giving birth

[zBarlow]

other then being married, is there anything that changes the chances of your wife giving birth? like say, distance from capital and such?

[seireikhaan]

Well, since there isn't a "capital" in MTW, or anything of the sort, that's quite impossible for it to be an influence. As far to my knowledge, its quite random, with the exception of if you use the unfreeze cheat, then its 100%.

[zBarlow]

i refer to my biggest city as the capital.

[caravel]

Your biggest city is where the kings heirs will appear, but it is not a capital as such and there is no "distance to capital" factor in MTW. In MTW distance to faction leader is what counts and this affects the loyalty of provinces only.

To increase the number of heirs you have, ensure that your existing heirs are married as soon as possible, this way they are producing heirs before they even get to the throne. If you're lacking in marriage proposals or other factions keep turning you down, then you will probably have to marry your heirs to your own princesses.

[zBarlow]

actually the reason i was asking is that i have a new heir born every year. one of my campaigns i have 11 heirs in year 12!

[Raz]

What's wrong with that?

But if you must stop them, you can always gather up your outdated and weaker units, then send them into battle to perform a "heroic deed".

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You know what I mean by that... =D

[macsen rufus]

Your biggest city is where the kings heirs will appear

Not quite, you're slipping, Caravel New heirs come of age in the province the king is in, new kings ascend the throne in the "most developed" province.

actually the reason i was asking is that i have a new heir born every year. one of my campaigns i have 11 heirs in year 12!

I suggest you have a closer look at your heirs parchment - you can only ever have six princes - if you have twelve offspring then I guess at least six of them will be princesses. AFAIK it's completely hard-coded - it is possible to add heirs to a faction at the start of the game by writing them into the startpos file, but I doubt you'd be able to add more than six even this way - I would expect a CTD on start-up, or on the coming of age of the seventh one.

[caravel]

Not quite, you're slipping, Caravel New heirs come of age in the province the king is in, new kings ascend the throne in the "most developed" province.

Now that's what I was trying to say!

Be aware that because your heirs come of age in the same province the faction leader was in at the end of the turn. If your faction leader was moved out, then your new heir might be left alone facing battle, which is why it's a good idea to know when they're coming and plan ahead so that they appear in a well teched up and secure province.

[zBarlow]

on my heirs list i have six princes and 5 princess

[Spongie]

...it's a good idea to know when they're coming and plan ahead so that they appear in a well teched up and secure province.

Ayup, I've learned to have my king loiter in a province with weapons upgrading tech when princes come of age, to get that bonus without necessarily having to guild all the facilities to (re)train royal knights

[Jxrc]

you can only ever have six princes

Correct indeed.

Can be a pain in the neck when you have a king that has five brother who are all about the same age as he is because for as long as the five brothers are alive your king will not have any heir at all... If your king reaches its 60th birthday you might even end up in big trouble cause you'll then have a good chance that when his brothers become kings themselves they will have no son either and will reign for about three years each ....

Leant it the hard way when playing as Aragon I had a amazing string of princes who had all at least five stars with ok v&v ... After the eldest had died, I lost one excellent general every odd year and the youngest brother died when he was 52 or something (just remember it was rather an early exit) while the oldest heir was still 9 ... Tried a reload to see if I could manage to be a little luckier but I was the involve in rather serious wars with battles lasting about an hour each turn ... Fighting such battles knowing that I might just loose the campaign anyway was too much for me and I started another campaign with the HRE (one feature of that faction looked extremely appealing then )

Could be a solution to suicide or assassinate one of your princes (preferably the inbred unhinged loon)when that happens but I have never tried that myself ...

[Heidrek]

I've been trying desperately for the past 10 years to get my princes married off, but noone will marry them! I have a king with 8 influence and a full set of hiers, with the next in line a 4* general, but he's unmarried and already in his late 30's.

I don't even have a princess I can inbreed him with. i've tried marrying him off to numerous different factions, all of whic I'm allied with, and sometimes even fighting along side but all I get is the same turn downs time and again.

Why won't anyone marry my prince!!

[Martok]

If your faction is very large -- I want to say the threshold is around 30-40 provinces -- it tends to get a lot harder to find princesses willing to marry into your faction, regardless of your king's influence.


There is a drastic measure you can try: You could deliberately kill off your king. Your crown prince would then probably marry a local noblewoman in a few years, and with any luck he would live long enough for his heir to take the throne himself.

Obviously, however, I don't really recommend this strategy unless you feel it's absolutely necessary.

[caravel]

I've heard it said on this board somewhere in words to the effect that 'a good family tree needs some careful pruning'. This is very true. Personally I tend to assassinate useless heirs or try them for treason or heresy (if playing as a catholic faction). You can for example have a lot of heirs but with the death of your faction leader and the succession of his heir, end up with no heirs at all. This is a dangerous situation to be in and at times the royal line needs to be 'helped along' a bit to ensure that the right man ascends the throne. You can leave it all to chance, and I find more interesting to do so, but this strategy usually backfires leaving you heirless in the middle of a campaign (unless you're playing as the HRE of course).

