Too many adoptions?

Does anyone else think there is too many adoptions? The current game I am playing (English) I had the opportunity to adopt about 6 generals before the first 15 turns. I had about 15 young children by them and I am thinking that's a little strange.

Also I don't like that some adopted kid become the heir of the throne over an actual blood son.

Also I had a huge financial crunch when I started getting all these generals in my family. Next game no adoption and I'm marrying my daughters to my sons! That'll teach 'em.

Lucky you. I had to wait forever to get some daughters married, one waited for a husband till age 32 Damm ! she must've been Horny ! A son had to wait till age 35 something for a wife. Damm that guy must have been Horny too !!!

edit: err... maybe that was the reason they did'nt get married ?

I had not enough adoptions till about turn 50, when they started happening. I was worried the game will end because of heirless Kings.

I'm very picky with adoptions. I refuse adoptions which would give me useless generals/governors. If you're selective you can hold out for a better adoption choice which will come a few turns later; you don't have to accept every one. Same thing with marriages for daughters. Unless I'm lucky, the first few marriage offers to daughters are cheesy rejects. Instead, I use daughters for diplomacy and up their charm for a while. Then they start getting better marriage offers, and if you get the charm up high enough you might get a chance to steal a valuable enemy general.

I've also noticed that non-family generals seem to develop fewer negative attribute and traits over time. You usually get one really good non-family general with the larger starting factions (Turks, HRE, Moors, France). This will be the general I put in charge of a crusade/jihad army. If you succeed, you'll get a very nice general with high piety, high command and possibly even an artifact. Then you can send him off to war as your main general, and he'll eventually get "Man of the Hour" after some battle allowing you to adopt him into the family. At that point he'll be mostly negative trait free and will make a fine heir; allowing you to get your cheesy, useless faction leader or crown prince killed and improve the family line. :wink:

I hate adoptions. Too many adoptions, not enough kids.

I tried to play with zero adopted sons... that sucked... You need to adopt some or else you won't have enough people governing or for battles...

i wish they would change this..

I also hate that some non-blood son can get the throne... totally sucks... I want a pure blooded faction but I guess I can't have that.

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Originally Posted by Xaziv

I hate adoptions. Too many adoptions, not enough kids.

I tried to play with zero adopted sons... that sucked... You need to adopt some or else you won't have enough people governing or for battles...

i wish they would change this..

I also hate that some non-blood son can get the throne... totally sucks... I want a pure blooded faction but I guess I can't have that.

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Aye! I want a pure-blooded family too. Not any filthy mud-bloods poulluting my perfect lineage!

You must understand Xaziv (how the hell did you think of that name btw?) that during the Medieval times the crown did not always pass to the son. Sometimes the son would die, and some far off cousin would become ing if no other heir could be produced. Or through marriagees. Charles V ruled over BOTH Spain and HRE among other territories (Aragon, Austria, Naples, Castile, the list goes on) through his ties he had through family.

I think it adds to the game :P (the whole non-blooded sons ruling) as that is how it was during those times. As for adoptions, I get them far and few...In fact I rarely get any till turn 50 or so when my royal family is dwindling.

that's weird... i get a message for an adoption almost every turn... maybe its because my family is smaller and im likely to deny the adoption.

Aye, and it wasn't just in medieval times. A perfect example is how the UK ended up with German-speaking kings. If you think of your "non-family" generals as actually distant cousins instead of non-family, then it actually makes the situation even more historically realistic. Think of adoptions as your faction leader bringing distant relatives, still of royal blood, into the immediate family as wards. Very few direct lines of descent managed to survive in Europe, with the ruling family of Monaco being about the only one.

