Either M2TW or EB II (probably both of them) really, really hates family dynasties

[Roma_Victrix]

This is something I've noticed in EB II and other M2TW mods and I guess it is built into the hard-coded game itself (not sure about that, since I haven't played vanilla M2TW for about a decade now). The game simply loves to try and screw over your plans to maintain a consistent patrilineal dynasty. It's something I noticed right away in Stainless Steel, which was easy to avoid if you could marry royal princesses to members of your faction leader's immediate family that held the same surname, to ensure that they had a wife and future offspring. Otherwise the game gets cheeky and tries to marry off any other "family member" who's been adopted or is the offspring of a daughter and an in-law with a different surname. Meanwhile, your core dynastic family dies off without any marriages after a certain number of turns.

In EB II this is a somewhat serious issue since there are trait bonuses involved with maintaining a consistent dynasty of faction leaders and heirs. For instance, the "ethnicity" trait called "PergamonAttalides" for the Pergamon faction. This is essentially the Pergamene royal family, not so much an actual "ethnicity" like the others for that faction (e.g. "Hellen," "Makedon," "Perses", "Mysios", "Lydios", "Xenon", etc.). This trait provides both a piety and an authority bonus.

It is actually quite useful considering how serious bribery and rebellion is in EB II, especially with the new campaign script making things very challenging. Your faction leader needs all the authority bonuses he can get outside of doing the obvious of winning battles and scoring diplomatic deals to increase his prestige (I learned recently that this is another way to increase their authority...carrot and stick approach for your enemies and allied friends). "Piety" is also the equivalent of "influence" in this game, the number of green laurel wreaths a family member has in the status bars. Influence is incredibly important because it is the chief method of spreading your culture to conquered settlements and regions, by placing governors with a great deal of influence there. Increasing your faction's cultural presence (such as "Hellenistic polities" or "Western Mediterranean Polities" or "Urban Tribal States" etc.) ultimately effects public order and the ability to hold onto captured settlements lest they rebel against you.

Essentially, the game is trying to weaken the authority and influence of your faction leaders and their future heirs by toppling the original royal dynasty and producing a line of heirs without this solid trait advantage. This wouldn't be a problem in Stainless Steel, as I mentioned before with the princesses, but in EB II there is nothing you can do about it! You just have to sit there and take it like a good girl, while the game bends you over a barrel and shatters your manhood with devastating pelvic thrusts. Short of cheating and giving your faction leaders a bunch of positive traits, you're basically bound to have mediocre or crappy ones unless you try harder to cultivate them by having them win tons of battles and hoping that they receive good governing traits by building certain buildings in cities where they are placed as governors (which obviously doesn't always work).

So, what can be done about this? Nothing? Is there some sort of mechanic like the princess agent that can ensure your dynasty lasts for a whole campaign? My Attalid dynasty for Pergamon lasted until the 130s BC, which isn't bad considering the game started in 272 BC, but still, it's annoying moving forward (I'm currently at the year 88 BC). Now I have a new dynasty, the "Salaminios" family of Hellens (i.e. native Greeks).

[Dooz]

Yup, there's a good chance my patrilineal dynasty is about to break, and I'm not nearly as far along as you (186 BC). I got a 35 year old unmarried king (to be fair, he's been fighting abroad since he was 20 with only a one year break somewhere in there) and his 28 year old unmarried brother heir on campaign, at least another 3 or so years out from being back in civilization and able to even think about family. Though there are still other family members who bear the Antigonides surname, it wouldn't be a direct line anymore if something doesn't happen to change this in time. And I've lost several Antigonides lines over the years through lack of marriage or children. I was wondering if there was any console command or other tweak that might allow for manual marriage, but doesn't seem like it.

[YourMadDoc]

I very rarely see a FM to end education unmarried. If you want a line, you should secure line first and make a war hero later. Even as 35 yo he still can get married.

After 100 years as Nabatu I had full army of "second sons" FMs to autoresolve battles. They were breeding like rabbits. And I lost 3 generals in first 3 years, only king and heir left, so my family tree was full of purebloods.

Maybe you are just pulling shorter straw. Not all dynasties last forever. Well none of them do...

[Dooz]

I very rarely see a FM to end education unmarried. If you want a line, you should secure line first and make a war hero later. Even as 35 yo he still can get married.

