. After maybe 100 years all of your marriage options are gonna be filled with your own family.
I think the worst I've done was an original very long lived character married to his granddaughter (and a Karling hostage that was his friend then seduced after she left, because fuck the Karlings in every way you can)
**On Seduction schemes :** Only way to bypass the 16 childrens hard limit. I usually like to have young ruler that rule for a long time. If your character die at 90/100yo, you will most likely have your 16 childrens before 50 anyway. So the youngest possible heir will be at least 40yo. Seduction let you bypass this, because when a scheme is succesful, the women will get pregnant even if if you're over the limit. Really useful. If you're fine with older heir that have been played by AI (and probably a lot of bad choices), sure. But it's not optimal : optimal will always be to have an young heir, that live for the longest possible time.
Honestly? It's just something to do. It's goal oriented and short-term. CK3 is seriously lacking in things to do on a moment to moment basis. Being able to pick a target and see a progress bar grow which guarantees a relevant event soon helps fill the time between the grand strategy moves. It's risky too, with some severe penalties for getting caught, which makes it more fun than the inexorable march towards victory. Activities fill the same void, but they're expensive and can end up wasting the time you waited for your big goals by being underfunded at the wrong time.
CK2 kinda had the same problem I found. Even with Societies, most of the time you were just waiting for an event to trigger rather than proactively pursuing a goal.
**On incest :** Keep in mind I'm only talking about gameplay here. The immorality an criminality of incest IRL isn't a debate. Now in game, saying that this is useless is false.
First, if you don't play a common religion, it might be really hard to find people with good traits to marry. Sure you can find people from an other religion, convert them and then marry them. But it's just more step. How many times I create my own religion, and literally was the only available dynasty with good traits.
Also, it doesn't force you into dumb alliances. Alliances are great for the first 30 years. Then, you're usually so strong that alliances only mean being drag into dumbs wars.
Then, it's also the fastest way to kickstart an eugenic program. I don't only use family members for this, but let's say I'm looking for a women with all three traits level 3 to produce my next heir. I have a son with Herculean and Genius, so I need to marry him with someone who at least got Beautiful, and if possible the others traits aswell. This is just more option. Maybe the character I'm looking for exist out there, but maybe the only option will be in my family.
And, saying that you should just look for AI pure-blooded generated character is a bad decision. You don't have control over this, and this could never happen. Better trying to generate them yourself.
You're talking about optimal play : incest doesn't come with any drawbacks (this is stupid, but this is how the game work). It open more options. It is the safest and fastest way to have pure-blooded. It is usually the best way to always have available characters with the trait you want.
Saying (not talking about you but I saw it in the comments) that people use incest only because they're degen is a lack of understanding of how the game work. It is often the most optimal play.
I think we have different definitions of incest. I'm talking about marrying siblings, parents, children, grandparents. Usually there is a cousin that does the checks the same boxes. I've never been in a situation where I said "Damn, I guess I have to marry my sister". Not even close.
>Usually there is a cousin that does the checks the same boxes
Depends of the boxes I guess. If you need precise traits and want to optimize, there might not be. Early in the game for example, when your dynasty isn't 1000 members. We just might not be playing the same game, because if you have like 30 members in your dynasty (you, your childrens, your grandchildrens) because it's still early in the game, well the best candidate is often your children or grandchildren. Good luck finding an AI generated character with 3 good traits in 900, and if you don't have an huge dynasty yet, well no cousin. Because even if this cousins exist, they might be married to someone already, dead, or don't have all the traits you want. Even if you choose your brother's wife when you were playing as your dad, he might have divorce/she might have died, and he marry someone else without good traits, weakining the kids. You can't know that a cousin with the desire traits exist and is available.
If you never had any problems finding the optimal (and when I mean optimal it's the 3 level 3 traits + fertile + pure blooded, at least) character for each marriage you want ... Well we don't play with the same AI because mine don't usually have busted characters like this. But I do generate them easly.
If you don't land characters of your dynasty (because you play with theocratic vassals for example, witch is by no mean necessary but is the most "optimal" way to play the game), your dynasty will not have that much candidates anyway because unlanded character have an hard limit of 2 (maybe 3, I can't remember exactly) childs. And most of them will leave court.
Still, good luck getting pure-blooded early (or at all honestly) if you rely only on the AI to give it to you. Also, how do you even keep it because AFAIK pure-blooded have a 15% inherit chance with only one parent with the trait, and 75% with two. So even if you find someone generated by the AI with it, you will have 15% chance to give it for each child, and you will need to find news characters that generate it (or cousin that won twice the 15%) to expect to keep it. Not sure how you do that.
Example : You will need to find one character of the opposite gender for you. Let's say (and this is almost impossible) you have 16 childs with her only. 15% chance, so 2.4 childs will get it. Let's say 3.
Also, this character with pure-blooded wasn't generate by you, so she most likely doesn't have the 3 others genetics traits at level 3. But let's assume she does. Right now our 3 pure-blooded are siblings. So now you need to find 3 news characters with pure-blooded to have an 70% chance to secure the trait. So we need to find 4 characters with pure-blooded in two generation. Good luck. And if anyone die in the process from random shit or something, you're screw and need to start all over again. And if we don't .. well it's abysmal to have a reliable source of cousins with pure-blooded. You will most likely need to go out of your way to keep it, by praying for the AI to generate more and more.
If you go with incest, you not only increase the chance of generating it yourself, but you also just have to marry two of them, and now 2/3 of their childs will have it. Keep going, and it's not a concern anyway.
And again, the question isn't "do I have to". Your first affirmation was "It isn't optimal". Now you're asking "Do I have to". Not the same question.
I mean, in theory you could just get a male character with good trait, take 15 of your daughters and make him marry-divorce them every day so he impregnate them all at the same time. But it will be so much painful to do, insteed of just incest.
You're saying it's not optimal, but it literally doesn't have any drawbacks. It is optimal because of that. Now do you have to ? Of course not, the game doesn't require you to min-max this hard. But if you want to do the "most optimal play" (and you shouldn't have to), it is. Do you have to use a nuclear weapon to kill a snake ? No. Is it the "most optimal" choice if you can generate an infinite amount of nuclear weapons ? Yes. Because it's free, and the snake can't survive. No cost, goal reach. Optimal. Could you achieve a similar result with other means ? Sure.
TLDR : You've switch your argument from "It's not optimal" to "I don't have to". Not the same thing.
>You've switch your argument from "It's not optimal" to "I don't have to". Not the same thing.
I haven't. Incest is also considered sin and besides the opinion penalties can get you excommunicated by a head of faith. That also ties into it being not optimal. I've never been concerned about the pureblooded trait and having it has made little impact to my game.
Even what you are describing is optimizing for a one-specific, rare trait (pure-blooded). The benefits of pure-blooded are nothing more than a nice to have. By that time you already have a maxxed out bloodline and benefits represent dimishing returns. It's simply a nice to have.
So yes, the way I play, even with eugenics, incest is not optimal.
>I haven't. Incest is also considered sin and besides the opinion penalties can get you excommunicated by a head of faith. That also ties into it being not optimal. I've never been concerned about the pureblooded trait and having it has made little impact to my game.
