War&Peace

[Ayachuco]

Have you guys noticed that whenever your faction is militaristicly aggressive; your faction heirs have certain better stats...
One Example-Playing as Byz,Hard,Early Blitz to the South
Starting with Alexius, I make a 12 year long blitz for Syria/Rum to rid of the Turkish prblm and resulted in 2 ransoms. After a 8 year process of rebuilding/remanning my army, I make a move on Egypt that lead to a capture of the holy lands but ultimately failed to reach the Nile. Darn those 12 unit stacks in sinai.
During this time period, 4 princes came of age and have very high command and dread rates. My best was Prince John (6 dread, 8 stars).
When Nicephorus (8 dread, 6 stars) came to the throne, I decided to have a reign of peace in the Empire. I abstain from going to wars and focus on my economy. (I usually do this after a warmonger reign to illustrate policy changes) Nicephorus' reign lasted 24 years when he died sallying forth at a seige at the hands of the Egyptians. During his reign, I had 3 princes that came of age and they were the opposite. They had high acumen ratings but low or zero stars.
Is this hardwired into the game or is it only happening to me???
Responses or personal experiences will be readily received.

[Jxrc]

I think the quality of your heir is somehow related to (i) the quality and (ii) the prestige of your king.

Quality cause the number of stars an heir gets (before the initial random V&V such as pride, inbred, etc are applied) is equal to your king plus or minus one or two stars (at random).

It seem to me that the odds to get an additional one or two stars are better if your king's prestige is high (8-9). Often my kings does no fighting whatsoever but gets heir with more command stars than him because (I think) of high prestige. If prestige is low or average (between 1 and 5), the chance that the heir has less stars than the current ruler seem to increase. For instance playing as the Danes, I quite often get heir with less stars than the initial king cause there is no way to get high prestige during the first king rule (getting Sweden, Norway and that's about it). On the other hand, when I have a rather poor (between 0 and 3 stars) non-fighting king but send succeful crusades, the quality of heirs increase significantly once prestige reaches 8-9.

I know of no way to test that for certain so take it merely as an impression based on way too many games. I alway write down the starting stat of each of my kings so that how I've come across the idea that there would be some pattern involved here.

With the Byz early is quite common to get good heir cause the starting king has four or five stars and the V&V "Field defence specialist" so that, unless you king is attacking when the heir comes of age, 7-8 stars (rather than 4-5) will be the starting point for calculating the number of stars your heir will get. There is nevertheless a glitch since you can end up with an heir with 0 star anyway if the result of the calculation gets to good and reaches exceeds 9. Indeed since the max number of stars is 9, getting 10 or 11 as a result means that you start a new cycle from the very bottom and thus zero (result =10) one (result =11) star.

[I of the Storm]

It's been a while since I played the Byz in MTW, but IIRC the first three or four princes always had high ratings in all fields + good V&Vs. They might be scripted. Not sure though...

edit: I also remember that the first HRE princes always were morons.

[Ironside]

Jxrc is spot on, on both the kings influence link to hier's stats and about the called "wrap-around bug" (10 stars becoming 0).
Can add that the system is almost self-sustaining as the king's starting influence is linked to the sum of all stats in some way.

Peity and occationally influence can also suffer from versions of that bug.

[Martok]

It's been a while since I played the Byz in MTW, but IIRC the first three or four princes always had high ratings in all fields + good V&Vs. They might be scripted. Not sure though...

Yeah, the general consensus is that they're scripted. Byzantine heirs are simply too good on too consistent a basis to *not* be hard-coded in some way, especially in the Early period.

As a general rule, however, what everyone else has said applies: Your heirs' stats are primarily affected by stats of your faction leader, with Influence being by far the biggest factor.

[Sensei Warrior]

Conserning the Byz. IIRC the Byz emperor you start out with has a very high Influence rating and reasonably good stats. If that's the case, then his Princes should also have the same. If the Princes that come of age are scripted then wouldnt they be listed in the Heros file?

I was always astounded at the quality of Byz Royals when I played, but never thought them to be improbable. More than once Kings in my other campaigns pumped out heirs of equal quality when their Influence was high.

