Despite being a straightforward city management game, The Elder Scrolls: Castles features an intriguing marriage and romance mechanic that can result in either a nation of happily married couples or a web of love triangles and relationship dramas.
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New players should understand three fundamental aspects of romance in the game: how to get married, how to get a divorce, and how to cheat—or avoid cheating. Familiarity with these details will help The Elder Scrolls: Castles players navigate the romantic drama within the castle and use marriage as a means to produce powerful heirs for their nations. Here’s a guide on all that.
How to Get Married in The Elder Scrolls: Castles
To marry two subjects, you must first unlock the Shrine of Mara, which becomes available at Level Nine of the Dynasty Progress. This statute allows two subjects to become spouses. To initiate the wedding ceremony, you will need to manually assign two characters to the shrine.
Unlike games like Stardew Valley, The Elder Scrolls: Castles doesn’t require the two subjects you assign to marry to be lovers. While a character can have multiple lovers, they can only marry one. After marriage, if the wife or husband has children with an old lover or a stranger, their spouse will consider it cheating. However, if the children were born before the marriage, there would be no conflict between the spouses.
Rules and Limitations of Marriage
- Marriage in The Elder Scrolls: Castles is gender-inclusive, allowing same-sex subjects to marry and have children.
- Each subject can have only one spouse. As long as their spouse is alive, they cannot marry someone else, even if infidelity occurs.
- Marriage is not required for breeding. Lovers can have children without being married, but putting a married couple in the bedroom leads to offspring faster. Strangers, however, take more time in the bedroom to become lovers and reproduce.
Breeding in The Elder Scrolls: Castles is similar to babymaking in Fallout Shelter. If you've played Fallout Shelter, you're already familiar with the basic mechanics of producing offspring in this game.
How to Get a Divorce
The only way to get a divorce in The Elder Scrolls: Castles is by exiling one of the spouses. Otherwise, the couple will remain married, even if one has cheated. Unless you banish one of them, you won’t be able to arrange a new marriage for either party.
In my playthrough, I discovered that the Ruler’s wife had cheated on him, and I was given three options: 1) Do nothing, 2) Punish the wife, or 3) Fine the wife and her lover but let them remain in the castle. I chose the third option but found that I couldn’t have the king marry another woman. It wasn’t until I banished the betraying wife that I was able to assign a new queen to the kingdom.
How Cheating Works
Cheating occurs when a married subject or someone in a committed relationship has babies with another character.
As the Ruler, you can make a married subject or one in a committed relationship sleep with another character. Simply place them in the bedroom with another subject and wait for them to fall in love. It may take a few minutes for a romance to develop.
Cheating will hurt the betrayed spouse's feelings, potentially lowering their happiness level. It will also prompt a decision from the emperor, who can choose to banish, punish, or forgive the cheating spouse. Each of these decisions will have its own consequences.
Consequences of Cheating
- Forgiving a cheater will create enemies; the betrayed spouse may become vengeful if you choose not to intervene in the drama.
- Fining cheaters will lower their happiness level, but this can be offset later with happiness-inducing structures like the Music Stage.
- Banishing the cheater will remove one of your subjects. If the cheating party is a worker, you will permanently lose them and need to find a replacement.
The Elder Scrolls: Castles
- Released
- September 10, 2024
