Births vs conquest

[Per Ole]

Is there any way to mod the game, so that how much you conquer doesn't affect how many births there are in your family? I always have this problem when playing slow campaigns, my family all but dies out.
However, when I conquer, they give birth to loads of children. Is there any way to make it so they give birth to more children when you do not expand?

[Augustus Germanicus]

Kinda counter-logic isn't it? When your generals are at home with their wives they never have children, but when they're out in the field conquering they're having kids left and right.

Oddly though with all the family manipulation tactics I've tried I've just decieded that the number of children and whether or not your generals marry is more the work of some completely random number luck. Some games I get loads of kids no matter what I do, others no one marries. It's beyond annoying to have a game that's starting off great be trashed when it's 20, 30, 40 turns in and no ones gotten married or had kids yet, despite the fact that my family member to Province ratio is like 1:4 (1 general for every 4 provinces). Being forced to accept adoptions or quit due to lack of children is one of my biggest problems with this game.

I don't think there is, but if you find out how to modify the family stuff in the game, let me know. I'd personally like to either find something useful for females to do (other than marry some 50yr old goon with the same possible traits as a 20yr old promoted captain) or eliminate the chance to have them all together (100% chance at a male child). Since there's a 4 child max on all family members I've taken to simply reloading/moving a unit around whenever I get a female child and hope for a male or nothing. I'd love to change the family dynamic in this game, maybe force children if you have more regions than generals and no children have been born in X turns.

[FactionHeir]

descr_campaign_db.xml
Change <max_age_of_child uint="12"/>
to a lower number to allow for more births. I usually play with this value at 2 or 4.
You can also allow for more children per character, but that's usually not necessary.

[icek]

if you play without moding you an also try fighting rebels with captains. maybe one of them will be worthy for adoption. usually its even better since those crappy princesses can screw a family tree for generations.

[Deutschland Uber Alles]

I never had this problem and played over 16 grand campaigns.

[Per Ole]

ooooh no, no adoptions :P Just pure royal blood all the way down to the finnish.

Back to the org point.
Let me f.eks. take my Venetian campaign. I held Venice and Constantinople and all the ones in between (Not north of venice mind, so it was kinda streched out). I held this area untill the time ran out, and by then I only had my 62 year old faction leader and his 40 year old son... Not much of a family to govern my cities.

I found that if you expand, you get children. If you don't, you won't get children. Same thing with adoptions; if you expand quickly, you get loads of offers for adoption. If you don't, you don't get adoptions

[Odin]

Breeding is one of the little sub games within the larger picture of MTW2. As soon as you get a faction heir wed him to a princess, even if its your own. Each chrarecter can have up to 4 kids, so it only takes one successful branch of the family tree to populate your kingdom.

This is without taking adoptions mind you, or suitable prince offers for your princesses. Just get that faction heir married ASAP, even if it means killing of the current king to induce a new faction heir.

Example: King Odin 61, Prince Thor 37, Heimdall 17.

Now Heimdall will become the faction heir once Odin dies and Thor ascends. Unless you have your king engaged and he is essential to your current plan kill him, so heimdall can ascend to faction heir and marry a princess.

Rinse and repeat when Heimdall has his son (balder if you like)

[RickooClan]

descr_campaign_db.xml
Change <max_age_of_child uint="12"/>
to a lower number to allow for more births. I usually play with this value at 2 or 4.
You can also allow for more children per character, but that's usually not necessary.

Hi FactionHeir, could you explain a bit why does lowering the number for max_age_of_child will give more births please?

I would like to mod my game so i can breed a better family tree!

[CannonBall]

I tried changing # children, a long time ago when the game was 1.01, from 4 to 6 and the game CTD. Can you change that in 1.03?

I got tired of waiting for kids and modded a building to recruit generals and if one of them was sponge-worthy (lol) - adopt or marry princess them.

[RickooClan]

I tried changing # children, a long time ago when the game was 1.01, from 4 to 6 and the game CTD. Can you change that in 1.03?

I got tired of waiting for kids and modded a building to recruit generals and if one of them was sponge-worthy (lol) - adopt or marry princess them.

As far as i know recruiting general from building will have no effect on the family-province ratio as they are not family member.

In one of my game i have like 12 province, 5 family members and 20+ recruited generals. But still i get heaps of adoption offers every turn.

The most annoying thing is, even my family tree is in dangerous low the male family members just never marry!

[FactionHeir]

I'm not sure exactly why lowering the number helps, but it does.

