Shrinking family-- help!

[Martok]

My roommate and I are really starting to miss Medieval's "Immortal Generals".....

My roomie is playing as the Julii, and is desperately trying to find a way to forestall potential disaster. His faction leaders and leader's 2 brothers (all 3 of whom have uber stats) will probably be dead within the next few years--and my roommate already has a couple cities with no Generals to govern them. (And no, he hasn't been over-expanding; he has maybe a dozen cities under his rule.) Worse yet, his only other decent family member is the faction heir (the current leader's grandson)--virtually all of his brothers/uncles/cousins are mediocre at best.

My roommate is already doing everything he can to "grow" his family; i.e., making sure to marry any promising Captains into his clan. At present, however, there are no female family members who are of eligible age, nor will there be for about another 10 years or so. Even worse, he only has one unmatured male family member (currently about 4 years old). All of his Generals are married, but they flatly refuse to have any kids! (Maybe their wives don't like them being away from home so much. )

At this rate, we'll be lucky to simply have enough Generals (before the 3 older brothers die) to govern the cities we already have, much less actually expand our family so that we can continue further conquests. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

P.S.-- Oh, before anyone suggests bribing an enemy General, I'll let you know right now that we don't have a lot of cash at the moment. Some, but not a lot.

[troymclure]

build up some armies and go take over a few provinces. Works like a charm for me. I've noticed the game seems to roughly correlate family member numbers to your expansion. If your not expanding and winning provinces then noone seems to procreate. Go take 3-5 provinces and i think you'll get a bunch of new family members being born shortly after.

[Osbot]

You can also try to bribe some family members from another faction, or send out some armies without a general. I've heard that after a couple successful battles you may be given the option to adopt the over achieving captain.

[PFJ_bejazuz]

some combination of 'heroic' & 'clear' victories seem to help promote the faceless captains into witless family members - maybe 4 or 5 from what i'm seeing

[SwordsMaster]

Ive never got a captain promted so far, but....

First of all, you cant expect to have governors in ALL your cities. I usually keep them in the biggest ones and/or the most rebellious ones. So that is normal.

Secondly, after your current leader dies, you can designate THE WORST of your family members as heir (coz you are going to disinherit him anyway as soon as someone else grows up), and just win some time that way.

The other option, as it has been said is to keep conquering provinces, and get some good captains....

BTW, Im playing Julii and I ALWAYS build Bacchus temples. Ive NEVER had fertility problems, but the governors/gens located in the cities with impressive temples usually get "drunk companions" and "likes a drink" traits or, they HATE drinking.



REgards

[MadKow]

Promotion of captains probably has some chance of happening without requiring multiple batles since at least once i had a captain promoted on its first one.
Some retinue members increase fertility (likelyness to have children). I think they are related to public health structures and/or nature themed temples.

[TinCow]

First of all, you cant expect to have governors in ALL your cities. I usually keep them in the biggest ones and/or the most rebellious ones. So that is normal.

Not true. In both my previous Julii campaign and my current Carthage campaign I reached a point at about 25 cities where my family pumped out (and married) a huge number of generals. Currently with Carthage I have every city with a governor (I'm building Academies like mad) and I still have about half a dozen with nothing to do, so they are sitting in my capital until I have an army to give them.