The gods have cursed the English

[Sinner]

Just starting a Late English campaign & I've got my first heir... he came out a Great Warrior but Strange , and in the same year he appeared he became Crack Brained as well!

His brother will mature in a couple of years, I think I'll send him off on the tour of death, appearing at a battlefield near you for a limited time only...

[Accounting Troll]

Wait until his brother matures just in case the king decides to pop his clogs, or the kid brother turns out to be a prideful drunk... :

[IrishMike]

Or if you really wanted to start a new blood line, start a civil war and side with the rebels. Just make sure u win quickly.

[Louis VI the Fat]

For historical accuracy, CA made the English royal family a bunch of inbred nutters:

You'd better prepare yourself for a loooong time of breeding before anything vaguely resembling a person of any use sits in the English throne again...

[Sinner]

He's dead, although the nutter won one battle against the French, taking Normandy, so I got some use out of him.

His younger brother started quite good: Pride - but still Command 4 & Accumen 6 - and Natural Leader. Already started training him up against rebels & so far I've gained Skilled Attacker with him plus he picked up Educated as well. Can't get any marriage offers as yet, which sucks, so he might be marrying his sister soon. Yuck I know, but the programmers have said it has no detrimental effect on the bloodline & I never did really care about my king's piety - a couple of crusades will sort that anyway.

[Medieval Assassin]

Thats really a bad idea, keep trying to get someone else daughter, thats one of the worst things you can do.

[Sinner]

Thats really a bad idea, keep trying to get someone else daughter, thats one of the worst things you can do.

Why bad? The programmers have stated that it doesn't cause your heirs to have bad vices, you'll get them whether you marry your princes & princesses to each other or whether you marry foreign princesses or wait for the default noble's daughter. The only 'bad' effect is that your prince will get the Secret Incest vice, which has little significant impact, & at least your prince will start churning out heirs earlier than you'd otherwise get them.

[Sociopsychoactive]

my english were cursed aswell.

Recently started an early hard campaign with them, and my first king did well, conquered all of the french, killed the aragonese and picked up norway and sweden. Start making money, he has two sons and tonnes of daughters early on. I think, ah well, no worries, they are both already arried so we'll have heirs coming out our ears when they get the throne.

Unfortunately, my autocratic king (william rufus, son of william the conquerer, i love the historical accuracy of it) doesn't die. He lives on and on, sets up trade and farming, gets all the builder and steward family vices, executes a few thousand rebels, and FINALLY dies at the ripe old age of 68.

By that time, his heirs having been birthed very early on, they are oth in their 50's, and though he did have a third son, tht one is three when the king pops his clogs. It took several years of saving and then re-loading to make one of my kings last long enough for that heir to come of age, first time I've ever actually lost the game due to my king dying of old age.

Now, unfortunately, I'm stuck with a crappy king with 1 command, no piety, one dread and four influence. I'm playing GA so I don' want to go on a slash and burn conquering campaign to get it up and the spanish invade. Then I get the 'kings men kill the archbishop of canterbury' event, so my kings influence drops to three, THREE!!!

I feel a civil war brewing, and while it will be good to get a new royal line, I can see the spanish chomping at their bit in anticipation of rolling right over a scattered bunch of rebels and english alike and most likely pushing me back to the british isles.

[Sinner]

Ouch! I've had similar, but not quite that bad.

Early on in playing MTW after a few circumstances like that I started killing off my king if he's getting too old & I have heirs that married early.

I try to prepare for the typical loss of influence after the old king dies a glorious death assault a castle or taking on overwhelming numbers of enemy troops. A final flurry of marrying princesses to generals when possible can help with potential loyalty problems as can careful use of titles - I often have a couple sitting around just for this purpose.

Generals with low loyalty get tucked away either in stacks with a superior high loyalty general or I'll send them to a backwater with a high loyalty army next door just in case.

If I have an enemy region that I'm planning to take, I'll hold off & wait for my new king, so that he gets the influence boost rather than the soon-to-be-dead old king. And if I think I will have a good chance of success then I'll have a crusade ready to go immediately after my new king is crowned, helping to further boost his influence.

If you're really stuck then unfotunately the only option left is cheating: edit the king's age in the savefile so that he's younger & perhaps use .unfreeze. as well. I haven't done that yet since I try to see off the problem before it occurs, but it really is a sucky way to lose a campaign, especially since sometimes it's the whims of the AI that puts you in such a position.

