Heir Apparent

[astounding]

In Rome Total War players were allowed to choose who among their characters would inherit the throne. Is there such a thing in M2TW? Is there some program or mod that I can download that will allow me to choose whome I wish to pass the crown to?

If not what are some thoughts on marriage and succession .........? I would like to hear some of your favorite traits or toons that were birthed from proposing this marriage or that...this could even be stickied, if the moderators allow. I'd be down for some family tree type stuff. lol. Either way, thanks in advance!

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

In Stainless Steel, the heir, unfortunately may not be chosen. I heard tell that not being able to is hard coded. If it can be done then I'm sure someone has a sub-mod for it. Alas, I'm bathed in ignorance as usual so I shall let folks in the know, discuss it with you...

Welcome to the TWC Forums astounding, I hope you enjoy your stay with us...

[astounding]

Thanks mega, that's an awfully nice welcome. I understand, I was just curious about the whole thing. Can't tell you how many times I've had a king or prince and I wanted a different one! Grrr...

[0N3]

What annoys me the most is when my king gets a son, but the game still give it to some random "noble", as i call them.

[astounding]

hrm, been about four or five months since I've played a campaign, my hardrive decided it needed a sabbatical so I had to replace it, just now getting around to reinstalling everything. M2TW for sure. Don't remember that happening.

I just want to say, okay...this dude is the kings blood, he's got good traits, ...plink....I name him heir.

[Kulgan]

If you don't like your King/Heir simply get them killed in battle. The less family members you have the more adoption offers etc you will receive, so just let your Heir die untill you have the one of your choice.
Yes this is not ' realistic ' but hey, it's a game right.

[NewUser]

Adoptions are bad. If you look at the traits guide http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/dos...e/931592/50116 you can see that it's more likely for the bad skills to take place when you adopt than if you came of age. Plus, if your heirs or king died than the adopted general becomes king. This usually has an adverse effect on your country since my adopted generals usually are dread and bad administrators.

My advise for good generals is to release prisoners, tax high, win lots of battles with the character, marry high charm princesses (use spies to scout or toggle_fow), and build good education buildings.

[gdo0d6]

Adoptions are bad. If you look at the traits guide http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/dos...e/931592/50116 you can see that it's more likely for the bad skills to take place when you adopt than if you came of age. Plus, if your heirs or king died than the adopted general becomes king. This usually has an adverse effect on your country since my adopted generals usually are dread and bad administrators.

My advise for good generals is to release prisoners, tax high, win lots of battles with the character, marry high charm princesses (use spies to scout or toggle_fow), and build good education buildings.

So what? Most of these bad traits are visible when you adopt the general so you can easily choose not to adopt him. When a general comes of age, no choice is given and you are stuck with the bad traits unless you reload to an old save. This is likely the reason that family generals have less immediate bad traits.

In the end, adoptions are not that bad and family generals do not have that many advantages over adoptions. Take advantage of the fact that you have a choice when you adopt someone and only pick the guys that are the cream of the crop. In the end, keeping the bloodline is only a limit you impose on yourself that the game certainly does not give a damn about and that barely makes a difference in terms of traits if you choose your adoptions wisely.

As for the actual topic, there is some research going on on how to select your heir in M2TW here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...authority+heir

The system is not yet perfected and still has a degree of randomness but the gist is this: If you king dies, the faction heir will become king and if he has no children, the man in your family with the highest authority will be come the new faction heir. If the faction heir dies, the man with the highest authority will NOT always become the new heir.

[Sir Walter]

So what? Most of these bad traits are visible when you adopt the general so you can easily choose not to adopt him. When a general comes of age, no choice is given and you are stuck with the bad traits unless you reload to an old save. This is likely the reason that family generals have less immediate bad traits.

In the end, adoptions are not that bad and family generals do not have that many advantages over adoptions. Take advantage of the fact that you have a choice when you adopt someone and only pick the guys that are the cream of the crop. In the end, keeping the bloodline is only a limit you impose on yourself that the game certainly does not give a damn about and that barely makes a difference in terms of traits if you choose your adoptions wisely.

