Ideal wife traits?

[Jurras]

I am brand new to the game and trying to get over the entry cliff of knowledge, so easy question but what are the best traits to look for in a wife? Also can you make family members your council members? for example I am currently playing with, what I think at least, is a bad steward at rank 9. Could I get a queen that is good at stewardship and then have her as council member? Also what is the lastest age wise you would go to in a new wife?

[Azunai]

if you don't have an heir & spare yet you should look for a young wife. women in ck2 stop being fertile at age 45, so a woman in her 30's can still work out well. 40 is too old.

if you already have heirs (looking for 2nd wife after first wife died), her fertility doesn't really matter obviously and you can just take the one with the best stats.

if you play a religion/government type that allows concubines or multiple wives, the age/fertility of the primary wife is also not that important.

[Malus]

I usualy go fir high stewardship on my primary wife

But if the only things were talking about are traits then genius, strong, attractive.

[Сааребас]

I sometimes skip from female ruler to female ruler and plant some family.

This way my family travels the world, making people offers they can't refuse :)

[al_x_ator2411]

The hard limit for female fertility is 45. However, the AI usually refuses marriage proposals when they have no kids and the woman you're offering them is around 35. So as long as you need kids make sure the woman is below 35 (she'll still have kids over 35 but not many).

I think there is a limit to male fertlity too but don't remember the exact age. So if you are a female ruler marry someone that is not very old and make sure the marriage is in your favor (matrilinial).

[Count Von Count]

Escrito originalmente por al_x_ator2411:

The hard limit for female fertility is 45. However, the AI usually refuses marriage proposals when they have no kids and the woman you're offering them is around 35. So as long as you need kids make sure the woman is below 35 (she'll still have kids over 35 but not many).

I think there is a limit to male fertlity too but don't remember the exact age. So if you are a female ruler marry someone that is not very old and make sure the marriage is in your favor (matrilinial).

Also, as a female ruler I keep an eye out for bloodlines I my future husband, since they’re easy to incorporate

[Сааребас]

Escrito originalmente por al_x_ator2411:

The hard limit for female fertility is 45. However, the AI usually refuses marriage proposals when they have no kids and the woman you're offering them is around 35. So as long as you need kids make sure the woman is below 35 (she'll still have kids over 35 but not many).

I think there is a limit to male fertlity too but don't remember the exact age. So if you are a female ruler marry someone that is not very old and make sure the marriage is in your favor (matrilinial).

I have had childeren from 71 yo males.
If there is a limit it should not be noticble for 90% of the males.

[galadon3]

I think the male fertility just drops somewhat but yea if there is a hard cap, it would have to be past 80. I had some pretty old characters still have children too.

[CrUsHeR]

From my experience, children conceived by older men tend to be born sickly. I could be wrong though.

[identifiedasbeingdisrespectful]

Escrito originalmente por galadon3:

You can make anybody who is your direct vassal or your courtier a councilor, so a family member is possible if they are in one of those two groups, but with female characters it actually depends on the "status of women"-laws

Culture and religion matters too. Most pagans can have women as councilors in certain positions. High priest and spymaster notably. You can also get random events where your spouse will suggest a 'scandalous' counselor who will be a woman that doesn't fit your current laws or culture/religion but usually have higher stats than the person occupying the post.

To OP, you can either seek short term traits for the current generation, or depending on plans and possibilities, long term traits:

It's always good to have high stats, as you get half your spouse's stars added to your state stat levels. However, long term planning, especially early in the game is key to the most important aspect of marriage for most government and culture types: passing on your lineage to good heirs.

That said, it's good to seek the quick or genius traits if possible, similar to real life genetic traits the chances of them being passed increase if they are shared between parents. In a succession system where you can elect or designate your heir, this is a boon as most unions of two with the same birth traits will eventually produce them in a child. 66% chance of two genius parents having a genius child out of 3 children.

Negative traits work the same and should be avoided, inbred being the worst. I've had plenty of times I've foregone caring about a spouse having a cleft palate if they were a genius and my character was also however. If you can get positive genetic traits in your lineage, you can get a run of genius characters, but this works the same for negative traits. once inbred, harelipped, or a dwarf, these can be hard to eliminate from the pool potential as they can creep back generations later other than inbred. Inbred is very difficult to remove once in as the calculation is based on number of completely unique ancestors, and this number is likely to decrease over time despite population increasing (they're all coming from the same original number of characters).