And so he did, not long after arriving back at the capital in his late 30's. Then his brother a couple of years later, and now they both have beautiful bouncing baby boys to their name. They were both "educated" in Sparta until turning 20, and circumstances didn't allow for sitting around looking for womans at the time, but luckily it worked out.

Now I don't know what to do about the FL's brother being the heir and not his son when he comes of age, the line of kingship is going to switch to the bro's kid, probably even with the "potential successor" choosing method, or even if that worked it might be weird having the king die, his brother become king, then the dead king's son becoming next leader instead of the son of now-current leader.... it's all very confusing, I'll just have to come up with roleplay justifications and Makedonian political intrigues to smooth it out.

[YourMadDoc]

And so he did, not long after arriving back at the capital in his late 30's. Then his brother a couple of years later, and now they both have beautiful bouncing baby boys to their name. They were both "educated" in Sparta until turning 20, and circumstances didn't allow for sitting around looking for womans at the time, but luckily it worked out.

Now I don't know what to do about the FL's brother being the heir and not his son when he comes of age, the line of kingship is going to switch to the bro's kid, probably even with the "potential successor" choosing method, or even if that worked it might be weird having the king die, his brother become king, then the dead king's son becoming next leader instead of the son of now-current leader.... it's all very confusing, I'll just have to come up with roleplay justifications and Makedonian political intrigues to smooth it out.

20 yo is still too early to leave city I think. Although I remember that on sociology during my studies at university teacher said something about Spartans had some issues with birth rate. It was connected to men spending youth in military and women enjoying freedom and general high social status rather than role of mother of five.

Anyway, now when you have a legitimate heir, dear king's brother can have unfortunate "incident" when he will be ambushed by rebels only with his bodyguards to defend him . I can't even say how many incidents my royalty had in court intrigues. You win or you die.

[Dooz]

I'll admit to having used the kill_character console command earlier in this campaign when a FH died and his son wasn't of age yet, so switched to a character that was in family by marriage. Once that son came of age though, that heir was assassinated in classic Makedonian fashion... I think I prefer that method to simulate assassination instead of the alternative of sending out to die on a fleet or outnumbered on land or whatnot. Though not sure I'll employ that here as the broski might actually be a more capable leader... anyway, I'll have to wrap my head around the roleplay logic of whatever decision is to come, but at least I now have some options and they both continue the dynasty for the time being.

[Cryoshakespeare]

Maybe if someone modded a way to give a character maximum infertility, which would mean that you could get wives for the various FMs ancillary to your main dynasty, but that they'd never reproduce (maybe for RP simulation, it's that those people simply weren't important enough to have a heritable right to power/influence). Then your dynasty could continue reproducing, and huzzah. Would that work? Could that be implemented?

[Paltmull]

Maybe if someone modded a way to give a character maximum infertility, which would mean that you could get wives for the various FMs ancillary to your main dynasty, but that they'd never reproduce (maybe for RP simulation, it's that those people simply weren't important enough to have a heritable right to power/influence). Then your dynasty could continue reproducing, and huzzah. Would that work? Could that be implemented?

I'm pretty sure you can do that through console. give_trait "character name" infertile 3 or something...

[Roma_Victrix]

I'm pretty sure you can do that through console. give_trait "character name" infertile 3 or something...

Exactly, although I would prefer to avoid cheating in that way during a campaign. Seems to be the only option, though.

[QuintusSertorius]

Yeah, that would be a pretty simple mod, or something you can do with console commands.

If you wanted to mod it, you could make a script, like the successor script, that asks you if someone is in the dynastic line. Everyone you nominate in that line gets a trait which boosts their fertility; everyone you say isn't gets a trait that nullifies it.

[Laser101]

Does anyone know why CA made it so that faction heirs can't be changed, even by script?

[Sarkiss]

Does anyone know why CA made it so that faction heirs can't be changed, even by script?

yes, strategic omissions - to reintroduce it in later titles as "a new feature".

[Roma_Victrix]

yes, strategic omissions - to reintroduce it in later titles as "a new feature".

It's a premium, high quality, deluxe, prestige, free-home-trial, money-back-guarantee Europa Barbarorum II DLC.

Some assembly is required and some restrictions apply.

[Seimour]

It's a premium, high quality, deluxe, prestige, free-home-trial, money-back-guarantee Europa Barbarorum II DLC.

Some assembly is required and some restrictions apply.

May the spirit of Georgivs Carlinvs be with us.