View Full Version : No more heirs!!!
First game, byzantines in early age, and everything is going just fine. +10 k a year in projected income, ships in North Sea, and full control of all borders.
But...
20 year ago or so, I was litterally invaded by assassins, who took out all male heirs (4 or 5 I think) apart from one. The emperor dies shortly after of illness, leaving the new emperor as the only male of royalty at all.
He marries of course - and emperess gives birth to three girls, and no more.
Three princesses is very nice, and I'm sure they're both beautiful and clever. But this scene leaves me with three questions:
- What excactly happens when the emperor dies (he's 46 now)?
- Can I do anything about it?
- Could I have prevented it (apart from making assassins difficult, I know that)
I have surfed the guild for an answer to this, but couldn't find it.
Thanks,
Bakdal
Sandy-San
01-15-2003, 10:53
when the emperor dies, you lose, unless you can cause a civil war, side with the rebels and have a general take over as king. there is no way to influence male or female heirs, its just luck...
there is a cheat however, (around here somehwere) that will allow you to get an instant heir. it was posted by one of the CA crew this month.
Don't lose hairs over heirs. It's just part of the game.
Annie
"Don't lose hairs over heirs. It's just part of the game.
Annie"
Well Anne, in this case it is not a part of the game, but the end of it (which can be agued as a part of the game as well) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
Bakdal
Lord of the Isles
01-15-2003, 13:38
Quote[/b] (Sandy-San @ Jan. 15 2003,08:53)]
there is a cheat however, (around here somehwere) that will allow you to get an instant heir. it was posted by one of the CA crew this month.
That would be typing:
.unfreeze
as posted by eat cold steel recently. As my Kings have been noticably fecund for a while http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif I haven't tried it myself yet.
Sandy-San
01-15-2003, 15:59
fecund - good word
the little Messages always say, that when there is no heir left, the strongest general will be elected as the next king. But I have always had enough heirs until now and so I don´t know, what will happen.
Perhaps you can just save, go forward in time until your king dies and see what happens then?
Gaius Julius
01-15-2003, 17:44
Here's some ideas for you:
could have married off some of your male hiers
marry your princessess to your best generals
did you have border forts( to help catch assassins)?
have some of your own assassins, and spies present, helps with catching assassins.
Foreign Devil
01-15-2003, 21:39
Quote[/b] (Husar @ Jan. 15 2003,09:20)]the little Messages always say, that when there is no heir left, the strongest general will be elected as the next king. But I have always had enough heirs until now and so I don´t know, what will happen.
Perhaps you can just save, go forward in time until your king dies and see what happens then?
I think your thinking of the HRE- successions here are slighty different, as they elected new Emperors, it was not strictly along hereditary lines, I believe.
ToranagaSama
01-15-2003, 22:28
Quote[/b] (bakdal @ Jan. 15 2003,03:50)]First game, byzantines in early age, and everything is going just fine. +10 k a year in projected income, ships in North Sea, and full control of all borders.
But...
20 year ago or so, I was litterally invaded by assassins, who took out all male heirs (4 or 5 I think) apart from one. The emperor dies shortly after of illness, leaving the new emperor as the only male of royalty at all.
He marries of course - and emperess gives birth to three girls, and no more.
Three princesses is very nice, and I'm sure they're both beautiful and clever. But this scene leaves me with three questions:
- What excactly happens when the emperor dies (he's 46 now)?
- Can I do anything about it?
- Could I have prevented it (apart from making assassins difficult, I know that)
I have surfed the guild for an answer to this, but couldn't find it.
Thanks,
Bakdal
Well, you've got a good 25 years before your King bites the dust, so the odds are pretty good he'll pop out at least one hear.
The odds are also great that that hear heir will be assinated too Since, apparently, the AI has some super duper Assassins roaming the board. I'd take immediate measures to protect my heir when he finally appears.
