Can the ruling family line die out

[Perdiccas]

hi,

I'm playing as Makedonia... it's around 190 B.C.

the Argeades (ruling family) apparently do not spend much time with their wives (too much like Alexandros I guess), and rarely reproduce (even with the help of mistresses and doctore etc...). When they do have kids its usually daughters.

My extended family of non-royal governors, reproduce like mad. I've taken to sending recently come of age teenagers on suicide missions unless they are born with great potential.

My question: is it possible for my Argeades line to die out or is the game programmed that I will at least always have a Argeades available for the throne (barring premature death in battle, assassins )

thanks

[Sting the King]

The answear to your question is simple: No, and yes but of course.

[andrew.murphy1]

hi,

I'm playing as Makedonia... it's around 190 B.C.

the Argeades (ruling family) apparently do not spend much time with their wives (too much like Alexandros I guess), and rarely reproduce (even with the help of mistresses and doctore etc...). When they do have kids its usually daughters.

My extended family of non-royal governors, reproduce like mad. I've taken to sending recently come of age teenagers on suicide missions unless they are born with great potential.

My question: is it possible for my Argeades line to die out or is the game programmed that I will at least always have a Argeades available for the throne (barring premature death in battle, assassins )

thanks

It's difficult to keep the same surname going throughout a save, but fear not, it is possible

Firstly, your family members (often referred to as FM's) need to be in cities to have kids. The logic behind this is that if a general is away campaigning, he's not going to be in bed with his wife / mistress

Also, another thing that is hard-coded which affects FM's having kids is the ratio of generals to cities that you have. If you have few generals and many cities, the game will start having your FM's pump out children to make up for the gap, which is what you want to be happening. If you have roughly as many generals as cities (or more) then the game will slow down the child birthrate for your faction. So don't recruit generals like mad

A third thing to note is that even if you don't recruit generals and don't adopt or accept new members into the family via "man-of-the-hour" captain victories, you can still end up with non-royals in your Argeades family tree, as the Argead daughters will have the chance to marry men with different surnames that you don't want, so don't let them do so.

You might think this last bit is pedantic, but imagine this... If the number of boys and girls born into your family is equal, then after 1 generation of Argeades, you would expect 1/2 of the FM's to retain the Argead name (half have Argead fathers, half don't...), then after 2 generations it would be 1/4, after 3 it would be 1/8th... You obviously don't want this happening

Conclusion:
- Don't recruit Generals
- Don't accept adoptions
- Don't accept man-of-the-hour appointments
- Don't accept marriage proposals
- The game boosts the number of births if you have a shortage of generals, due to the above
- Hence you have more Argeades

[Perdiccas]

thanks,


I used to always put a client ruler in my newly conquered cities for role playing reasons--- but i've stopped

I also stopped marrying off my daughters and have stopped adopting

its hard for me to keep my royals in the cities though.

i have noticed, in the last few years since i started the above and started killing off non-royals, i've had a few more boys

[andrew.murphy1]

thanks,
...
its hard for me to keep my royals in the cities though.

Yeah, it can be a bit of a pain, especially if you're in more wars than you'd like to be and need generals on the front line. That's the problem with only using a one-surname family, you might find you have less generals than you'd like/need...

This is only a problem early game though (or when you're blitzing, which I'll assume you're not for the purpose of this response) when most of your generals are still boys rather than men. To make sure that the men in your family aren't being bred for nothing, make sure each one gets married and has one or two boys by sitting around governing cities before he goes off pursuing a military career that might well get him killed .

This is easy enough as Makedon, as you can send men who have come of age down to Sparte to be trained via the Agoge (Spartan military training), then send them over to Athens with its academy to pick up some nice ancillaries and the odd useful trait. By the time you've done this, he should have a family and be early twenties at most, provided the general to province ratio isn't too high.

i have noticed, in the last few years since i started the above and started killing off non-royals, i've had a few more boys

well that's gd then