Unpopular Opinion: Minor characters who have enough prominence should be allowed to marry

[Will Steel]

Unpopular opinion, but I really think that minor characters who have earned enough prominence, by holding military commands/governorships/ministry positions, should be allowed to marry and have children even if they aren't a part of a major family.

I hate this new system of families where half the historical characters (including Rome's famous ancient families like Julians, Junians (founders of the republic), Papirians, Aemilians, Flavians and others for example) go completely extinct within 30 years. It does not make any sense whatsoever that only certain families can marry or have kids and rest are all artificially blocked from doing anything until they die.

It doesn't also make sense that a man can become Consul for life, be the richest person in the land by far, have 100 points in all social stats, yet cannot marry because hurr durr he's a minor character herp derp.

Yes, we needed a change from the old system from release where every new character got their own family, but the solution that current system brought is badly executed and feels like a downgrade of sorts. Just 4-5 boring families that keep generating characters with same names over and over again. Estates are limited to family heads, which means extended family members don't do much aside from basic stuff. And it bogs down the entire system into "appoint disloyal family to a position and forget" because republics don't really work as republics right now. I don't really see a big change from the previous older system in other areas.

There seems to be no control over who can and cannot become a major family either. It all seems to be RNG in that event. I had a hugely popular general I wanted to raise to a major family, instead all the options I got were some other characters with low stats.

This system is also a major reason for the massive issue of no available spouses anywhere. You are artificially limited to only 4-5 families, who only have a few kids (non-family-head characters don't even marry sometimes, and adopted characters never seem to marry either), and those few kids grow up and immediately marry each other (because no betrothal system and the bad joke of a UI). And the game generates weird random characters that are almost always men. The result is that your youngest available spouses are 67 years old, if any at all.

This is a not a good or fun system in my opinion, and it should change. Even the older system was far better in this regard.

If I keep rewarding minor characters with titles in hopes that they become prominent and popular, I think the game should not punish me like it does right now. They should be allowed to marry and continue their line. Then I could do the same with their sons, award them with jobs, make them prominent and have them marry again.

This game really needs to bring back minor families in some way, even if they are kept limited to a few characters.

 

[Glanyr]

I agree on that. Family system needs tweaks and it should be possible in my opinion to let a family get extinct if you want to do so.

So far the only way is to imprison the leader and make a proscription, as the game generates new characters for a family if all others are gone.
If a family was disloyal it would be somewhat great, especially for roleplaying reasons, to be able to imprison all of the family members and make the family extinct that way.

Also they need to tweak the max. member number for the family, i'll attach a screenshot from my playthrough where, when i checked rome before i attacked them, i got somewhat surprised.

 

[Yuanshu]

Well we already had several topics discussing the problems that the system of big families brought my hopes and that they have corrected these problems in the next patch 1.5

 

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

I hadn't thought about it but yes. The game needs to allow for families to carry on and have a chance at becoming an important family.

The goal of the new system is good, but fails in the execution, making it too static and too much of a no brainer, since you also obviously prefer to have small modifiers than a game ending civil war. Always

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

I agree on that. Family system needs tweaks and it should be possible in my opinion to let a family get extinct if you want to do so.

So far the only way is to imprison the leader and make a proscription, as the game generates new characters for a family if all others are gone.
If a family was disloyal it would be somewhat great, especially for roleplaying reasons, to be able to imprison all of the family members and make the family extinct that way.

Also they need to tweak the max. member number for the family, i'll attach a screenshot from my playthrough where, when i checked rome before i attacked them, i got somewhat surprised.

Thats absolutely insane and really unbalanced.

We should really bring back Minor Families, with the ability of overthrowing a Great Family after their prestige surpasses x% (should be high tho), with the ability to marry. The Great Family system has prevented me from RP as the Julii, or the Pompeii, cos they cant marry or have kids, and often disappear (if they appear at all). It should really be brought back.

 

[Emperor8428]

I didnt even know that this is an unpopular opinion

 

[Will Steel]

Also they need to tweak the max. member number for the family, i'll attach a screenshot from my playthrough where, when i checked rome before i attacked them, i got somewhat surprised.

It also ties in with the UI issue where it is very hard to select any character from a list that crowded. The one in your screenshot is insane indeed.

Ptolemy Soter's character sheet window is a good example. He has so many kids, it is hard to select the one you precisely want to select.

 

[Princess Stabbity]

If this is an "unpopular" opinion, whatever the popular opinion is, is wrong >.>

Great Families are not only stagnant but most don't even feel like families - they don't have any sort of identity that would tie them together (with the notable exception of the Diadochi bloodlines and their special traits but... exception, not the rule). All end up with roughly comparable prestige, their holdings are impossible to keep track of, and even when their members are used in events, it's completely random who gets picked, they don't seem to have consistent behaviour or agendas they work together towards.

And on top of that, many historically important families like the Julii are prevented from emerging thanks to the arbitrary hard limit based on empire size. Wouldn't it be more interesting if there was no limit, and emergence of Great Families was based on how influential minor characters become? So a player who's too generous with holdings, bribes and offices could end up with so many influential families that it would become impossible to please them all? Wouldn't that add an interesting element of risk/reward within internal politics?

