No sex please we're British!

[Marto]

Hello everyone,

I'm sexually frustrated, well more accurately my heirs are.

Having played about a hundred years of the grand campaign I realised that through various mishaps, deaths, and poor heir management that I had no chance of getting a King with English blood ever again. I don't want to be in a situation where a mere Regent runs my Empire so I returned to an early save and planned again to make sure I always had a King of true blue blood.

However, after a couple of years of playing the old save I can't get my heirs to breed, or even meet women it would seem. I have four heirs 'Of English Blood', one in his 40s who has only produced girls, one in his 30s who hasn't met the right woman, and two in their twenties who seem a little shy too. As such it seems I'm destined to end up with a Regent as an heir again!

Question is, how on earth do you get them to marry and have kids (sons)? It's rattled me that much I've even considered using a cheat < shudder > to ensure my line continues.

And yes, I have checked the traits and there's nothing in there that reads that they are limp-wristed - or limp elsewhere ... In fact the guy in his 30s even has the trait 'Fertile'. I just need him to use 'it'.

Please help. Thanks.

[Caesar Clivus]

This has been answered a few times before. There is a set number of family members:regions controlled ratio. Conquer a few more regions and you'll get some births/adoptions.

[Marto]

This has been answered a few times before. There is a set number of family members:regions controlled ratio. Conquer a few more regions and you'll get some births/adoptions.

OK thanks, but I don't want adoptions because they're not guaranteed to have English blood, and the three heirs who I want to produce sons haven't even met a woman yet...

Also, by your reasoning does that mean if I marry-off my existing princesses, and they have kids (not of english blood) with some other character, I'm even less likely to have my bloodline heirs produce kids - due to the ratio?

Cheers

[Caesar Clivus]

OK thanks, but I don't want adoptions because they're not guaranteed to have English blood, and the three heirs who I want to produce sons haven't even met a woman yet...

Well you don't have to accept adoption opportunities. Just keep knocking them back until your heirs get married and have kids. If your direct heir is still unmarried, find a faction with a princess and send a diplomat to get them married.

Also, by your reasoning does that mean if I marry-off my existing princesses, and they have kids (not of english blood) with some other character, I'm even less likely to have my bloodline heirs produce kids - due to the ratio?

I'm not certain actually. When they marry into another faction, do they disappear from your family tree? It's been a while since I've had time to actually play rather than mod this game

[Marto]

Well you don't have to accept adoption opportunities. Just keep knocking them back until your heirs get married and have kids. If your direct heir is still unmarried, find a faction with a princess and send a diplomat to get them married.

I'm not certain actually. When they marry into another faction, do they disappear from your family tree? It's been a while since I've had time to actually play rather than mod this game

Hi, thanks again. Problem I have is that my direct 'Of English Blood' heir is already married but has only produced daughters (so is unlikely to have any more kids as he's already had three). The other 'Of English Blood' potential heirs - presuming the title will always pass to English blood first - are not yet married so my only option (as no brides are being presented for them) is to wait and hunt down foreign princesses for whoever becomes the heir next when the standing heir (with all his daughters) dies. In fact if I killed him off it might help! .

On your second point, my experience is that when you marry-off your princesses they either bugger-off entirely with the foreign general, and her picture goes grey and she has 'disgraced' under her name (thus disappearing from your tree), or the foreign general joins your tree with her as wife and they have kids with the trait 'English relations'. However, if these kids become heirs they will only ever be a 'Regent' due to the foreign blood. Because of this effect marrying your princesses off isn't a way of getting heirs 'Of English Blood'.

So.... in other words my only option is to take more provinces to increase the ratio you mentioned, then hope brides are presented so my pure-bloods can marry and get on with having kids 'Of English Blood', OR send countless diplomats out to hunt down a suitable foreign bride when a new heir 'Of English Blood' eventually results....

Jeez!

[moosey]

THis is a point i had brought up a while back except my problem was almost only female kids.

here is a link to the thread,

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=171660

what i did was change the max number of children per general to 3 and reduced princesses retirement age to 20, that way youre generals have fewer children but more consistently, before when you did youre initial rebel land grab you would get lots of adoptions/kids which would all have a similar age, this surge which would usually go past youre number of settlements would mean that very few of these generals would actually have kids until you either gained more land or killed off other generals. with 3 kid limit, the growth i found was much more stable and the generals you got married would usually have at least one or two kids.

as for the princesses, putting their retirement age to 20 means that you no longer get loads of ugly 35 year old princesses cluttering up the family tree if you didnt want to marry them off, extra incentive is that once they retire they are removed from the family tree and so makes it possible for her parents to have another kid.

