RavenX

Join Date 10/2008

+194

I want a Harem...Question on Multiple Spouses

Polygamy has been a common practice for Thousands of Years

Will it be possible for some faction rulers to have Multiple Spouses? It's a common fact in real life that there are Many cultures now and throughout history that have supported polygamy. Sultans in Middle East have and had multiple wives. Even most of the men in the Bible have/had multiple wives. This is a Fact that is often over-looked by Western Cultures.

Seeing as how Elemental is a "Fantasy Game" I don't honestly see why it should be limited to having every culture in the game having a ruler that can't take as many wives as he wants. An evil ruler who rules his people with an iron fist would even be more likely to plain out TAKE a Woman when-ever he wants too (there's also nothing to say a female ruler couldn't do it as well).

I also think this would be a great way to add Meaningful Differences between the cultures and factions in game. By having multiple wives and multiple children by those wives it would greatly affect how the dynasty system plays out and how it effects game-play as a whole. In the future and possibly for expansions please consider adding in the ability for a faction to have a ruler that can take multiple spouses. Thank you and that is all...for now.

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Can there be an in-game quest to have sex too? Or can I mod it in? Maybe something like +1 to Str or dexterity or constitution depending on what position your'e in? Thanks!

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In the same way as some factions allow to have women warriors, I think some other faction may allow multiple wives or concubines to produce more children, may be with slightly worse statistics though, because they would not get proper attention from their father. This could be interesting gameplay element and chose of your kingdom setup.

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Can I be a female leader and have multiple man slaves as my lovers? I believe in gender equality. Or can I be a guy and have male lovers and female with female lovers?

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Hey RavenX my friend does your wife know you want a harem

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From:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/374531

How do I get divorced?: Your Sovereign can get "divorced" by sending the spouse, without any equipment or bodyguards, to the nearest and strongest monster or enemy army available. Seriously.
How do I get married a second/third/fourth... time or stablish my own harem?: In a mod, if anyone makes one about it. (Elemental: War of Bedrooms?)

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

Quoting clockwerk,

reply 5

...How do I get divorced? Your Sovereign can get "divorced" by sending the spouse, without any equipment or bodyguards, to the nearest and strongest monster or enemy army available. Seriously.

Here's hoping it works that way in the release version. In the last beta version, I had a dead spouse stuck on my dynasty page and no marriage options for my sovereign appearing on selected champions.

You could also use that sort of functionality as a villainous form of 'annulment' in cases where a dynastic exchange turns out to be a problem (slow-to-no offspring, alliance value dwindling, etc.).

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I'm serious You guys need to be progressive.

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Quoting solidsmooky,

reply 3

Can I be a female leader and have multiple man slaves as my lovers? I believe in gender equality. Or can I be a guy and have male lovers and female with female lovers?

This does not make anything in terms of game play. It is still single women, so the amount of babies will be about the same in single or multiple man marriage. The situation is simply different with one man and many wives.

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you can be female sovereign and marry male hero and have family.. As to the rest no the game does not currently support same gender relationships.. I wager we will see that in a mod fairly soon tho...

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Can I have a fight with my wife about fixing the kitchen cabinets and painting the house?

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

Quoting solidsmooky,

reply 7

I'm serious You guys need to be progressive.

In real life, I'm so 'progressive' that I want an end to all government involvement in marriages and legal rights for parents other than a birth mother to be at the mother's sole discretion (that's deliberately flexible language, no DNA relationships required, no limit on the potential number of legal parents).

But this is a medieval-toned game. It's actually more honest about the history of marriage than any of the culture war debates with their dependence on extremely modern notions of romance and childhood. Traditional marriage among the poor folks was about establishing productive households. The nobles add wealth and status to the exchange, but still marriage was a 'business' thing for the most part until the late 18th or 19th century in some parts of the world (and not everywhere, yet).

Basically, even though Raven has a point when it comes to past real-world monarchs (almost all male) having numerous sex partners of varying social ranks, including that in the game would make for a very messy UI, even if you limited it to something like 3 legal spouses per royal person and a 1-per-realm House of Concubines improvement.

Also on a pragmatic level, while I suppose same-sex couples could provide some basic diplomatic value, including that in the un-modded UI would probably cost too much dev time for the number of players who would use it (I'm assuming maximizers are the majority, so forgoing 'free' champion units would make no sense). And I'm not bashing at all here; I'm a gay man.

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Quoting Adronson,

reply 10

Can I have a fight with my wife about fixing the kitchen cabinets and painting the house?

LOL

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Quoting Adronson,

reply 10

Can I have a fight with my wife about fixing the kitchen cabinets and painting the house?

And you want to do it with multiple wives?

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Quoting GW Swicord,

reply 11

1-per-realm House of Concubines improvement.

I quoted it simply because I like how weird it sounds.

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I'm a gay man.

well I don't really care how happy your are...

OK silliness aside.. this is the best description about why it was unlikely/not allowed in these types of times and explanation of the problems of making it work easily in a game mechanic sense... like I said mods will probably cover this fairly quickly for those who want to go these routes..

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Wintersong

Join Date 07/2006

+235

Quoting GW Swicord,

reply 6

Quoting clockwerk, reply 5...How do I get divorced? Your Sovereign can get "divorced" by sending the spouse, without any equipment or bodyguards, to the nearest and strongest monster or enemy army available. Seriously.

