Prevent ingame incest!

Or implement possible defects, like Crusader Kings has with the production of heirs. INBRED as a weakness of sorts given to children of said unions.

That's royalty for you. Got to keep the bloodline pure.

That actually sounds kinda cool really. But I thought the idea was your a band of superhuman demigods so wouldn't inbreeding be one of those "Mortal" problems?

Incest? You mean Wincest Anyways it typically royalty

Yeah, royalty.  That makes historical sense.  Sorry.

BTW, interesting flavor note, I like how if you try to arrange a marriage between two kids of the same sex, the other Sovereign objects "but that arrangement won't produce any heirs!" :P 

LOL bigots! Should we sue for discrimination practices?!?! LOL a same sex marriage used to increase diplomatic prestige or something...

I just like how deadpan it is.  Like, it's the dark ages, but they see no issue with you suggesting that kind of an arrangement at all except that it won't produce kids

Interestingly, that was probably the most politically correct reaction the Stardock could possibly have given them.

I'm sure they don't object to same-sex relationships, just to same-sex marriages. Ancient Greeks actually had a similar stance on marriage: Greek men would marry Greek women for procreation purposes, but ended up romancing Greek boys. Meanwhile, the wives would take on female lovers of their own. Nobody objected to this practice, so long as marriages created heirs.

Crimes against nature ftw?!?!?! (only if she's hot :P)

Haven't seen it yet, but apparently Fable 3 has a system where one can enter into a same sex marriage and then adopt their bloodline.  Since I prefer to play with a female avatar, I thought that option was appealing.

nothing wrong with ingame incest

Now that I come to think about all that... All women in my family are rather hot.... mmmh...

AAA Disturbability rating ftw. 

Inbreeding amongst royalty has a very long tradition.  Egyptian Pharaohs often married their sisters.  In Europe, hemophilia was common among many royal families.  The inbreeding cause the recessive gene for this to present as both parents had it.  The child ended up being a 'bleeder.'  (Wounds don't heal, or heal v e r y slowly.)  I don't know it this is where the expression "blue bloods' comes from. But it does explain why so many royals were insane. 

Seconding ElanaAhova. Incest was common as daylight back in the day. This is more like a feature than something that needs to be removed.

Do none of you find it just slightly disturbing how okay we all seem to be with this?

I, for one, oppose the idea, albeit on a purely biased and non-objective basis.

Sure, it's got the whole 'Realism' thing going for it...  But even that's half-assed in this regard.  Coming from a purely objective, game-play-related standpoint here, I have a couple ideas on the subject.

First off, give players a disincentive to inbreed.  Inbred children should have a trait.  First option to this end would be the trait 'Inbred,' which gives penalty(s) of some kind.  Exactly what, I can't say, nor do I want to even try.  Usually I'm all for examples and stuff, but I just spent a little over 9 hours finishing the current portion of my fan-fic and can't be bothered to think much harder than that.
Anyway, back on topic here...  Second way to do this would be to give Inbred children a trait, but NOT the 'Inbred' Trait.  ElanaAhova alluded to Inbred Royals having Hemophilia.  Give the kid a trait like that.  You could include any amount of traits, drawn from the wide variety of well-known side-effects of inbreeding.  Hemophilia itself could be one of them, and an (easy) example of what it would do is, "Damage taken takes N times as long to heal."  I can't say I'm exactly familiar with any of those oh-so-well-known side-effects so I can't give any more examples, but now you've got a jumping-off point.

Second, alongside either implementation of first idea...  Give an incentive to Inbreeding.  First, we'd need to change the 'Royalty' Heroes so we could instead give it to inbred kids.  Or, just give another trait that has the potential of making inbred kids worthwhile, whatever seems best here.

But I digress...  NO MORE VIDEO GAME INCEST!  =P

Only once it is possible to marry your children to champions. Otherwise it is kind of difficult to avoid due to limited prospects for marriage.

There is enough genetic diversity between first cousins to keep marrying cousins together for 10 generations before even the slightest defects start to emerge.  It's only really a problem for immediate family.  Or, like the European Aristocracy, when you do it for 200 years.

First cousins are not safe.  Safer than siblings, yes, but not safe.  It's like blowing through stop signs in light traffic.  You probably wont get hit.

If incest in a medieval game setting freaks you out, you have mental problems.  It's not real.

Due to defections, I was able to marry off two siblings. I did it just to see if I could, but didn't want to wait long enough playing the game to see their children. One issue this brings up, however, is the need to be able to get more information about the heirs when offering them for marriage.

I sense one of the underlying concerns for some players is the game's respect (or lack thereof) of our modern taboo regarding incest.  This modern taboo is appropriate IMHO.  But deciding which 'evil' or 'good,' as modern western societies define them, the developer permits to exist in a fantasy game, is a fuzzy area. 

Some people role play evil SOV's who do human (sentient) sacrifices (in one mod).  Should we remove evil from the game?  Some players send their troops to their deaths over resources, or spite, or revenge. Most of us, in RL, would agree that these are not good motives for sending the sons (and daughters) of the poor and middle classes off to wars in foreign lands.  But we do it, as SOP in EWoM.  Where do we draw the lines?  What is, or isn't permitted? 

I empathize with players that have ethical concerns regarding behavior permitted in the game. I'm just not sure where to draw the line.

But just because something is legal, that doesn't necessarily make it fair, or just.  Just because a particular act is possible to do in EWoM, that doesn't force the player to actually implement such acts.  

All the defense of incest is ****ing gross guys.  Are you all head-****ed or something?  Good lord, ****ing your sister is wrong, and making babies with her is extra wrong.  End of the story.  This game isn't a damn history lesson, it's fantasy, and if you want incest in your fantasy, you are ****ing sick.  Please no incest, and please let us marry children to champions. 

He says while playing a game where you can, instead of nailing the little sister, nail the not even human neighbors instead...

Just think, you can ride your high horse(I'll be on one too if I can be bothered with noticing them) and kill all the sick fucks in the game.  I do it in the TW games.  All the sexually deviant bastards my kings spawn in MTW2 go through the meat grinder asap.  Occasionally the sacrificial lambs even survive long enough to leave me with a hellishly tough unit when they're gone.  It's not very satisfying when the prince that likes little boys is instrumental in defeating the enemy army, but I can live with that.

No one is suggesting you shag your sister, well, someone probably will since you're so excitable over the issue, but whatever.

Then we should have more options than just the royalty for our sions to pick from (which was the main cause of incest historically). Until then not only is it allowed, but it is encouraged.

Allow Royals to marry Champions.

Add a functional Dynasty System.

The end.

As a possible added effect ... penalty for losing your Sovereign (and switching to a successor) could be losing a few of your best spells (having to re-research them)  ... or a couple spells from each tier ... combined with a temporary loss of prestige in all cities.

However, if the Sovereign died naturally, (aka not in Combat) such penalties would not occur.