Sidenote: this is an Ironman game that I'm playing right now.
My first problem was my poor first character.* His poor traits lead to poor diplomacy, economy, military, spouses, concubines, children etc. He died after 9 years. His 6 years old son succeeded him. Died after 16 years. Was succeeded by his brother, then another brother...
My fifth character was finally good and healthy enough to reach the hero rank and trigger the legend bar. He was a good fighter and a duelist, so he actually had a chance of returning from the quest. But he died at old age of....................50 years!
.... and succeeded by his uncle; luckily, also a hero, but not a fighter, stressed, wounded, with relatively low PC (<40). Plus, he was bugged (he was stuck in the middle of choosing a military aspect, which he never did). I used all the focuses I could to boost his health and martial, but to no result. By the time the legend bar was full and the quest triggered, my character was old, stressed and with an infected wound. Plus, he had additional modifiers that reduced his PC (like, "kind" and others that I don't remember). I went on a quest with my fellow heroine and declined ALL the challenges, suffering -250 prestige penalty in total along the way and gaining the "craven" trait. My companion died in one of the duels, but I returned home safely, craven, stressed and with a black eye and infected wound.... AND an Ironblood bloodline (PC bonus and injury resilience).
Fortunately, my wounds healed and stress went away. Unfortunately, I was old and had only two sons with the bloodline. So, I married them, gave them concubines, took concubines myself, and soon had a nice little reserve of descendants with the bloodline.
I was succeeded by my son, who had only mediocre skills (including diplomacy of 0). He was upgrading well, but unfortunately died prematurely of gout at the age of 32 (!), which I was not ready for, because he was succeeded by his frail, cruel and envious son with a low diplomacy skill that everyone hated.
Fortunately, he died fast. Unfortunately, the next ruler was not of the bloodline. He was a good ruler with inbred and slow children.
And here's a thing that had never happened before. My elders no longer wanted to vote for my nominees, even though they generally liked me. And the reasons were ridiculous, like "He is too young" (25!) or "He is spineless" (humble!).
Fortunately, with numerous bribes and workarounds, it seems that I have now secured a good successor of the Ironblood bloodline.
So, this is one bloodline that I have in my dynasty/realm.
The other bloodline is the Ashina bloodline. It took me a lot of effort to incorporate it in my dynasty, because, whenever I arranged matrilineal betrothals/marriages, one of the spouses turned out to be a homosexual, celibate, left for a Holy Order or just simply didn't make children. If the couple had children, they were daughters. If they were sons, the sons died prematurely.
The Attila bloodline rulers simply "refuse to deal with infidels", although they are Tengri, just like Ashina rulers (go figure).
The Karolingians also don't deal with infidels, but I managed to abduct one of their princesses and raise them into my faith and culture. She had a daughter. Unfortunately, that daughter doesn't want to produce children.
Anyway, at the moment I have several fertile Ashinas in my dynasty. I think, one or two of them are even males (not adult yet though). Quite a few of Ironbloods (but there's a risk that they can die out, so it's not completely safe yet). A chance of Karolingian. One merged Ironblood-Ashina little girl. And an arrange inter-dynastic betrothal between Ashina and an Ironblood bastard of unknown mother. (I think they are distant relatives enough, so it should be safe; besides my current ruler had children with his cousin (?) and only 2 out of 4 children had bad genetic traits).
Anyway, here's my question: Is it my bad luck, or the game really doesn't ''like'' you collecting the bloodlines? For me, it was three steps forward, two steps back all the time. What's your experience?
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*Sidenote: And I couldn't reset it by restarting the game, because the game doesn't actually give you a completely random character each time. I have seen many times that certain rulers, even though they are not historic, will have certain profile, e.g., this rules will be an ambitious schemer with low learning, that ruler will be a good steward with low martial skill and health, another one will be a hero with a high martial skill (but only if AI, not if you're choosing him). Some things might change (like traits), but in overall it seems that there's just certain areas where a character can be a good and other where he is not. And it's always like that, even if you reinstall the game and manually delete all saves and dumps. So, I don't even bother restarting the game, because the character don't reset completely. What made me absolutely sure about this is that, if you assign a custom name to your dynasty, that name will stay for that ruler on restart. Plus, everything I said above about semi-randomness.
