Without mods, CK3 does allow for same-sex relationships, just not concubinage or marriage. Players had been getting around the former with mods, but patch 1.3 managed to entirely disable the method modders were using to do so. As for same-sex marriages, fans haven’t been able to create mods for those at all (which they could do in CK2). Paradox told RPS last month that the breaking of the concubine mod was “in no way implemented in order to deliberately bar players from including same-sex relationships in the game”. Now, in a new post on the Paradox forums, they’ve confirmed that a fix is on the way. “We said we were looking into it, and we did,” says a Paradox community manager. “So good news there: same-sex concubines should be moddable in the game in an upcoming patch prior to 1.4, and we should have same-sex marriage moddable by 1.4 if everything goes as planned.” They don’t provide any details on exactly when these patches will hit, though if they follow CK3’s previous patch timings, it could be another couple of months before it’s all sorted. In the meantime, modder “Waffle Ironer” has figured out a workaround, but it does involve messing with the CK3.exe. This is because the rules on which characters can marry who aren’t contained in the game’s script (which is pretty easily moddable) but in the game’s binary (which is not). Waffle Ironer shows all their workings in this blog post if you want to know all the detailed techy bits, though there’s a fairly simple explainer on how to alter your game too.