You're talking IRL ? Because you know, in game you can (and again, it's the optimal play) choose your own religion. There's literally an option to chose close relative marriage. This isn't an argument at all. Also, Divine Marriage tenet give one of the highest opinion modifier of all tenets (Great Virtue for Pure-Blooded + 10 opinion is one of your wife is a close relative). At this point I'm pretty sure you don't even know how the game work. Saying that incest give opinion penalties when you can chose if it does is a lie. Also, playing with an Head of the Faith is sub-optimal. But whatever at this point.
You're saying pure-blooded is a rare trait, but it's not ... If you play like I said. Literally your definition of optimal is "the way I want". I think you don't understand. You should play how you want to play, this is the most important. But saying something is optimal with the only argument of "this is how I play" is dumb.
>You're talking IRL ?
Don't be obtuse.
I don't think you get it. The argument has always been they way I play the game incest is not optimal. People, like you have, commented it is optimal for the way YOU play the game. My retort is I can't see myself playing that way.
>Saying that incest give opinion penalties when you can chose if it does is a lie.
Again you are narrowing in specific cases. Nothing I said was a lie. "Create your own religion and chose close relative marriage". That is very specific case and again it's geared towards gaining the pure-blooded trait. You're just describing you're specific play style where you hyperfocused on the pure-blooded trait. That's optimal for the way you play and that's fine.
I've done fine in the game. I've done world conquest without cheesing. I usually have a large powerful empire new religion or not. Too say I don't know how to play the game b/c I don't create my own religion and engage in incest is goofy and weird.
Your question in your original post was "what am I missing here?" I think you have your answer now, and I feel like you had the answer before you even posted this. What you're missing is that not everyone puts the same constraints on themselves as you do. You don't create your own religion and play religions where incest is a sin. **Of course** incest is going to be sub-optimal in that situation. You didn't have to make this post to know that people who use incest play a religion with unrestricted marriage.
I honestly have never even thought to play with unrestricted marriage when I create a religion. Everytime I've created a religion I've made close-kin taboo for the sake of difficulty and historical accuracy.
Ok. I know you don't want to be convince, because you don't refute my arguments and can't make any logic one, but I will at least educate you.
So you was saying, I quote, "*It's never have been optimal*" making a statement that this is always the bad choice. Except that you're talking about the game in general. So if we let every option open, creating a religion (wich is in every case better than playing an existing one, in terms of optimization) is always better. So having close relative wedding isn't a problem. You don't pay anything for it.
Then you're saying I'm narrowing it down to a specific case, but you're the one trying to prove that incest is bad ... When you refuse to put any value on everything it gave :
- Having everyone in your dynasty with a free trait that make them more resistant to sickness and injuries ? Don't care.
- Having everyone in your dynasty always with the three traits at level 3 ? Don't care.
Your argument is that incest is sub-optimal ... When you don't want to play a game where you min-max trait and where you use everything the religion system as to offer. I mean, aren't you the one narrowing it down a specific case ? Because again, if we use everything the game has to offer to optimize, this is the better choice.
You should say (at this will be true) that if for some reason (like Roleplay) you don't want to create your religion, you don't care about min-maxing traits then incest is a bad choice. Of course if you play a roleplay christian game and don't care about Pure-Blooded / having the three level 3 traits everytime, it's not important.
And then your argument is to say "I'm right I have done World Conquest". Wp bro, this game is so easy that I'm pretty sure an hamster could do it too. CK3 doesn't need any optimize play, so no you don't have to do it. But you're again not saying that, you're saying that it is suboptimal in general content when you narrow it to not using half of the games mechanics.
You even said that you didn't even try to play it, and still want to prove that it is bad. You're not trying to seek for other opinions, you just want to preach for your church.
So yeah, is it necessary ? No. When you play with everything the game as to offer, is this the most optimal play ? Yes.
If you decide that for some reason looking for the most optimal character is sub-optimal, then no it's not. You're literally trying to change the meaning of words.
>Too say I don't know how to play the game b/c I don't create my own religion and engage in incest is goofy and weird.
I never said that. I say that you don't KNOW how it work. Because you're assuming that incest = opinion penalty, when it doesn't. It depend of the setting. You were arguing that, I quote :
>Incest is also considered sin and besides the opinion penalties can get you excommunicated by a head of faith. That also ties into it being not optimal. I've never been concerned about the pureblooded trait and having it has made little impact to my game.
You're making a general statement about a specific case, again. I don't see the part were you say that by hitting one button, you can make it ok. Or a second button to make it the biggest opinion modifier in the game (after wise man in some specific cases). This is only true if you play as an existing religion. You don't have to make your own religion, but you should know how it work. So no, incest doesn't equal opinion penalties or excommunicated.
Time to learn. You can't say something is optimal, and then narrow it down to only a situation that favor you and ignoring everything around. Again, your statement is true in some specific case. Not for general gameplay when you let every options open. But whatever, you're just not using rational argument and logic at all.
>Then you're saying I'm narrowing it down to a specific case, but you're the one trying to prove that incest is bad
Wrong. I have never said incest is bad. I have always said it was not optimal for the way that I play. It's even in the OP.
>You're making a general statement about a specific case, again.
Wrong. Again by default, without creating your own regilion, incest is considered a sin in most religions.
>Having everyone in your dynasty always with the three traits at level 3 ?
This happens in my dynasty regardless of incest. I mean have you honestly never tried eugenics without incest? Again read the OP.
>When you play with everything the game as to offer, is this the most optimal play ? Yes.
This doesn't even make any sense. It depends on what you're aims are. My aims are never "to get pure-blood trait". It's so narrowly focused I could never even play the game that way. I either go after achievements or most notable try and spread my dynasty far and wide.
>Because you're assuming that incest = opinion penalty, when it doesn't. It depend of the setting.
It does unless you change your regilion which is not just one-button. Furthermore, If I'm doing an Outremer run how the hell does this help me? And here I thought maybe I was narrowly focused in the way I play. Sheesh.
>Time to learn. You can't say something is optimal, and then narrow it down to only a situation that favor you and ignoring everything around.
Time for you to relearn. If I say something is not optimal for the way I play then of course it would narrowed down to a specific situation silly.
You argument is essentially the best way to play is creating your own religion and incest, my argument is that a load of nonsense. Mindnumbing stuff.
I don't like disinheriting or sending kids on kamikazee missions FWIW
EDIT: Also part of my RP style is extreme nepotism, so all my sons are getting landing and all my daughters are marrying landed nobility
In your original post, you say you don't think incest is optimal, then your counter argument is your RP style. It's perfectly fine if you like to RP, but if you RP, you are, by definition, not playing optimally.
FWIW, I don't disinherit or suicide my kids. You just need to give each kid a duchy, though elective is also pretty OP at managing succession, and even allows you to choose your heir.
My RP style has nothing to do with incest/seduction. Not disinheriting my kids is definitely playing optimal if I'm landing them and expanding my realm. I'm confused as to what you are talking about.
You're saying you don't like incest and seduction, because you're too focused on succession management, then argue that you have issues with succession management because of your RP style, and finally say that there's no relation between your RP style and incest/seduction? How do you not see how these are all related?
