On Janusk & Offspring

from Elemental Forums

Sooo I'm trying to figure out for the life of me why it's not worth it to create or use a lady sovereign and just marry Janusk on the first turn to start pumping out little adventurers... That is to say, I'm trying to figure out a way for Elemental to more strategically integrate offspring into the game.

As it is now, there's no reason not to marry some random dude wandering around the wasteland and get your happily married couple to have 16 kids. Before feature lock I'd love to see better incentives to think about who your characters are marrying beyond the line of succession of foreign kingdoms.. If there were a way to have the skills of the offspring related to the worth of the parents, it would incentivize strategic thinking on the part of players. I'm thinking it could work like this-

 

If the Sovereign marries a Wasteland Sorcerer (or some other wasteland magicker) then their offspring (let's call her Betty) would have a 50% or 75% chance of having some amount of magic power, say 3 or 4 essence points. Then you might choose to marry lil' Betty off to lil' Grognar, and their kid might end up being an adventurer with a little magic, a little bit of strength, and the potential to grow. Alternately, you might have Betty marry Merlin, and try and get a whole line of minor channelers who can trace their magical ancestry back to beginning of the kingdom/empire.

 

With this kind of system, I think you could set players up to think about their long term game plan, and start getting into fun situations where two or three generations down the line the player has finally produced a Master Merchant with +7 gold a turn thanks to smart breeding. I'd hope this could all be done by tweaking the algorithms and/or adding some extra categories or abilities for adventurers, but I'm not a game programmer :(

 

Any thoughts?

elemental
7,642 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm guessing the main decision at the moment is the power of the person and the risk they are in. So if I marry somebody with good combat ability they are more likely to survive an assault... but if i marry a merchant and keep them snuck away safely somewhere I don't have to worry about a dead spouse. Genetics or such would be awesome but possibly too much work seeing as feature-lock is very soon? Also there's already a Lot of re-balancing needing done. Expansion-pack feature perhaps? :). "Elemental++ : War of Contraception"

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Oh, also the dipllomatic effects of marrying between factions! :-)

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

There is already genetics to a certain degree. Your offspring can get some of the traits of its parents. So if you marry a merchant then your offspring may produce gold or they may increase prestige if your sovereign is royalty, and if you marry Janusk they won't get anything from his side (If he doesn't have any traits, I can't remember if he does in the latest build). I haven't paid much attention to attributes, but I wouldn't be surprised if those are passed down also.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Grognar....and Betty?

Heh. Poor Betty. Such a plain name. I hope she doesn't look as plain as her name - otherwise she might have that "Ugly" trait and you wouldn't get 16 kids :D

But, yeah, genetics - with a degree of randomness/unexpected results, would be pretty cool.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

The marrying aspect, so far, is a little bit dispointing.

 

Anyone you ask will marry you and that's it.

There should be something more involved.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting VR_IronMana, reply 4
Grognar....and Betty?

Heh. Poor Betty. Such a plain name. I hope she doesn't look as plain as her name - otherwise she might have that "Ugly" trait and you wouldn't get 16 kids

But, yeah, genetics - with a degree of randomness/unexpected results, would be pretty cool.
End of VR_IronMana's quote

The successor to the throne of a human sovereign is suddenly a trog... go figure... That'll teach him not to marry and adventuress again...

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting AngeloBraz, reply 5
The marrying aspect, so far, is a little bit dispointing.

 

Anyone you ask will marry you and that's it.

There should be something more involved.
End of AngeloBraz's quote

I dunno. It's a blasted wasteland where people are barely scraping by. If the monarch of a faction (Who coincidentally has the miraculous ability to bring land back to life) asks for someone's hand in marriage... I'm thinking not many people are going to say no.

Just sayin.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Are you guys really commenting on a game aspect that is specifically not added into the current beta? Wait until we have dynasties and then tell us what you think.

 

 

:troll:  :troll: :troll: :troll:

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting seanw3, reply 8
Are you guys really commenting on a game aspect that is specifically not added into the current beta? Wait until we have dynasties and then tell us what you think.

 

 

 
End of seanw3's quote

I don't know what beta you're playing, but there have been dynasties for a while...

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Dynasties are crippled in this version. That means the kids you pop out never leave home and their stats begin very low. I serious doubt this resembles anything like the majesty of the dynasty system that has been described by frogboy. If this is the current way they are doing dynasties, it is a very sad thing indeed. We are supposed to be able to marry them off and they are supposed to be able to become governors of cities and a system of succession is supposed to delineate from this game mechanic. I think there are more features that have been metioned but these are the ones I remember.

The OP was right though about what we have in 3A being all wrong.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

How about make marriage option give you quest that takes a moment to complete, like present gifts for the lady/lord , slay some beast, bring the treasure sorta thing?