I hope this helped mate

[Marto]

THis is a point i had brought up a while back except my problem was almost only female kids.

here is a link to the thread,

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=171660

what i did was change the max number of children per general to 3 and reduced princesses retirement age to 20, that way youre generals have fewer children but more consistently, before when you did youre initial rebel land grab you would get lots of adoptions/kids which would all have a similar age, this surge which would usually go past youre number of settlements would mean that very few of these generals would actually have kids until you either gained more land or killed off other generals. with 3 kid limit, the growth i found was much more stable and the generals you got married would usually have at least one or two kids.

as for the princesses, putting their retirement age to 20 means that you no longer get loads of ugly 35 year old princesses cluttering up the family tree if you didnt want to marry them off, extra incentive is that once they retire they are removed from the family tree and so makes it possible for her parents to have another kid.

I hope this helped mate

A ha, cheers. Good solution actually, and still realistic.Unfortunately athough I love playing mods I've never actually done a little mod of my own so would need an 'Idiot's Guide' to modding in order to get it right.

The only other thing I thought of was to use the cheat (although I'm against cheating) where you make your heirs have Fertile x3 or something, but then I don't really undertsand what 'Console' means on the cheats page... Dur I know.

I like your reduction of princesses useful age. Makes a lot more sense as they're not great anyway and you already have diplomats for diplomacy. The marrying off thing just becomes an extra job that you don't really gain from unless you're desperate to poach an heroic general. I prefer to make my own!

Thanks for your help, +rep

[moosey]

there are quite a few tutorials out there but most of my modding is usually just editing game files etc so its pretty tame as long as you know what youre doing and always backup.

the link i sent you has got instructions on changing number of kids and princess retirement ages (both in the campaign_db file)

[Marto]

Yeah thanks I read that.

Did you say you can do it mid-campaign without it screwing-up your game? I'd like to retire a few princesses....

[moosey]

nah, im afraid those changes only apply to new campaigns.

what i usually do with my princesses later in the game is recruiting generals and if you have a good princess and a good general to marry them off together.

Generally myself to keep the bloodline and to avoid having too many useless generals making useless kids is to only allow children of kings or princes marry, this should mean that strange uncle cletus wont polute youre bloodline, lol. Also of course avoid marrying a particularly useless character, the ones with bad genetic traits like ugly or ignorant ones, etc... although you can still get good kids from uninhibited/embezzling ones as these traits arent passed on to the kids.

Ive done quite a bit of looking up on the family trees and stuff and have perhaps a bit of a genetically engineered ruling family in most of my games, lol.

[Marto]

Oh well, I'll refer back to this on my next campaign. Cheers.

Yeah I usually marry-off the princesses to decent generals and use them, and their offspring, in the more 'risky' battles because I don't really care if they get killed.

It's a bit elitist of me to demand heirs of English blood only I know, but it struck me that it's not right and proper to have some mere regent ruling your empire, lol

I wonder if you ever get 'Man of The Hour' generals, or just adopted generals, not to mention generals betrothed to your princesses, with the trait 'Of English Blood'. I know I never have... I'd also like to think that there was the facility later in the game for a 'rightful heir to the throne' to appear once all your 'Of English Blood' heirs have died-out. I used to love (but hated it when it happened to me) in original MTW that you could have a complete split within your faction when the family tree went in different directions and generals from one side rebelled. Great facet of the game.

[moosey]

yeah, i missed that too, but i guess that civil wars were easier to implement in mtw1 as every unit had its general whereas here you have much fewer named generals etc...

To be of English blood you must be realted to william the conquerer in this game. this pretty much means that they have to be in the family already.

I usually allow man of the hour generals as the way i see it they have earned their place in the family so i will let them have families and such.

[Marto]

I usually allow man of the hour generals as the way i see it they have earned their place in the family so i will let them have families and such.[/quote]

Ditto.

If a man stands up to be counted and wins a significant battle then he's earned the slot. It's got to be an impressive win or important strategically though, they're not just getting in willy-nilly...

Wish me luck with the bloodline, someone's going to be invaded. Tonight!

[Mune]

I have somewhat of the opposite problem on my current campaign as the English. I'm playing 'honourably' and keeping only family members with the English Bloodline trait around (any generals I had at the beginning decided they wanted to die valiantly by charging into some spears). So now I'm stuck with my about-to-die king and his only remaining son (his two brothers were lazy and insane, and also preferred to die on a spear). They have little kiddies, but it'll be a while before they reach breeding age.

