Old age

[Satsuma]

Hi guys and gals

My current game has developed an annoying habit of my generals and their wives only having daughters. After a mad rush of sons coming through for around 50 years (3 or 4 coming of age in one turn, a couple of times), I now have approx 20 daughters of marrying age, and no new sons due to come through for at least another 10 years. Meanwhile all of my current guys are getting old and are starting to die off.

Not a problem I thought. All the young men of Rome will be dying to marry into the mighty Julii family, right? Wrong. All I seem to get is dirty old men in their 60's lurking around my pristine 20 year old daughters.
Dodgy.

I know that if you turn down a proposal another one normally comes along, but again it's usually some old letch.

I've accepted a couple just to shore up my governors as my regular family members die off. Some of them have reasonable command traits too, so I've given them a small stack and sent them off pillaging, or sent them rebel hunting.

Is there any real point marrying these guys to my daughters?
Are they likely to have kids at that age?

Normally my family members tend to start kicking the bucket around 60ish years. As soon as they reach 60 they become retinue pimps for my younger guys, or get sent off on a conquest somewhere where they can provide a bit of stability to a new city while I rebuild/slaughter everything in sight.

Also, do these guys tend to live a bit longer? If I accept a 70 year old pensioner into the family and he karks it two turns later I don't think the wife remarries so I'm stuck with a useless, chaste, grieving widow.

Finally, I'm trying to keep to a bloodline succession system. Only a true Julius, directly descended from my original faction leader can become heir to the empire. I don't want a lousy Gracchus or Quintus ruling things, kinda defeats the point really.

I've tried crushing large rebel stacks with only a couple of cavalry and a cohort in order to get a Man of The Hour, but no luck, even a heroic victory didn't get my captain promoted.

On a slightly different point, agents seem to live forever! I've got an 84 year old spy sat in Rome keeping an eye on things, and a 99 year old diplomat who's been around the whole map three times now. He's got 9 influence rating through trade agreements, ceasefire and alliance deals and bribing off annoying small stacks.

What's the oldest age you've seen a character reach in your games?

Cheers

Titus

[Quirinus]

The oldest family member I've seen reach old age is probably somewhere in the nineties-- and that was just one time, most of my family members buy the latifunda at around seventy. It was Lucius Julius, one of the starting generals for the Julii. He had good management ratings, so I stuck him in Patavium. Eventually he became faction leader, and managed to outlive all his brothers-- and even two of his sons! When he was about sixty-five, I started moving retinues to younger family members, but he lived on productively for another 50-60 turns.

For your lack of suitors, I wouldn't worry about it too much. In fact, I would just sit on those daughters, rather than marry them to mediocre old men. Since the addition of family members in RTW is governed by the number of territories you have, your stream of suitors aren't likely to dry up any time soon. Just keep rejecting the mediocre ones until you stumble upon an exceptional bloke. Even if your daughters are past marrying age, you will continue to get family member offers, in the form of adoption.

Man of the Hour seems to be triggered only when your family-member:territory ratio becomes too low, so if you have an overabundance of family members, even heroic victories won't help.

[Ayachuco]

I remember in my games that I've played in that the original Flavius Julius lived an average of eighty years. Although I did have one Scipio lived to his nineties but all he had were daughters and not even one son but he did adopt 3 fine young men (one of them was already a 4 star general). The old geezers can have kids at that age as long as your daughters (their wives) are still young enough to have kids (I figure around 35 is the beginning of the barren years although there are exceptions). So if u do marry them off to an old guy, make sure the daughter is still in her twenties, stick him in a city and hope for the best.

[Quintus.JC]

I remember in my games that I've played in that the original Flavius Julius lived an average of eighty years.

That seems to be the case with most of my Julii campaign as well, Flavius tend to live past his time. His son Lucius always get past his 80s and get 10 management in his 40s. The longest members I remember in my campaign must be King Antignous of Macedon (the starting king), he onced live to 96, got 9 chevrons. I got fend up with him and sent him to a suicide mission to Italy, had I not done that he might well live past 100 years old. Another one is King Mithradates of Pontus, who I recall has also reached his 90s in my Pontic campaign.

[Shieldmaiden]

I remember in my games that I've played in that the original Flavius Julius lived an average of eighty years.

I remember my very first Imperial Campaign - Flavius Julius (the Great!) lived to 86

I presume dying of old age is a % chance per turn once a General gets to a certain age? (60?).

[Spartan198]

Believe it or not, I had a general in XGM that once lived to 109...

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

I know there was a bug in an older version (v1.3) that stopped a general from dying so many turns after the game was loaded from a save. This resulted in generals living well into their hundreds. When they hit 120 though, they automatically go back to zero, being reborn as infants, so you still didn't get to command them forever.

Regardless, I'm sure a milder version of this bug still exists in v1.5 - generals never appear to die naturally the turn after the game is loaded - this is quite odd.

[Spartan198]

I neglected to mention that he died not of old age, but in battle...

[Shieldmaiden]

I neglected to mention that he died not of old age, but in battle...

While fending off a barbarian horde with his zimmer frame?

[Megas Methuselah]

Regardless, I'm sure a milder version of this bug still exists in v1.5 - generals never appear to die naturally the turn after the game is loaded - this is quite odd.

Once finals are over, I'm going to be sure my FL will leave well beyond the years of his descendants. He shall be called, "The God-King."