My first problem was my poor first character.* His poor traits lead to poor diplomacy, economy, military, spouses, concubines, children etc. He died after 9 years. His 6 years old son succeeded him. Died after 16 years. Was succeeded by his brother, then another brother...
My fifth character was finally good and healthy enough to reach the hero rank and trigger the legend bar. He was a good fighter and a duelist, so he actually had a chance of returning from the quest. But he died at old age of....................50 years!
.... and succeeded by his uncle; luckily, also a hero, but not a fighter, stressed, wounded, with relatively low PC (<40). Plus, he was bugged (he was stuck in the middle of choosing a military aspect, which he never did). I used all the focuses I could to boost his health and martial, but to no result. By the time the legend bar was full and the quest triggered, my character was old, stressed and with an infected wound. Plus, he had additional modifiers that reduced his PC (like, "kind" and others that I don't remember). I went on a quest with my fellow heroine and declined ALL the challenges, suffering -250 prestige penalty in total along the way and gaining the "craven" trait. My companion died in one of the duels, but I returned home safely, craven, stressed and with a black eye and infected wound.... AND an Ironblood bloodline (PC bonus and injury resilience).
Fortunately, my wounds healed and stress went away. Unfortunately, I was old and had only two sons with the bloodline. So, I married them, gave them concubines, took concubines myself, and soon had a nice little reserve of descendants with the bloodline.
I was succeeded by my son, who had only mediocre skills (including diplomacy of 0). He was upgrading well, but unfortunately died prematurely of gout at the age of 32 (!), which I was not ready for, because he was succeeded by his frail, cruel and envious son with a low diplomacy skill that everyone hated.
Fortunately, he died fast. Unfortunately, the next ruler was not of the bloodline. He was a good ruler with inbred and slow children.
And here's a thing that had never happened before. My elders no longer wanted to vote for my nominees, even though they generally liked me. And the reasons were ridiculous, like "He is too young" (25!) or "He is spineless" (humble!).
Fortunately, with numerous bribes and workarounds, it seems that I have now secured a good successor of the Ironblood bloodline.
So, this is one bloodline that I have in my dynasty/realm.
The other bloodline is the Ashina bloodline. It took me a lot of effort to incorporate it in my dynasty, because, whenever I arranged matrilineal betrothals/marriages, one of the spouses turned out to be a homosexual, celibate, left for a Holy Order or just simply didn't make children. If the couple had children, they were daughters. If they were sons, the sons died prematurely.
The Attila bloodline rulers simply "refuse to deal with infidels", although they are Tengri, just like Ashina rulers (go figure).
The Karolingians also don't deal with infidels, but I managed to abduct one of their princesses and raise them into my faith and culture. She had a daughter. Unfortunately, that daughter doesn't want to produce children.
Anyway, at the moment I have several fertile Ashinas in my dynasty. I think, one or two of them are even males (not adult yet though). Quite a few of Ironbloods (but there's a risk that they can die out, so it's not completely safe yet). A chance of Karolingian. One merged Ironblood-Ashina little girl. And an arrange inter-dynastic betrothal between Ashina and an Ironblood bastard of unknown mother. (I think they are distant relatives enough, so it should be safe; besides my current ruler had children with his cousin (?) and only 2 out of 4 children had bad genetic traits).
Anyway, here's my question: Is it my bad luck, or the game really doesn't ''like'' you collecting the bloodlines? For me, it was three steps forward, two steps back all the time. What's your experience?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Sidenote: And I couldn't reset it by restarting the game, because the game doesn't actually give you a completely random character each time. I have seen many times that certain rulers, even though they are not historic, will have certain profile, e.g., this rules will be an ambitious schemer with low learning, that ruler will be a good steward with low martial skill and health, another one will be a hero with a high martial skill (but only if AI, not if you're choosing him). Some things might change (like traits), but in overall it seems that there's just certain areas where a character can be a good and other where he is not. And it's always like that, even if you reinstall the game and manually delete all saves and dumps. So, I don't even bother restarting the game, because the character don't reset completely. What made me absolutely sure about this is that, if you assign a custom name to your dynasty, that name will stay for that ruler on restart. Plus, everything I said above about semi-randomness.