I think if the number is lower, the child above that age is counted as "naerly a family member" and thus results in the game thinking you got more generals very soon, therefore giving you more births (more generals in times to come) and more marriages.

[RickooClan]

By the way, i have mod a bit in my game in order to breed a better royal bloodline. ( i cant remember when did i find this family tree breeding game much challenging than the war itself, lol )

1. I give the highest fertility rating to factionleader and factionheir. So, whenever there is a "quota" for birth, they will have a higher chance than any other family members. (and i think thats their duty to producing children )

2. Give extra +3 charm for princess therefore it is much easier to get a decent marriage for heir asap. (it sounds like every princess will gain a "secret love" in 10 turns or starting with some bad traits :()

3. Change the life span from age 60 to 65. So there is a higher chance your old king will die after his grandson mature at age 16. ie. If you faction heir born a male child before your old king hit age 49, this child will become the new heir other than randomly selecting some other family members.

[FactionHeir]

Having a lot more old characters decreases the chance of more marriages and births though as they count towards the generals to provinces ratio, so that's in a way counter productive.

Giving princesses extra charm will only result in your new characters getting slightly better looks, but does nothing for births unless you give them FertileWoman and/or PrettyWoman.

Increasing fertility may result in births occuring a bit faster, but overall the birthrate will stay the same: It happens that you can have a completely frtile couple, but if you met your ratio or got enough births according to the game, this couple may well stay childless (happened to me before)

[RickooClan]

I'm not sure exactly why lowering the number helps, but it does.

I think if the number is lower, the child above that age is counted as "naerly a family member" and thus results in the game thinking you got more generals very soon, therefore giving you more births (more generals in times to come) and more marriages.

Thx for the reply FactionHeir, i am not sure if i really get what it means but here is my perception of it.

As we know there is a hidden family member to province number ratio, i find that if that ratio is far too low, you will only get adoption offers or prince offer in order to quickily pump up the ratio.

You will only get bride offer and having kids naturally if this ratio stay in a "balance" level which we dont exactly know what it is.

Therefore, if we lower the max_age_of_child number, the game will think the ratio is better balance even those male kids are still 4 years old or so, and will maintain a natural bride offering or such??

[RickooClan]

Having a lot more old characters decreases the chance of more marriages and births though as they count towards the generals to provinces ratio, so that's in a way counter productive.

Hm...thats true but i have several occasions while my king was died, his grandson is just 1 or 2 year away from mature. And this end up i have to killed the random selected heir in order to let his "true" grandson to success the heir and finding a suitable princess for him. Perhaps i can lower the mature age from 16 to 14 instead....

Giving princesses extra charm will only result in your new characters getting slightly better looks, but does nothing for births unless you give them FertileWoman and/or PrettyWoman.

The reason for this is i often find those princess wondering around are having charm less than 3. And we know if the general marry to her will get some undesired traits or such. And actually i didnt make them pretty but just add the natureprincess value +3, similar to the generals begin with royal 5 and piety 3.

Increasing fertility may result in births occuring a bit faster, but overall the birthrate will stay the same: It happens that you can have a completely frtile couple, but if you met your ratio or got enough births according to the game, this couple may well stay childless (happened to me before)

Exactly, rather your couple can birth or not firstly depend on that ratio instead of how fertile they are. But, as i stated, if the "quota" for birth arise, this couple will have higher chance than any other couples and this is what we wanted.

[CannonBall]

As far as i know recruiting general from building will have no effect on the family-province ratio as they are not family member.

The most annoying thing is, even my family tree is in dangerous low the male family members just never marry!

That's been my experience as well w/ recruiting generals, the male family members take forever to get hitched - and every turn somebody comes up for adoption - which I'd rather not do, but that's just my preference.

[imnothere]

odd. i keep getting daughters instead of sons for the 3rd game now, and i really got tired of rejecting those randy 59 y/o who want the hands of my fair 16 y/o daughters.

maybe ETW wont have this problem.

[CannonBall]

odd. i keep getting daughters instead of sons for the 3rd game now, and i really got tired of rejecting those randy 59 y/o who want the hands of my fair 16 y/o daughters.

maybe ETW wont have this problem.

How do you know it's not your ho-ho daughters looking for sugar-daddies??

Don't you find it a little unsavory, that this game makes you pimp out young girls for a general with a drinking problem?? lol.

[Rhedd]

Don't you find it a little unsavory, that this game makes you pimp out young girls for a general with a drinking problem?? lol.

Welcome to the middle ages.

[ReiseReise]

I may be wrong, but I believe that births are completely random.
Having more provinces only affects the number of adoption offers you get.