Taken, and glad to see someone else doing the survey monkey thing - Good job!

I agree with Will for question 1, making it a point of negotiation is an awesome option. (and if agreement can't be reached it could even lead to war...!!!!!)

Good idea... wish I would have included the option.

I don't think it should always be the father of the child who would get control, there are enough fantasy settings with a maternal society and I'd like to be able to play like that.

Allowing more choice for the player is almost always good. I think during the configuration of the faction you should be able to make some choices about this. Maternal / paternal society with some choices to go into more detail. Should the default heir be eldest child, eldest son / daughter, chosen by sovereign...

When a daughter from a maternal society weds a son from a paternal society, the negotiations for the wedding should include who get's to control the children. Sons go to father sovereign, daughters go to mother sovereign? Or first child to the father, second to the mother, third to father and so on? Negotiations with child, father and mother at the time the child becomes an adult? There are so many possibilities here...

Imagine you have a wedding between childs of two sovereigns. At the wedding negotiation it was decided that the eldest child would be controled by sovereign A, the others by sovereign B. After a few years, there is still only one child who looks like he / she is going to be a great hero and a great asset to the sovereign who can control him / her. Now, sovereign B can just decide to let it go, and hope for better luck next time, or he can try to renegotiate the deal with sovereign A or even try to influence the child to change factions.

This idea can off-course be combined with your idea to have choices during certain years to raise the child to become someone usefull. And maybe those choices could be influenced by the other sovereign... Sovereign A tries to raise the child to become a major hero, sovereign B sends the child a few casks of beer to celebrate his birthday giving the child a larger chance to become a drunkard...

Well, I don't know about the whole degrading women just for historical accuracy part, but I do agree that it just makes more sense from a historical viewpoint for the father to have 'first dibs' on any progeny.

I think that daughters should have the option of being trained also, but in less warlike pursuits. They should be able to gain population growth bonuses, mana boosting bonuses, and the like. Of course, it would be nice if you could TRY to train them in warlike pursuits, but it would be much more difficult for them than for boys. The safest route for girls should be simply to 'pretty them up', causing them to givemuch better diplomacy bonuses when they are wed.

I like this sort of system much better than haggling over who gets which child from each marraige, as it turns children into an intuitive resource. If you have girls, you can lead them down a diplomacy/marraige path or a city enhancement path. If you have boys, you can lead them down any number of hero paths, but whatever they wind up as, they become precious to you as they continue the family name.

It makes sense, and it seems pleasing from a gameplay perspective.

But under the 'traditional' system, I don't think that males ARE the dominating gender. It is true that male children would inherit the birthright to future generations they were part of, but it is a yin/yang relationship. Females are required for strong diplomatic ties. They should give a higher diplomacy rating when they marry than males do. And since you would almost always send your female children off to foreign lands, they become liabilities to those who marry them, who are forced to defend them or suffer a diplomacy hit with your kingdom.

I would prefer male and female children to not be identical to each other. It is a good opportunity to instil depth and variety into the game. Male children mean one thing, female mean another. Each has an important role, and I think it is to the benefit of the game to explore them, rather than take a modernisitc approach and try to make them the same thing, except the female squirts out babies.

You will eventually get male children. These are the cornerstone of each generation, as they inherit offspring birthright. Even if they become powerful warriors, you have to fret over using them, because they are your ticket to continuing your line. That is part of the mystique of their role. Female children are almost like diplomatic weapons. They are the currency of ties between countries, you send them out for others to cherish and protect at their peril. Both roles are of vital importance. This is rich, interesting, and makes good historic sense.

While driving to work a few questons came to my mind.

How will interracial marriages be adressed? Can Fallen and Men be married (or reproduce even)?

And even if the current scope of the game would not allow for marriages between Men and Fallen the subject should be looked at considering the fact that there will be modded races. And while marriages (and even offspring) between Elves and Humans should be uncommon but OK it would be strange to see the same for, let's say, Hobbits and Orcs. And not everyone wants an Ogre in the family as well.

On the subject of gender domination: It's OK to be insecure about your role in society but arguing with human (european) history seems a bit strange for a fantasy game.

