Reasons to Marry Your Princess

[Pintbomb]

I was just wondering what are the advantages, if any, to marrying your princess with another kingdom's prince? Besides the slight relationship boost between nations, it seems all it does is give them the ability to demand war once and they can claim land later on when my king dies, which they almost always do to me. Why can't we just marry off without giving away land?

I always marry my princes, or at least the first so that he has as much time as possible to make some heirs, but why marry princesses?

[mammix]

I usually give princesses to my vassals, they often don't claim land. Sometimes I give my princess to a country which I want to attack, but I have an agreement with them.

[Frankoman]

You'll pray you have princesses in late game. Why? If your where I'm at (about 100 or so provinces, only about 14 others, only 2 or them like you, the rest at war with you, all of them very aggressive), you're towns happiness will be VERY low. I've been in at least one war since i've had around 70 or so provinces. I just can't end all my wars without someone declaring war. My people all over are unhappy and I have about 10 - 15 rebels adding problems on top of the 4 marshals attacking me at Normandy, 2 attacking me in Iberia, 5 attackign me in the Baltic's, 2 attacking in Italy and 2 attacking in Africa. I've got 5 marshals being worked to the bone to both attack and defend absolutely everything. My biggest concern right now is Asia Minor. Most of my Baltic territories are in the red, and I only have one son, who is already married. I really am praying to get some daughters so I can marry them off with the 2 or so people who are at good relations with me and give me a large happiness boost (I believe it is 10 per royal marriage? Whatever it is I need it bad).

So before i continue rabbling they are very useful for a quick happiness boost.

[mammix]

hm, in my recent game I have about 60 provinces but no one wants to rebel... How did You do this mess?

[elvain]

oh yes, princesses are very useful for 2 cases: the one described by Frankoman - signing a peace offering them a princess (and maybe one poor province) could solve the problem, while giving them province only means you lose a province and they declare war right after that.

the second case is that you want to win diplomatic victory and you don't have that many vassals to vote for you, so then marry your princesses to the most important kings and you have their votes (apart from the fact it makes it much easier to get some kind of diplomatic relations after the marriage or your spies have it easier to infiltrate there)

[Pintbomb]

Okay, I think I have some reasons.

1. Give to allies who you dislike, so when they claim land you say no and breaks bonds easily without loss of Kingdom Power (or 1 maybe?).

2. Quick happiness boost. I don't think this helps me too much. I have something like 75 provinces, but happiness is no problem. I have some Kingdom Advantages, and they all have hostels and hospitals. They are not rebelling, but loyalists pop up all the time.

3. Using them as a tribute to get peace to ensure they will not immediately attack you again. Even though most of the time I am the bigger country, so that seems to only apply early in the game.

4. Get good relations with the dominant powers. I hadn't thought of this, it could be useful but the bonds are too short and it's hard to get 5 marriages with those kingdoms, much less even 2 or 3.

5. I read in the manual too that it helps your spies out a little. However, it's hard enough to get spies to infiltrate courts as it is. It seems they are never hiring anything when I'm in the market. Only more marshals if I'm at war with them and kill a current one.

Also, if I have no princes to be heirs, I know that when a current knight claims the throne sometimes other knights don't like it and I lose some of my lands to nobility or something. Does marrying princesses off help you keep your lands in any way?

I still don't think those warrant trading off princesses. Even if I don't claim land 5 times in a row from an ally with harmonious relations, they will claim land from me without blinking when given the chance. But thanks for the responses, at least there are some advantages that I know of now.