Devastating Faction Heir bug.

**King Azzole** · 10-01-2004, 19:43

Yea thoros I know that, I was just wondering if that was related to the non-production of heirs, since usually the game will choose a family member with your last name for an heir, not one of the wedded ones to your daughters or adopted generals.

**Hosakawa Tito** · 10-02-2004, 18:28

I've started at least a dozen campaigns, both quick and standard. None of my factions have produced a single child beyond the ones I've started the game with.I have no 3rd generation to lead my faction after the 2nd generation die of old age. Extremely bad luck or a flaw in the game? It's been very frustrating to advance to the point that I can begin to dominate, then have my empire crumble because I cannot produce heirs.

**Hosakawa Tito** · 10-03-2004, 00:04

I started a new full campaign, as the Julii, and finally produced two new heirs. However, they weren't from the 3rd generation children who matured and married. They were born to the 2nd generation couples, in their mid 40's now, who already had children now grown & married and in their early 20's. Kind of weird. I mean the peasant populations in many of my cities are breeding like rabbits, but the young virile patricians aren't reproducing till they're 40.

**King Azzole** · 10-03-2004, 00:17

If worse comes to worse you can always bribe younger family members from other factions. I did that to continue my egyptian campaign. Im starting to think you produce more heirs if your faction if more active. I noticed the years when I conquer provinces I get more heirs and when im idle just building stuff I produce little to none.

**Hosakawa Tito** · 10-03-2004, 04:58

Update on my current Julii campaign. I have been super agressive in this one, attacking Gaul with all but 2 family members left in the Home provinces, Arretium & Ariminum, one producing Infantry & Cav the other my Navy. It's the winter of 246 BC, Gaul is down to one city, Alesia. Over the last several years my Faction has been a baby making machine. 5 daughters and 4 sons, all born to the 2nd generation (children that have matured and married at the start of the game). I guess a lot of blood is good for the Roman libido. "Sorry babe, I'm just not in the mood till I slaughter a few thousand Gauls."

I've been attacking with small armies (300-500 men), working in pairs. One is the bait, the other ambushes. I guess it's better to let the dice fly and really push than to be more cautious, at least in this campaign.

**Thoros of Myr** · 10-03-2004, 05:23

Originally Posted by Hosakawa Tito

I guess a lot of blood is good for the Roman libido. "Sorry babe, I'm just not in the mood till I slaughter a few thousand Gauls."

Interesting, Thanks for the tip

**Underhand** · 10-05-2004, 13:52

MikeC in the entrance hall says:

I have adopted both opposition faction family members as well as rebel family faction members and my family is still continuing to have kids. Since adopting a rebel family member, I have had 4 births over the course of 12 game turns.

**King Azzole** · 10-05-2004, 14:12

Ok, seems isolated to my campaign. I am still terrified to invest enough time in a campaign to bribe another factions general, so im not even gonna try and simulate this again. But apparantly its not a bug so disregard, must have been 2 freak coincidental back to back events.

**ChaosLord** · 10-05-2004, 16:29

Well, I do think there some bug involved. I bribed a Spanish general and he joined my faction, but on the family tree it showed him as being the son of my faction heir. (A 30 some odd year old who had a 40 year old son :P) And oddly that heir hasn't produced any children while having the Fruitful virtue. It could just be bad luck i'll admit. My other family members are still producing kids.

**Malrubius** · 01-29-2005, 01:34

Originally Posted by Silencer

adoptation is not random, here is how to do it:

do a battle together with an AI reinforment army. make sure the army doesn't have a general and fit's into your slots.

when the battle starts, you'll see a captain under your troops (silver star)
let him do a good battle, to gain exp, and after the battle you'll be promted to adopt him (IIRC, he needs to be 2 stars at least)

Had this happen today. Had some hastati and velites attack some Macedonian cav, assisted by equites as reinforcements. The battle began, I started marching towards the Macedonians, and they ran off before I even got close enough to see them. Result was a narrow victory with no loss of life on either side (the Macedonians ran back to Larissa, so they apparently had plenty of movement points left), and the captain was eligible for adoption as a 3-star, 1 scroll general with good commander, drillmaster and bureaucrat traits.

**Es Arkajae** · 01-29-2005, 03:57

Wait a sec, someone here mentioned that Generals producemore heirs when they're in cities.

Does this mean that they don't have to be in a city to produce heirs?, what of forts?

**AntiochusIII** · 01-29-2005, 06:02

Hmm... So sad about your problems. It is certainly a bug in some levels.

However, I have a theory ... but wait! I am NOT a professional of any kind of modding nor do I have any true experience about the Data files. The things I'm going to state are not confirmed by any REAL facts or statistics. However, according to my intensive (or insane

) modding that allow me to reach some insanely cheating level in terms of some stats that nobody could ever achieve without modding, I've come to a conclusion that the size of an empire vs the number of your generals are of prime - though not all - importance of how many new family members you will get.

For example, in one my Carthage campaign, I played aggressively and leave only a few people behind as governers while all others went on conquering the world like mad. I ended up with about 10 members and 30 provinces. The result is that *almost every turn* I got the "candidate for adoption" (not war heroes or son-in-law) for me to get new guys. Also, almost every captain-led victory resulted in the "man of the hour" adoption. In addition, after one person in the family died, it resulted in the outburst of the family babies like somebody got a new viagra for the family.

Several similar campaign produce the similar results, however, I think - JUST think - that the difficulty level also have an effect in this.

On the other hand, in the campaigns that I went for "every city must be governed" style of playing, thus slow down my conquering to take care of the cities, even truely heroic (say, 500 vs 2000 with minimal losses) captain-led victories... several times by the same guy, produce no chance of adoption. There are also no chance for candidate, with fewer marriage event - both my gentlemen and ladies seem uninterested to save the family - and almost no birth rate at all.

However, if you have indeed few people per province and yet no new members it IS a bug.

Hope this helps.

**Patricius** · 01-30-2005, 06:04

If a faction is stagnant and expands very little there are fewer heirs. I have occasionally seen a faction of at least eight territories expire for the lack of an heir. Although my assassins were a factor, this faction, the Brutti was unusually timid. Even large factions will suffer a lack of heirs if there is little expansion. My 48 province RTR Unified Rome has expanded little for some years, hence few heirs, or rather very few. King Azzole said so already, but it needs underlining. Expansion is key to having a good supply of heirs. There is no bug. CA probably engineered this feature so that players do not forget they are playing Rome Total War not Civilization III.