How on earth did you allow the AI to develop Assasins capable of taking out Princes? I've never had the AI even attempt to do so.
PS, as the manual instructs marry your princes early. I keep track of the progress of my heirs as they mature. I usually have laid plans for their marriage by the time they appear.
uh-oh. I had an AI super-assassin in one of my recent games. I put several spies in each prov where he struck and soon he was caught. Make sure to catch those assassins or they'll just get your new heir if you're lucky enough to have one. Border Forts & spies in your provs will do the trick. Keep you new heir well guarded in a good non-port prov with spies. Non port means they'll have to go thru other provs to get you, hopefully each of those provs will have a border fort and thus a chance to catch the bugger.
Anyway - dont use the cheat play the game out and see how it goes. I had no heir on two occassions and the result was an ugly civil war, but that's what makes the game interesting - fighting back from a tough blow like a civil war.
I think CA has put something to limit the number of heirs. My first emperor (Byzantines) had 6 heirs before he died. I married them all immediately after they matured. After he died, the next in line had no children, not even one, when he ascended the throne. I had to wait for him to have children but he died before the newly born matured. In fact, my heirs were all so old 2 more died before the newly born matured. My emperor at the time was the fourth son of my previous emperor. Out of 6 heirs, only 2 would survive to be generals.
I reloaded and experimented. My theory is that the game keeps track of the children of heirs. That's why some heirs ascend the throne with children. However, if the children of those heirs mature while their father isn't the emperor yet, those children just get lost. That's a big problem if you married your heir early and all his children mature before his father dies. He'll ascend the throne without any children and you have to wait for him to make one. He'll be really old at that point too.
Another theory is that the game makes your emperor and his heirs stop having children if he has 6 heirs in waiting. That's a problem if the 6 heirs are around the same age and the emperor dies. You have to wait a random number of years to get another and 16 years for that guy to mature.
This game is my first campaign at all, so I'm just learning, espeicially priorities.
Border forts were not build in all places, which they are now. I have been too quick to use assassin for...assasinations, not for defensive purposes. I have had too little control on protection heirs in general.
All of this makes my next campaign more structured and myself more competent.
Thanks,
Bakdal
Sandy-San
01-16-2003, 15:52
not quite the same subject but on heir protection... last night i was playing, i had a general in one unit of royal knights, and a prince in another unit of royal knights. the prince's unit took heavy casualties, but had 1 man left at the end. I assumed this would be the prince, as I thought that the unit leader was always the last to die (this was the case in STW, I think?) but when I checked after the battle the prince was gone, and the spare man had been added to the other unit of knights. what happened?
Auto-tidy up units was OFF and I'm playing the patched version - i thought this bug had been fixed.
the unit leader, even an heir, is not always the last to die in the unit. If you see the little guy with the flag in the front of the unit drop..there goes your unit leader. This is why they can be sniped with artillery http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
The unit leader/heir usually is tougher to kill and therefore often last to drop, but if their unit takes big losses, there's a risk they're among the dead.
As for any campaign, this one evolves, and raises new questions.
The peculiar thing is, that at an age of 58 (fifty eight!http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif, hte emperors wife give birth to.....yet another girl
Then again a year later, and now the father is very close to 60, the most expected and welcomed son arrives.
I didn't cheat. Not because I wouldn't do it for ethical reasons (I mean, it's all just for fun, and if the game still amuses, and the consequense of NOT cheating would be elimination, then why not?), but mainly because this game after all just was educational. So I wanted to see what happened, and how to cope.
So now I have a young heir at 1, and a 60 year old father. Next worry is, how go ensure, that the old fart stays around for another 15 years?
I saw somewhere, that a player claims to have discovered, that kings that moves every turn, grew older than those who didn't.
Are there other experiences in the department of keeping the king alive 'till a very old age?
Bakdal
Sandy-San
01-17-2003, 11:14
if you can build the college of surgeons then that helps, but I guess it is too soon in your game. I haven't heard anything else.