And while I'm ranting, I'm also very disappointed with how aggro AI is about marrying off characters the day they turn 16, with no rhyme or reason. Not only does that kill international marriages* but can also remove good matches amongst the state's own Great Families.

Spoiler: *

Which historically used to be very important in establishing alliances, winning popular support in subjugated territories and other diplomatic ends.
And the devs know that! At the very start of the game, the Mauryan ultimatum to Seleucids even includes marriage! And then... it's just no longer a thing for the rest of the game or anywhere else in the world.

Especially in monarchies, I feel like the Great Families who are not currently in power should be more willing and even proactive in securing a foothold in the line of succession. I would love something like heads of families messaging the player to offer their best children's hand in marriage if there's an available heir, rather than immediately marrying them off to some randos. The same should probably be done by allies and subjects.

 

[Gurkhal]

While I like the inclusion of familes into the game I also think there's room for improvements.

I know I've suggested organizaing characters primary into households instead of families but I think that except for the marriage factor, one could also dig deeper into aspects of inheritance. With prestige, money, clients and loyalty from cohorts being parts of the inheritance from a public figure to his heirs. So that for example a son might inherit the loyalty from cohorts loyal to his father or that cohorts could become loyal to a family in general instead only its general.

This last with family loyalty would mean in my opinion that they would be loyal to the family head until they get a reason to stop being loyal to this family.

EDITED: Also laws on inheritance could be good to have as a way to manipulate and control families.

 

[master_kong]

I will quote Trin's post second time then, as a reminder of course. I am steadily waiting since this post for some changes like minor families instead of minor characters, more fluid rise of the great families and such...

So I would like to make some clarifications.
Minor characters are not necessarily inconsequential characters, they will exist alongside your families at all times and may well hold important offices (and can even be Consul), when the circumstances arise (the main one being when your country increases in rank) they do form their own families.

Unlike the great families however they do not have the clout to demand a certain influence in state but will rather have to rely on their abilities (or possibly your will to not empower your families further). Minor characters will come families from the pool available to your culture, they are basically members of families whose influence is not as constant and entrenched as that of the Great Families. Even if a character of the Julia family dies however that does not mean that another will not show up later, and he will then be able to make an impact through his own abilities.
While the families will guard their privileges they will not be able to adopt anyone they want to, depending on their traits characters may refuse to become their clients and persevere as independent actors.

Since Families do not expect to hold all jobs in your country you are very likely to always have a fair number of minor characters in your service, where they can then prove themselves. What characters get to form a families is different depending on government type but it generally does mostly happen when country rank changes right now (for Rome the first time it happens will be after their first war, you will be presented with a choice of 4 different families to pick to join your starting ones).

Over time as this system evolves we want to do more things with it, including but not limited to more fluid rise of families (this is actually something the system handles quite well as it is but we have kept it happening somewhat restrictive while working out the new framework). The rework is of little use if it becomes a constant rise and fall however, since part of its purpose is that you can come to fear the influence of a powerful family that has built up its prestige over a very long time. So we do want to think carefully about how and when new families are added and old ones removed.

From feedback here it is clear that many would rather see some more fluid ways for families to rise at times outside of when rank changes with a minor character creating a new family to replace one of the existing ones, especially in Republics, and that is something we will take a look at.

 

[Ketchup & friends]

The game needs minor families and a promotion and relegation system for families.

Minor characters can either be completely replaced by minor families OR be a status resolved for people with no actual influence and positions (unemployed, event-generated, slaves, distinguished soldiers, social butterflies etc). In that case, if they gain any office they would found a minor family. (Instantly? Or via Scheme perhaps?)

his is a not a good or fun system in my opinion, and it should change. Even the older system was far better in this regard.

This is true. The old system had severe flaws

• any family demanded two offices.
• old Women who counting as heads of a Family (consisting only of them) to instantly marrying young men
• Family list in UI could be too long in large countries

The new system solved only the first problem well, while making the second significantly worse.

• Now charcters don’t procreate naturally. By late-game most Families are composed of spawned and adopted minor characters.
• Integrating families after a conquest became impossible.
• Recruiting Diadochi or Achaemenids for special triats became useless.
• Artificial limit on families making charcters
• Families having too many members for the UI (could happen in the old system as well, but it was less common).

Overall, this is one of the few changes (perhaps the only major Change) in Imperator that caused MUCH MORE HARM than good.

Well we already had several topics discussing the problems that the system of big families brought my hopes and that they have corrected these problems in the next patch 1.5

Unfortunately, the devs have not even acknowledged that they consider it is a problem.

I will quote Trin's post second time then, as a reminder of course. I am steadily waiting since this post for some changes like minor families instead of minor characters, more fluid rise of the great families and such...

@Trin Tragula is objectively wrong here. This post completely outdated (it was was made before the 1.3 update).

 

[Will Steel]

Integrating families after a conquest became impossible.

This is a great point. The new family system completely broke the annex-integration system, because integrated families always come in as minor families, and immediately begin dying off. In the span of a generation or two, they are gone.

And indeed, it also broke the earlier strategy of preserving bloodlines by recruiting a member of some famous family and letting them safely live in your nation, while their original empire crumbles.