Bastards?

[Nicolaos]

Is it just in my games or do family members produce a significantly higher number of illegitimate children?
Is there a risk of having too many? Do they have lower loyalty or something?
If there are any penalties, is there a way of avoiding this?

[crucify_ego]

Enough with the little bastards already! Happens way too often.

[Fanest]

hehe yea as Ostrogoth i have five of them already

[Insert Username Here]

Yep it's ridiculous as the Saxons I seem to always end up with at least 4 or 5 Bastards for every legitimate child and I can't even get rid of them of them until they come of age by which point there's a bunch more. Gah stop clogging up my Family tree. Been less of a problem with my Geat campaign fortunately.

[Gaidin]

People screw (up). Live with it.

[GideonAI]

I personally have 3 male family members as the Vandals. I'm about 20 years into the campaign, and my family tree now includes 8 illegitimate children.

[Gaidin]

I'd add a roll to detect and put a colored line based on whether you(the king) know and whether the public as well know. But have the player always know.

[stevehoos]

What is the difference between a bastard and a legitimate child? I haven't seen any effects?

[Gaidin]

Wild guess would be one can't be the heir. Has anyone tried to name one heir?

[Da Bomb]

The current king in my Saxon campaign is the bastard son of the previous king. He was the firstborn of the previous king and was automatically assigned as heir and he stayed as heir even after the old king had multiple legitimate children. The current king just had a bastard son of his own who is the heir. I have no idea what the difference is between bastards and legitimate children. Maybe it has something to do with loyalty?

[stevehoos]

What's the point of a family tree (true bloodline) if bastards have no differences than legitimate sons? I can't find any difference? Never seen it? Maybe I am missing it, but it is laughably stupid if there is no difference.

[MacNille]

My viking family are pumping out bastards at a huge rate.

[crucify_ego]

It is dumb. Needs to be fixed, toned down, whatever

[Viking1978]

I've read one difference is that they cannot have more than 100 influence. I don't know if that remains when they become leaders, probably not. Didn't experience it myself yet, as I tend to use a lot of influence before it comes to that. Don't know if there are any loyalty or other drawbacks involving bastards.

[SteelCityCaesar]

I'm playing as Saxons right now and although an having an over abundance of bastards isn't happening to me, I do have a rather odd quirk where invariably, every noble born child is a son and every bastard child is a daughter. Its better than having it the other way around I guess but it is odd!

[Nelfe]

If your bastard become king, your general/governor will have a loyalty penalty.

[Fredrin]

I love that the title of this thread is a legitimate gameplay enquiry!

If your bastard become king, your general/governor will have a loyalty penalty.

If this is the only downside to bastards then set faction heir to a legitimate son and party on, right? Bastards quite often come with some decent character traits which make them better than most random newbies from outside the family.

[stevehoos]

I love that the title of this thread is a legitimate gameplay enquiry!



If this is the only downside to bastards then set faction heir to a legitimate son and party on, right? Bastards quite often come with some decent character traits which make them better than most random newbies from outside the family.

Basically the only thing differentiating the bastards from the legitimates are red and white lines? The family tree is good, but that is not immersive. The "Bastard" effect needs to show up in the characters screen as a trait, not as a red line.

[Fredrin]

Basically the only thing differentiating the bastards from the legitimates are red and white lines? The family tree is good, but that is not immersive. The "Bastard" effect needs to show up in the characters screen as a trait, not as a red line.

Right! I have a 7 star bastard who is about his see his fresh-faced younger bro take the crown just because his mum happened to be married to his dad when they got busy. I'm sure that would prompt a few interesting character traits, like "murderously jealous", "scheming", "disgruntled". Or if he was a good guy - "philosophical", "accepting of fate", "Good Guy Greg" (lol).

Red line is a bit perfunctory, eh?

[Viking1978]

I wonder why I even bother to answer...

They cannot have more than 100 influence. I don't know if that remains when they become leaders, probably not.