Relations should matter more

[limber cave]

I think it would be great if in the game your spouse(s)/lover(s) and your friend(s) would be more than just pawns to be used and gain more stats.

For example, if you have a friend or a lover they could try and ask for a title or a court position for themselves or their family/friends even lover. Or your spouses could try to make their family members/friends/lovers prosper more and gain a better contract if they are vassals.

Maybe your spouses could try to be involved in your realm like eunuchs can in Byzantium.

One thing I would really appreciate would be a spouse fighting for their child to be on the throne with more than a rare event limited to rulers with multiple spouses at the same time. A second marriage and a new birth should still feel important as it was historically. To that effect, the new step-mother could try to redraw the map to get her child a better lot at the expense of other heirs like what happened with Charles the Bald or even with Louis VI the Fat and his brother with the help of his step-mother.

(Nice picture of Louis VI the Fat below)

[wanton cairn]

i second this, spouses in this game are basically just baby making machines, their interactions are so linear and have very few events involving them, when in reality spouses played a major role in the royal court

spouses did influence the decisions, alligning themselves with factions (not the ck3 factions) and nobles, maybe something like the byzantine court eunuch as mentioned above, but hopefully more in depth, just anything to remind me i have a wife

polygamous relationships more often than not end up in rivalries between other spouses, with one scheming against the other in favor of her son/heir or to get closer to the spouse they share, but in the game they dont even know each other or they sometimes even become friends, if you're lucky you get that one rare event where they're both arguing but nothing really comes out of it outside of a small negative opinion modifier

spouses also were bridges between different noble families, where you could communicate through them with the other dynasty, but in ck3 it doesn't matter if your spouse is the daughter of the holy roman emperor or a peasant from the hills, the only incentive is the military alliance (which lets be honest you don't even need past a certain point when you mastered maas and knights)

i really hope love & lust event pack makes a come back to add some depth to relationships, because so far lovers arent even worth it sometimes due to constant stream of blackmails while you get nothing out of it, no tradeoffs, not even a special interaction. and spouses are only good for creating babies and adding a flat bonus to your stats, outside of that they're characters you can literally just forget they exist and nothing will change in your gameplay

[limber cave]

@spiral compass Sorry for the ping but i don't want to hog the space over there lol. So i'm not saying theres no cases where their personality does matter but i really feel like it should matter way more. Like even with your example where you had a sadistic wife, it doesn't matter if she has a high enough opinion of you. Having a partner like this should probably cause more problem if not for you then for your realm. Like they could try to murder your other children or maybe your realm priest could try to interfere into your relationship. I guess my point is more that family should matter more and that the choices you take when you take a wife should probably be seen during all your life. Like an ambitious partner could try to put you in a regency or something like that(especially if lets say you are female in a religion dominated by men)