The M2TW Family Tree

[Marto]

Firstly I have been reading about this for hours using the search facility.... and yes, it appears that the Family Tree stuff is ring-fenced from modding, but what I don't get is the behaviour of the game in this respect, it doesn't seem to follow any logic!

Surely you'd assume and rightly expect that the heir in any medieval game would be the oldest male of the standing King - but no.... it jumps around your tree, according to what? I can't figure it out...

I have 42 provinces currently and have a wide family tree, i.e. four distinct branches from Billy the Conk back in 1080. I never accept 'adoptions' or 'man of the hour' offerings and don't get foreign generals married-in. As such the tree is pure family and had been growing pretty well from day 1. Better (more logically) than I've ever seen it in fact.

The problem is how do you keep it going? I assume the game writers intended that you'd be so busy fighting and having Generals killed that you'd have no choice but to accept adoptions and man of the hour Generals constantly and so your tree would just regenerate that way, but if you're a purist (or normal as I'd call it) and you turn all these things down, instead going for the eldest son - him having been groomed for leadership accordingly - in the end the tree just withers away. Currently I have about 6 Generals in their 40s unmarried, and I've had to rely on paying 20,000 to marry in a princess for my pensioned King in order to get more boys, and I have little faith in getting anymore.

The accepted story seems to be that you get more children for more provinces but frankly that is nonsense in my experience. It hasn't followed this rule in any of my campaigns as far as I can tell and I've played hundreds!

Does anybody know the actual metrics of the tree and how it decides what to do next?

[Inflatable]

Perhaps they can't get kids because they aren't married because you turn any offer down? You do accept women's offers right? otherwise it would be self-explanatory. No wife means no-one to produce kids with.

[Marto]

Perhaps they can't get kids because they aren't married because you turn any offer down? You do accept women's offers right? otherwise it would be self-explanatory. No wife means no-one to produce kids with.

Thanks for this ^^ but did you actually read the post?

I don't accept 'adoptions' or 'man of the hour' nor do I marry-in foreign generals.

If I've got to 160 turns with a huge family tree and 42 provinces though of course I accept marriage offers.

[Vaz]

The next in line to the King is what the game decides as heir. It;s impossible to change your heir other than through the death of the existing heir. However, you can "choose" which character becomes the next heir. In a standard family tree, to increase the chances of becoming an heir, you need to increase Authority. I'll find out a list of triggers for ancillaries when I get home which pertain to particular traits and ancillaries. In Teutonic, it's COmmand. You don't need my help to decide which of those.

Have youi been using your own princesses to Marry home generals as well - particularly disloyal ones.

Your "hundreds" of campaigns however, pales compared to the amounts of tests under controlled (and hence accurate) conditions of the modders. Many mods, including my own, have taken into birth based on the settlement ownership as the balancing factor, and it holds true.

[Marto]

Thanks for your input Vaz, my experience as you suggest is not under exam conditions and it is likely variable factors may come into play, but I regularly get to a point in a game following this strategy where I am spammed turn by turn with 'adoption' and 'man of the hour' requests (often completely unwarranted) instead of nature taking its course. Logic would dictate that a General would have children to populate an Empire but the game, for whatever reason, chooses not the birth route, but the external route - and for no clear reason.

The external route would make sense in a 'rush' - for example if I had just taken 10 provinces in ten turns but not for gradual expansion at a province every five or ten turns for example. That is the frustrating part, the fact that the game stops its rationale. 5 or 6 ageing Generals governing a large Empire would simply just take a wife and have kids.

What I have had to resort to is paying for brides when I have single King and/ or Heir and killing perfectly good Generals that the game has handed the heir to even though they are not 'blood'.

[Romanichine]

I never had family issues like yours in my numerous campaigns, but my family often get adoptions (I can't resist a good general when there's 0% chance that my family get bad traits from that adoption ). But I find very interesting the idea of playing a pure blood family and might try a new campaign to test it.

Congratulations on your old king getting a child by the way

As for your current family issues, I don't know. Owning 42 settlements and having birth rate issues does not make sense for a small family.

Could you post a screenshot of your family tree? I'd like to see it. Then maybe we can start theorizing why this is happening.

[Marto]

I never had family issues like yours in my numerous campaigns, but my family often get adoptions (I can't resist a good general when there's 0% chance that my family get bad traits from that adoption ). But I find very interesting the idea of playing a pure blood family and might try a new campaign to test it.