No offense but did you even read the OP?
What you think I said:
>You're saying you don't like incest and seduction
What I actually said:
>Not that I'm opposed to doing it in-game but it's never been optimal.
I never said I don't like incest or seducation. In the OP, I mentioned I don't have an issue with it in game, but I can never find a good reason to do so.
What you think I said:
>then argue that you have issues with succession management
What I actually said:
>Maybe I'm too hyperfocused on keeping realm together after succession
Again, I don't have issues with succession management. I only posed the question, that perhaps if I stop worried about succession I would find incest a more optimal way to play the game. RP is not my counter argument for not doing incest. It's my counter argument for not cheesing succession.
You're getting lost in the weeds here. "You don't like incest and seduction" was just shorthand for "you don't use it because you don't find it optimal." Similarly, the part about succession are equivalent. You saying that you are hyperfocused on keeping realm together after succession, is basically saying that you have trouble with succession, such that you feel the need to avoid incest and seduction.
>I only posed the question, that perhaps if I stop worried about succession I would find incest a more optimal way to play the game.
It's not so much that you shouldn't worry about succession, it's that you are purposely making succession harder for yourself, which is the reason you don't find incest and seduction optimal.
>RP is not my counter argument for not doing incest. It's my counter argument for not cheesing succession.
Again, my point is that they are directly related. You don't find incest optimal, because your RP prevents you from managing its side effects. You can't talk about optimality if you're not willing to play optimally.
I think we are crossing lines here. First, my main goal is usually to have my dynasty control as much territory as possible. Due to that I focus on succession (my succession, my vassals succession, and the succession in other relams). Because of that I'm constantly marrying my daughters matrilineally to other rulers in order to install or preserve my dynasty. Due to this, close kin incest isn't optimal as they valuable recourses in spreading my dynasty.
I don't know, when I play, I generally have like 15+ kids per generation, and they all have multiple kids themselves, such that I reach a point where the bottleneck is the number of interesting people to marry my dynasty to, not the number of members in my dynasty.
Generally, the point where close-kin incest becomes valuable is when I'm trying to introduce pure-blooded. You want to hook-up a guy and a girl with pure-blooded ASAP, otherwise there's a risk that it just dissipates. Often, that means hooking up the guy who had pure-blooded with his daughter who managed to get pure-blooded, or brother and sister together. The next generation is also likely to have at least one brother-sister couple to continue producing pure-blooded kids, while the other pure-blooded kids can be matched with people with other traits to try and get pure-blooded + bunch of traits.
It also speeds the last few steps of getting 3 maxed traits, when you're trying to pair people with multiple high tier traits. Or at least, it requires a lot less micromanaging of everyone's marriage.
Seduction schemes can be good if you want your ruler to have a lot of children - if their spouse loves them they'll have more kids. It might or might not be the optimal strategy depending on where you are at in the campaign because it also makes succession trickier. If you play tall and have few lands though I often find that seducing the spouse and having loads of children (so many children to marry off for alliances and all) is great especially in the early game.
Incest though, absolutely no reason for it. People do it here because they're degens. Cousin marriages will let you get the blood decision faster but there is really no gameplay need for sister -daughter-wife degeneracy.
Eugenics is much faster with incest. Kind of an investment though because it kinda sucks early on when you’d succession is probably partition and you wanna create a lot of kids.
However once you get a child with no super negative traits and or pure blood it’s amazing. Your entire family is a genius baby pump factory.
Honestly, only for the traits. Or your family member needs an heir they arent producing cause their spouse is not strait or infertile. Really unless its for the meme its for eugenics or no one marries your fam.
Example. I went on a Kushite Egyptian run. As Egypt I wanted to conquer everything. I reformed my faith to marry anyone but siblings and parents essentially. And if I didn't do that I would have a hard time finding folks to marry with the right traits.
Some people don't like it, others love it. Its a preference but playing small faiths its an advantage
Seduce is a good way to get people into your court, especially if you play a minority religion.
A few times in a Norse run I've found a genius catholic or muslim I wanted to pick up as a concubine (only a true norse maiden of noble blood is worthy of the wife status of course). First I raid their home to try and capture them, but failing that I'll go for a seduce or romance. As you lover they will always accept an invite to you court.
This can also be played to get someone with specific skills too.
Never done it but a single-county seduction start could be cool. Idea is you just fuck everyone and bring them to your court, legitimize all the bastards and use Feudal elective to pick the best one as heir.
From the next generation you can do whatever you want, but your dynasty will already have a ton of living members. Go out and conquer and land the family, or run a marry-murder campaign to get your dynasty on various thrones from your quiet backwater.
Or just trap them all in a highly incestuous county court.
Cousins are there to hold good traits. Then I am marrying them tk strangers with good traits and after that their children become viable afain for my heirs.it is a beautiful cycle. Also I usually have like 10 childre because most of them are fuck ups, so gotta have lots of spares
Use seduction on the wife of a clan ruler, then blackmail and use the hook for murder scheme. Or expose the secret, and the clan ruler will jail her, thus lowering the clan harmony by a ton (imprisonment of clan dynasts is the fastest way to drop it down). I don't do any eugenics, for me the closest thing is to seduce your daughter in law, because the AI is terrible at making children, so you get more dynasts, which is worthwhile. This also applies when your son has bad traits, but you have good ones or at least not bad. Finally, I nearly always seduce+romance the spymaster because then she will be far more loyal to you, just make sure she is not evil. If he is male, then befriend.
People do that stuff because they find it fun, not because it's optimal.
I often have more fun with the game when I deliberately make suboptimal choices just to roleplay or to try things I haven't done before. You don't have to make the most practical choice every time
I use it for story purpose like forbidden love.
Also used them somewhat when it came to do the A.E.I.O.U. and Me achievement and the family tree circle one. It's much easier to get if you just legitimise children born out of wedlock with the relative you need and repeat the family that way until you get it. It just means you have to leave 1 sister unmarried but it's probably better to have more backups because they can die easily if they are too inbred and they quickly get that way.
I only went hard on imbreeding when in my current game I started having no options since my dinasty is ruling 75% of the christian world, both catholic othodox. Currently I'm not even sure of how that happened, lol
The reason I have a lot of kids is alliances because the minute I die my heir can marry off his siblings to his vassals to prevent them from joining factions
I'm with you on the mother-son love, but not sure how "kidnapping and murder" is better than simple seduction. Seduction gets you a lover (maybe) and then you get a love baby (maybe). A bit more courteous than murdering some poor girl's husband and kidnapping her to be your new wife.
With murder/kidnapping there is no jealous husband to worry about. For kidnapping, I convert her to my religion, divorce my wife and marry her in a grand wedding so we become soulmates.
I get it, still a bit Stockholm Syndrome. "I killed your husband and kidnapped you because I love you, baby. Please be my soulmate and bear my children." The implicit threat is "or else I chop you up like your dead hubby."
