Sicily starting heir

[mattycraig1]

When starting a campaign as Sicily I noticed that the starting faction heir is acctually younger then his brother by a good 8 years? Is this intentional? surely it would be more realistic to have the eldest son as the faction heir?

[Kaidonni]

Well, it's rather awkward, as in Sicily's case, neither Simon or Roger (II) should be of age when they ascend to the throne. That's how it was in history. Roger I, their father died in 1101. Simon, born in 1093, ascended to the throne. However, he was not of age (~18), so his mother held the reins of power for him. He died in 1105, so Roger (II) became king (he was born in 1095). He only truly took over proper around 1112, when his mother left the kingdom.

The game can't mirror this, so I believe the intention was to have Simon older - like in real life, although in the game it's by more than 2 years - but not the heir. Roger II turned out to be a more significant ruler than Simon (it helped that he lived to about the age of 58 ), so he is the heir in the game.

In an ideal world, the game would reflect the idea of regency within kingdoms. Someone would defend the throne until the true heir came of age (in theory - a little spanner has to be thrown into the works now and then ). It's only my guess that they chose the ages and heir the way they did to reflect history just a little bit. I've modded my campaign so that Roger II (actually Ruggero in my game due to a names submod) is 16 to start with (as well as the heir), and Simon (Simuni in my case) is 14. I won't dare risk realistic ages if Roger I is 61 (he should be old - older, in fact; I think, perhaps towards 70). I like my campaigns lasting a bit longer than 5 or 6 turns...

[Fair Prince]

Kaidonni is right, this problem with Sicily was one of the main reasons why I chose a later start date for my historical characters submod.
In 1100 you simply can't be entirely accurate with family trees and character ages due to the game's limitations.