(and on fecund rulers - my italian king had 7 sons and a number of daughters, his grandson went on to father 6 sons and a daughter. randy buggers... )
Rosacrux
01-17-2003, 11:15
I had a Byzantine king well over 85 - I think 89 - once. And many'o'times above 80. But I think it's pure luck.
Let it happen, man. But, plan ahead: Marry off every princess you've got to your best generals, and place those generals (in stacked armies, no second stack in any province, remember that), one each every province you'd really wish to hold on to.
If you are lucky, you'll king shall live to see his heir grow old enough. If not... you'll have a decent potential to come out strong enough to survive and win the game after the civil war.
Don't "produce" a heir out of thin air - that's a silly way to move on with the game and defeats the main purpose (as you seem to understand yourself - I don't mean to sound pedantic) of having fun. And a civil war, allthough crippling your empire, is fun to overcome.
I've a doubt:
When my king is married, he have heirs after he's married.
When a heir is married, he have heirs at the same time his father is having heirs, too?
When i marry a princess with a general, she is having heirs for my kingdom too???
That's my doubt.
Quote[/b] (einar @ Jan. 17 2003,07:22)]I've a doubt:
When my king is married, he have heirs after he's married.
When a heir is married, he have heirs at the same time his father is having heirs, too?
When i marry a princess with a general, she is having heirs for my kingdom too???
That's my doubt.
- right.
- yes a married heir might have his own sons. Those sons will only become heirs if/when their father is King.
- no, a princess and a general will not have heirs.
Quote[/b] (Exile @ Jan. 17 2003,12:00)]
Quote[/b] (einar @ Jan. 17 2003,07:22)]I've a doubt:
When my king is married, he have heirs after he's married.
When a heir is married, he have heirs at the same time his father is having heirs, too?
When i marry a princess with a general, she is having heirs for my kingdom too???
That's my doubt.
- right.
- yes a married heir might have his own sons. Those sons will only become heirs if/when their father is King.
- no, a princess and a general will not have heirs.
Thanks. My doubt is resolved. (And now, i understand the hereditary process)
This first campaign of mine seems to keep creating new questions, that doesn't find all it's answers in this forum. Even sometimes contradicts.
This "heir thing" continues.
The situation was this: I hadn't any heirs, and my emperor (Byzantine) was getting old. Then suddenly a male heir occur, but presumably too late.
This came out true. The emperor dies, and a civil war breaks out. Then two odd thing occur after each other:
1) I'm asked to choose side in the civil war, and an information screen pops up. That was an easy choice, as there were nobody on the rebel side, and everybody on loyalist side. Why is that? Because loyalty in the empire is so extremely high?
2) A new emperor is decared. He starts getting kids of his own, but the children of the former emperor still shows in the heir list. THese two groups of children are not brothers and sisters, and perhaps not even related. The oldest boy is son of the former emperor. Will he become emperor, and is that logical?
Greets,
Bakdal
So what exactly happens if you die without heir? I have a seemingly sterile chinless wonder king who has no heir apparent at age 35 (and married) as the Danes around 1215 (I owned the map from the baltic to the black sea and all the way east btw) or so and am already dealing with a civil war AND the Golden Horde (they happened on consecutive turns no less). If he dies (and he might, there's going to be a lot of nasty battles over the next 20 turns or so and he's a pretty decent general) do I go to civil war or is it Faction eliminated, game over for me?
MAV: My experience was much the same. No mature heirs when the king dies, and the result is civil war. Only in my case, the pop-up screen regarding the civil war (where you have to choose side) tells me, that there's nobody on rebel side, and everybody on loyalist side.
So no question that the result of no mature heirs when the king dies is civil war. I guess it's loyalty that calculates just how many are on each side, and my loyalty level in this game was extremely high.
By the way, an age of 35 is nothing. My king mentioned before, was 59 when his first child was born
Bakdal
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