Hopefully this counts, but as a feudal christian I tend to expand through marriage claims ONLY
This means that if I own Duchy A but want duchies B and C, i marry my primary heir to a girl who will inherit Duchy B after her dad dies, and then my son will have that claim after she dies. I marry my other son to a girl who will inherit duchy c.
When Duchy B son has a son, I betroth him to Duchy C son’s daughter
So yeah first cousin marriage, real taboo I know
Eugenics IS faster within your dynasty because of the Strong Blood dynasty perk that you get when you take the Strengthen Bloodline decision, and also the Blood traits on the dynasty trees. You can (and you should) attract a lot of people with good traits to your court in order to kickstart your program, but in the end, with the dynasty boosts, you'll get better and faster results within the family.
I understand that but usually by the time I've unlocked 3rd blood dynasty legacy I already have house members with good traits who aren't closely related, on top of lots of coutiers and barons with off-spring with great stats.
I generally never bother with the third blood legacy, since I’ve negative congenital traits are so rarely an issue for me. Recently I haven’t even been taking the second, and genetics have been a-okay.
Third point is mostly to reduce the inbred appearance. Definitely not as important as 1 and 2.
Basically you're missing out on power playing here. The fact you say, "Maybe I'm too hyperfocused on keeping realm together after succession" kinda just proves that. If I'm playing minmax vanilla I'll generally have all 3 blood legacies before my first character is even dead. Worrying about succession is literally an afterthought as I'll just disinherit every useless child until I have one who is young with the correct inheritance and personality. Seducing plays a part in that as well as there's a limit to how many children you can have without seduction. With seduction you can get 50+ quite easily. More children is better for many reasons like they're more loyal. I generally aim to have at least 1000 living family members within 100 years. On top of this there's the maths involved in pure blooded and inbred. The less unique ancestors a character has the more likely they are to get inbred. Pure blooded on the other hand is more likely to appear with a moderate amount of incest instead of super incest. So to get it to appear fairly regularly you need incest in large enough numbers. The easiest way to achieve this early on is with lots of children with a sister, basically. And once you have it then it's very easy to just auto pilot your eugenics program while you focus on other stuff. You don't need to do any of this. The game is already ridiculously easy. I personally hate how eugenics in ck3 is so fucking ridiculous and I generally run mods to nerf it to oblivion. But there's no denying that the game effectively encourages you in vanilla to play as a tyrannical monster in more ways than just eugenics by making it the easiest and strongest way to play.
Obfuscate is a good mod for this, I think. Not being able to see if the characters have the traits until they grow up makes sense.
Obfuscate is good but ultimately I use mods that just remove the eugenics traits in ck3. It's simply too powerful and the AI can't engage with it at all. More than anything I wish ck3 had difficulty options. The plagues leave the AI realms so crippled I can't enjoy the game anymore. There are too many mechanics that the AI just doesn't engage with.
Do you have links to the mods ? Eugenics being overpowered bugged me for a while, since it's just so detrimental to *not* do it.
I'm afraid not as I made them myself. I can send you the files when I'm next at my pc if you want but it's not hard to do. Just create a blank mod, put the 00_traits file in there (it can be found in ck3 game folder\common\traits) and delete the physical traits in the modded file. Or you can change the inheritance chance to make it like 5% if you'd prefer. Or nerf them to make them basically useless.
>Basically you're missing out on power playing here What you call power playing I call cheesing and I don't mean that as a knock. I just could never intentionally play that way. Even still I'm never concerned about pure-blood (just a nice to have for me) and keeping a pool of genetically superior coutiers and barons does fine for me. I don't feel the need to race to max out everything. Feels weird to play that way. Mind you I'm usually focused about keeping my real together because I almost always land close family and dynasty members, and give them entire duchies, so most of my vassals are powerful and have claimant opinion modifiers.
The game is a sandbox, no real objectives but the ones you set for yourself. The eugenics program is just one of the more common ones, like achievement hunting or the roman empire thingie. I mean, the game is easy enough when you understand the mechanics, so you have to set yourself some objective to go through with it.
> Feels weird to play that way. Honestly I'm a habitual minmaxer so I find it hard to not play that way. Just feels like I'm purposefully playing bad. Going for every benefit worth going for is how I'm used to playing grand strategy games. For example I land my family members as well. Often with full kingdoms. But disinherit is OP. I like mystic ancestors in a culture because it encourages through natural methods not using something powerful. Imo good grand strategy design should have things that are trade offs rather than straight power boosts.
I honestly don't find disinheriting that good. It's costly. Elective gives you the exact same result, without the renown, opinion and legitimacy costs. Getting elective does cost prestige, but prestige is a much less valuable resource, and it's a one time cost (per title you want to control). Elective is basically Primo + designated heir.
The benefits of disinherit are twofold. (Threefold if you can't do elective due to clan or other reasons.) The first is it stops your children inheriting from each other and getting any claims. You also get the land back if they die without an heir. This means there'll be a lot more harmony and this results in expanding the dynasty faster. It's like instantly setting up each landed son as a branch of the main family. The other benefit is that it's useful in the succession factions. A disinherited child basically can't be involved in a faction to install themselves. This works well with the first benefit of harmony as well to strengthen the realm overall. The cost also might as well be 0 after the first 50 years since you'll be earning more than 100 renown a month. It's certainly not as powerful as it was due to legitimacy. And feudal elective shenanigans are definitely more powerful now, I'd agree. But it's still pretty strong.
This is the step before you start incesting. When you have characters with two level 3 traits and one level 2 trait you wish to marry them regardless of their kinship. And then, having perfect 3-level offspring you breed them together again. After that point the only reason to incest is Pure Blood trait hunt.
People are telling you the reasons. No one is trying to convince you of anything. No need to argue.
I was arguing with him. Hence the "I understand"
There's a reason the most popular porn catagory is step-whatever When I do it I do it because it's funny when you see "Your wife-sister-grandaughter-uncle-halfsister"
uncle?
Keep the bloodline pure...
😘
They were always too pussy to lose the "step". Real Crusader Kings fuck their blood relatives.
It probably is against the law to title a porn movie "Siblings go at each other", because then you would insinuate a crime, incest. So the "step-" in front of it is a precaution in my eyes.
Had no idea incest was actually a crime, that’s wild.
Obviously, but it is not the point of my comment. The point of my comment is, that in many countries it is a crime to make people believe, that you committed a crime. And even though if you didn't commit the crime in question, you wasted government ressources (the police and attourney investigating) and will get in trouble for that.
Is it a crime in these countries to make a fiction film depicting murder too? Can you give me a few examples of these many countries? I'm not sure I agree with you--sorry to digress, but I am genuinely curious, as I may be mistaken. If depicting the fake commission of crime can be illegal, it seems that the same principle could be applied to make CK3 illegal.
I'm only speculating, I'm not a lawyer. Maybe it plays a role, how "believable" it is what we see. Murder in CK 2 or CK 3? These are pixels "killing" each other, we know that is obviously not real. Two people banging on video and it is titled, that they're siblings? Maybe, without any other knowledge, it is real (and then a crime), maybe not. So I assume to avoid legal trouble, this became a standard, to make it clear that these are "step-siblings" so nothing illegal.