As for the actual topic, there is some research going on on how to select your heir in M2TW here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...authority+heir

The system is not yet perfected and still has a degree of randomness but the gist is this: If you king dies, the faction heir will become king and if he has no children, the man in your family with the highest authority will be come the new faction heir. If the faction heir dies, the man with the highest authority will NOT always become the new heir.

I think the heir's eldest son becomes the next heir.

[gdo0d6]

I think the heir's eldest son becomes the next heir.

That's why I stated that he must have no children for the authority effect to take over.

[Sir Walter]

That's why I stated that he must have no children for the authority effect to take over.

And I stated that to clarify the normal procedure

I think konny's tutorial has been referred to several times in the course of this thread now (I knew of it myself but had forgotten the location), perhaps this should be closed with a decisive end post from Caesar or someone

[Sir Walter]

What annoys me the most is when my king gets a son, but the game still give it to some random "noble", as i call them.

Well, if they've been adopted then they do have a legitimate claim to the throne. Unfortunately, the only way to change the heir is for the heir to die, but I think if a regent becomes King then the actual heir has to be the next one, once he's come of age. Oh, and you can't be the heir until you're 14. Also, the heir is chosen on Authority to some degree, so if you give your potential heir traits like "Political Animal" which only affect Authority he's more likely to become the next one.

[bɑne]

I can recommend Setting Heirs to your preference

[JorisofHolland]

Making a +10 Authority ancillary would allow you to pick the Heir's heir. But no more than that.

[Sir Walter]

Making a +10 Authority ancillary would allow you to pick the Heir's heir. But no more than that.

I think konny's solution was to make a +10 Authority trait called NextHeir which disappeared upon the character becoming heir

[Mr. Tornado]

Does authority really matter? Doesn't the king's son automatically become heir apparent? (IIRC, in medieval times, kings were chosen by blood and luck, not by compentance. Henry VI of England, people. He messed up the kingdom so badly he started a small civil war.)

[JorisofHolland]

Authority is what pick the next heir. Konny's solution was making an inheritable series of traits that make the sons of a King/Heir always the best option.

[bɑne]

Authority is what pick the next heir. Konny's solution was making an inheritable series of traits that make the sons of a King/Heir always the best option.

He indeed starts out working with traits as the basis of his tutorial.
The solution with an authority ancillary is discussed a few posts later in konnys tutorial thread:

People are always asking if you can choose your own faction heir, like in Rome. So with this discovery, would that work with a transferable ancillary that gives a large authority bonus?

yes, a yes or no script how DHHR did with there ranks, however you would have to choose the heir in advance, so you can only choose it before they are actually heir

Yes, that's the basic problem with the entire heir concept in M2TW: You cannot change the heir once he was picked by the engine. So you need to create an envoirement in advance under which the engine always picks the right one.

A typical problem can be when the desired heir(s) are all under-age. A transferable ancillary could be a sollution here so that you could give it to an elder FM who has no chance of becoming faction leader, unless the leader died in battle, but just keeps the stool until the desired heir comes of age.

It might be easier to implement as I think there already is a rarly appearing ancillary "kingmaker" in the game files.
Add +10 Authority to his stats like Joris wrote and remove every other bonus effect for this ancillary, then remove all triggers for this ancillary and then add this kingmaker ancillary with cheats into your game. As long as the kingmaker is carried by a family member it should pass to him the next time the game has to chose a new heir. Which means you still might have to kill 1 or 2 of your royal family.

[Sir Walter]

It might be easier to implement as I think there already is a rarly appearing ancillary "kingmaker" in the game files.
Add +10 Authority to his stats like Joris wrote and remove every other bonus effect for this ancillary, then remove all triggers for this ancillary and then add this kingmaker ancillary with cheats into your game. As long as the kingmaker is carried by a family member it should pass to him the next time the game has to chose a new heir. Which means you still might have to kill 1 or 2 of your royal family.

I miss Medieval I... you could assassinate your own people back then

[JorisofHolland]

Bane: It sounds preferable over killing all of them, in my humble opinion.