Hi all
First I want to say I absolutly love the game, even though it does feel unfinished sometimes. Devs, you folks did a great job.
One of the things I really like is the idea of dynasties, but as they are now it feels like they're just kind of thrown in there. Over the past couple days I have come up with some ideas to fill in the dynasties mechanics. As I am presenting these ideas understand they kind of come as a set, so please read through to the bottom and concider everything before commenting.
So the main thrust is to make dynasties into the sort of power structure that they are in real life. The first thing to propose is a new stat that is shared between kingdoms/empires that is seperate from the diplomatic relations score between them. If there is a score for how friendly Altar is with Tarth and a seperate score for how friendly Tarth is with Altar, the score for genetic relations between the two royal lines would be the same. This score would be raised by the number of marriages and children shared between the Tarth and Altar famlies. When this score reaches a certain point, say near 100% of the current generation (especialy if the direct line of succession for Altar is in the shared Tarth bloodline, or tied with the direct line of sucession for Tarth). This would mean choosing proper marriage partners for your soverign's children and grandchildren is important, being a possible way to win or loose the game. It also means that as two royal famlies get closer together each is in danger of being taken over by the other, which leads to some essential tension when taking this route to victory. If managed correctly, it could provide a non-trivial and non-traditional way of winning.
Now the second stat I want to suggest is a power stat (I have heard some of essence, and I am not sure if this fills the need or not). This stat would start at 100 with your soverign, and it would degrade as you marry in non-spellcasters into your family in that each child gets 50 of this score from each parent. Immediatly your soverign's children would have a 50 rating, because you're not going to find a spellcaster to marry (unless you wait, and let your opponents potentialy get many heirs first). I am thinking this should be a sort of power rating - if your soverign is incredibly powerful, then his/her children are less so based partly on this stat. I am also thinking that not every child could be born with spellcasting power, the chance of which is based on the rating of this stat. Of course you would want at least one or two children with spellcasting, so for playabilities sake at least one child who has a spellcasting parent should be born with spellcasting abilties.
Along with this stat there should be another ability that shows up on NPCs, something like "essence filled" which basicaly gives them a rating of 100 (or other high numbers) in this stat, even though they are otherwise treated as normal powered, non-spellcasters. The point of this stat showing up like so is to provide some champions as real breeding material, and make some champions important bardering pieces. We can trade them afterall, right?
So say a champion with this stat at 100 marries a grandchild at 25. The resulting children have this stat at 50+13(rounded up)=63, thus refreshing the power of the bloodline without raising the dynasty takeover stat with another family.
This suggests the idea of being able to marry off decendants with champions, and since under this idea you both want to continue your bloodline and not be taken over, it is important that you be able to do so without raising the dynasty takeover stat for another family. The tradeoff is that unless you find an "essence filled" champion, the power rating of the children of that portion of the bloodline goes down. But also, for that matter, you could marry off cousins if you wanted. Apparently cousins marrying and other wierd things used to be fairly common among royalty. In game i've been able to marry someone to thier aunt 
Now the only way that the power stat stays the same is if both parents have the exact same rating. But if you don't marry in with other royal families continualy, it's going to drop at some point.
Along with this players and NPCs should be able to direct thier line of succession as they will, as long as it always goes through a spellcaster. This way players can defend against hostile takeover in a way.
Now actualy taking over a kingdom/empire in this way would happen when the first person in succesion for a kingdom/empire is in your bloodline. While it might be actually easy for an NPC to defend against this if they have more than one spellcaster line, you can force it one way or another by killing off the other line, or having an enemy do it. Once the line of succession has to go your way, when the soverign dies, the kingdom/empire becomes technicaly ruled by your soverign's decendant, but actualy ruled by your soverign.
The last part is the idea that champions and royal family members that don't have a power rating of 100 (that is, your soverign and other lucky people, also perhaps including essence filled champions) die eventualy of natural causes. A higher power rating makes people live longer. This means that eventualy the line of succession becomes immidiatly important if your soverign should die. I would suggest that if you happen to be lucky enough to get another immortal child, then you basicaly get a second life. Otherwise succession passes to whom it passes. If it's someone who is purely your bloodline, then you can play as that person. But likely that person is going to die eventualy, and at this point dynasty managment becomes like building the track in front of the train.
Alternativly, it can be set up so everyone dies of natural causes eventualy.
So I have implied espionage and assassination sort of things in writing this - I think if this sort of dynasty system were implimented, it would have to also be put in with an espionage system to allow the players and NPCs to influence things in thier direction via killing, disrupting military in cities, etc.
So yeah, I think that's it. Comments and all, sure.