The game engine seems to run on something like a quota system for family members. You should have X number of adult male family members for Y number of provinces controlled. If you have too few, adoptions are offered. Keep in mind, though, it will only offer you one on a given turn, so you can only turn them down so far. Marriages are similar. No matter how many unmarried adult children are in your family tree, only one marriage will be offered on a turn. In my Spanish campaign, I had 4-5 noble daughters go past childbearing age without ever being offered a suitor, because at one point I had 13 adult noble daughters and I'd only get a suitor offered every 3-5 turns. When you have too many unmarried kids, don't turn down quite so many offers.

I had a similar problem in my recent spanosh campaign, after adopting a few generals, and having a batch of young men come of age, i was left with 8 surpluss characters in spain.my economy hit rock bottom (+500 a turn) and i was unsure of what to do. thankfully france declared war, and i combined them into one army, added a few supporting troops and sent them on campaign, 20 turns and several major major pitched battles later, and most of the french territory is mine. i had originally intended to try to get these generals killed, but they refused to cooperate. they left a trail of major battle sites in their wake, and i am tempted to give them names. one such battle was 6 of my characters versus an army of 2200 frenchmen, and their reinforcements. a total of 3800 frenchmen died that day, compared to a mere 35 spaniards, truly the stuff of legends.

after many years of campaigning, the LEAST experienced unit has 3 silver chevrons. i could keep on going, but that would risk over extending myself, my economy has stabilised somewhat now, but i still have a near vacuum behind my victorious army, i just hope i can fill it in before the other nations get organised

Quite a bit depends on the factions. If you like to sweat try Sicily. No wonder they died out. If it hadn't been for Man of the hour I wouldn't have had any goveners...and they are not always added to the family...Now I thought it was only bribed generals that didn't join up, but not so...Then the one adoption offer I got didn't go through!!!!

Finely I reached some sort of balance but never nearly enough to cover much more than half what I had. To make matter worse you usually need to have a general with any field army because about 1 in 3 is going to go rebel with out it.

This is not a universal problem. If you get the offers just feel blessed. In about a dozen or so campaigns I have seldom had what I felt like were enough generals/family members. Besides once you have what you feel is almost enough, then a general will go rebel taking a big army with him!:furious3:

The campaign I started today I have refused all adoptions. Henry tried and tried to adopt every dreague he could find and finally he started making babies. All 3 sons of William have children although about 60% of them are female. I did accept 1 Man of the Hour and I married him to the first daughter who appeared. I hope he enjoyed that hot 16 year old!

I'm at about turn 40 now. I took Jerusalem a long time ago and it is almost stable enough that I can take my faction heir out. BTW if you send 2 generals on a crusage in the same army they both get the ancillaries and bonus piety. Of course I only had 1 to spare this time.

I generally don't put governors in a city unless there is nothing else to do with them.

Anyway, I have 2 marriages back and forth with Denmark and the Bastids just attacked me. So much for the "taking marriage alliances serious" part. Oh well. They are currently excommunicated now. Guess I will get a quick Crusade in for some easy bonus'.

So far I have enough generals but France never attacked me this game. I don't have tons of leaders but that's fine I only need a few. Plus having and using just a few means they tend to get better faster.

I'm constantly having adoptions and Men of the Hour, thanks to the Papal Assassins (aka Inquisitors) roto-rooting their way through my family tree. I am at turn 53 and only have 3 generals left (one safely hidden away in Ireland, where no Inquisitor has yet shown up). The typical scenario is I'll be offered an adoption, and the next AI turn he'll be burned at the stake, which seems a little rough for M/M.

Which is kind of weird, since the Pope is mine, I control the College of Cardinals and my relations with the Pope are perfect. The only family member who has survived a trial so far is the one who actually led the crusade against France.

Well as we know the game tries to ensure you have sufficient generals based on the number of provinces you have. It you are short on children and there has not be opportunities for Man of the Hour then it will throw adpotions at you to try and make up the balance. I spend a lot of time refusing them as they make a lot less "sense" in the Medieval setting to me.

I would not be nearly as bothered by it if the auto-faction heir chosing function actually chose (and updated to ) the appropriate individual.