Timeline For Children

In a perfect world, the timeframe for progeny would scale with map size.  Because yes, playing aggressively on a medium map,  the game is usually over long before I see my kids or can make use of any dynasty oriented diplomacy functions.  Or at least, I'm mopping up and past the point of *caring* about any of these things.

I'd love to see it scale with maps size to ensure a somewhat more uniform game experience, despite the length of game you want to play.

seems like everything in ffh2, atleast before i quit playing, scaled with map size. the armeggedon counter for example, with any luck, now that kael is here, that will get looked at. as it is most of my games are over before i even get married and i play on large(ofcourse i am picky about who i marry, or else just don't care to because i know it won't come into play). but also bare in mind some of this should hopefully be addressed with AI and mechanic changes that are coming, making the game last a little longer and requiring some of the other game options to be utilized to achieve victory.  or atleast change the value of things, for example, with the new magic system, how uber are children really going to be?

how about recruiting npc by marrying offspring off to them...?

for that matter.. is there a limit to the npcs available in the game? might be interesting for all npc to seek marriage and have their own offspring. otherwise a tad silly having all those grannies... and then only channeller offsprings and nothing else after a few k turns.

I would like to see chldren incorporated into the AI NPC behavior.

For Example:

The son of a rival AI NPC becomes infatuated with your daughter, sends an army, attacks your city only to kidnap her and leave.
He becomes ostracized by his family and is forced to form his own fraction.
You are then forced to mount a campaign to rescue her within a certain number of turns or lose her to the captives.

How fast is that? How many factions? I generally get married within the first 20 turns or so. Kids come around turn 150. I prefer not to marry off daughters if I can help it cuz I give up a channler. If you have sons and 10 factions, you can build a bigger family quicker by bringing daughters into your family. Do you imbue alot of heroes? I do and that really bolsters the magic aspect of my army.  What's the most amount of settlements you've seen for an enemy faction on a medium map? I haven't seen more than 8 which usually yields about 3 strong factions with rest vanilla flavored--so the games go pretty quick for me as well.

I can't wait for the next version where the AI is supposed to able to plan. I see no evidence of that ability at the moment. I have yet to see the AI initiate an offensive against me--ever. In Civ4 or even GalCiv, the AI smells weakness and acts on it more often than not--particularly in the beginning of the game.

I prefer longer games, so the time line for children does work for me, but still, i can see that it is way more slow than it really needs to be!

Perhaps a combination of making it much harder to take cities, and reducing the time line for children a bit, that will balance things out better?

Well, I'm still trying things out so my game last at least 1k turn... and I have time to have grand-children even if I marry at 150-200 turn (I forgot to marry early and even then, I dont use my offspring into combat) so it doesn't bother me. I play of course at Normal difficulty.

It would be nice if the whole dynasty system actually mattered.  Make the turns "seasons" and give some recognizable sense to ruler/child aging.  Give the ruler a target life-span based on constitution; they could even add spells to extend life.  Then when the ruler does finally die, his or her heir could take over as the leader.  Etc. etc.

There is so much unmet potential here.

Yep, said better then my own original post. Thanks

I've never got past turn 450ish. Every game I win on ridiculous, largest world, max # opponents by turns 300 to 450. I've never gotten past grandchildren (at most) before winning, and typically just children. They're all just a bonus champions to me with magic, I don't see them as anything other than military leaders. Why marry them off when you can more easily just beat the AI factions militarily?

The incredibly weak AI just diminishes the value of the entire dynasty system. I can see the potential in it, but that's all it is at this point, just potential.

I am not sure how the dynasty system works. I remember before this last patch, you could get some kids (not grandkids) with like 1500 essence at level 1. I forget how. But I kinda remember I got it by having my sovereign a high level (say 6 or 7...) then marry a spouse who is lvl 5-6. I then start doing the snooki-smoosh-smoosh and seeing what's up.

Usually I end a game (ridiculous, largest world, max oppponents etc...) by turn 350-400 as well. Of course could end it way way earlier by doing quest (which I disable), or just stomping and razing everyone.. BORING!. But anyway, taking my own sweet time to slowly torture all the AI into oblivion (the hell-like limbo, not the game, hehe) usually gets me 4 grown kids, all uber powerful (especially with their magic armor, and rings). each of my kids gets a small elite army, and all they do is pick off random mob spawns (to level up), and protect the four corners of my realm as my main stack stomps everyone.

