• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

unmerged(196495)

Captain
1 Badges
Feb 22, 2010
444
2
  • Crusader Kings II
I guess that everyone has their own anecdote about their awesome strong, attractive, genius ruler or heir.

With over 400 hours put into this game, I've seen it once (and yes he died when he was 23). I've seen strong and genius four times. Granted, I'm not starting out with such a ruler from the outset with DLC, and I don't go Bene Gessert in every generation, there are plenty of situations where alliances and claims make a lot of sense.

In your experience, if a dynasty that starts with out with the typical terrible ruler, with a bad existing son, sticks rigorously to the breeding program, am I more likely than not to see one of these beings within the 600 year time limit?
 
It's easier if you have elective title, like a republic - then you can use whole family for your "breeding" program :)

If you don't "help" it, then it's not common, quite the opposite - but sometimes happens.
 
Well it depends on how far you're willing to go for it. Some players have murdered multiple people to get a genius/quick wife, or something similar. And really, unless you get really bad luck over the time period, you might get one of those rulers. Quite rare if you don't "help" it along, though.
 
Well it depends on how far you're willing to go for it. Some players have murdered multiple people to get a genius/quick wife, or something similar. And really, unless you get really bad luck over the time period, you might get one of those rulers. Quite rare if you don't "help" it along, though.[/QUOTE

Well I had planned on grabbing every lowborn genius of my religion in the character list and marrying them to people in my court. Anytime a dynasty member needs one, the courtier should be easy to kill, and in the meantime maybe the courtier couple produced a genius baby or two.
 
Well, if you do grab every lowborn genius, your court might get too cluttered for them to have children. It's not a bad idea, and it'll probably work if you make sure they don't die/get landed in another realm.
 
If you marry a genius every generation and use a good succession law or setup then you can get one more easily. I've had 3 geniuses in a row, but that was in an elective realm. Eventually a lot of geniuses will be in your tree, which means inbreeding becomes necessary and you may also be an ethnic melting pot for marrying a random black lowborn, then a celtic one, then a russian, then an arab. It's down to the player as to whether they want their bloodline to be plausible or not. In games where I'm not the basic white western european I try to preserve my ethnicity, so I restrict myself there.

No, I'm not a eugenicist :p But breeding programs are good, make sure you marry all your children to geniuses if you can, then marry genius grandchildren to each other (cousin marriage that is). Genius + Genius can often result in imbeciles though, so be careful. Keep many lines going and try to control as much as you can, and with seniority or elective you can jump through the lines, often separated by many generations, to get the best rulers (Tanistry is great at this too, but hard to control).

I also forgot to address the title - no, they've very very rare, and you probably wont get them unless both traits are reflected in parents. I got a strong genius roman emperor once, but that was dumb luck - I've never seen it again.
 
If you marry a genius every generation and use a good succession law or setup then you can get one more easily. I've had 3 geniuses in a row, but that was in an elective realm. Eventually a lot of geniuses will be in your tree, which means inbreeding becomes necessary and you may also be an ethnic melting pot for marrying a random black lowborn, then a celtic one, then a russian, then an arab. It's down to the player as to whether they want their bloodline to be plausible or not. In games where I'm not the basic white western european I try to preserve my ethnicity, so I restrict myself there.

No, I'm not a eugenicist :p But breeding programs are good, make sure you marry all your children to geniuses if you can, then marry genius grandchildren to each other (cousin marriage that is). Genius + Genius can often result in imbeciles though, so be careful. Keep many lines going and try to control as much as you can, and with seniority or elective you can jump through the lines, often separated by many generations, to get the best rulers (Tanistry is great at this too, but hard to control).

I also forgot to address the title - no, they've very very rare, and you probably wont get them unless both traits are reflected in parents. I got a strong genius roman emperor once, but that was dumb luck - I've never seen it again.

Eventually you get to the point where you get inbred geniuses. (I wonder if that's even possible, that'd be hilarious.)
 
I, personally, have never had a strong anything, ever with over 500 hours in. I have never even created a strong ruler with the ruler designer. The 40 year penalty is simply too much. Attractive is nice but is so hit or miss with the heirs...
 

...what?

Yeah you can get inbred geniuses I think. You're more likely to see that from a Zoroastrian Holy Marriage though, if you marry a genius brother and sister. I only started getting inbred after about 4 generations then though - the Hapsburgs in Spain got it after about 5 generations of inbreeding of cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts and uncles.

If you want to get away with a good trait on ruler designer, add lunatic. Quick is probably a good compromise for a ruler designed character though, it's cheaper to add and still quite good.
 
I've never had any combination of Strong, Quick, Genius, and Attractive. Never had a ruler with more than one of those. I did have a wife that was Quick and Attractive once, none of our children had any of those traits.
 
Had a strong+genius grandson once, and my KD was in elective. Needless to say: his father (my second son) soon had a suspicious death, and lo-and-behold, my grandson was to be my elected successor :)

Makes me wonder BTW: would you rather have a Genius (or in "lesser" case Quick) character, or Strong? I do like the +2 health strong gives...
 
Well using the ruler designer to have an inbred, leper, syphilitic, mad, huchbacked, strong, attractive, genius ruler and marrying a genius it pops up now and then. Using your standard historical characters it has happened once or twice but then I was obsessively breeding people in my massive breeding program for 4-5 generations, as the Duke of Austria, and given the amount of kids produced I'd say it's really not a common thing to get a double genetic bonus but it can happen with persistence and a lot of luck. I have also seen it happen for the AI a few times, I was quite happy when I could marry my genius heir to a girl that was quick and strong. Naturally they never had any kids...
 
I believe Eugenics was overpowered in CK1, so they nerfed it to prevent super-humans by the late game. I also read that eugenics is the same/nerfed a bit more in CK2. Currently, only the parent's DNA are taken into account and not the ancestors. For example, if you have a breeding pair that didn't have any of those traits, a long string of previous strong/genius rulers wouldn't increase that chance. The only chance of getting those traits in that case is mutation, and that chance is very low. Furthermore, even if you had those traits in your breeding pair, the chance of the children acquiring the traits are also rather low. PI has pretty much put a stop to eugenics because historically people in those times didn't really do that. They did marriages based for prestige, alliances and inheritances. I guess you can still affect the outcome somewhat but to a small degree and you have to constantly do it because it doesn't take account previous ancestors.

edit: I don't recall 100% but I believe in CK1 it used to be that there actually was a sequence for genes(ex.CGAATCTCGGGCCTAA) allowing for recessive genes(which is the strong/genius as it is rare) that might skip a generation or two, but still increases the chances of those genes being expressed further down the line. The current CK2 system is just true and false. Does the father/mother have trait? If yes, give 20% chance to child for each parent. If no, give 5% chance for mutation.
 
Last edited:
I had Genius and attractive together more than once.

As for the other traits in combination, probably but i dont remember.

I really like the Strong trait for military leaders though. Those guys usually last till their 70's, unless you are unlucky.
 
I don't get it very often. My recent game produced two strong heirs in a row though, must be the first heir with a good health trait in maybe even 20 generations. Although personally, strong is one of the worse traits for my characters to have. Sometimes living too long kills your plans.
 
I once got three genius Byzantine Emperors in a row on my way to Roman restoration. It helps that you can pick your successor with the Despot title. And it probably helped that I ruthlessly blinded or killed their older brothers if that wasn't possible. ;)
 
I just managed to keep a Genious Byzantine Emperor line for 180 ish years by assassinating every heir that didn't get the trait (but not so I was heirless, mind you). It resulted in alot of regencies and some kinslayer traits but it was well worth it. It broke my heart when the line ended though.