Congratulations on your old king getting a child by the way

As for your current family issues, I don't know. Owning 42 settlements and having birth rate issues does not make sense for a small family.

Could you post a screenshot of your family tree? I'd like to see it. Then maybe we can start theorizing why this is happening.

I'll give it a whirl maybe, but in a nutshell I have 7 Generals unmarried with no kids. My since dead King has three kids (two boys and a girl), the new Kind and his heir therefore are from the 7. I have one other who is married with a boy and a girl, and that is it.

Given the province rule I would have thought that 42 provinces would provide more kids.....

[Romanichine]

I'll give it a whirl maybe, but in a nutshell I have 7 Generals unmarried with no kids. My since dead King has three kids (two boys and a girl), the new Kind and his heir therefore are from the 7. I have one other who is married with a boy and a girl, and that is it.

Given the province rule I would have thought that 42 provinces would provide more kids.....

This explanation still does not give me a good idea on what your family tree looks like. I am interested to see how the tree was developed, how many girls are in it and where your current general are located on the tree.

Your problem is about kids, it's about getting your general married.

However, on birth rate, my experience tells me that getting children is not related to the number of provinces you control. More provinces may mean more adoption candidates, but I don't believe it affects children. Kids are not born generals and as such do not help with the general per province ratio. That's my opinion, from my play experience, but I have no real data to prove it.

Things like Vaz said have no bearing for me (I'm sorry Vaz, no disrespect meant). I think we both agree on the fact that a lot of legends and unfounded things are circulating about this game. Because of it, I will usually brush away so-called tests unless a good amount of work seems to have been put in them, something that a two-liner from Vaz does not provide. As such, his statement about birth rate being tied to settlement count is void to me.

To get back to your problem finding brides for your generals: I'm still interested to see a screenshot of your family tree.

[neha123]

How can you know the family tree of other factions in case you want your princess to marry one of the other factions blood.

[Emperor of The Great Unknown]

I usaully have a big problem with adoptions, and I try to keep the bloodline as pure as possible.

[Ishan]

How can you know the family tree of other factions in case you want your princess to marry one of the other factions blood.

There is no way to check that and besides it would be easy to eliminate the entire faction with assassins.
Though one can pop up a event via modding when ever a character comes of age in a particular faction.

[Emperor of The Great Unknown]

Well that won't really work since the AI, gets 80% of it's characters from magically promoting captians. If you saw an AI family tree it would be pretty jacked up, with almost no body carrying the original surname.

[Ishan]

Well that won't really work since the AI, gets 80% of it's characters from magically promoting captians. If you saw an AI family tree it would be pretty jacked up, with almost no body carrying the original surname.

Good point emperor but we can also make events for the adoptions that AI does. And we can even set a good age limit to the character like below 30 or something.

[Emperor of The Great Unknown]

Good point emperor but we can also make events for the adoptions that AI does. And we can even set a good age limit to the character like below 30 or something.

yeah but the AI doesn't 'adopt' as we think of it. Instead if the ratio to characters to regions is below 1:1, then captians automatically become family members.

[Creeds]

Is it possible to unlimit the family member number? Or to enable it to be wider than normal??

[Emperor of The Great Unknown]

You can get away with 6, but the last 2 children won't show up.

[Grouchio]

Can the HRE hold elections for a new emperor if an old line dies out?

[Mr. Shaboobies]

Hey there, I have never played M2TW before, but with my extensive RTW experience in family trees (I always make the eldest son the next heir, and as long as he has no heirs, his brother is. And if he dies without any sons, his brother's line becomes chosen, with his eldest son being heir etc, etc.) I have noticed that if someone marries but their spouse dies, they don't marry again. To get around having a bunch of unmarried princesses, accept the adoption requests but then immediately dispose of the despicable son in law by means of a suicidal charge in the next battle . Of course if characters remarry in M2TW then this wouldn't work. But I see this as a way of getting past your problem: No more adoption requests because all your ladies are "taken", or shall we say in... grieving.

EDIT: Oh and I noticed that it seems to be the generals with the highest command rating being the most probable candidate for becoming heir, at least in RTW.

[bitterhowl]

How can I decrease rate of adoption proposals?