You need to research the tech "Adulthood" for your children to grow up.

Which is one of the strange undocumented changes in the last patch.

Yea, should rather be 16 imo (or maybe 14). Anything below that would become very touchy indeed from many perspectives (having Elemental / FE rated 18+ might not be the best of strategies. And marring off children below age 14 is asking for that in many many countries...). Would make a dynasty-based strategy alot more viable. No idea who at Stardock thought that dynasties where to powerful? Seriously 25 or 50 Turns is out (Even I would take issue with kids growing up at the age of 6 seriously (and I am not lots into that kind of morality). Its not just mechanics. Its also feel. And Age 6 Kids having Kids is silly. Seriously...).
It might be a fantasy game but that has very real-world ramifications for the game which should be avoided. (also setting the age to 14 would already make dynasty-strategies very viable given that the tree grows exponentially. Maybe 14 is already to powerful. That is a question for balancing the system..)

By the time my children grow up I all but won the game already... let alone grandchildren. And that is on riddiculous / riddiculous on a large map at epic pace... So dynastic effect on diplomacy and military side of the game is null and void. And I tend to marry early (around season 50-75)

Around 60 - 70 Seasons sounds good to me.

Not everyone plays 800-turn-games though.
What would be so bad about a huge dynasty-tree with lots of influence on late-game diplomacy and military? Sounds like a nice change of pace for late game play...

I agree with that  it takes to long but as I said going below 60 turns might very fast turn into a balance issue (that is the main argument against it from my side). Especially at epic pace. Since the tree grows exponentially. I believe Lord Xia wasn't kidding.

60 Turns is easily enough to have it be a dominant feature of the game around turn 300-400. (And I mean dominant, including AI actions and all things related)
The time it takes now distorts our judgment / view on that since we never get to see any effect.
With turn 60 you'll have by marrying them off around 10 -20 offspring by turn 200-250 (at the least, especially if you marry early) combined with diplomatic ramifications and according power such a mass of casting heroes creates.
Around turn 300-350 it might well be around 100 (that is per faction! on big maps given the factions take care of their Offspring well enough). Yes I am! fine with those numbers. But they might! still be a bit high. 75 seasons makes the numbers radically lower in turn (about 5-10 / 25-50 respectively). Lord Xia's mighty Dynasty-Trees come from him playing insanely long games with 700+ turns and exponential grows leads to riddiculous numbers.
Given that those offspring also inherit the abilities and traits of their parents economically speaking they are very much supergods of combat / economy. 20 Farmers / Administrators / Ice-Blasters or Savage-Strikers do add up... (not even speaking of 3-5 copies of a custom sovereign for his male kids. In my case a Bard with most resource-centric traits. Equivalent of 3-5 Shards + a Gold mine +1-2 Farms + a Lost Library and an Arcane Temple by around turn 200-250 is not as trivial as it seems. And their wives add something as well, especially if you can fetch the kids of the likes of Preciponee or Cheresa which add simillar bona.)


(You might not have noted that I am actually at your side of the argument and support way faster aging just not in a way that this mechanics in turn overshadows all other ones together with real rammifications for the age-rating of the game in stores without extreme lore-bending like you proposed...)



Another good thing from a shorter time of having the kids grow up is that it would make players way less reluctant to marry off female offspring / make male offspring way less of an advantage (a female offspring for a male sovereign with the current growth is a downright loss if your Spous isn't a farmer, Rilis or Nati...), since the grandkids would get to you faster which would make that viable.

Is my math even right on this?  is it 100 turns for 25 years or 200 turns?  Maybe it is just 100.  Maybe let them be available at age 15?  Then that would be 60?  I guess that ain't so bad.  I don't know, I am too stupid to deal with numbers.

I think they shouldn't be available till 18 to play as, thats technically an adult. Since you are breeding them and sending them to war. Some activist groups would get really upset over the depiction of children having children and sent off to war probably.

I think spanking them and sending them to bed without dessert will make them grow up pretty fast.

10 - 13 year olds still look small and childish, while late teens (16 - 18) look like adults. Besides in the US, 16 year olds can get driver licenses.

Getting off topic here. Anyways, I just thought it was weird to see my dynasty children still babies after 50 years. Also I noticed their birth year keeps moving up year-by-year after a certain point. Ditto for sovereigns, spouses, and heroes. When I start the game, it says my sovereign birth date is 130-something AC. Then when the game is at 220 AC or whatever, the birth date becomes 170 AC or so, which is silly because I started playing in 159 AC like everyone else. That means my sovereign wasn't born yet?

I'll check in the next game I play. I don't have any mods installed that I'm aware of. I'll give you more info as I play through and keep track of dates + turns.

I play on "Epic" settings since it seems like the Civ series "Marathon" mode with slower tech research but more time to move around the map. Or is the Epic setting in Elemental different? I haven't played on Fast or Normal yet so I can't really compare. In one of my other threads, I stated that there REALLY needs to be tooltips / pop ups explaining what difficulty levels, game speed, etc. give with bonuses / penalties to help players determine which game style they want their next game to be.