Breeding freaks

[Tuidjy]

Am I the only one who is really upset that his upstanding generals end up
with retards for children?

Playing as France, I had my head turning princess play diplomat untill she had
charm 7. Then I married her to an nice young suitor, who grew up to become
Guilemin the Chivalrous, advised by Pierre Abelard. His traits:

Drillmaster, Very Loyal, Smart, Nightfighter, Feels Respected, Great
Commander, Marks of War, Crusader, Confident Attacker, Confident Defender,
Royal Ties, Wife is Charming, Can Tell A Tale, Wall Taker, Chivalrous In Rule,
Cruel and Cunning, Brave, and Trustworthy.

So, these two parents produced two great sons, a nice daughter, and this:

King Francis: Too Comfortable, Swift to Judge, Aloof, Quite Mad, Promising
Tactitian, Feels Unappreciated.

I can see how he would feel unappreciated, given that he is a freak among
paragons of virtue. But is that a reason to choose him as the King, instead
of his brothers, or the old King's son, who at thirty nine is an eight start
general, a Grand Cursader, and a Saint of Battle, among others.

Off Francis goes to conquer England, all by himself. But why the Hell should
we have to breed freaks and send them on suicide missions?

[Edit] Oh, while waiting for the boat to England, the King managed to get
on the way of becoming a gambler.

[Lord Ovaat]

Nah, as long as they keep churning 'em out, I'll keep using them as the best cav in the game. Besides, if they are dolts, they are expendable, right? I mean, what other unit has 2 hit points and regenerates, lol? I never have governors. Quit using them in RTW. If they weren't idiots to start with, they get that way in garrison. And they do make really good cav.

[katank]

Yep, the infamous BG rush. Waves of super troopers crash anyone's party. You can smash the enemy lines and chase down all the routers in no time flat. Quickest battles ever!

[Slicendice]

I simpathize with you. It's bad enough that these bad traits appear for no good reason, but now we can't even select the heir.

I guess that's just what depleted obsolete Cogs are for. Load up the general, some terrible merchants, princess, diplomat, all for a one way trip to visit the Rebel Fleet.

[Shahed]

Isn't there a cheat to kill characters i.e

kill_character this freaking moron dies !

or something along those lines ?

[Slicendice]

Something I'm wondering about is if I can prevent family members from marrying EVER? So when they keep asking me if I want to adopt I can say "yes" without fear of them reproducing and potentially becoming an heir.

[Shahed]

That seems to be no problem at all for my Turkish royal family. They won't marry, obviously they have other sexual orientation, homosexuality perhaps, but they won't admit it.

A few of them will die without marrying.

[Fisherking]

I have to agree with this one. The family trees seem to produce a bumper crop of nuts when they produce at all.
I have been very disheartened by this and every attempt on my part to prevent poor traits has failed. It is very much like a contagion, once one family member gets poor tax man or the dreaded trait of tax-farmer(different from the ancillary)they all try to out do the others until you can only use them in ambushes or send them on crusades. They come of age with terrible traits so that you have to keep a close eye out for any showing up in towns.
It is too bad I didn't make any screen shots of some of the family trees near the end of one of these games. The abundance of Wall-nuts was astounding!
Most of them are mad as hatters, extravagant to the last degree, of practically no military value, and with no religion what so ever.

Not being able to swap ancillaries is only a very minor problem. I don't know why CA decided to make all the royal houses of Europe into such degenerate swine but it seems certain that they will all turn out that way. Even those adopted can only be left in settlements for a few turns before they are totally useless...and I never have large sums left in the treasury!!!! What triggers all of these pathetic traits in the first place, and what am I doing wrong never to get any positive traits passed along???

[R'as al Ghul]

I don't know why CA decided to make all the royal houses of Europe into such degenerate swine but it seems certain that they will all turn out that way.

Erm, incest?

I suffer the same problem. One needs to micromanage them every turn but even then they still pick up bad traits.

[dopp]

Refer to the "Hotbeds of Sin and Corruption" thread to see why your characters instantly rot away when they enter a settlement. All those negative traits are genetic, btw, and they increase in severity with each passing generation.

Adopting a son, getting married and having children all have high chances of giving your characters negative traits. On the other hand, there are also high chances of getting good traits from these events (dad gives up drinking when daughter is born kind of stuff). Getting hit by an assassin will give the character quite a few nasty traits as well if he survives.