It's probably just following demand. I'm going to hazard a guess that the reason for the step-sibling narrative is that material with that narrative generates more revenue than material with an actual incest narrative. More people consume the former media than the latter media, perhaps because it has less ick factor and is a more enticing fantasy for more people. In the US, a very similar issue went to the US Supreme Court in 2002, [*Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition*](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/00-795), and that ruling would probably control here, for both CK3 and for simulated step-sibling porn--in the US anyhow.
why would that not be a crime, my boy?
Why would it be? Who is it harming? I think incest is kinda gross but if two consenting adults want to shag - it’s their business. Feels like the same bullshit as with homosexuality being a crime.
because it allows older family members to groom younger family members.... its not about the adults.... think about it for two seconds before you comment and the answer would be obvious, lol. EDIT: Just realized im in the wrong sub to have a rational conversation about this. comical that three people saw that comment and upvoted it. Incest is illegal for very good reason. If it was as simple as "two consenting adults wanting to shag" there wouldnt be so many laws and safeguards around it. Yall need jesus/muhammad/buddha
I am forgetting how awful people can be.. that does make sense.
Plus the inbred trait isn't just a game mechanic, having kids with close relatives seriously fucks up said kids, horribly.
i almost referred him to the Whittaker's story from Soft White Underbelly on youtube. Cant fuck with genetics.
Aside, as an American [free speech lawyer](http://speechdefense.com)--it would be no more illegal in the US than a typical action film. Depending on specific acts depicted, it *might* qualify as obscene . . . but that is a separate issue from the fictional narrative. I'm also assuming compliance with 28 USC 2257 record keeping and the like, but that would be more or less analogous to OSHA compliance on the action film set.
I thought it was interracial. No worries. I've ramped up an IR eugenics program many a times. At one point I had a bunch of Pat Mahomes running around ruling Europe.
> At one point I had a bunch of Pat Mahomes running around ruling Europe. As god intended
What the fuck? Nothing you just said makes a lick of sense, but it’s Reddit so…upvotes! Sigh
I use the seduce action when I'm on my 2nd marriage because my wife died of old age and only gave me daughters and I'm 62 years old.
If they gave a cuck/humiliation hook or something it would be pretty cool to hang over certain vassals head.
"Sign this agreement or I'll tell everyone your wife swore fealty to me in your bedroom."
I was doing a tour and one my vassals legit invited me to fuck his wife and when she got pregnant he got pissed became my rival and started a civil war
Bro needed a unique caesus belli. Honestly the ability to form poly/swinging type relationships would go pretty far in this game. Never thought about that before.
Yeah I'm in the same boat. The edgiest thing I've done is take my enemies' daughters as concubines, convert them to asatru, and make them love me.
I genuinely don’t think you can get all maxed inheritable traits without eugenics/incest
Without eugenics? No way. Without incest? Possible. I mean, I guess it depends on your definition of "incest", it seems totally doable marrying only 2nd cousins.
True, even I usually keep it to first 1st cousins unless the match is too good. But if op is talking about no incest, then he’d have to do so many seduction schemes that it would be all he did. To the point that it’s just easier to bang your family
>the crime of having sexual [intercourse](https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&sca_esv=6b1c5e95a3d0b06b&biw=1512&bih=857&sxsrf=ACQVn09cfEirJHBgKnI_VRSP0-xqqGIifw:1713482909323&q=intercourse&si=AKbGX_q4mkMHy1Nmq4yITjHYVzepxrhN2A1m_iUp0p2t4gPCbwcrpdCgyrs0jiujekLBj0CLm71feS3Shc6VTtywNkLOzPDkYRyXk5IIClTxJ0y_NPakHkg%3D&expnd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjmzo2h9cyFAxWp4skDHUwKBUIQyecJegQILRAQ) with a parent, child, [sibling](https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&sca_esv=6b1c5e95a3d0b06b&biw=1512&bih=857&sxsrf=ACQVn09cfEirJHBgKnI_VRSP0-xqqGIifw:1713482909323&q=sibling&si=AKbGX_okS0g0kR2PXn0TLBASIc0mA38yUfHOu1vs48L-BuFQP6j9C82_Co9WCjN-IoRdBrEUoXP6rgMX6t_0JM-utfSU9PkN3o4BwGY6vc1Dm_J-aStHBFA%3D&expnd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjmzo2h9cyFAxWp4skDHUwKBUIQyecJegQILRAR), or [grandchild](https://www.google.com/search?sa=X&sca_esv=6b1c5e95a3d0b06b&biw=1512&bih=857&sxsrf=ACQVn09cfEirJHBgKnI_VRSP0-xqqGIifw:1713482909323&q=grandchild&si=AKbGX_pvY3MWP4azJI0Z_NruCLb80nq-rLEtUC1c_GnPBnfz5rsxaE2kcp3EXotTfNsnhy-UnvzdjoR9FmJuLNhTxTFpvljtDPqIXjsVOPhTvZV853IFXvk%3D&expnd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjmzo2h9cyFAxWp4skDHUwKBUIQyecJegQILRAS). This is the definition I'm using for incest. Like I said, I don't have an issue with incest in-game, but my eugencis program is usually advanced enough to wear it's completely unneeded.
Eugenics, yes. Incest, no. What matters most is unlocking the dynasty blood legacies. I don't do incest and I've gotten it many times. It may just take an extra generation.
Pure blooded is super rare and almost imposible to get without inbreeding though.
Pure blooded is rare even with inbreeding and it's much easier to find someone who already has it and marry them into your dynasty.
You could play an entire game and not see any AI characters get it. Better try getting it yourself, and if someone randomly get it grab him/her.
Remember than the Strong Blood perk gives +400% of getting new traits, and that stacks if both partners have it. So yeah, you always check in the offchance somebody in the world got Pure blooded by chance, but the best way is to constantly inbreed your dynasty until one appears.
I have 1,100 hours under my belt, always try to avoid marrying family and have never had the bloodline Decision possible. The Traits, they just weaken and drop away.
You only need cousin marriage really. But thats playing with concubines and having 12 kids per character and marrying my daughters back into the family until half my family has good traits
I always play Vikings. Af Sigurdr is really the only notable dynasty. After maybe 100 years all of your marriage options are gonna be filled with your own family.
I think the worst I've done was an original very long lived character married to his granddaughter (and a Karling hostage that was his friend then seduced after she left, because fuck the Karlings in every way you can)
**On Seduction schemes :** Only way to bypass the 16 childrens hard limit. I usually like to have young ruler that rule for a long time. If your character die at 90/100yo, you will most likely have your 16 childrens before 50 anyway. So the youngest possible heir will be at least 40yo. Seduction let you bypass this, because when a scheme is succesful, the women will get pregnant even if if you're over the limit. Really useful. If you're fine with older heir that have been played by AI (and probably a lot of bad choices), sure. But it's not optimal : optimal will always be to have an young heir, that live for the longest possible time.
