Female ruler success??

[8-bit]

I haven't played through many games but the during the last one I was playing a female ruler and had no end of trouble from nobles and vassal general wanting me out because of my succession laws. Is it possible to play successfully as a female ruler?

[OldMemes.biz]

Some of my best rulers have been chicks.

[8-bit]

I was ruling Ireland and it all went very wrong, very quickly. :(

Was queen now Im a duchess. :(

[gghadur77]

Originally posted by 8-bit:

I haven't played through many games but the during the last one I was playing a female ruler and had no end of trouble from nobles and vassal general wanting me out because of my succession laws. Is it possible to play successfully as a female ruler?

It's extremely easy, what are you talking about?

Just take the seduction focus and get the lifestyle trait for it, instant +50 opinion with all your vassals until you turn 45. This more than outweighs the -10 female ruler opinion penalty you get in a realm without gender equal succession. It wears off once you're 45 but if you started as a woman in her late teens to early twenties, you should have enough other positive modifiers by this point in your rule that losing the attraction opinion bonus won't be a problem. Being able to have a net +40 opinion with all your vassals for 20-30 years makes playing as a woman actually easier than playing as a man in a realm with male-preference inheritance law.

If you don't have the Way of Life DLC, the only thing that's comparable is playing as an attractive woman, but attractive only gives +30 attraction opinion.

There are a couple major things to watch out for; if you keep these in mind you shouldn't have any problems.
- It might sound obvious but do NOT accidentally marry yourself non-matrilineally to someone! This is a minor inconvenience if you do it with your daughter but risks a game over if you do it with your character!
- You can't produce children and won't get attraction opinion modifiers once you turn 45 (it may actually be "once you are over 45," meaning once you turn 46, but I don't remember off the top of my head). You might want to marry your heir once she turns 30 to avoid the risk that she is too old to produce kids when you take over as her.
- You will get negative opinion with vassals if you have negative attraction traits; this also goes away once you're too old to have kids.
- You get an additional -10 opinion for having a female heir in a realm without gender equal succession. Playing as a woman with a female heir in such a realm gives you -20 opinion, which you might be ignoring if you have lots of attraction opinion bonuses but will bite you in the butt the moment you become infertile.
- It is harder to use the seduction focus as a means of minmaxing your heir. You are only able to produce one child at a time. You also are effectively restricted to seducing lowborn men; a noble man has the option of legitimizing your bastard child when it is born, which makes them eligible to inherit your titles but gives them his dynasty rather than yours. This is probably the only real consistent disadvantage of playing as a woman; if you use bastard legitimization to designate your heir you will have to balance this against the attraction opinion bonus when deciding whether you want your heir to be male or female. If you are trying to keep a positive congenital trait in your line of rulers it is probably better to play as male rulers exculsively (and to set the succession law to cognatic if you can, or otherwise ensure that as many of your vassals are female as possible).
- You can die in childbirth, and can randomly develop a disease after giving birth. This is not as bad as it sounds; in over 800 hours of playing, including a campaign of probably about 200 hours where I had almost exclusively female rulers with 8+ children each, I have NEVER had a ruler die in childbirth. Disease after giving birth is very common, but I have never had a ruler die from this type of disease either - except when it was cancer, because cancer lasts until you die from it. As far as I can tell you are way more likely to die in combat than to die in childbirth (or of a disease developed during childbirth) in CKII.

[Borsch]

yes. it is very easy. step 1) get gud. step 2) ??? step 3) profit.

[juan_h]

I don't have the Way of Life DLC but I usually manage just fine when I've got a female ruler. I have to work a little harder than I do when I've got a male ruler but it's not fundamentally different. If you can't cow your vassals through sheer military strength, then you may need to:

- Use your Chancellor to improve relations with your most powerful vassals

- Use your Spymaster to discourage plots

- Improve your vassals' opinion of you by giving out gifts and honorary titles

- Hold frequent feasts

- Make sure that you aren't holding counties or vassal contracts that belong de jure to your vassals

- Get a male heir if at all possible

Note that this is all stuff you should probably be doing anyway, even if you have a male ruler. It's just more important for female rulers because of the opinion penalties they get. The difference with playing a female ruler is, as gghadur77 says, matrilineal marriage. If you've got a female heir or even if there's a risk that you might end up with a female heir, then you want to make sure to arrange a matrilineal marriage for her to avoid a game-over. If you're an unmarried female ruler of child-bearing years (under 45), then unless you already have two or three sons (or your only son has multiple sons of his own) you should also make sure that your own marriage is matrilineal.

[8-bit]

Thanks. Still learning this game and there is alot I guess that is going over my head at the moment. When I checked my vassal's opinions they all pretty much said that they were not happy with my laws. In fact after they over through me they changed the succession laws.

I guess I might have held about 4 duchies which may have caused problems, not sure. Still, lesson learnt! :)

[Virsia]

one thing to be avoided if Playing female Ruler is not being Ugly, hold only 2 Duchy, and get married as fast as you can even with courtier preferably with lustful/hedonist or both and give birth of ♥♥♥♥ tons of children.

[galadon3]

Female Ruler in itself is just a -10 modifier, when you get negative attraction modifiers that is when having a female ruler really bites you, since those are applied to the other gender and usually most of your vassals will be male.
So hunchback, ugly, having an STD etc. can really make life hard.

The other problem is that weak claims can be pressed against a female ruler (unless you have full rights or women active in your realm wich also negates the -10 for female ruler or female heir)

[Mr_Faorry]

Female rulers are easier to play than males.
Just sleep with your entire council and they'll never vote against you, doing this you'll most likely get master seductress trait giving all your vassals an opinion boost of you (I think it's +30 but I could be wrong). Also if you have the attractive trait then that's an instant +30 opinion from all your vassals from the start. If some particularly powerful vassal is still giving you trouble sleep with them to so they get the opinion bonus for being your lover (+100 I'm fairly sure).

[8-bit]

Makes sense I guess, thanks. :)

[Montana]

Cathar. Problem solved.

Alternatively, improve laws for women.

But Cathar is really the only choice if you want to min/max.

[8-bit]

Ah, never considered that, thanks, but wouldn't it upset my vassals?

[OldMemes.biz]

Originally posted by 8-bit:

Ah, never considered that, thanks, but wouldn't it upset my vassals?

And cause Holy Wars...

[8-bit]

Oh! :(

[galadon3]

honestly converting to cathar to get rid of the small penalty for a female ruler is like you try to use a wild bear to get rid of that moskito in your room.