I rarely focus my spouse decisions on potential title claims, but this is also a completely valid strategy. If a woman has a strong claim or title, their children will inherit a weak claim, same as an attempted but failed strong claim war will. You can also plan marriages around future inheritance, but this requires a lot of greasing the ruler into the marriage and sometimes assassinating the rest of the successors.

Also of note, as you grow from a kingdom to an empire, diplomacy will probably become the most important stat. The reason is that this controls your bonus to vassal limit. Stewardship is attractive when small as it raises personal domain size limit and taxes, but it matters little when the majority of your troops are from vassals and keeping them happy.

If you're just starting a game and the pool of potential spouses is small, or even none depending on your settings and a shattered or not world, don't be afraid to present a debutante. You can get lucky with that too.

[identifiedasbeingdisrespectful]

Escrito originalmente por al_x_ator2411:

The hard limit for female fertility is 45. However, the AI usually refuses marriage proposals when they have no kids and the woman you're offering them is around 35. So as long as you need kids make sure the woman is below 35 (she'll still have kids over 35 but not many).

I think there is a limit to male fertlity too but don't remember the exact age. So if you are a female ruler marry someone that is not very old and make sure the marriage is in your favor (matrilinial).

Just had a character have children in his 70s, I think male fertility might be related to health level as well. This character had won the chess match with death as a very young man, coincidentally also lived to like 86.

[identifiedasbeingdisrespectful]

Escrito originalmente por Tanks608:

thanks for the replies all, is there a "max" age cut off you guys use? I imagine 30s and 40s is getting on the old side.

for marrying women, the age controls the flow of how many heirs you potentially want. I'd marry old if gavelkind, anything else younger is better as you've got more time to make kids. It's a crapshoot to having healthy kids (or any) if they haven't had one before 30, much like real life.

[Empiro]

Always look for Genius, Strong, Quick, or Attractive. For things like claims, it's better to use your other close relatives for that.

It's pretty easy to get your spouse to like you if they're unlanded, since a simple 15 gold gift will do the trick.

[SotiCoto]

Best Genetic: Genius, Strong, Fair, Left-Handed
These can be inherited by children, so worth aiming for them.

Best Education Traits: Grey Eminence or Midas Touched.
The top-tier traits for diplomacy and stewardship both give fertility boosts. Conversely the learning education traits lower it.

Also worth noting: Temperate (opposite of Gluttonous, and potentially stops your wife becoming a fat blob). Lustful (increased fertility). Diligent (the single strongest virtue trait of them all, and frequently the cause of stress when teaching children, in case you need her to vanish once her job is done).

Escrito originalmente por galadon3:

usually 45 is were a woman stops getting kids (there are reports of later but not even sure if that isn't due to some bug).

Female characters can have children past 45 if they're immortal. I believe that is the only exception.

[galadon3]

Escrito originalmente por Wombat:

Culture and religion matters too. Most pagans can have women as councilors in certain positions. High priest and spymaster notably. You can also get random events where your spouse will suggest a 'scandalous' counselor who will be a woman that doesn't fit your current laws or culture/religion but usually have higher stats than the person occupying the post.

correct on the court priest if the religion allows women priests, incorrect on the spymaster, its restricted to mother or spouse same as for everybody else, if you actually check the provided link to the wiki, thats the case even under "traditional" status of women (lowest rank)

Inbred is very difficult to remove once in as the calculation is based on number of completely unique ancestors, and this number is likely to decrease over time despite population increasing (they're all coming from the same original number of characters).

Nope, characters spawned from decisions or events or generated by creating a baron level vassal always count as having a full set of unique ancestors (every ancestor that isnt shown counts as unique for that purpose). The inbred mechanic counts only 5 generations back, so it is pretty much possible to broaden the number of ancestors again, even without decision generated characters but its even easier with them.

[identifiedasbeingdisrespectful]

Escrito originalmente por galadon3:

Nope, characters spawned from decisions or events or generated by creating a baron level vassal always count as having a full set of unique ancestors (every ancestor that isnt shown counts as unique for that purpose). The inbred mechanic counts only 5 generations back, so it is pretty much possible to broaden the number of ancestors again, even without decision generated characters but its even easier with them.

I considered that when I edited my post to mention presenting a debutante, forgot to edit that part as well. Didn't know it was only 5 generations back though.