This Old Turk

[MidnitePiper]

Most of my rulers die sometime in their 50s. Can't say I've ever seen any last beyond their early 60s - so this came as a pretty big surprise:



He died a coupel years after I took this shot. He had his last son at 60! His heir inherited the empire at age 55...

Anyone have this beat? Any 80- or 90-year-old monarchs?

[bretwalda]

Most of my rulers die sometime in their 50s. Can't say I've ever seen any last beyond their early 60s - so this came as a pretty big surprise:



He died a coupel years after I took this shot. He had his last son at 60! His heir inherited the empire at age 55...

Anyone have this beat? Any 80- or 90-year-old monarchs?

Well, the problem with the old folks is that their heir is old, too. And if the son dies quick, the next heir will be old, too. And it is much easier to get to a state when there is no heir, if there is a quick succession...

Anyway, it would be nice to know the game mechanics behind it, because we see the sons (heirs) and see some other male heirs but there is no way to influence things beyond that, afaik, not on the grandson and great-grandson level.




Hip, hip, hurray, this is my 100th post!

[MidnitePiper]

In this case I lucked out - the 55 year old heir arrived with two heirs of his own instantly appearing on my family list, the next one to hit his majority in only three years, then the other one four years later.

[Lacker]

No screen shot to back it up but I keep family trees including the birth and death dates of all royalty. Playing as Denmark, my kings ages where as follows.

OLAF I - 86
KNUD III - 73
HARALD IV -56
ERIK II -67
VALDEMAR I -61
OLAF II -72
KNUD IV - 72
CHRISTOFFER -84
HARALD V -66
KNUD V - 84
and SWEYN is currently 57

As posted before, having an old king leads to OLD later kings and can get you into trouble. I avoid this by keeping my royal flock culled pretty regularly. The average age of a king stepping into power is 25-35 for me, though did see HARALD V and KNUD IV enter at 44.

[teutonicwarrior]

when my king gets old i really like to send him to fight an unwinnable battle and die like a man with a bolt in his heart :)

[MidnitePiper]

OLAF I - 86

I didn't know the game would allow monarchs to live that long! I may actually have to try for a century-old monarch now (I've noticed with the heir that I can hide him in a province with high command star generals to avoid 'death' events - I move him alone, he dies, I move him with a group - unstaccked - of high-ranking generals, he can wonder all over the Empire)...

[Lacker]

Yeah I wanted a centurian but alas...never happened. I kept my kings in Denmark. I know you get vices for it but I like to think of them lording over the court and only going out under special circumstances.
-sent him out to put down the first peasant revolt in Sweden
-sent him out to witness the fall of the last stronghold held by Germany
-sent him out to witness the first fulll scale bombardment of a fortress by gunpowder (5 culverins 2 demis and 3 Serpentine Crews...needless to say Paris Castle was reduced to rubble)

Other than that he holds court in Denmark. I do a lot of dumb things that don't really help me WIN but makes the story more to my liking I guess.

A

[Ludens]

I recall someone posting that he had a king well over 100 years old. This was because he was leading a crusade that had stalled somewhere along the way, and the leaders of crusades don't die of old age.

By the way, if you make sure the heir is married, it is well possible that a new set of (not-yet adult) heirs will appear once he gains the crown, thus lessening the risk of having old kings.

[henoch]

a heir becoming king will return to homelands via *ups* (it won`t take longer than a year, i swear!) no matter what he is, and where he`s doing [found a mistake, keep it, got enough myself..]

[Adrian II]

I do a lot of dumb things that don't really help me WIN but makes the story more to my liking I guess.

I feel (and play) the same way. Once you have amassed enough strategic knowledge and tactical skills to play fairly easily at Expert level, you start looking into the esthetics of the game, both tactical and strategic. An (occasionally fatal) fad of mine is to construe 'realistic' battle orders. Sometimes, when attacking, I simulate the arrival of my troops on the battlefield in separate columns and from different corners of the map, much as if they were 'walking into battle'. Another is similar to yours: I engage my kings sparingly and prefer to have them fornicating at their leisure in their historical courts. Oh, and black sheeps in my royal family are inevitably sent on suicide missions from which they return either as reborn heroes or as completely and satisfyingly dead martyrs.

[Lacker]

My favorite is the acts of vengance. I keep a family tree going and assign (arbitrarily) favorites to the king when they're born. One of the Princesses was killed and she so happened to be Daddy's Little Girl. Only 17 and slain in her bed in Sweden. (Nothing pulls my heartstrings more than the graphic of a slain princess ) We captured another Assasin in Denmark that year working for France so I went to war with France. An excommunication and a revolt later my king was dead on the shores of Flanders and I had to work like crazy to rebuild several alliances.

I really enjoy building internal stories almost more than playing the game. I keep pretty detailed notes and histories, sometimes writting biographies for all my kings and several influential people when the die. I name military campaigns etc. I'm a goon what can I say.

A

[Procrustes]

For me this stuff is the biggest enjoyable suprise of the game - I love picking a character and playing them out. I've always been pretty haphazard about it though - you folks are giving me lots of good ideas to work with! I think I'll keep a family tree for my next campaign.

[henoch]

i take "generals- family tree" into too. special notice to the ~30years name changes. my favorite family lost the "Duke-nobility" and now are driven to the island far away, they will try to get it back, maybe by another war...where only the death of the two "new" governors will make it stop. (great movie battle scene)
as turk with "Hassan e Sabbah" and Assassins this will get really bloody...and *pouff* a revolt that really makes sense arouses.