Bloodlines, ancilliaries and the Family tree

[Ninjaheman]

Hello folks,

Can someone please explain these to me? I'm playing SS6.4 with SSMAP as Byzantium and am trying to figure out why I should care about my family tree. Does rebellion break out if my faction leader dies and a usurper takes the throne? Do I get some perk for keeping the bloodline pure? Why would I ever turn down an adoption or marriage offer when it means an extra general or governor? I've been playing M2TW for a while but seemingly was about to play just fine without giving my family tree a thought. Have I been missing out on some crucial part of the game? Please share your thoughts.
Thanks!

[Axis Sunsoar]

In my opinion, the family tree is just something extra to have fun with. After you've played through as many campaigns as me, there are ways to make the game even more enjoyable, making an effort to keep a pure bloodline is just one of those. Outside of that, there's no real benefit.

Extra note on adoptions, only take good generals, because adoption offers are proportional to number of settlements owned to number of generals. So if you wind up with too many generals, adoption offers will stop coming and you will have a bunch of 1-star commanders with no chivalry/dread that are disloyal to you, and likely to die when the first inquisitor comes around because of lack of piety.

[Nzg]

I tend to avoid all adoptions, breakes the family tree which I like to have pure. In the game I'm playing right now I was tempted tho.

18 years old, 4 stars, 5 dread(!), and 3 piety, with some nice additions

Also, when you keep your family tree controled you have some chances to avoid bad princes being born(for example have parents fertile, fair etc. traits).

[Maklodes]

I don't know about SS6.4, but at least in vanilla and in SS6.1 (judging from honga), adoption tends to give the adoptee's brothers traits which are mostly bad, such as arse and slothful. Look at the BrotherAdopted condition in export_descr_character_traits.txt.

I'm not sure exactly sure whether it only afflicts the adopted general's already-born brothers or whether it can effect nephews, cousins, etc, too, but generally adoptions can screw up non-adopted family members. Although some of the traits aren't so bad, such as paranoia, harshruler, and anger, at least if you like high dread.

[Strengelicher]

I have been playing SS 6.4 with BGR IV for quite a while now, and I do not know which features are attributable to SS 6.4 vanilla and which to BGR. However, I have experienced the following in my games:

Adopting a general into the family can cause other family members to get negative traits, as Maklodes correctly pointed out. I dimly remember people becoming envious and so on. Also, I think I read somewhere that it can have negative consequences if an adopted general becomes heir or even king. Can't remember what exactly happens, however, and have never allowed this to happen ingame.

Also, adopting generals can disrupt your family tree. This is a serious issue, as your family tree has a certain "dynamic", which is linked to whether your kingdom expands and how fast it does so. If you adopt too many generals, your family members will cease to bear children, and marriage offers will become more seldom. The whole family may "stall", and if that process is not reversed, they may become too old for having children altogether. There are constantly people complaining about their royal families dying off, and I believe this is because they neglect this "dynamic" of the family tree. I always try to expand slowly and obstain from adopting generals. Only if family members get killed to the point that I desperately need another general will I consider an adoption. And I have never run into family tree problems so far.

[vin2579]

I have been playing SS 6.4 with BGR IV for quite a while now, and I do not know which features are attributable to SS 6.4 vanilla and which to BGR. However, I have experienced the following in my games:

Adopting a general into the family can cause other family members to get negative traits, as Maklodes correctly pointed out. I dimly remember people becoming envious and so on. Also, I think I read somewhere that it can have negative consequences if an adopted general becomes heir or even king. Can't remember what exactly happens, however, and have never allowed this to happen ingame.

Also, adopting generals can disrupt your family tree. This is a serious issue, as your family tree has a certain "dynamic", which is linked to whether your kingdom expands and how fast it does so. If you adopt too many generals, your family members will cease to bear children, and marriage offers will become more seldom. The whole family may "stall", and if that process is not reversed, they may become too old for having children altogether. There are constantly people complaining about their royal families dying off, and I believe this is because they neglect this "dynamic" of the family tree. I always try to expand slowly and obstain from adopting generals. Only if family members get killed to the point that I desperately need another general will I consider an adoption. And I have never run into family tree problems so far.

The thing I am wondering though is if recruited generals count towards that point where your rate of having kids decreases for your royal family.

[Duck of Death]

The thing I am wondering though is if recruited generals count towards that point where your rate of having kids decreases for your royal family.

Yes, children... adopted, born or recruited and male or female count toward your total general-to-territories number.
So, if you have daughters hanging around filling up your family tree, you might as well marry them off given the opportunity since a child is counted as "1" whether they are married or single.

However... the only way a child does not count toward your number (I believe) is if you marry off a daughter to a foreign Prince. At that point she leaves your official bloodline and no longer counts as "1" even though her portrait (and her foreign husbands) may still show up in your tree.
This only counts when you do it via the diplomacy option to a King or Prince. If you marry her to a foreign General, she/he will still be a member of your bloodline.

[vin2579]

Yes, children... adopted, born or recruited and male or female count toward your total general-to-territories number.
So, if you have daughters hanging around filling up your family tree, you might as well marry them off given the opportunity since a child is counted as "1" whether they are married or single.

However... the only way a child does not count toward your number (I believe) is if you marry off a daughter to a foreign Prince. At that point she leaves your official bloodline and no longer counts as "1" even though her portrait (and her foreign husbands) may still show up in your tree.
This only counts when you do it via the diplomacy option to a King or Prince. If you marry her to a foreign General, she/he will still be a member of your bloodline.

I remember seeing a post a while ago where a possible fix was discussed.

I shall try this out sometime here in the next few days and see how it works.

[Lifthrasir]

In SSHIP, (formerly SSMAP), if you use the last version (v0.8.2), when an usurper appears, unrest should increase to reflect the conflict (civil war) between the the both pretendants to the throne. Once one of them is "out", the unrest should decrease, especially if the winner is the right one and not the usurper.

Another thing is that playing as ERE in SSHIP, you start with more settlements than generals or family members. I guess that's why the player probably receives quite a lot of adoption offers. However, I would recommend to choose carefully for all the reasons already mentionned. From my point of view, the best way would be to adopt a couple of generals but only if they have very good traits and wait for your family to "create" new members. That's not necessary an easy way (depending at what level you're playing) but SSHIP is not supposed to be easy