Here's hoping it works that way in the release version. In the last beta version, I had a dead spouse stuck on my dynasty page and no marriage options for my sovereign appearing on selected champions.

You could also use that sort of functionality as a villainous form of 'annulment' in cases where a dynastic exchange turns out to be a problem (slow-to-no offspring, alliance value dwindling, etc.).

Note the use of " in the word divorced of that quote.

We seem to be stuck with one spouse no matter the circumstances. For Gold is fine to me but I hope that some flexibility can be added later.

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Quoting GW Swicord,

reply 11

Quoting solidsmooky, reply 7I'm serious You guys need to be progressive.
In real life, I'm so 'progressive' that I want an end to all government involvement in marriages and legal rights for parents other than a birth mother to be at the mother's sole discretion (that's deliberately flexible language, no DNA relationships required, no limit on the potential number of legal parents).

But this is a medieval-toned game. It's actually more honest about the history of marriage than any of the culture war debates with their dependence on extremely modern notions of romance and childhood. Traditional marriage among the poor folks was about establishing productive households. The nobles add wealth and status to the exchange, but still marriage was a 'business' thing for the most part until the late 18th or 19th century in some parts of the world (and not everywhere, yet).

Basically, even though Raven has a point when it comes to past real-world monarchs (almost all male) having numerous sex partners of varying social ranks, including that in the game would make for a very messy UI, even if you limited it to something like 3 legal spouses per royal person and a 1-per-realm House of Concubines improvement.

Also on a pragmatic level, while I suppose same-sex couples could provide some basic diplomatic value, including that in the un-modded UI would probably cost too much dev time for the number of players who would use it (I'm assuming maximizers are the majority, so forgoing 'free' champion units would make no sense). And I'm not bashing at all here; I'm a gay man.

Yes but its a fantasy game and in my fantasy (and in other fantasy genres) there is homosexuality. I'm gay too Maybe we can work on a mod together! Hehe.

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I like Raven's idea on increasing faction differences by letting one or a few factions have the possibility to create a harem with say up to 4 wives.

And actually it would make an in-game difference also if you play a female sov. A female with a male harem would have to carry the children herself but would have the advantage of linking her realm with several others without divorcing.

As for same-sex marriages it would actually also be an asset for a faction to have the possibility to arrange these (much like some factions can train female troops) - no you would not get offspring (without magical intervention that is ...) but in many games it might be strategically crucial for you to link your realm with a particular other realm in order to survive long-term. If both have only sons or only daughters (or the others are already married off) ... Such a situation might become more common than you would think depending on rate of marriages and children in the final tweak. Guess it might not be in the official game but just wanted to point it out.

Also, I think we don't necessarily have to stick to European medieval history here: in a fantasy game it's up to the creator to flesh out the cultural traits of each civ. Some options could add spice and make the game unique.

BTW, I just watched 3rd season of acclaimed series True Blood and it's, hmm, interesting to see how they treat vampire and other human or nonhuman relationships.

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Quoting Twohawks,

reply 4

Hey RavenX my friend does your wife know you want a harem

She sure does As along as she gets to be the "Queen" she's happy. I'm a lucky man.

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Quoting clockwerk,

reply 5

From:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/374531

How do I get divorced?
Your Sovereign can get "divorced" by sending the spouse, without any equipment or bodyguards, to the nearest and strongest monster or enemy army available. Seriously.
How do I get married a second/third/fourth... time or stablish my own harem?
In a mod, if anyone makes one about it. (Elemental: War of Bedrooms?)

That may be true, and while I agree it should apply to some things, I honestly don't think they should take that stance when it comes to having multiple spouses. Many many far Eastern Cultures in Real Life history have done, as have other cultures who's religious beliefs have even called for it. It is popular in the Bible as well which shows that western cultured customers probably wouldn't be adverse to the idea in a Fantasy Game.

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Quoting Raven X,

reply 20

I'm sure it's more of a gameplay concern than a thematic one. Having multiple spouses simply would be overpowered. They have more important things to do than work out a solution to this. Just pretend that your character has a bunch of concubines in addition to their main spouse. That's usually how it worked in real life anyway, Genghis Khan may have had many wives but Borte was easily the most important.

The no same-sex thing is probably also a gameplay concern, since it totally messes with the dynasty element.

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It should not be out of the question to mod the code for multiple spouses.. or for that matter same sex marriages... for all the good that might do, diplomatic mostly I'd guess..??..

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regarding the multiple spouse issue, even the straight laced british have king henry the eighth with 7 wives, the romans also had multiple marriages, the middle east was practically built on it, the egyptians did it, and of course the asian dynasties also used multiple spouces, so it is in the majority of human history and religions, just not as common in north america (although the mormons seem to have a claim for multiple marriage also).

regarding the gameplay issue for the dynasty page it might be a good idea if the spouse dies before childbirth to allow re-marriage for the sovereign or children.

harpo

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Quoting Raven X,

reply 19

Quoting Twohawks, reply 4Hey RavenX my friend does your wife know you want a harem

She sure does As along as she gets to be the "Queen" she's happy. I'm a lucky man.

heh heh indeed you are sir... indeed you are...

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