Although, it does seem to me that if there is a lot of fighting then the fighting stats seem to make out better than acumen and piety. Of course, I really have no facts to back that up so it could be purely coincidence.

[Prussian1]

I also remember that the first HRE princes always were morons.

Generally true, which is why I'm a true believer in Tough Love

I think it's good to get Junior out of the schloss to meet the neighbors. Once you get him out doing things like smacking around the Pomeranians, he tends to forget about Muti's jaegerschnitzel and get his act together.

If not, there's a nice spot in the family crypt once the Pomeranians are done smacking HIM around

[Sensei Warrior]

Generally true, which is why I'm a true believer in Tough Love

I think it's good to get Junior out of the schloss to meet the neighbors. Once you get him out doing things like smacking around the Pomeranians, he tends to forget about Muti's jaegerschnitzel and get his act together.

If not, there's a nice spot in the family crypt once the Pomeranians are done smacking HIM around

I agree, the English are known for dim heirs at first too. Any Heir that doesn't have 6 toes should be put on Tour. Send him out to 'shake hands' with the neighbors. Once he has a few stars under his belt, Scant Mercy, and maybe even Butcher under his belt, he'll seem alot more appealing ... that and a ring on his finger.

Another notable idea is insure the right Junior has a long healthy reign that has lots of expansions and sucessful religous wars, to rocket his influence to the top (or at least the high middle) to insure his 'Juniors' don't need as much training up for the throne.

I remember a campaign as the Danes. The King rose to the throne at around 20, not married and no anything. He was a 10* loser, but he was young and in generally good genetic health and was the first of his family to not have the Drinker line. Campaign was poised on the edge of a huge expansion which rocketed his influence to 9 or 10. His kiddies were much improved, and when the next heir rose to power he had 7 to 8 influence so the cycle continued.

[Jxrc]

Yeah, the general consensus is that they're scripted. Byzantine heirs are simply too good on too consistent a basis to *not* be hard-coded in some way, especially in the Early period.

What puzzles me in that case is that I manage to have Byz heirs that are not half as good as the original king... For IA Spanish/Byz heir it is true that they are usually quite uber but I have seen a few times the IA becoming a victim of the "wrap-around bug" and end up with a Spanish/Byz king with only one star.

My guess is rather that the AI gets some kind of hard-coded advantage as far as the generation of its heirs is concerned cause the ones its gets are nearly always better than the one I would receive playing the same faction.

I would thus say that the "problem" (a good idea for balancing purpose if you ask me) is that the IA gets an advantage for all factions but that it becomes obvious whith Byz and Spaniards cause the initial king is already very good.

Just my two cents.

[macsen rufus]

I'm sure the Byzantines get a "stacked deck" - but let's face it, he IS the Byzantine Emperor

As for the Spanish, they get jinette spam, easy prey, and rich lands, I think they just tend to do well, rather than being stacked.

[Martok]

As for the Spanish, they get jinette spam, easy prey, and rich lands, I think they just tend to do well, rather than being stacked.

That's my experience as well. The Spanish can (and do) get bad heirs; it's just not that often when it happens. This indicates to me that the Spanish's tendency to have good family members is usually more a reflection of the faction's overall good fortune than anything else. After all, it's a rare game (at least for me) when the Spanish don't do at least reasonably well -- they're often a superpower in my campaigns.

[Sensei Warrior]

That's my experience as well. The Spanish can (and do) get bad heirs; it's just not that often when it happens. This indicates to me that the Spanish's tendency to have good family members is usually more a reflection of the faction's overall good fortune than anything else. After all, it's a rare game (at least for me) when the Spanish don't do at least reasonably well -- they're often a superpower in my campaigns.

I agree. Any campaign where I am far away from Spain, and Spain has the tendancy to do really well. Of course, any campaign where their borders and mine meet usually means Spain getting stopped in their tracks. Not to mention, Spain is one of the factions that I cant auto-calc my way out of. The Jinnies kill me on autocalc but do virtually nothing in an in-game battle but play 2step with my archers, and their arrows

[Zain]

Haha, yeah, I notice the Almohads playing very well when I play as the Danes or maybe England, but when I'm the Byzantines or Spain they get stopped in their tracks and look for a way around. (Hardly ever happens)

Ahhh.... the good old days of simple little Medieval