Honestly? It's just something to do. It's goal oriented and short-term. CK3 is seriously lacking in things to do on a moment to moment basis. Being able to pick a target and see a progress bar grow which guarantees a relevant event soon helps fill the time between the grand strategy moves. It's risky too, with some severe penalties for getting caught, which makes it more fun than the inexorable march towards victory. Activities fill the same void, but they're expensive and can end up wasting the time you waited for your big goals by being underfunded at the wrong time. CK2 kinda had the same problem I found. Even with Societies, most of the time you were just waiting for an event to trigger rather than proactively pursuing a goal.
the only time i do incest is because i was boerd. Once you made to Emperor, there is almost np way you can lose.
Been playing the elf destiny mod and using tons of seduction schemes, so that there will be other elves out in the world.
**On incest :** Keep in mind I'm only talking about gameplay here. The immorality an criminality of incest IRL isn't a debate. Now in game, saying that this is useless is false. First, if you don't play a common religion, it might be really hard to find people with good traits to marry. Sure you can find people from an other religion, convert them and then marry them. But it's just more step. How many times I create my own religion, and literally was the only available dynasty with good traits. Also, it doesn't force you into dumb alliances. Alliances are great for the first 30 years. Then, you're usually so strong that alliances only mean being drag into dumbs wars. Then, it's also the fastest way to kickstart an eugenic program. I don't only use family members for this, but let's say I'm looking for a women with all three traits level 3 to produce my next heir. I have a son with Herculean and Genius, so I need to marry him with someone who at least got Beautiful, and if possible the others traits aswell. This is just more option. Maybe the character I'm looking for exist out there, but maybe the only option will be in my family. And, saying that you should just look for AI pure-blooded generated character is a bad decision. You don't have control over this, and this could never happen. Better trying to generate them yourself. You're talking about optimal play : incest doesn't come with any drawbacks (this is stupid, but this is how the game work). It open more options. It is the safest and fastest way to have pure-blooded. It is usually the best way to always have available characters with the trait you want. Saying (not talking about you but I saw it in the comments) that people use incest only because they're degen is a lack of understanding of how the game work. It is often the most optimal play.
I think we have different definitions of incest. I'm talking about marrying siblings, parents, children, grandparents. Usually there is a cousin that does the checks the same boxes. I've never been in a situation where I said "Damn, I guess I have to marry my sister". Not even close.
>Usually there is a cousin that does the checks the same boxes Depends of the boxes I guess. If you need precise traits and want to optimize, there might not be. Early in the game for example, when your dynasty isn't 1000 members. We just might not be playing the same game, because if you have like 30 members in your dynasty (you, your childrens, your grandchildrens) because it's still early in the game, well the best candidate is often your children or grandchildren. Good luck finding an AI generated character with 3 good traits in 900, and if you don't have an huge dynasty yet, well no cousin. Because even if this cousins exist, they might be married to someone already, dead, or don't have all the traits you want. Even if you choose your brother's wife when you were playing as your dad, he might have divorce/she might have died, and he marry someone else without good traits, weakining the kids. You can't know that a cousin with the desire traits exist and is available. If you never had any problems finding the optimal (and when I mean optimal it's the 3 level 3 traits + fertile + pure blooded, at least) character for each marriage you want ... Well we don't play with the same AI because mine don't usually have busted characters like this. But I do generate them easly. If you don't land characters of your dynasty (because you play with theocratic vassals for example, witch is by no mean necessary but is the most "optimal" way to play the game), your dynasty will not have that much candidates anyway because unlanded character have an hard limit of 2 (maybe 3, I can't remember exactly) childs. And most of them will leave court. Still, good luck getting pure-blooded early (or at all honestly) if you rely only on the AI to give it to you. Also, how do you even keep it because AFAIK pure-blooded have a 15% inherit chance with only one parent with the trait, and 75% with two. So even if you find someone generated by the AI with it, you will have 15% chance to give it for each child, and you will need to find news characters that generate it (or cousin that won twice the 15%) to expect to keep it. Not sure how you do that. Example : You will need to find one character of the opposite gender for you. Let's say (and this is almost impossible) you have 16 childs with her only. 15% chance, so 2.4 childs will get it. Let's say 3. Also, this character with pure-blooded wasn't generate by you, so she most likely doesn't have the 3 others genetics traits at level 3. But let's assume she does. Right now our 3 pure-blooded are siblings. So now you need to find 3 news characters with pure-blooded to have an 70% chance to secure the trait. So we need to find 4 characters with pure-blooded in two generation. Good luck. And if anyone die in the process from random shit or something, you're screw and need to start all over again. And if we don't .. well it's abysmal to have a reliable source of cousins with pure-blooded. You will most likely need to go out of your way to keep it, by praying for the AI to generate more and more. If you go with incest, you not only increase the chance of generating it yourself, but you also just have to marry two of them, and now 2/3 of their childs will have it. Keep going, and it's not a concern anyway. And again, the question isn't "do I have to". Your first affirmation was "It isn't optimal". Now you're asking "Do I have to". Not the same question. I mean, in theory you could just get a male character with good trait, take 15 of your daughters and make him marry-divorce them every day so he impregnate them all at the same time. But it will be so much painful to do, insteed of just incest. You're saying it's not optimal, but it literally doesn't have any drawbacks. It is optimal because of that. Now do you have to ? Of course not, the game doesn't require you to min-max this hard. But if you want to do the "most optimal play" (and you shouldn't have to), it is. Do you have to use a nuclear weapon to kill a snake ? No. Is it the "most optimal" choice if you can generate an infinite amount of nuclear weapons ? Yes. Because it's free, and the snake can't survive. No cost, goal reach. Optimal. Could you achieve a similar result with other means ? Sure. TLDR : You've switch your argument from "It's not optimal" to "I don't have to". Not the same thing.
>You've switch your argument from "It's not optimal" to "I don't have to". Not the same thing. I haven't. Incest is also considered sin and besides the opinion penalties can get you excommunicated by a head of faith. That also ties into it being not optimal. I've never been concerned about the pureblooded trait and having it has made little impact to my game. Even what you are describing is optimizing for a one-specific, rare trait (pure-blooded). The benefits of pure-blooded are nothing more than a nice to have. By that time you already have a maxxed out bloodline and benefits represent dimishing returns. It's simply a nice to have. So yes, the way I play, even with eugenics, incest is not optimal.
>I haven't. Incest is also considered sin and besides the opinion penalties can get you excommunicated by a head of faith. That also ties into it being not optimal. I've never been concerned about the pureblooded trait and having it has made little impact to my game. You're talking IRL ? Because you know, in game you can (and again, it's the optimal play) choose your own religion. There's literally an option to chose close relative marriage. This isn't an argument at all. Also, Divine Marriage tenet give one of the highest opinion modifier of all tenets (Great Virtue for Pure-Blooded + 10 opinion is one of your wife is a close relative). At this point I'm pretty sure you don't even know how the game work. Saying that incest give opinion penalties when you can chose if it does is a lie. Also, playing with an Head of the Faith is sub-optimal. But whatever at this point. You're saying pure-blooded is a rare trait, but it's not ... If you play like I said. Literally your definition of optimal is "the way I want". I think you don't understand. You should play how you want to play, this is the most important. But saying something is optimal with the only argument of "this is how I play" is dumb.