[Sociopsychoactive]

I managed to make him last long enough for his heir to mature, actually his brother, and I plan to start crusading mightily to get his influence up. I deliberately held off on my farm upgrades to get the new king steward/builder instantly, but while this has kept the people happy and prevented normal rebellions the civil war is close, I just know it. I think I'm going to have to send a few good stacks to take most of spain then pull back and let them retake it, influence boost and knock the psanish for 6 without actually holding any lands for long, it will also help to knock out the ex-heirs the spanish have, as they ae all 5 to 7 command and good stats otherwise.

Welsh longbowmen, FIRE!

[munrock]

Isn't it cool how a 68 y.o. king can hold his own in a battle? And he can lead a small army against one twice the size, break the bigger army's morale by charging over and over and almost single-handedly win you battles and extend your empire? And you don't have to worry about him croaking 'cos that's your primary objective?

[Sinner]

OK, now the computer is just getting plain mean & evil! I'm starting a new High campaign, having got to the boring stage with the last one. I want to get my King back from Brittany to Wessex & decide to go via Normandy & Flanders, rather than the sea route.

Sending the FKs up from Aquitaine to guard Brittany, I launch my King, FMAA, Spearmen - I change all starting Peasants to the various base Spearmen in my campaigns - and Ballista at Normandy, plus my FKs & LBs from Wessex into Flanders. The latter is more of a diversion than a truly serious attempt to conquer, with my only aim to keep the LBs as intact as possible.

My battle in Normandy goes well, the French having chosen to reinforce Flanders, sending nothing to help the Mounted Sergeants and Archers. I lure the MS into charging my Spearmen, then send my FMAA after the Archers under cover from the Ballista, while my King flanks the MS & charges them. The Archers are starting to skirmish back from the FMAA, my King & Spearmen are slaughtering the French horsemen and they finally break. Keeping the Spearmen after the fleeing MS, I switch my King after the Archers, thinking that I'll capture more of them when they rout than I will with the MS.

My King & his bodyguard charges into the Archers - all 21 of them since I was lucky enough to suffer no losses against the MS - and they're quickly overwhelmed and also start to rout.

I'm feeling quite happy, seeing only a handful of French troops left, no losses among my King's unit, only 8 FMAA & 15 Spearmen dead, and I'm waiting for the last prisoner to be caught before I hit the kill button, since I'd prefer to further weaken the French than get more money.

Just as the last French Archer is captured, I hear the Ballista fire and I notice that I've lost a knight. Grumbling about the bad luck of losing a knight to friendly fire - and the only man the Ballista managed to kill as well! - but not that bothered since I know that he'll be replaced for free, I end the battle, finishing off the turn, only to be told that my King has been killed and I have no heir!

The damned ballista managed to hit one man! One! My King! The useless $*!£@{ morons!

Needless to say I started the campaign afresh, although this time I immediately disband the Ballista. In my mind I actually had them executed. Slowly. Painfully. With a small fruit and a piece of string. I'm also planning to build lots of Assassins and send them off on a Ballista killing spree.

[Papewaio]

Nasty method:

Keep only 5 Royals including the King. Whenever a 6th appears, send the worst command/accumen to his death. This keeps the best of the best around. Could mean you send your King to his death.

[munrock]

Pruning the family tree. Nice.

[CherryDanish]

Isn't it cool how a 68 y.o. king can hold his own in a battle? And he can lead a small army against one twice the size, break the bigger army's morale by charging over and over and almost single-handedly win you battles and extend your empire?

Funny you should say that. In my first campaign I had a 73 year old king pick up 3 valour points in a fight that almost turned on me (the kings charge into a enemy feudal sergant unit's flank likely saved the battle). By the end of the fight the unit had suffered about 80% losses and had no fatigue bars left (they were being outpaced by a routing unit of archers they were chasing). I could only imagine the red panting face of the 73 year old king. He died 3 years later of old age/illness, but not until he sired another son! Now THAT's stamina! In the back of my mind I thought he likely either died from the fight three years before, or the celebration where his last son was concieved. One or the other likely took the last of the fight out of him. Spunky old fart.

As for the English curse, I really have no idea what you guys are talking about. I'm playing the English now for the first time and their kings are amazing. My current king seems to be the carebear of the family with the lowest dread rating and he's got 6 dread points?!! His acumen is a 7 and even though I'm at war with 3 of the remaining 10 factions I'm still pulling in 60K anually before expenses. None of my kings have had the perverse V+V so far (which I find odd), but many get the Sybirite (?) and other "fat" type vices. One English king could apparently barely get on his horse. My current king though hasn't had much success with +happiness V+Vs, but I'm working on it.