How to breed for bloodline?

[drjinichi]

So I am going after the five bloodline achievement as an HRE emperor. The problem is that my court is being hit hard with fertility malus and dudes with bloodline I invited just ain't having babies. Anyone knows how toget around this? I have 60 courtiers and I doubt I can get them below 30 to remove the malus especially with so many babies left over here, making me feel like I am running a nursery.

I am trying to avoid inbred penalties, so I have not done in dynasty breeding yet, but I have one niece with 3 historical bloodline (Karl, Ashina,Caradog) and the other with (Karl, Parthian, Ragnar)

Please help I have spent way too much gold for this to go to waste

 

[opath]

i think if you get them landed they have a greater fertility - at the cost of you stopping to control who can marry who

 

[drjinichi]

Yeah, I know. The problem is that the AI is always ending up dong something stupid. My precious heir becomes depressed and dies like ten seconds after I landed him. This game is a cruel mistress, I wish there is an option to turn off fertility penalty without ruining ironman mode.

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

1. If there are children at your court which you dont want or need, you can assign them a guardian outsite of your court now (since 3.1.1). They will be counted against you limit if they are abroad. Best practice is to find a young temple vassal in your demsene AND the also betrothal those kids to someone because you will come back without telling you and incease the court size again

2. For bloodline breeding I suggest to have one family (preferable already dynasty members) where you breed one bloodline at the time. Have their girls marry someone with the next bloodline matrilinear, throw out the boys unless you have to keep them.

3. If you land this family you can still assign them new bloodline because they are happy if someone marries their daughters matrilinear. However this requires you to have the groom at your court, but in most cases that would be necessary anyways

4. Last step (in both cases) is to matrilinear marry you son (heir) to one of their daughters (with all the bloodlines). Again they are happy if someone marries their daughters while keeping their dynasty. But they dynasty is yours, so no problem.

5. You are safe from imbreeding after 6 generations and quite safe after 5 if you don't intermarry in between.

6. If you did not use dynasty members in the first place you can still marry those bloodline-holders into your dynasty assuming that you have distant relatives somewhere.

7. If that's also not available you have to have one of their sons marry one of your daughters matrilinear which is way more difficult to achieve than the other way around AND after this you have to have their children inherit which means you either have to play your daughter or have some shanigan till they kid inherits the throne - which is why I strongly suggest to start out with your non-inheriting daughter in the first place and breed the bloodlines into your dynasty. If you count 5 bloodlines and every bloodline is one generation there will be no imbreeding penalty at the end.

Yeah, I know. The problem is that the AI is always ending up dong something stupid. My precious heir becomes depressed and dies like ten seconds after I landed him. This game is a cruel mistress, I wish there is an option to turn off fertility penalty without ruining ironman mode.

Never
Ever
In
No
Scenario
Imaginable
I
Would
Land
My
Heirs

IMHO Worst thing you can possible do - they ALWAYS end up doing stupid things

 

[drjinichi]

Thanks a lot guy, I am on a mini mission to save all the bloodlines in the game, so we will see how that goes.

On a side note, I have yet to get inbred achievement, so why not have some fun haha.

Just two more random questions (don't want to spam this forum with threads),
1. as an HRE emperor, if I take the Byzantine Empire. Can I just switch that to my main title and recreate the Roman Empire?
2. If I have forged a bloodline once, I can't do it again right? I unfortunately made a meme bloodline (the dynasty one) and it is really bad, making me really sad.

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

Last time I did it, I created the HRE as King of Leon, invaded the Byzantine Empire because the pope didn't like the Emperor... who I put there... also the pope was my vassal.
Anyway. I changed the primary title and created the Roman Empire
However this was before there was princly electice

 

[drjinichi]

Thanks!
I am going for four achievement for this run (700 year game, Bloodline, recreate the Roman Empire, and beat the Aztec)
So let's say how it goes. I have never played longer than 200 years before, so this is going to be exciting, my laptop is crappy and the game is lagging already haha.

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

Yeah. I usually get fed up with dumb things after about 200 years as well (for example random adventurer taking my titles...)
In my current game I am close to give up as well.
I am a Zoroastrian Empress and married my only son. We are not going to have kids which is fine, but because I am a women I can not give him a concubine. Also because I am women I can not duel those pathetic muslims because they refuse to personal combat me with apparently no penatly.
If my son would die now, I have to daughters left. This would not only tear my Empire appart because of Gavelkind succession, they are also close to 45 years and both refused to have children of their own...
Being a female Ruler is just stupid. I wish I would die, but I am already 69 and there is no end in sight

 

[Karlington]

So I am going after the five bloodline achievement as an HRE emperor. The problem is that my court is being hit hard with fertility malus and dudes with bloodline I invited just ain't having babies. Anyone knows how toget around this? I have 60 courtiers and I doubt I can get them below 30 to remove the malus especially with so many babies left over here, making me feel like I am running a nursery.