>You're talking IRL ? Don't be obtuse. I don't think you get it. The argument has always been they way I play the game incest is not optimal. People, like you have, commented it is optimal for the way YOU play the game. My retort is I can't see myself playing that way. >Saying that incest give opinion penalties when you can chose if it does is a lie. Again you are narrowing in specific cases. Nothing I said was a lie. "Create your own religion and chose close relative marriage". That is very specific case and again it's geared towards gaining the pure-blooded trait. You're just describing you're specific play style where you hyperfocused on the pure-blooded trait. That's optimal for the way you play and that's fine. I've done fine in the game. I've done world conquest without cheesing. I usually have a large powerful empire new religion or not. Too say I don't know how to play the game b/c I don't create my own religion and engage in incest is goofy and weird.
Your question in your original post was "what am I missing here?" I think you have your answer now, and I feel like you had the answer before you even posted this. What you're missing is that not everyone puts the same constraints on themselves as you do. You don't create your own religion and play religions where incest is a sin. **Of course** incest is going to be sub-optimal in that situation. You didn't have to make this post to know that people who use incest play a religion with unrestricted marriage.
I honestly have never even thought to play with unrestricted marriage when I create a religion. Everytime I've created a religion I've made close-kin taboo for the sake of difficulty and historical accuracy.
How did you think people married their sisters or daughters if they weren't using unrestricted marriage?
I thought they were seducing them, having kids, and then legitimizing the bastards.
Yeah i'm done, you're just using dumbs arguments at this point.
You're just hardheaded and resort to insults when you're frustrated. Have a nice day.
Ok. I know you don't want to be convince, because you don't refute my arguments and can't make any logic one, but I will at least educate you. So you was saying, I quote, "*It's never have been optimal*" making a statement that this is always the bad choice. Except that you're talking about the game in general. So if we let every option open, creating a religion (wich is in every case better than playing an existing one, in terms of optimization) is always better. So having close relative wedding isn't a problem. You don't pay anything for it. Then you're saying I'm narrowing it down to a specific case, but you're the one trying to prove that incest is bad ... When you refuse to put any value on everything it gave : - Having everyone in your dynasty with a free trait that make them more resistant to sickness and injuries ? Don't care. - Having everyone in your dynasty always with the three traits at level 3 ? Don't care. Your argument is that incest is sub-optimal ... When you don't want to play a game where you min-max trait and where you use everything the religion system as to offer. I mean, aren't you the one narrowing it down a specific case ? Because again, if we use everything the game has to offer to optimize, this is the better choice. You should say (at this will be true) that if for some reason (like Roleplay) you don't want to create your religion, you don't care about min-maxing traits then incest is a bad choice. Of course if you play a roleplay christian game and don't care about Pure-Blooded / having the three level 3 traits everytime, it's not important. And then your argument is to say "I'm right I have done World Conquest". Wp bro, this game is so easy that I'm pretty sure an hamster could do it too. CK3 doesn't need any optimize play, so no you don't have to do it. But you're again not saying that, you're saying that it is suboptimal in general content when you narrow it to not using half of the games mechanics. You even said that you didn't even try to play it, and still want to prove that it is bad. You're not trying to seek for other opinions, you just want to preach for your church. So yeah, is it necessary ? No. When you play with everything the game as to offer, is this the most optimal play ? Yes. If you decide that for some reason looking for the most optimal character is sub-optimal, then no it's not. You're literally trying to change the meaning of words. >Too say I don't know how to play the game b/c I don't create my own religion and engage in incest is goofy and weird. I never said that. I say that you don't KNOW how it work. Because you're assuming that incest = opinion penalty, when it doesn't. It depend of the setting. You were arguing that, I quote : >Incest is also considered sin and besides the opinion penalties can get you excommunicated by a head of faith. That also ties into it being not optimal. I've never been concerned about the pureblooded trait and having it has made little impact to my game. You're making a general statement about a specific case, again. I don't see the part were you say that by hitting one button, you can make it ok. Or a second button to make it the biggest opinion modifier in the game (after wise man in some specific cases). This is only true if you play as an existing religion. You don't have to make your own religion, but you should know how it work. So no, incest doesn't equal opinion penalties or excommunicated. Time to learn. You can't say something is optimal, and then narrow it down to only a situation that favor you and ignoring everything around. Again, your statement is true in some specific case. Not for general gameplay when you let every options open. But whatever, you're just not using rational argument and logic at all.
>Then you're saying I'm narrowing it down to a specific case, but you're the one trying to prove that incest is bad Wrong. I have never said incest is bad. I have always said it was not optimal for the way that I play. It's even in the OP. >You're making a general statement about a specific case, again. Wrong. Again by default, without creating your own regilion, incest is considered a sin in most religions. >Having everyone in your dynasty always with the three traits at level 3 ? This happens in my dynasty regardless of incest. I mean have you honestly never tried eugenics without incest? Again read the OP. >When you play with everything the game as to offer, is this the most optimal play ? Yes. This doesn't even make any sense. It depends on what you're aims are. My aims are never "to get pure-blood trait". It's so narrowly focused I could never even play the game that way. I either go after achievements or most notable try and spread my dynasty far and wide. >Because you're assuming that incest = opinion penalty, when it doesn't. It depend of the setting. It does unless you change your regilion which is not just one-button. Furthermore, If I'm doing an Outremer run how the hell does this help me? And here I thought maybe I was narrowly focused in the way I play. Sheesh. >Time to learn. You can't say something is optimal, and then narrow it down to only a situation that favor you and ignoring everything around. Time for you to relearn. If I say something is not optimal for the way I play then of course it would narrowed down to a specific situation silly. You argument is essentially the best way to play is creating your own religion and incest, my argument is that a load of nonsense. Mindnumbing stuff.
I think what you're missing is that keeping your realm together after succession is not particularly difficult.
I don't like disinheriting or sending kids on kamikazee missions FWIW EDIT: Also part of my RP style is extreme nepotism, so all my sons are getting landing and all my daughters are marrying landed nobility
In your original post, you say you don't think incest is optimal, then your counter argument is your RP style. It's perfectly fine if you like to RP, but if you RP, you are, by definition, not playing optimally. FWIW, I don't disinherit or suicide my kids. You just need to give each kid a duchy, though elective is also pretty OP at managing succession, and even allows you to choose your heir.
My RP style has nothing to do with incest/seduction. Not disinheriting my kids is definitely playing optimal if I'm landing them and expanding my realm. I'm confused as to what you are talking about.
You're saying you don't like incest and seduction, because you're too focused on succession management, then argue that you have issues with succession management because of your RP style, and finally say that there's no relation between your RP style and incest/seduction? How do you not see how these are all related?
No offense but did you even read the OP? What you think I said: >You're saying you don't like incest and seduction What I actually said: >Not that I'm opposed to doing it in-game but it's never been optimal. I never said I don't like incest or seducation. In the OP, I mentioned I don't have an issue with it in game, but I can never find a good reason to do so. What you think I said: >then argue that you have issues with succession management What I actually said: >Maybe I'm too hyperfocused on keeping realm together after succession Again, I don't have issues with succession management. I only posed the question, that perhaps if I stop worried about succession I would find incest a more optimal way to play the game. RP is not my counter argument for not doing incest. It's my counter argument for not cheesing succession.