Apart from this, there is a series of triggers that fires every time a new family member appears. They contain almost all the negative and positive traits. So despite your best efforts some of your 'coming of age' family (those that you can't say no to) will have horrible traits that then become genetic. It's completely random and there's nothing you can do about it, except prevent the victim from breeding it further.

Having said that, I suspect the game loads the dice. As I said in another thread, the last few of my VH/VH grand campaigns have all seen madness enter my royal line. The game always seems to roll it up for one of my characters and then goes out of its way to choose that fellow as my faction heir. My current insane despot was chosen as crown prince even though he was adopted and his father was the third son of the previous king (the first son was still alive and had children of his own, but it seems like the game simply skipped that generation altogether to make this wacko crown prince). He still managed to hit 8 authority despite the massive penalties of the trait due to an assassination spree I had going. Mad but dangerous.

[Fisherking]

LOL Well I am not quite sure whether I like it or hate it. Never mind I hate it.
It sounds like unintended consequences of trying to give the game a little levity.

In the last campaign I took to hiding ever one out in the woods hoping to avoid all of this but alas to no avail. I think it needs a serious rework, be it by CA or modders....Only the AI factions seem to have usable generals. I am lucky to have some dolt with two stars and enough bad traits to put him into a freak show.

[seneschal.the]

I got bored of my two venetian generals, the heir and the general at Ragusa, getting pagan magicians in 6 turns at the start of the game. 50-60 turns later my entire family was corrupt homosexual drunkards.

I whipped up a small mod that overhauls the vices, making them much less likely to appear and only when it is somewhat logically sound. Before modding it, I never even used governors as they always, always pick up very bad traits very quickly.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75326

The whole VnV system is just a big trainwreck. How about taking some people off the graphical division and have em read through the .txt files?

[Exino]

Well..... just in case you didn't know the British and French royalty pretty much were inbred in the medieval ages... and inbreeding causes weak genetic diversity, as anyone who has taken a basic science class would know.

Well, now ya know.

[Darth Nihilus]

I miss how we can't assinate our own characters anymore.

[seneschal.the]

Well..... just in case you didn't know the British and French royalty pretty much were inbred in the medieval ages... and inbreeding causes weak genetic diversity, as anyone who has taken a basic science class would know.

Well, now ya know.

Interestingly enough, CA decided that certain factions have certain traits more likely to happen:

A french general that comes of age (not adopted etc.) has a 4% chance of picking up the traits HatesEngland, Brave and Drink.

An english general coming of age has a 4% chance if picking up HatesFrance, HatesScotland, Brave and Ugly.

Scottish generals have their 4% chance at HatesEngland, Feck, Miserly, HaleandHearty and Rabblerouser.

Byzantines can be corrupt from the very beginning. Danes don't hate anyone but can be drunk, hale and hearty mathematicians!

[Fisherking]

The level of humor in the game is commendable. But the traits system is badly broken or just plane

I married off a princess to a suitor. She had 8 charm, he had wife is a wretch to go along with tax farmer, poor administrator and a few other wonderful traits. sense I had to save two turns to make a 4800 upgrade it wasn't from being too flush with cash.

[Naefen]

My sympaties to you all.

Apart from a couple homosexuals and poor tax-farmers my HRE family members and Generals kick ass.
Most of them have the conscientous Trainer allowing forced mach and I have recently had a Coming of Age called "The Handsome"

His name is Gunther hehehe.

ps: Emperor Heinrich (the starting emperor) had a second son, named Leopold, who was a complete disaster but he is long gone dead now.

[Prodigal]

What I don't get is the heir "path", I got a lame king, & he's got 3 sons, the faction heir is of course "dangerously insane" but one of the boys is a 9 star warrior god, so I knock off the mad one, & then the next faction heir is some 58 year old, probably the kings uncle...I thought it should go to the next eldest son of the king. Now short of killing all but 1 family member, hth am I supposed to weed out the crud & get the heir I want?

[Dearmad]

Heir always goes to whoever has the biggest pr**. It's a hidden trait, however... you have to cheat to look at it.

[Bob the Insane]

Heir always goes to whoever has the biggest pr**. It's a hidden trait, however... you have to cheat to look at it.

On the same theme, I wonder if the old Influence trait is still buried in there somewhere. It was what was used to determine the next heir in RTW...