SP - General Small % chance of non-married Ladies giving birth

[Generaljoebear]

It would make sense to give Ladies, even while unmarried, a small % chance of having kids. Even if half the normal pregnancy % chance, it would be a nice way for players to keep our Ladies in the clan while also being able to pass the torch. I really wanted my daughter to be my heir, but I also want to make sure she's properly levelled for a smooth transition before retiring my main. Or, if I choose to play him until he dies - she may just be too old to have kids at that point if I have to wait to get her married due to wanting to keep her in the clan. Just kind of a bummer feature for no reason.

Then, the player should be prompted with the option to keep the baby or "adopt", let the father keep it, etc. for players who do not want to keep kids who were had out of marraige or whatever. I say the more the merrier, but I imagine not all players would want to keep children made outside of marriages.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

I really wanted my daughter to be my heir, but I also want to make sure she's properly levelled for a smooth transition before retiring my main. Or, if I choose to play him until he dies - she may just be too old to have kids at that point if I have to wait to get her married due to wanting to keep her in the clan. Just kind of a bummer feature for no reason.

In the game, a woman doesn't become infertile until she's over 50 (I have heard 45 stated, but I'm pretty sure even Empress Rhagaea can birth a couple with a young guy before she goes over the hill). Even if you wait until she's 40 before playing as her, she ought to be making babies like there's no tomorrow since the main mechanic responsible for diminishing pregnancy rates is number of babies had within a marriage (meaning, is she/the man were to remarry, they'd be making babies like crazy again).

Then, the player should be prompted with the option to keep the baby or "adopt", let the father keep it, etc. for players who do not want to keep kids who were had out of marraige or whatever. I say the more the merrier, but I imagine not all players would want to keep children made outside of marriages.

I'd be pretty annoyed if this feature was added without qualifiers since it implies the women in your/other families are a bunch of sluts while the men are good boys who don't go spudding them out with random women. From a RP point of view, it can be immersion breaking since the RP largely depends on suggestions and implications rather than hard rules and mechanics set by the game.

This isn't a bad idea, but it'd need some conditions; firstly, certain traits (perhaps Dishonest and Impulsive?) might be necessary to have a chance of out-of-wedlock children and it'd have to apply to the men as well as the women since it'd be a little odd in its implications otherwise. Second, perhaps the chance would raise in a family with only daughters and no sons--maybe you/NPCs could even give their daughters the "go ahead" since they would be highly disincentivized to marry off their progeny and incentivized to have grandchildren even via strange men who come and go with a pack of smokes. Third, there should be social consequences, which is presently lacking so nobody bats an eye when a clan head sends off their old mother to marry some guy after their dad bites the dust. A social system that punishes sending off your old man or lady off to get hitched, for trying to seduce people's moms/dads, and perhaps an expansion onto the dating ritual (surely other guys/women are competing with you and would have something to say about it?) should be done first to lay down the groundwork since I could imagine a reputation as a rake or a slut hurting the marriage prospects of the prospective brides and grooms.

 

[Zorion_no]

I think a better solution would be to have the "barter" of marriage let you choose which way a man/woman takes in who moves to which clan.
There is a mod that allows this.
So you can have male marry into your clan, and thus populate the clan while you are of doing your thing.

As for fertility I've seen Rhaega aswell get married have some kids, if she's married early on in the game.
Usually its only 1 more kid though, never seen multiple.
I've seen Siga do the same.
Those are the only 2 that I can recall are 40+ at start of the game that I've seen it happend with.

I did in a play have a late kid with my wife when she was 40, at that time the age gap between the siblings was quite huge to say the least.

As for the "it would make sense" - that is something I 100% disagree with on your stance, while Calradia isnt directly similar to our own history, it still borrows heavy from it. Meaning woment haveing kids out of wedlock in those times, even male - would be frowned upon.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

You know, one thing I'd like to see is the ability to marry non-nobles, especially party companions (who you're likely to develop more of a bond with compared to a wife/husband where your bond comes after marriage rather than before). This would definitely alleviate the issue of not being able to arrange marriages for daughters/women without it being (mostly) a loss on your end.

I'd say the main issue with bringing husbands into your clan is that NPCs would need to do the same thing or else it'd be a one-sided advantage for the player character.

My proposed solution would be, if a clan has only daughters, that one of the daughters (such as the eldest) be treated as if male for the purposes of arranging marriages (which is to say, since they're the likely clan heir, they bring in the husband rather than have to wait to become clan head before doing the same thing). Otherwise, the Hermit's Retreat is something I'd like to see revisited since it'd be nice if you could retire your player character but keep them around as an NPC in your clan. It'd allow for more control over succession without going so far as to completely retire your character, who could at least be a governor or a steward/doctor/scout/engineer for their heir player character.

Perhaps a mechanic where an heir is designated prior to the death of the clan head could enable the above so that, should you designate a woman as your successor, she can get married and bring in her new husband rather than leave to enter his clan. In terms of real world historical precedence, I've seen this several times in Japanese history whenever there's a shortage of eligible male successors, most famously with the Tachibana Clan in the 16th century. It's also a great example of "semi-retirement" since there's several cases, such as Hisamasa Azai of the Azai Clan, retiring but still effectively the leader, or co-leader/chief advisor, as the guardian of his teenage son Nagamasa (who was up-jumped due to martial popularity in contrast with Hisamasa's own unpopularity among the clan elders).