Nice survey, it touches on a bunch of important aspects of child care in a monarchy type government.

I'd say give the player maximum control since he is, in effect, the all-powerful ruler that decides everything. Though one thing I'd like to see is that children have their own preferences on what they want to do. There are a few ways to implement their wants.

Maybe this can be "hidden" in their stats: High intelligence will have them excel at intellectual persuits like magic, governing. Charisma at leadership etc etc so you would have to read out whatever they would be good at and assume they would like such a career. This might be a bit easy after you work out what combination of stats are best for. Perhaps the children have their own personal likes and dislikes but they can be tempered by the success they are having with whatever you tell them to do.

Another thing I'd really like to see is a sytem of traits that were in the Total War games. They were pretty awesome and helped differentiate your family members. But perhaps if you favour one of your two children, the other will become jealous and have a slightly higher chance to rebel. The stats themselves could also have a bearing on loyality. One child might not like what you tell him/her to do but because of a high Loyalty value, or sense of patriotism, he/she will respect your wishes for the betterment of the nation.

It's certainly a potentially complicated system and there's need for simplicity and the ability to keep a good overview of everyone. But I think with a few features to make children dynamic, it could be quite fun.

Of course an option to turn off children rebellion might be good for those people that just want to focus on a more warlike/traditional RTS approach.  

Done

Hello,

I think that the descendants would must be agreed as a term of the diplomatic negotiations when a marriage is proposed. 

A previous term would be where the couple is going to live, o which faction they will join, and in exchange of this term the faction that loses the son or the daughter will have rights over the fisrtborn boychild, by example, in order to balance the marriage treaty

PD: Excuse my english, I´m from Spain.

I agree with Scorpiana when he says that real life history shouldn't be a guideline to making this game.

However, I do think that the male children should be the heirs, and that the females shouldn't be. I really really liked the Total War approach from Medieval II. That characters have a line of stats that could be improved/reduced through certain acts.

In this thread it seems that a lot of you guys are going in a direction that would lead to a somewhat micro-intensive care of the Sovereigns children, grandchildren and so on. I don't like this direction: while I *do* think that the dynasty mechanic is very cool, I also think that it shouldn't be overshadowing the rest of the game. Personally I would dislike having to micromanage the childcare of my scions. If I wanted to do that, I could play the Sims...

My ideas on the subject is that you could have a line of options open to you when a child is born, and then you could select one of these. E.g.: The sovereign is gifted a son. At the same time you have some plans for a little bit of aggressive expansion. So you select the option "Military General" for this kid. As the child grows up (maybe there could be a bit of UI showing the progression?) he is granted a bunch of traits/abilities that you can access when he becomes available as a piece on the gaming board. The traits that the children had could then be improved (or new ones could be added) based on the achievements of these children. A Soldier child winning a lot of battles could improve his soldiers morale, while also gaining a trait that would improve his influence (along this line, also ensure the populaces loyalty in a city he would be governing). In this way you would also be able to, somewhat, influence the path of your children when they were all grown up.

I realise that this approach leans heavily on the Total War concept, with the exception that you, as a player, has influence on the path that this child would be walk. As I see it, this would mix the ability to "control" your childrens progression, while leaving out the micro-managing aspects that I personlly would rather be without.

A number of example "career choices" for the children.

Males: Soldier/general, Administrator, Scholar

Females: Diplomat... eh... dunno...

In terms of female children, I think a more modern view on what they can do is more fitting. While the setting is in a fantasy realm, we don't need to get bogged down with medieval thinking. I'd be perfectly fine in having daughters become powerful mages, shieldmaidens or skillful overseers.

Though I don't know how Stardock's vision of the lore and setting would dictate female roles, I think giving them some sort of unique job/skill over males would make it a more meaningful and difficult to decide to marry them off to another empire.

Only having them so they can be married off is a bit lame.

This is the system that should be used: The father's side crowns whichever child he desires, and if the mother's side wants to crown a different child, they either negotiate to come to an agreement or both children become kings/queens and there is war between them. 

So the father's side will normally get control of the successor.