Changing AI faction longevity

[noodle]

Hi,

Can someone tell me what set of values I need to change in order to increase the AI faction chances of having heirs.

I've had two real good games come to an abrupt end because the faction that was causing me the most distress (the Welsh) died out due to lack of heirs.... sure they did eventually come back, but by then I'd all but mopped them up.

I can see the area in the startpos files that deal with kings and heirs but the numbers next to each entry are not explained so I don't know what I'm doing.

Any help appreciated.

[Westland]

The first number is the gender of the heir. 1 means a prince, 0 a princess. The next number is the age. So 13 means you will have a mature heir after 3 years.
Adding extra heirs will only affect new campaigns, not the ones you're playing now.

[noodle]

Thanks for that. I'm starting a new game and will adjust the values beforehand, but is there a way to affect things *during* a game, just in case I get into difficulties again.

Before, while playing the game aginast the doomed Welsh, I had a save game 2 rounds before they became eliminated. Initially I thought that death due to old age was probably a random event, but after repeated reloadings and consistent dying from the Welsh I guessed otherwise. Even using the debug cheat to switch faction control had no effect - I thought that actively controlling the welsh might skew the result in my favour.

[cugel]

"Even using the debug cheat to switch faction control had no effect - I thought that actively controlling the welsh might skew the result in my favour. "

Um, what exactly is the debug cheat, what does it do and how do you use it?