I think out of 30 games, I had grand kids once. And it was my first time on ridiculous/large...

So my point is.... SPEED UP dynasty thing, for those of us who don't take 900 turns to win.

And, my QUESTION is... does anyone else have the same theory I do, that the higher level your sovereign/spouse is, the better your kids? I only remember this because in a prior version, I had uber kids from high lvl sovereigns, and crappy kids from lvl 1 sovereigns. (make a female soverign, marry janusk on turn 2... crappy kids. LOL).

Definitely more could be done with dynastic aspect. With the aging aspect, it should matter. Maybe the Soverign's power will grow as he gets older, and then decline after a peak and becoming too old. This will force a bit of a variety in how you handle strategy. Eventually Sovereign will die, and if you do not have an heir then the game's over. That way it could make dynasty much more relevant, you either have to win during your life span (extend using magic or items, but not infinite), or that you pass the power onward.

And then if you want to pass power, that's where you can really add some variety and new ideas into 4x games. You may have to fight for the inheritance. If you have multiple kids, you have to pick which heir you want to control in the next dynasty, which will have their own pros/cons in terms of their abilities. From that choice, there could be a split, either between the kids, or with some of your existing NPC hero who could rebel, splitting the existing nation into fractions. This way you do not necessarily inherit the whole thing, and you have to manage some internal affairs. You may have to fight off your brothers/sisters/heroes for territory. Or they may accept your rule for a little bit, but surprise you with some attempt to usurp the throne. Or even ally with a neighbor and give up a chunk of territory to them, forcing a border clash with the neighboring power. All these will really make the later game interesting, if only because you have had kids/heroes on your side for so long. And just like in real world, you have some emotional connections with them. It'll definitely add another dimension to the game when you have to face against them. So an inherited throne would have its own peril, and that would definitely add variety to mid/late game where things get bloated and start to not "care". This will create something for you to care about before you finish the whole conquest..

In the end, everyone gets what suits their style. Single generation incentivizes people to finish within certain # of turns if they want fast, or draw out a game into multiple dynastic generations if they want to deal with all the problem with inheritance. The dynastic definitely has potential but I'm not sure if that would be implemented.

Even infinite could work with some sort of Lich-spell that basically makes you undead.  But there would have to be appropriate costs involved - research, casting, estrangement of spouse and kids (if applicable) and maybe political reprecussions (who wants to deal with a Lich??).  Lots of interesting stuff that could be done with dynasties.

The problem is, seasonal turns don't scale with the game. Large cities cover 5 squares in length from end to end. Horse archers can move 10 squares a turn along roads, which is "roughly" a day' worth of movement at this scale. Making turns "seasonal" .. well a 5mp horse archer squad could move from end-to-end dozens of times across a large map.

The fact is, the whole dynasty thing & turn-length/game-scale are completely out-of whack.

With a dynasty system you need to have the squares measure something like 100 miles across to give the proper relationship between time & distance. The dynasty system is completely mismatched with the time scale of the game. With 100 mile squares and turns of a "fortnight (2 weeks)," then you'd have roughly the correct scale as to terrain & movement as we have now with the exception of towns which would need to be constructed on a totally seperate screen, perhaps something like civ did, in order to match the proper scale (they're way too small scale as is now .. with the quoted scale it would take an entire season to walk past a rock quarry or university! if not in the town. That's some big building!). And, notice I said "roughly" the correct scale.

So, 26 turns = 1year, 20 years would be 520 turns (which is about the max time it should take anyone to win this game), that would correlate well with children & baby grandchildren. And, a restructuring of the city-building mechanism would be needed. Age should be taken into account for NPC, perhaps having a chance to loose a point of constitution or strength or something like that each year past a certain age (for humans).

Also, I might add, at 100 miles a square stacks should be able to move through any other stack without hindrance, even if enemy. No unit should be able to "block" another unit. I could live with the 12-unit cap, call it "command & control" or "rank," although I would've made even this scale in the game (perhaps only "nobles" should have a max or 12 leadership influence, other adventurers should have a leadership based perhaps on charisma or charisma & level, ... something like that anyway)

double post