The Family Tree

[Arcani 4 Ever]

so, lets be honest, the family tree on Shogun sucked...anyone besides the main family is neglected by the family tree.

Probably, thats how it was in the Japanese Sengoku era, but on the Roman Republic times it wasnt like that...there was a lot of backstabbing, adopting, bussiness marriages, land repartition...and the most important part, the families had deep ties...specially in the Patrician families, which are most likely the ones we will play as...

I want the family tree to be similar to the original that was implemented on Rome Total War, being able to choose a heir, adopt generals as well as seeing the family of other close relatives.

the family tree on Shogun was so lame, that you could adopt your uncle...

[Maklodes]

(Note: My thoughts are largely a reproduction of a post on TotalWar.com.

Personally, what I'd like to see is for the "son = general, daughter = man-trap" assumption overhauled in favor of something more dynamic. For instance, maybe you have a son who turns out to be a terrible general but a fantastic diplomat. In that case, maybe you could force him to head a bodyguard and command an army, but it'd be a waste of his talent, because he'd be better negotiating treaties and bribing people. Maybe you could have a daughter who has an abrasive personality which tends to drive potential suitors away, but she turns out to be very deadly with a knife or bottle of poison, so she might make a good assassin.

Basically, "family member" should be a genetic link to the family, not an inherent type of position. You should have non-family generals, assassins, diplomats, and spies, and occasionally, you might have family generals, assassins, diplomats, and spies.

You could have a son who abhors violence and turns to philosophy. You think "that sucks" and stick him in some academy in Alexandria. Then he invents something cool like an ox-driven paddle-wheel ship (like that one in De Rebus Bellicis -- might be fantasy, but not totally crazy) that allows your navies to rule the seas!

Maybe on occasion your daughter might even be a good general -- although I think this should be a fairly rare occurrence among typically patriarchal societies like the Romans (maybe Britons have a higher chance, although still probably not as high as for sons).

An even more radical approach is not to have fixed "character classes" at all, but just different aptitudes. "Command" and "acumen" would be attributes, but so would "espionage" and "assassination." Your typical general will have very low scores for espionage and the like, and your typical spy would have very low command and such, so sending your general on a spying mission or having your spy lead a battle would be foolish, but it might be possible (this would require a bit of a seperation of bodyguards and characters -- if your family members is a good spy and a bad general, you'd have to get rid of his bodyguard, and have a corresponding reduction in cost).

[underworld965]

The reason you'd want a family member in command of the army is because you don't want a general gaining to much power then stabbing you. Also, I had a big problem in RTW. When I played as the julii, whenever I played for a decent amount of time, my main family just died off because they didn't have kids. I found this EXCEPTIONALLY annoying as i liked to pretend leadership passed through the family.

[Maklodes]

The reason you'd want a family member in command of the army is because you don't want a general gaining to much power then stabbing you.

Sounds like a possible reason for preferring family members (+loyalty?), which must be weighed against other factors such as tactical talent, logistical management ability, etc, considering that, in reality, it's not as if every Parthian general was a member of the Arsacid line.