useless heirs

[andy447722]

Oh how I hate my royal line.

My latest Sultan atrted with 0 in every category apart from 6 piety!!

How dop I best sort this, BTW his brothers are equally useless!!

[Zarax]

Jihad a lot and conquer a faction or two.
Building stuff will also help.

[_Aetius_]

My latest Sultan atrted with 0 in every category apart from 6 piety

oh the horror, be happy in the knowledge that this useless sucession of ruler's will soon lay dead in the inevitable civil war.

[Divine Wind]

I think its something like every 3 provinces you capture, your king gets a bar of influence (if my memory serves me correct).

Plus if you want to keep that bloodline pure, accidently send those dim witted sons or brothers to invade Islands on there own, where they stand no possible chance of victory.

[King Ragnar]

If my heirs e no loyalty or every thing else is low i just send them to die in battle

[Togakure]

I just pluck mine.

[Betito]

That reminds me my turkish campaigns... What a bunch of looooooooooooosers i had back then...
Fortunately, i had a 9-star 9-acumen general and some other good people out there (almost all of them were peasants, strangely enough... )

[Martok]

Plus if you want to keep that bloodline pure, accidently send those dim witted sons or brothers to invade Islands on there own, where they stand no possible chance of victory.

Or your sons survive their suicide missions--er, I mean "glorious battles"--and actually start to develop some good traits. I've had a number of useless heirs become worth something after they've gone through a few battles they were never meant to survive.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I have had that experience as well, after they survive I send them on another suicide mission and another and once they are worth something they get to live and lead real armies. Can't hurt if you have an abundance of heirs.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I think its something like every 3 provinces you capture, your king gets a bar of influence (if my memory serves me correct).

Plus if you want to keep that bloodline pure, accidently send those dim witted sons or brothers to invade Islands on there own, where they stand no possible chance of victory.

I dunno about sending them to conquer places by themselves. I sent one of my heirs with 20 men against a Byzantine army of 2000 men as the Holy Roman Empire, and he held a bridge for almost an hour by my clock. He slew around 1000 men, lost 4, and retreated. I sent him back later and massacred the rest of the army.

[Ash]

Huh? 20 RKs slew 1000 men? What were they, peasants? Slav warriors?

The best I've seen was one of my High RKs (+3 armour, +4 morale) slaying a couple hundred MS plus at least one hundred Rus spearmen (headon).
I sent one of my crappy heirs to Livonia to get himself killed in one glorious battle, taking on 3 thousend rebels in total.
He survived that battle although his 19 comrades died in the field. Next turn though it was curtains.

[Mablung]

A piece that I wrote a while ago on getting decent stats for heirs and rulers, taken from the .com FAQ:

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Q: How do I get a decent king?

A: The best way is to selectively breed. This is when the best suited heir is chosen to become the king. You may be thinking “how?!” - well kill the ones ahead of him! The easiest way to do this is to send the heir/heirs in question on suicide missions to rebel or enemy provinces. Sent them to ones without one of your provinces adjacent, once moved, break the shipping line. If the heir runs he will be ransomed, just don’t accept it! There are other ways - using Inquisitors, Assassins etc.

The next step to improving the bloodlines is to improve influence. There are several ways to do this - completing a crusade or jihad, taking provinces, defending provinces successfully when attacked (in game events can change influence as well, it is also thought that if you receive a message stating you are the richest, most powerful, have the most loyal subjects or have developed new technology this enhances influence - this isn’t confirmed). Once influence is high (7 - 9) heirs will have stats similar to the current kings - generally better.

Command: Command is the easiest stat to increase. Capture a new province, keep no troops in it and let it rebel (not advisable to do this with provinces you intend to keep). Since there are no troops the rebellion will be small and likely to have bad troops. Simply send your king and his bodyguard in to kill the rebels by himself. After a few battles the king should get the “Skilled defender” line of virtues - each adding +1 star when defending. Often it is easier to do this with the heir you intend to have on the throne next.

Piety: To improve piety you can complete crusades or jihads, leave your ruler in a high zeal province (higher chance of getting piety increasing virtues), build religious buildings (cathedrals, churches, reliquaries, mosques etc.). The other method, possibly the easiest, is to have an Inquisitor try your king (can only be done with Catholics). I personally don’t like this as you lose dread and there is a chance your king could pick up the “Atheist” vice (-8 piety). If using this method it is best to try your king with normal Inquisitors, they fail 99.999% of the time.

Dread: Dread is another easy stat to increase. Using the same technique as command, during a battle execute some prisoners but make sure to take some afterwards (if fighting rebels). By executing prisoners the general in command receives the “Scant mercy” line of vices (don’t do this too many times, it can lead to -morale vices). After the battle a parchment will pop up asking what to do with the rebels captured, execute them to increase dread (be careful not to do this too many times, it can cause your king to get - happiness vices).

Acumen: Acumen is the hardest stat to increase. Only luck and selective breeding will help here. You can only chose to have the heir with the most acumen become king. The virtues that increase acumen are random - apart from breeding programs just cross your fingers!

This should help get you a decent king with great stats!
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Hope that helps