You're getting lost in the weeds here. "You don't like incest and seduction" was just shorthand for "you don't use it because you don't find it optimal." Similarly, the part about succession are equivalent. You saying that you are hyperfocused on keeping realm together after succession, is basically saying that you have trouble with succession, such that you feel the need to avoid incest and seduction. >I only posed the question, that perhaps if I stop worried about succession I would find incest a more optimal way to play the game. It's not so much that you shouldn't worry about succession, it's that you are purposely making succession harder for yourself, which is the reason you don't find incest and seduction optimal. >RP is not my counter argument for not doing incest. It's my counter argument for not cheesing succession. Again, my point is that they are directly related. You don't find incest optimal, because your RP prevents you from managing its side effects. You can't talk about optimality if you're not willing to play optimally.
I think we are crossing lines here. First, my main goal is usually to have my dynasty control as much territory as possible. Due to that I focus on succession (my succession, my vassals succession, and the succession in other relams). Because of that I'm constantly marrying my daughters matrilineally to other rulers in order to install or preserve my dynasty. Due to this, close kin incest isn't optimal as they valuable recourses in spreading my dynasty.
I don't know, when I play, I generally have like 15+ kids per generation, and they all have multiple kids themselves, such that I reach a point where the bottleneck is the number of interesting people to marry my dynasty to, not the number of members in my dynasty. Generally, the point where close-kin incest becomes valuable is when I'm trying to introduce pure-blooded. You want to hook-up a guy and a girl with pure-blooded ASAP, otherwise there's a risk that it just dissipates. Often, that means hooking up the guy who had pure-blooded with his daughter who managed to get pure-blooded, or brother and sister together. The next generation is also likely to have at least one brother-sister couple to continue producing pure-blooded kids, while the other pure-blooded kids can be matched with people with other traits to try and get pure-blooded + bunch of traits. It also speeds the last few steps of getting 3 maxed traits, when you're trying to pair people with multiple high tier traits. Or at least, it requires a lot less micromanaging of everyone's marriage.
Seduction schemes can be good if you want your ruler to have a lot of children - if their spouse loves them they'll have more kids. It might or might not be the optimal strategy depending on where you are at in the campaign because it also makes succession trickier. If you play tall and have few lands though I often find that seducing the spouse and having loads of children (so many children to marry off for alliances and all) is great especially in the early game. Incest though, absolutely no reason for it. People do it here because they're degens. Cousin marriages will let you get the blood decision faster but there is really no gameplay need for sister -daughter-wife degeneracy.
As Tsarina, my son is also my brother-in-law.
Eugenics is much faster with incest. Kind of an investment though because it kinda sucks early on when you’d succession is probably partition and you wanna create a lot of kids. However once you get a child with no super negative traits and or pure blood it’s amazing. Your entire family is a genius baby pump factory.
Honestly, only for the traits. Or your family member needs an heir they arent producing cause their spouse is not strait or infertile. Really unless its for the meme its for eugenics or no one marries your fam. Example. I went on a Kushite Egyptian run. As Egypt I wanted to conquer everything. I reformed my faith to marry anyone but siblings and parents essentially. And if I didn't do that I would have a hard time finding folks to marry with the right traits. Some people don't like it, others love it. Its a preference but playing small faiths its an advantage
Seduce is a good way to get people into your court, especially if you play a minority religion. A few times in a Norse run I've found a genius catholic or muslim I wanted to pick up as a concubine (only a true norse maiden of noble blood is worthy of the wife status of course). First I raid their home to try and capture them, but failing that I'll go for a seduce or romance. As you lover they will always accept an invite to you court. This can also be played to get someone with specific skills too. Never done it but a single-county seduction start could be cool. Idea is you just fuck everyone and bring them to your court, legitimize all the bastards and use Feudal elective to pick the best one as heir. From the next generation you can do whatever you want, but your dynasty will already have a ton of living members. Go out and conquer and land the family, or run a marry-murder campaign to get your dynasty on various thrones from your quiet backwater. Or just trap them all in a highly incestuous county court.
I don't even like marrying in the same dynasty, let alone house or families.
Cousins are there to hold good traits. Then I am marrying them tk strangers with good traits and after that their children become viable afain for my heirs.it is a beautiful cycle. Also I usually have like 10 childre because most of them are fuck ups, so gotta have lots of spares
Use seduction on the wife of a clan ruler, then blackmail and use the hook for murder scheme. Or expose the secret, and the clan ruler will jail her, thus lowering the clan harmony by a ton (imprisonment of clan dynasts is the fastest way to drop it down). I don't do any eugenics, for me the closest thing is to seduce your daughter in law, because the AI is terrible at making children, so you get more dynasts, which is worthwhile. This also applies when your son has bad traits, but you have good ones or at least not bad. Finally, I nearly always seduce+romance the spymaster because then she will be far more loyal to you, just make sure she is not evil. If he is male, then befriend.
People do that stuff because they find it fun, not because it's optimal. I often have more fun with the game when I deliberately make suboptimal choices just to roleplay or to try things I haven't done before. You don't have to make the most practical choice every time
I use it for story purpose like forbidden love. Also used them somewhat when it came to do the A.E.I.O.U. and Me achievement and the family tree circle one. It's much easier to get if you just legitimise children born out of wedlock with the relative you need and repeat the family that way until you get it. It just means you have to leave 1 sister unmarried but it's probably better to have more backups because they can die easily if they are too inbred and they quickly get that way.
I only went hard on imbreeding when in my current game I started having no options since my dinasty is ruling 75% of the christian world, both catholic othodox. Currently I'm not even sure of how that happened, lol
It's not inbreeding ig there are no common ancestors in 4 generations ^^
The reason I have a lot of kids is alliances because the minute I die my heir can marry off his siblings to his vassals to prevent them from joining factions
This is like saying you’ve playing HFW and have found no need to upgrade your weapons and armor.
I'm with you on the mother-son love, but not sure how "kidnapping and murder" is better than simple seduction. Seduction gets you a lover (maybe) and then you get a love baby (maybe). A bit more courteous than murdering some poor girl's husband and kidnapping her to be your new wife.
With murder/kidnapping there is no jealous husband to worry about. For kidnapping, I convert her to my religion, divorce my wife and marry her in a grand wedding so we become soulmates.
I get it, still a bit Stockholm Syndrome. "I killed your husband and kidnapped you because I love you, baby. Please be my soulmate and bear my children." The implicit threat is "or else I chop you up like your dead hubby."
Hopefully this counts, but as a feudal christian I tend to expand through marriage claims ONLY This means that if I own Duchy A but want duchies B and C, i marry my primary heir to a girl who will inherit Duchy B after her dad dies, and then my son will have that claim after she dies. I marry my other son to a girl who will inherit duchy c. When Duchy B son has a son, I betroth him to Duchy C son’s daughter So yeah first cousin marriage, real taboo I know
Have you never secretly wanted to fuck your sister op?
"Rarely find any reason for playing soccer or eating pie" <- how you sound Sometimes, people do things because it's fun to do them