I am trying to avoid inbred penalties, so I have not done in dynasty breeding yet, but I have one niece with 3 historical bloodline (Karl, Ashina,Caradog) and the other with (Karl, Parthian, Ragnar)

Please help I have spent way too much gold for this to go to waste

In short, wed women to low Intrigue men (preferably Trusting and with a "dumb trait"), and impregnate them yourself behind their back.

In long... I'd recommend my bloodline breeding guide. There's a link to it in my signature, but just in case you can't see it (some people can't, for some reason), you can find it here.

It details in-depth what I consider the best and most efficient strategies for bloodline breeding. Even before I wrote that guide and was only still developing the strategies I used them to easily get the achievement.

The section most relevant to your goal is probably "Your Best Breeding Buddy: The Seduction Focus," though I consider all the information good and useful for bloodline breeding purposes.

Let me/us know if you have any questions!

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

@Karlington you guide is great but it clearly lacks a part about how the created bloodline and their advantages - Like no one ever told me how OP the family bloodline is when you can give you kids +0.5 health every 5 years till they turn 35 (which means you can add 2.0 Health to their pool)

 

[drjinichi]

Thanks Karlington, I will go check that out!

The issue is that I am a bit of a roleplayer, so normally do things based on my character's traits haha (hey you got to enjoy the game to play it!).

But if the high intrigue son remains the best candidate I might go for full Satan next (although that is going to hurt my beautiful Christina empire, the last one of it kind left in the world)

Also, I am still wrapping my head around getting around the fertility malus due to having so many courtiers. I spent so much money bribing people into my court to save their bloodlines so hopefully they wont die out.

 

[Karlington]

@Karlington you guide is great but it clearly lacks a part about how the created bloodline and their advantages - Like no one ever told me how OP the family bloodline is when you can give you kids +0.5 health every 5 years till they turn 35 (which means you can add 2.0 Health to their pool)

Thanks! I originally planned to include details on the more unusual bloodlines with "special" effects, but in the end the guide grew so much larger that I decided to leave that out and focus solely on the mechanics and breeding aspects. The only bloodline-specific data I included were the things that a player cannot really learn unless they read the game files.

Btw, proptip: combining the Family Bloodline with a reformed pagan religion with Stability is mighty powerful. The Meliorism ability of Stability can also be used on yourself. If used a lot this can cause burnout, but the nice thing about burnout is that if you are not Fat or Malnourished you can choose to eat more or less. If your physique variable is more than 5 off from 0, eating in the "right" direction (i.e. more if you are underweight, and vice versa) will actually give you a permanent +0.5 Health boost as well.

Thanks Karlington, I will go check that out!

The issue is that I am a bit of a roleplayer, so normally do things based on my character's traits haha (hey you got to enjoy the game to play it!).

But if the high intrigue son remains the best candidate I might go for full Satan next (although that is going to hurt my beautiful Christina empire, the last one of it kind left in the world)

Also, I am still wrapping my head around getting around the fertility malus due to having so many courtiers. I spent so much money bribing people into my court to save their bloodlines so hopefully they wont die out.

Of course enjoyment of the game is paramount. That's the whole purpose of it in my opinion.

My breeding method is the most effective way to get the achievement (and gaining more bloodlines overall) that I know of, but if you are RPing it will only fit if you happen to be RPing an extreme sexual hedonist.

Or perhaps not. Realistically speaking, if there were a way for a man in real life to be able to seduce and have any woman he wanted, how many men (except perhaps a small number with a strong moral code prohibiting it) would not be promiscuous?

 

[jonjowett]

For me, the key aspect of bloodline breeding is redundancy. If you're trying to breed a bloodline into your dynasty (or combine bloodlines inside your dynasty) don't do it just once - do it 2-3 times.

It can also be useful to invite women with bloodlines to your court, and then matri-marry them to a random man with good genetic traits. Bonus points if that man also has a bloodline. This is a great way to preserve rare bloodlines - and also to add multiple bloodlines to your dynasty at once.

Seduction focus is great, but runs the risk of inbreeding - especially if you spend the first 10 years of your reign seducing everything with a pulse. It's a good idea to occasionally enforce outbreeding for a few decades (ie. marry all of your dynasts to outsiders with good genetic traits, and don't personally seduce them).

 

[sante10]

I just try to creat my own bloodline.

Yeah, I know. The problem is that the AI is always ending up dong something stupid. My precious heir becomes depressed and dies like ten seconds after I landed him. This game is a cruel mistress, I wish there is an option to turn off fertility penalty without ruining ironman mode.

I know it's sad but never give land to your heir.