Family Trees

[noramis]

Every time I start a new M:TW game, I write my Kings name at the top of a piece of paper with the starting date of his reign. After every prince that is born, I place him under the King, in essence forming a family tree that will track the various twists and turns of the family.

Lately I've tried keeping track of the numbers of enemies killed, own troops killed in battle,prisoners taken, win/loss ratio, etc.

After each royal death, I place a line through the name and record the date.

When your King dies and the next in line has been married for several years, you must becareful because when he takes over, you will have several princes appear in your Royal family list that were not previously there. You must record these under the prince who fathered them.

Now, the only downside is that some princes will never be king and if they are married, you will never know if they fathered children or not and thus, cannot be recorded.

However, sometimes the Kingship goes from one brother to another, then from King to nephew, then from nephew to cousin ... ahh, it is all very interesting

Anyone else participate in recording the family trees of your empire?

[Terry]

I'd be interested in seeing one of these if you want to post it..

BTW, in regards to your username, if your first name ig?

Terry

[Cazbol]

That's a very interesting idea. I think I'll try it in my next campaign. Adding comments about the major achievements of each might be an idea too. They should do something like this in the PBM campaigns.

[Mouzafphaerre]

-
Marry your princesses to your no-more-prince royals and their successors will have the same name, eg. Lord Mouzafphaerre.
_

[Tricky Lady]

Quote[/b] (noramis @ May 10 2004,05:36)]Every time I start a new M:TW game, I write my Kings name at the top of a piece of paper with the starting date of his reign. After every prince that is born, I place him under the King, in essence forming a family tree that will track the various twists and turns of the family.

Yeah, that's what makes (made?) MTW one of the nicest games I've played over the last years... Historically correct or not, I found it very fun to create a history of a faction, including writing down family trees.
I've never written down the battle results, but it seems something interesting to do too (even though it adds a lot of paper work).

Here's one that I made when playing the Byzantines (before I modded their names).

(sorry but it is a bit...err... huge)

[PseRamesses]

I´ve always written down the family-tree of my faction when I play mainly to avoid having heirs as "border-generals" that might get caught in a huge suprise invasion. For this purpose I´d rather use uncles or other relatives. I frequently use my king and princes in offensive wars though.

I also record v&v of each monarch, command, conquest and other major events which can be really interesting sometimes.

[katank]

yep, I like to keep track of major successes and failures in the history of the empire too.

adds to the ummmm epic? feel I guess.

[Apocalyp$e]

Nice i was thinking of doing this the next time I start a campaign, I am almost done my current one... doe you record the princes successors when they become generals and die off? that is the main reason I wanted to make this list... Someone said that if you marry your princesses to your old princes, that they will leave successors with the same last name, in the Polish faction the royal last name is Jagiellonyk. Is that true? It would be a lot easier for me to find my main generals if they all had the same last name. I remember they used to, but after some update they started dying off and leaving exact copies behind with different names. Now that is cool and all, but i am at a point where there are like a ton of guys with the very same names, and it gets quite confusing.

[CountMRVHS]

Yup, I used to do that all the time when I was on the european map. I'd do it by hand though, so I was always running out of paper... I'd end up actually frustrated when another son was born, "OH great, ANOTHER name I have to fit into 2 inches of space... I'll just cram it in over here...."

But lately I've stopped doing that, I guess just because it ended up taking awhile and didn't always look the way I wanted it to. When I got VI and started playing more on the Viking campaign, I didn't do it because the whole "dynasty" thing just somehow didn't seem right...

Although to make up for that, I *did* make an "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" style narrative as the Saxons... I've been teaching myself Old English & been doing work on the chronicle anyway, so everytime I ended a year in the game I'd put down something like:

867 - Her Behrtric cyning gefeaht with Walas and tham waelstowe ahton geweald, and thys geare forthferde Behrtric cyning and Aethelred his sunu feng to rice...

stuff like that (my O.E. isnt' 100% though...).

Although when the Vikings started invading me it got pretty repetitive... But still it added something to the flavor and extreme nerdyness of my game

[Kristaps]

Quote[/b] (Tricky Lady @ May 10 2004,05:08)]

Quote[/b] (noramis @ May 10 2004,05:36)]Every time I start a new M:TW game, I write my Kings name at the top of a piece of paper with the starting date of his reign. After every prince that is born, I place him under the King, in essence forming a family tree that will track the various twists and turns of the family.

Yeah, that's what makes (made?) MTW one of the nicest games I've played over the last years... Historically correct or not, I found it very fun to create a history of a faction, including writing down family trees.
I've never written down the battle results, but it seems something interesting to do too (even though it adds a lot of paper work).

Here's one that I made when playing the Byzantines (before I modded their names).

(sorry but it is a bit...err... huge)

It seems that you have added some offspring for the brothers of the main king-line. How do you figure out which one belongs to whom? I believe, the general message is just that an heir is born and an heir matures. :)

[Tricky Lady]

Quote[/b] (Kristaps @ May 10 2004,22:11)]It seems that you have added some offspring for the brothers of the main king-line. How do you figure out which one belongs to whom? I believe, the general message is just that an heir is born and an heir matures. :)

yes, but IIRC this family tree was made when I was playing a MTW 'vanilla' campaign, so the Byzantine no-longer-royal princes' names remained "Comnenus". As I was recreating this family tree, I noticed a huge gap to the right, so I'd figured I should add the royal generals too. Of course, this was all fantasy. I had my fun drawing this.

BTW, I tracked them by giving them titles. So I knew i.e. Manuel, son of emperor Alexius I was the prince of Bulgaria etc etc.