 

[Zorion_no]

You know, one thing I'd like to see is the ability to marry non-nobles, especially party companions (who you're likely to develop more of a bond with compared to a wife/husband where your bond comes after marriage rather than before). This would definitely alleviate the issue of not being able to arrange marriages for daughters/women without it being (mostly) a loss on your end.

I'd say the main issue with bringing husbands into your clan is that NPCs would need to do the same thing or else it'd be a one-sided advantage for the player character.

My proposed solution would be, if a clan has only daughters, that one of the daughters (such as the eldest) be treated as if male for the purposes of arranging marriages (which is to say, since they're the likely clan heir, they bring in the husband rather than have to wait to become clan head before doing the same thing). Otherwise, the Hermit's Retreat is something I'd like to see revisited since it'd be nice if you could retire your player character but keep them around as an NPC in your clan. It'd allow for more control over succession without going so far as to completely retire your character, who could at least be a governor or a steward/doctor/scout/engineer for their heir player character.

Perhaps a mechanic where an heir is designated prior to the death of the clan head could enable the above so that, should you designate a woman as your successor, she can get married and bring in her new husband rather than leave to enter his clan. In terms of real world historical precedence, I've seen this several times in Japanese history whenever there's a shortage of eligible male successors, most famously with the Tachibana Clan in the 16th century. It's also a great example of "semi-retirement" since there's several cases, such as Hisamasa Azai of the Azai Clan, retiring but still effectively the leader, or co-leader/chief advisor, as the guardian of his teenage son Nagamasa (who was up-jumped due to martial popularity in contrast with Hisamasa's own unpopularity among the clan elders).

I agree at birth of the children you should be able to assign an heir, natuarlly when you have 1 kid, it would be that one, but when there is more you can pick who you want(some cultures had such things in real life, for example in royalty, where daugther is only the heir until a son is born, then he is the crownprince).(Example here in Norway with the royal family in this current king's heir. Mærtha was in line until Håkon arrived some year later, the Swedes on the other hand changed their hereditary laws, so they have Victoria(1st born) to be the ruler, and Carl Phillip(born later) missed out on sucession as such(had they not changed the laws, he would have been the heir).

As for marrying non-nobles - this is taken care of on pc with mods though.
There is several mods that lets you romance and marry those non-nobles.
Tbh unless they "change things" TW "lied/decived" per se if you want to stretch it, as in the early footages of the game, one of the things they "showcased" was actually meeting a random wanderer and haveing a romance and wed them later on + kids etc.
(I'm sure it was no deception by TW, but they oversold it to us the players, I among others was abit cranky that its not in the game).

As for "retire your starting character without the Hermits retareat" this is actually done by mods(again..)
The mod lets you choose whichever clan memeber you want to control.
This could be spouse, kids or even "wanderers you have hired".

Retireing your main, to have them be a steward is something I'd love to do, or an option to take control of characters, as some of them is "useless" in combat kind of, so its abit tedious to level up their combatskills, vs if you where in control and dominated with them.
Leveling combatskills is much easier now no doubt, but still some of them is abit "harder at start" as the penalty for ranged etc is very high imo at below 25(read the wanderers skill should all be 25 in all skills as minimum, so they arent useless in some things).(most of the other skills is easy to lvl them up in ultra-fast. (steward, scouting, is superfast)

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

As for marrying non-nobles - this is taken care of on pc with mods though.
There is several mods that lets you romance and marry those non-nobles.
Tbh unless they "change things" TW "lied/decived" per se if you want to stretch it, as in the early footages of the game, one of the things they "showcased" was actually meeting a random wanderer and haveing a romance and wed them later on + kids etc.
(I'm sure it was no deception by TW, but they oversold it to us the players, I among others was abit cranky that its not in the game).

As for "retire your starting character without the Hermits retareat" this is actually done by mods(again..)

All I can so is sigh, since I'm console bound and therefore cannot DIY a fix lol. Once you have a taste of what it's like to mod a game (such as Morrowind), you know what you're missing...

I have noticed it's easier for companions to level up their combat skills in particular, and have taken advantage of Strat Gaming's advice to bring them (exclusively, if possible) on bandit base raids since they're good XP farms.

I think Ira Pethros, at least, should have a special tag since Rhagaea's legitimacy as a rule rests on being her daughter's regent since nothing in her lore page on BannerBook (in game) indicates she's legitimate by either merit or royal blood. It's a shame Ira's destined to be married off and the future of the Southern Empire is either going to go to her mom's boyfriend or a random other clan (that probably has more legitimacy anyway, at that point, lol). Heck, in my first playthrough, she ended up marrying a Battanian noble and the throne actually did go to her mom's boyfriend after she died in her late 70's. The Neretzes got the last laugh, though, since they took over the Western Empire after Garios's brother, Nemos, died and even reunited the Empire culture sphere, eventually uniting the eastern half of the map by 1120 or so.