BW to the rescue
I am thinking i might have to write a tutorial about family trees and how to operate them to the max, as i know a lot about their mechanics.
Here is a short asnwer to the main question - if you get a daughter born reload to your newest save that isnt the autosave(it saves the game on the beginning of the new turn) which is hopefully the previous turn, move some agents around to "shuffle" the game and you might just get a son, i ussualy dont use this method as it takes ages for you to get what you want(daughter or son), but in your case i strongly reccomend it.
This in fact, is nessecarry for you to continue the "Of Greek Blood" trait line if you choose to play with the Laskaris family tree, because the starting co-emperor isnt Theodoros's son, he is a guy who married his 1st daughter, but for some reason he dosent get the "Wife is Greek" trait, so the son has no "Of Greek Blood" trait, and you can only continue it by marrying the second Theodoros's daughter to the son of the Co-emperor(or to be simple what you did there).
Not really, the sons and daughters too(should the married general become FH or FL) from these marriges still produce "Of X blood" traits, and if you married a, for exapmle Genoeese male FM to your Byzantine daughter and "stole" him sucsessfully their sons and daughters will get two "Of X blood" traits because the game automatically "prefers" your factions blood trait, but for some reason it dosent ignore the other factions blood trait and so the children get both. I have never got a triple "Of X blood" trait because i havent tried or the game hasnt allowed for it to happen(the married couples male didnt become a FH or FL).
Then you better make it count using the method i game at the start of the post with reloading and "shuffling" the game. It might not be considered "legit", but if you need to get it done, it gets it done.
Actually if you look in carefully Alexios Komnenos isnt a general, he is a family member. The Byzantine late campaign has whole 3 family trees, 2 of them are hidden
The starting family tree is the Laskaris tree. The Laskaris were the rulers of the Empire of Nicaea, i wont go in much detail, you can read more in wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_I_Laskaris and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laskaris
The only Komnenos on the map was the ruler of Trebizond which declared independace a few weeks before Constantinople fell -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexios_I_of_Trebizond and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komneno...oi_as_Emperors (read both as Emperors and The later family section).
The Doukas were the ruling family in Desporate of Epirus(western Greece)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doukas
You can "change" the family trees, but this is one of those things that i do not know that much of, the main goal of this is to kill all male FM's from one family and it will change to another family tree, i do not know if this is can be done multiple times by having some male FM's that have not come of age yet. Also, ive read about one family taking power suddenly when playing Byzantine late campaign, so you might want to kill off the other 2 unwanted families off, so you dont get family trees jumping(altroguh it is a quite realistic depiction of what the Byzantines political situation was like
)
In this specific situation (Byzantine late campaign) you can choose between the 3 families, the hardest one to do the "takeover" with is the Komnenos tree, but it is quite a historic family, so i would choose them.
Since he is 39 at the start of the game and unmarried, he only has 6 years to make some kids quickly(i think, im not 100% sure that you cant have kids after 45 trough). To pull this off you must cheat a little - use "character_reset "Name_Surname"" (without the second quotes around the whole command) to get him to Nicaea in one turn and marry the Laskaris daughter to him(it is important to marry him BEFORE he becomes the faction leader, after he becomes the FL he cant be married by her for some reason), this will ensure that their sons and daughters get the "Of Greek blood" trait, which again is missing from Alexios for some reason.
After that is done merge Theodoros with the Co-emperor(forgot name), it is important to do so becsuse the Co-emperor has some random surname which you cant check so it means you cant use character_reset on him. After that is done, you might transfer some ancillaries from them to Alexios(i dont think there are any unless you are playing submods like next heir ancillary, but it respawns, so you can even not bother with it).
Then just suecide charge them into a large Turkish or crusader army and realize just how awesome the Byzantine bodyguard is
, i killed 70% of the army thats next to Nicaea at the start of the game with only 1 bodyguard! You must kill the Doukas too to ensure a safe rule for the Komnenos, i suggest meeting up all 4 of them and attack the crusader rebel stack thats near Athens.
You can also do a take over with Doukas which is a bit easier because the older one is married already and the younger one was 29 - plenty of time to make children, just follow the same steps as with Komnenos(marry the younger one with the daughter as he also dosent have the "Of Greek blood" trait, i also suggest moving them to Nicaea and giving up on western greece.
If you just want a safe rule for Laskaris family with no family tree jumping, just dont marry the other families family members(you get offers for marrige for them strangely enough)
You might also consider killing the oldest Doukas, as he is married and can have children IIRC because he is not 45 at the start of the game, if he is over 45 he is safe to keep
A general recruited from a citadel or fortress is just that: a general, he dosent belong to your family tree, but you can adopt him because "he has sown his skills on the field of battle", so it is the same as adopting, except you already have the guy on your strat map. I generally dont train generals at castles because i believe(not 100% confirmed) that they add to the number of family members your faction has, thus reducing the chances of your real and married FM's to have kids(might explain the reducing amount of marrige offers you get in late game, you just have too many generals).