Finished My First Playthrough, Here's the Rundown After 140 Hours

[Silver Wolf]

Very informative piece vemerce, thanks for the effort.

 

[Tim-Ab]

Good guide.
Wait, I can't die of old age?
Does anyone know when women stop giving birth? I'm tired of these baby factories, I just want a couple of children. So I want to marry as old a woman of bitrh age as possible

 

[Csocso]

I can tell you that I wish I had shelved Phaea until after her child bearing years, once I had an heir. She kept just having babies, and the 15th one killed her. She was my strongest companion at the time, and I felt terrible about that. In any future playthroughs, I'll have one or two kids from the wife, hope that doesn't kill her, and then retire her to a castle until she's 40+ years old.

In my current empire restoration (as Lucius of the clan Vorenus ) playthrough, I have married Ira, stole her armor and she died in childbirth immediately after the our first son Titus. After that I married Nadea (Although she's outright fat in 1.10), and stole her armor too. Now I'm pretty decked out in full imperial gear!

 

[Tim-Ab]

I can tell you that I wish I had shelved Phaea until after her child bearing years, once I had an heir. She kept just having babies, and the 15th one killed her. She was my strongest companion at the time, and I felt terrible about that. In any future playthroughs, I'll have one or two kids from the wife, hope that doesn't kill her, and then retire her to a castle until she's 40+ years old.

I only crossed paths with my wife once, and the rest of the time she was sitting in a remote castle, but miraculously gave birth to 12 children.

 

[vemerce]

Your efforts are much appreciated, and answers some of the questions I had, but I would like to know how you coped with escaping Nobles. In my game it has become a big problem. I have taken all of the Southern and Western Empire, but it seems as I progress, the escape problem gets worse.
It came to a head following a big battle in which I took 7 Nobles prisoner. I put them in the closest dungeon and set out to take a Town, only, just a few game hours later, met one of the Nobles with a new army! Going back to the dungeon, they were gone.
I believe there was a mod to fix this, but the file is no longer there, (expect it stopped working due to updates).

The only long term solution to getting rid of nobles is executing them when you beat them. However, there have been reports of that not even working and them coming back from the dead. So in the current versions of the game, I'd say your best bet is just to ransom them away. They shouldn't be that big of a threat after a while anyway, they just keep returning with armies of peasants. Level your own troops up and you'll slaughter them.

Good guide.
Wait, I can't die of old age?
Does anyone know when women stop giving birth? I'm tired of these baby factories, I just want a couple of children. So I want to marry as old a woman of bitrh age as possible

40 is the magic number. Some folks have reported their wives never pregnant no matter what they do. Not sure if that's a bug, or if the game randomly makes some of them infertile on each playthrough. But after 40 babies will stop happening. And no one can get married after 40.

In my current empire restoration (as Lucius of the clan Vorenus ) playthrough, I have married Ira, stole her armor and she died in childbirth immediately after the our first son Titus. After that I married Nadea (Although she's outright fat in 1.10), and stole her armor too. Now I'm pretty decked out in full imperial gear!

That may be almost as evil as it was for me to open the console and kill off my character's husband because he had bugged and married all of her sisters right before that.

 

[FBohler]

If your children are nothing more than low stat companions who look exactly the same as you or your wife with the same personality, traits, and no story-line I don't really see much point in having a dynasty system......

The system isn't fleshed out yet.

As for your suggestions, I really love them!

But I feel nothing like this will be implemented in the game.

 

[Tuco]

Great breakdown. The game really comes together when you use mods and console commands to make the design work.

 

[TheCalradian]

How did you get Phaea to join your party? All I get is the option to inspect her troops. She isn't transferable, so I can't absorb her whole party.

 

[somaholiday]

Great write-up, been wondering about a lot of these things. Nice to see them explained, looking forward to your next playthrough

 

[Tim-Ab]

How did you get Phaea to join your party? All I get is the option to inspect her troops. She isn't transferable, so I can't absorb her whole party.

The party of any member of the clan can be dissolved, then charater will go to one of your settlements, from there he/she can be taken to your squad.

 

[vemerce]

How did you get Phaea to join your party? All I get is the option to inspect her troops. She isn't transferable, so I can't absorb her whole party.

When my character married her, she was automatically put into one of his settlements. If that's not the case for you, then you should be able to open the Clan window, click on "Parties" and disband her party. Then she'll go into a settlement somewhere and you can retrieve her like a normal companion.

 

[Onestep]

Are you sure about the marriage age limit of 40? I've heard a lot of people say the cut off is 35. Or is that only for female characters and it's 40 for male characters?

