Family not breeding

[kevarms]

Playing this after playing RTW and I have a problem. I like to have all my cities governed and armies led by family members but in M2TW my family just aren't having children. Is it something to do with the music? It doesn't really get me in the mood either. Can we add our own custom music? I'm sure the missus has some Luther Vandross somewhere.

[pat the magnificent]

ironically, the answer to both of your problems is the same.

barry white.

[Quillan]

Seriously, it's either one of two things: random chance or you have too many generals. Each turn, each adult male married family member has a chance of having a child, providing he has less than 4 total (living or dead). Since it's random, it's entirely possible to go years with no births at all if you have a run of bad luck.

However, the other limiter is the ratio of generals to provinces. The game seems to think you should have a certain number of adult male family members for the number of provinces you own. If you have lower than the bottom end of the ratio, the game has a chance of offering you an adoption every turn until you eventually reach the lower limit. When you go over the top limit, the family quits having children entirely. I've had it happen repeatedly, and when it does, it runs in cycles. At the beginning of a new campaign I usually get offered one or two adoptions in the early going, especially if I play a faction that has a large starting territory. Once the other kids come of age that stops. For a generation or two all is well, but generally the third generation of the family is huge and they're having loads of kids. So the fourth generation grows up, gets married, and is almost totally barren. It's not generally until the oldest of them start dying off that I get a few births, and that results in about a decade where the family is hanging on by a thread, because most of the males died of old age and the kids aren't old enough yet. Usually I get another couple of adoptions in here, too. If I make it through this one, then the fifth generation will be prolific, the sixth generation will be huge and the seventh generation will be barren again, to repeat the same cycle. Losing a few of your worst generals when the family is huge may start a cycle of childbirth in the remainder.