My dynasty children aren't growing up?

Hey all,

 

I was wondering if its a bug or if I'm doing it wrong. In my current game, my custom sovereign married a female hero and started a dynasty. After like 10 years, they had 4 children born. Then things get weird. The children are NEVER growing up. They stay as a "baby" picture for like 40 - 50 years now (150 - 200 turns). Why are they staying babies for that long? How do I turn them into adults?

15,211 views 19 replies
Reply #2 Top

Isn't 200 turns just 25 years?  It takes 25 years (200 turns) for a child to grow up.

Reply #3 Top

Quoting Lord, reply 2
Isn't 200 turns just 25 years?  It takes 25 years (200 turns) for a child to grow up.

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

Reply #4 Top

I wonder how many people would prefer 25-50 turns for their chitluns to pop.

Reply #5 Top

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.

Reply #6 Top

200 turns seems fine to me, if it was 50, I would have a billion grand kids.

Reply #7 Top

Not everyone plays 800-turn-games though. :P ;)
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...

Reply #8 Top

Uh, how about this. They're fully grown because magick. People can make friggen mountains pop out of the ocean, pretty sure they can make ti... never mind. 

I've yet to have a game last long enough for one of the little buggers to pop, and I'm sick of them taking 200 turns to produce. It's a level 1 hero that can maybe cast, not a supergod of death or something.

Reply #9 Top

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.

Reply #10 Top

Quoting Lord, reply 6
200 turns seems fine to me, if it was 50, I would have a billion grand kids.

 

SHouldn't it be 64-72 turns, maybe 84?  4 seasons= 1 year.

 

72 sounds like a good compromise figure.

Reply #11 Top

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.

Reply #12 Top

Quoting Lord, reply 6
200 turns seems fine to me, if it was 50, I would have a billion grand kids.

This is one of those things behind why I ended up preferring turns to weeks/seasons even though I wish the game had a meaningful calendar. Like some other aspects of the game, the 'age' of adulthood for offspring really needs to be scaled to map size.

GalCiv II has similar problems, the most-complained about possibly being ship speeds. A reasonable speed on a medium or smaller map is a plodding pace on the larger maps.

Reply #13 Top

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.

Reply #14 Top

I think in Genghis Khan you use to be able to send your 10 year olds to war and marry them.  I think 13 was considered an adult throughout most societies up until recently.  But, that being said...don't realy want to think about children getting killed or screwed...so 18 sounds fine.

Reply #15 Top

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

Reply #16 Top

Since folks are getting feisty about this again, I'll see the LessThan18-used-to-be-marrying-age thing and raise with "Why can't I make a betrothal treaty as soon as I have a kid in a cradle? Sure, it shouldn't be worth as much as an immediate marriage. But more than a few European aristocrats had their spouses chosen for them when they were still with wet nurses and nannies, and some of those deals were important factors in who was on what side in a given war."

Reply #17 Top

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?

Reply #18 Top

Do you have mods going?  I dont think my game does that...but maybe I haven't looked at it...

 

EDIT: Just checked a save at turn 600+, and mine are fine, the dates don't change, still has Xander being born in 130 something.

Reply #19 Top

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.