PS. Kristaps, perhaps you should remove the picture from your quote. I really think it is too big

[solypsist]

whoah.
i might have to give that a try next campaign.

the downside is, that in the exitement of a heated exchange during wartime, I might miss a few entries, thus making all previous efforts pointless

[katank]

that's true.

I often neglect to note the birth of an heir or two when I'm in the midst of a hardcore blitz and fighting 5-8 battles a turn.

it's easy to overlook such things if you aren't eagerly anticipating it. ie. third or fourth son who you don't really care about.

I sometimes dismiss it thinking it was a building completion parchment

[Tricky Lady]

Quote[/b] (solypsist @ May 11 2004,00:06)]the downside is, that in the exitement of a heated exchange during wartime, I might miss a few entries, thus making all previous efforts pointless

That's what happens to me all the time too... Sometimes my history records have gaps of 40 years or more. I especially tend to forget to write down battle results.

But I never ever miss the birth of a new heir.

Quote[/b] ]I sometimes dismiss it thinking it was a building completion parchment

I never do so, because the crying baby confirms that another heir is born

[Llywelyn ap Gruffydd]

I do this pretty much religously every campaign. All I record is male heirs typically. It comes in handy when watching for rebellion. Sometimes, those brothers can get really jealous and make for problems.

Llywelyn

[katank]

well, I have the sound turned off so I sometimes neglect the birth of an heir which is somewhat callous I suppose in that one cares more for battles than sons.

I should really keep a comprehensive history one of these days in a peaceful GA game that the AI refuses to allow me.

[TheSilverKnight]

I LOVE MAKING FAMILY TREES I do it all the time and keep track of all the marriages, inheritances, dates of succession, and all that stuff. IT IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOFUN

[Malcolm Big Head]

Something new to try. I may do this on my next attempt. I am thinking of taking the English on normal and seeing if I can make a family tree with no branches. How bad can a Royal line get after generations of inbreeding?

[katank]

it can be pretty bad if you turtle and don't get influence boosting stuff and just inbreed.

within 4-5 generations expect some 0*'s I would imagine.

[Tricky Lady]

Quote[/b] (katank @ May 12 2004,19:22)]it can be pretty bad if you turtle and don't get influence boosting stuff and just inbreed.

within 4-5 generations expect some 0*'s I would imagine.

Yes, I usually turtle in my campaigns, and in my last turtle Byzantine campaign my 5th emperor has 9 dread, 9 influence, 9 acumen... and 0 piety and 0 command... (on 'normal' mode though).

[katank]

that 0* is likely wrap around as all other stats are pretty good.

piety doesn't matter for orthodox really.

what I meant was a realy 0* like a screen recently of a king with 0 in all categories or pretty close to that.

[Tricky Lady]

Hmm, yes. As a matter of fact, command rating isn't really *that* important is it? I don't use my kings in battle so often.
The high stats were nice. Except for the 0* this was the best emperor I've ever had.
And yes, the piety drop doesn't have any impact for orthodox rules, luckily.

Quote[/b] ]what I meant was a realy 0* like a screen recently of a king with 0 in all categories or pretty close to that.

For those who don't know what Katank is referring to (or are too lazy to look in the archives ), it is all about this: King Pedro the inept

[LordKhaine]

Anyone ever notice how the worst kings always live longest? I remember one egyptian sultan I had was awful, with a huge list of negative vices and terrible stats. He lived to about 85.

Btw, a good way to dispose of bad heirs is to have them oversee a siege. Yes... those bombards do have a bad habit of exploding...

[solypsist]

maybe I'll give it a try, but only on a late game.

[katank]

I usually makes sure that my inept king gets the bombard treatment.

ever tried using the king as reinforcement so he doesn't command and then do a suicide charge into a spear wall?

he would take out the unit most likely but to make sure he dies, I target the spear with low valour catapults and naptha.

pretty soon, no more junk king

else, try walking him through firing archers.

that works wonders too

[noramis]

I usually siege the castle with his unit only. That'll do it everytime

[katank]

they sometimes sally though and manage to rout him as I couldn't get him sufficiently entangled

[Zortanius]

I have always been a big fan of royal family trees - for all nations more or less. In my own time I do a lot of research into historical genealogies among other stuff.

One of the main attractions of this game was the fact that I could actually create and modify parts of a living Royal tree.

I have some heavy family trees drawn up for the BYZ, ENG, POL, DAN, ITA and GER and some sketchy ones for the Russians and Spanish. Of course since the princes who don't become Kings just seem to linger I fudge a bit with real history and often seem to land up with semi royal aristocracies - this way I can then 'relate' to my generals more and create a sort of story behind my empire. It's a well known fact that princes often married daughters of local nobility and vice versa.

I also keep track of the MAJOR battles every year along with the general who fought them and other such stuff - so I have a bit of an army annals in the works. I can the actually look and see who fought where, whom and how successfull each one was.

I will try and post some of the trees once I can convert them to a computer format - they're all parchment and ink right now.

It's not just a game - you're building an empire.

Cheers

[The Wizard]

That's the good thing about CK, where the game is driven by your family, and not your faction. You can see the siblings, ancestors, heirs, etc.

I've always found it confusing to keep track of the geneology of my kings, and I've never actually written it down. Maybe I should try it.

I find it a bit of a pity that the changing of dynasties is a very, very rare event in MTW, since it was an important part of medieval history.



~Wiz

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Huh. Never thought of doing that. Probably because most of MY royalty is degenerate losers who are constantly drunk and perverse.

I might try it in HTW, the princes aren't so bad there.

Just my 2 cents, is all.

Cheers