[bamff]

on my heirs list i have six princes and 5 princess

....and a thoroughly exhausted Queen who looks far older than her years, I'll wager!

[Ravencroft]

....and a thoroughly exhausted Queen who looks far older than her years, I'll wager!

Hehe...

Apparently, MTW is the TW game that promotes eugenics. Basically, it invites you to "prune" your line, if the success of the royal family is at stake.

[Spongie]

Hehe...

Apparently, MTW is the TW game that promotes eugenics. Basically, it invites you to "prune" your line, if the success of the royal family is at stake.

Not me! I've had some complete lunatics choice specimens on the throne, I can tell you

[Heidrek]

I have an interesting situation.

The Golden Horde reemerged a while ago in two provinces. One army with the Khan went into Peryslavl while the other moved south into Georgia and has since spread to other territories. I iave surrounded Peryslavl for the past 15 years or so and the Khan is still in there. a quick look showed the king and about 5 princes in that teritory.

Seeing as any heirs you produce arrive in the same province as your leader, then The Kahan and all his Heir should all be bottled up in this one territory right? Also, if I conquer it they will have nowhere to retreat to and will all be captured automatically.

Could it be that I could crumble their entire faction by cutting off the snakes head in one fell strike or will they get a chance to ransom back their captured princes - one of which will actually be their new leader......that brings up it's own question - Do i get a kings ransom or only a princes?

[Spongie]

Could it be that I could crumble their entire faction by cutting off the snakes head in one fell strike or will they get a chance to ransom back their captured princes - one of which will actually be their new leader......that brings up it's own question - Do i get a kings ransom or only a princes?

I had something similar when the Danish monarch, who'd been happily bottled up in Scandinavia, decided to charge across the bridge into Saxony with 200 of his royal knights, including his two heirs. That battle was so much fun (billmen make such a mess of royal knights) that I reloaded and fought it several times... what I found was that if I didn't kill/execute the three of them outright but captured at least one and left them with no uncaptured royalty, they would always ransom back at least the most senior-ranking one (in terms of who's in line to the throne, so the king first, followed by the elder brother); the more junior royal captive(s) were liable to be left to their fate. You don't get a choice whether or not to ransom if you haven't killed the prisoners by the time you end the battle.

Essentially, if you want to wipe out the faction again then kill your prisoners when you assault the khan's last stand.

As to your second point, I suspect it would depend on the order in which the game processes (1) the ransom, and (2) the death & succession; from what I recall, it would tell me that I'd ransomed back a crown prince (who would then be announced as the new king)... but to be honest, by that point in the game I had over a million florins in ye Bank of England so I wasn't paying too much attention

[Heidrek]

Well, won the battle, killed the Khan and all but 1 of his Hiers in one fell swoop. Their castle was already full of troops that had been routed off the field before the last Prince was forced to flee the field and found himself locked out and subsequently captured.

In a spectacularly bad move, they refused to ransom back their last prince and the faction was instantly eliminated, becoming Rebels. This in turn sparked a Seljuk re-emergence in Trebizond.

Scratch one Golden Horde.

[Aldgilles]

Untill they re-emerge!

[Heidrek]

Thats right, However, by then I will have secured the now Rebel Nicaea and one or two others so i'm happy. I also love that in a single battle I managed to cripple a faction and send a string of territories into rebellion.....Serves the GH right for thrying to invade my Steppes anyway - don't they know they belong to the Volga-Bulgars?! Fools.

Now, to get the Seljuks on side so i don't have to worry about them too much...

I still can't find anyone to marry my Princes - everyone just keeps turning me down despite my massive influence and the fact thay are my allies. I control about 24 or so territories at present yet noone will amrry my princes!

[Taedius]

I control about 24 or so territories at present yet noone will amrry my princes!

That may be the reason in itself. Noone trusts you when you're big.

[Spongie]

In a spectacularly bad move, they refused to ransom back their last prince and the faction was instantly eliminated

[Ravencroft]

That was very dumb...

Factions only re-emerge if they have the ff.:

An underage heir who matures afterwards;

A province they previously owned that's currently rebelling;

and a 60-year window. After that they won't re-emerge any more.

[Aldgilles]

yet noone will amrry my princes!

Perhaps you could try to marry a princess from a faction you're NOT allied to, but wants a treaty (to stab you in the back later... )

[macsen rufus]

IIRC the VBs are a Muslim faction and should auto-marry the new king on acsension if he's not already hitched. OK, so it's nice to have the heirs breeding sooner, but it's not the issue it is with Christian factions

[Heidrek]

Now that's interesting to know. Yes, they are Muslim and I see that my heir is nor a 20 year old proince, instead of a 40 year old one so I'm guessing this one is the current kings son that has now come of age?

[Ravencroft]

Yep. That's because the first priority, so to speak, is the king's direct issue(i.e. his son) and the brothers follow.

Thats how the line of succession works AFAIK.

[Emperor Mithdrates]

i refer to my biggest city as the capital.

I pick a capital and focuss on upgrading it to a fortress.
Then i dont let any other city become a fortress
.