Anyway, I do have something to add to the general conversation. Here's my general gameplan when it comes to keeping your bloodline, which requires careful planning and occasional compromise. Imagine you have a king, with two sons. These sons grow up and get married and have their own children. Once this generation grows up (still of English blood of course), I have the two sons children (cousins) marry each other (it happened fairly often back then anyway). This gives more of a use for your princesses (as your aiming for 50/50 male/female) and gives your male heirs traits depending on their wife's charm (which, with a little work, are often good traits).

The downside is that you are relying somewhat on chance, which is where the 'compromise' part comes in. For example, lets say your kings two sons produced more female than male children. You've now got some options, and here's how I make the choice (in general). If I have an ally, or would like to make one, I marry my extra princess(es) to their faction (after a bit of diplomacy to get charm up). If I desparately need another male, then they do have the option of marrying any general who offers, but unfortunately this dilutes your English bloodline. I haven't had to do so yet, but I think in this situation I might cheat a little bit and give their offspring the 'English Blood' trait, as the princess is of my royal bloodline anyway (they should have made the game work that way automatically, but oh well). If all else fails, then at least you have a free diplomat for a while, just let her grow up to be a nun. And if you have too many male children, pretty much the same options are available, but at the very least you have a spare general to work with.

Regarding the problem of having too many children (and not making new ones), the solution is as simple as weeding out the bad ones. As soon as one of my noble children comes of age, I check their traits to see if they are worthy enough to continue their existence. If they grow up and get too much into alcohol or women at the brothel, off they go to charge into some spears (let that be a lesson to the young ones, I say). Sometimes I need to compromise here too, as when you've only got a couple male heirs and one is crazy and the others lazy, maybe it'll be okay to let the lazy one live (just this once). You've just got to make sure that your family tree will have cousins around the same age, or this system is screwed and you'll be crawling with usurpers in no time (or just cheat a little).

[Marto]

Thanks for that, very useful story.

I didn't even know you could marry your princesses to their male cousins within your own family tree...

What's the mechanism for this? How on the campaign map do you 'introduce' your princess to one of your own generals?

I'd also forgotten about charming-up your princesses via diplomacy too - I just use diplomats - but does this matter if you're marrying within your own family tree? Surely they just say yes anyway?

[Mune]

Marto:

Yeah, pretty gross huh? It did actually happen historically though, so I'm glad they added the option to marry cousins. I don't see any other way to maintain a healthy bloodline for your faction over a lengthy period of time. They should have added the 'Of ____ Blood' trait to children with just one bloodline parent, but oh well.

To introduce your princess for marriage is the same, select your princess and mouse over where the target general is, it should say there is a potential suitor. Right-click, the usual option window opens, and you've got 100% chance of success.

Getting a higher charm rating for your princess via this method obviously doesn't help your odds of marriage (it's always 100%) but does give some nice traits to your generals. I almost always play diplomat-free, as each time I use a diplomat I feel like I'm missing out on a chance to gain charm on a princess. No princesses around? Oh well, that ceasefire and/or alliance can wait.

[Marto]

Marto:

Yeah, pretty gross huh? It did actually happen historically though, so I'm glad they added the option to marry cousins. I don't see any other way to maintain a healthy bloodline for your faction over a lengthy period of time. They should have added the 'Of ____ Blood' trait to children with just one bloodline parent, but oh well.

To introduce your princess for marriage is the same, select your princess and mouse over where the target general is, it should say there is a potential suitor. Right-click, the usual option window opens, and you've got 100% chance of success.

Getting a higher charm rating for your princess via this method obviously doesn't help your odds of marriage (it's always 100%) but does give some nice traits to your generals. I almost always play diplomat-free, as each time I use a diplomat I feel like I'm missing out on a chance to gain charm on a princess. No princesses around? Oh well, that ceasefire and/or alliance can wait.

Superb, I've got a charmless princess I've been trying to offload on some poor bugger for years now. She can damn well go and marry her cousin!

I may take your advice on the diplomat thing. It's a cash saving if nothing else, and those princesses might as well earn their silk bed sheets and tiaras...

Cheers!

[Mune]

Marry her to a cousin you don't like, or just let her become a nun. You'll get negative traits for your general if their wife has low charm. Too bad princesses can't be removed as easily as generals (there's never a short supply of spears to run into).

[Gorrrrrn]

I think the entire "Of English blood" type trait should be scrapped.
I can't see it adds anything to the game.

For the English it's a joke anyway -
William Duke of Normandy wasn't of "English" blood nor were his descendants.
Royal and noble families married for political and economic purposes, not to maintain spurious notions of pure blood lines.

Special prize for person who can name last "pure blooded" English monarch.

[Marto]

It's a valid point...