 

[vemerce]

Are you sure about the marriage age limit of 40? I've heard a lot of people say the cut off is 35. Or is that only for female characters and it's 40 for male characters?

You can see the limit built right into the Developer Console. There's a command to see who all is eligible for marriage. Characters 39 and under appear. Those 40 and above do not.

You can't even force marry your character to someone if they're over 40. Both characters need to be 39 or under, and then you can use the Developer Console to force a marriage.

 

[Onestep]

You can see the limit built right into the Developer Console. There's a command to see who all is eligible for marriage. Characters 39 and under appear. Those 40 and above do not.

You can't even force marry your character to someone if they're over 40. Both characters need to be 39 or under, and then you can use the Developer Console to force a marriage.

Weird. I've seen screenshots of people using the console to de-age people from 36 to 34, which made them eligible for marriage. Possibly it was changed without mention in the patch notes?

 

[vemerce]

Weird. I've seen screenshots of people using the console to de-age people from 36 to 34, which made them eligible for marriage. Possibly it was changed without mention in the patch notes?

Edit: After more research and testing, it seems there are separate cut-offs for men and women. Women can't marry after 35, and men after 40. I also edited the original post information to reflect this.

 

[RichardtheCat]

First of all thanks for writing down everything you've been through. It seems like the game needs to be polished a lot. I'm guess devs finished some parts but they are adding them piece by piece. But I'm just wondering what happens to main characters siblings? As far as I understood there is nothing about them in the game because you didn't mention anything about them.

 

[MrZlozt]

24. Faction leaders will never defect and join any other kingdom.

In my game Lucon, leader of Northern Empire joined Battania somehow.
At some point I've noticed that there is no Empire on the world map and decided to take the main quest to destroy the Empire (before that I stopped right after assembling the banner). I gave the banner to Aserai and immediatly left the faction. 3 quests popped up: to eliminate each Empire faction. I thought that they will complete themselves eventually and ignored them. 2 of them did, including Northern Empire, but the last failed at 10 years mark.
A lot of time passed and I decided to finally join somebody. Map was half Vlandia half Khuzait, but I bought through barter original Battania territory and joined them. Only after that I've noticed that in diplomacy screen there is only 1 of 3 Empire factions (I keep forgetting which one, but not Northern). In encyclopedia those factions have only their leaders.
More time passed and I saw Lucon running around with green banner. He's still a leader of Northern Empire, but he's also a vassal of Battania =)

Spoiler: Northern Empire page

Spoiler: Lucon page

 

[vemerce]

First of all thanks for writing down everything you've been through. It seems like the game needs to be polished a lot. I'm guess devs finished some parts but they are adding them piece by piece. But I'm just wondering what happens to main characters siblings? As far as I understood there is nothing about them in the game because you didn't mention anything about them.

The main quest has been confirmed by the devs to not be finished in its current state. But, from past dev blogs, they have mentioned that if you don't have children, one of your siblings can be your heir, so I do think they will come back at some point. (Probably just for new Save games though.)

In my game Lucon, leader of Northern Empire joined Battania somehow.
At some point I've noticed that there is no Empire on the world map and decided to take the main quest to destroy the Empire (before that I stopped right after assembling the banner). I gave the banner to Aserai and immediatly left the faction. 3 quests popped up: to eliminate each Empire faction. I thought that they will complete themselves eventually and ignored them. 2 of them did, including Northern Empire, but the last failed at 10 years mark.
A lot of time passed and I decided to finally join somebody. Map was half Vlandia half Khuzait, but I bought through barter original Battania territory and joined them. Only after that I've noticed that in diplomacy screen there is only 1 of 3 Empire factions (I keep forgetting which one, but not Northern). In encyclopedia those factions have only their leaders.
More time passed and I saw Lucon running around with green banner. He's still a leader of Northern Empire, but he's also a vassal of Battania =)

Spoiler: Northern Empire page

Spoiler: Lucon page

I'm pretty sure that you found a rare bug. Lucon in your game is in the same boat that I was when I manually switched factions, after leaving my kingdom. I don't think that's supposed to happen, and I've never seen anyone else report that happening. Every faction that got decimated in my playthrough kept the leaders and usually 2-6 vassals running around accomplishing nothing. It baffled me that the vassals didn't bail for a better faction... Players have routinely complained about vassals ditching their kingdom as soon as they joined, but NPC's can keep them long after the faction is essentially dead. lol.

 

[vemerce]

Was just shown that women are coded to be fertile between 18 and 45, so I updated the first post to reflect that.

 

[Boomstomp123]

if the banner is true for the only way to start your own faction I don't like ,the story should help new players find there way not be forced on experienced players that understand the game.