[Suggestion] Pregnant heroes

Don't you mean harmful?

And I have come to the agreement with a lot of other people (most prominently GW Swicord) that such female-specific features would decrease the value of female units (something that should be avoided) as well as ticking off a fair number of egalitarianist players.

Just remember, doods, "same rights as person" is not the same as "same rights as biological entity"!

What? It had to be said and I took such responsability.

But for the Fun Factor ^tm better if dumb... er... simplified. No need for angry noobs (and not so noobs) complaining that their women behave (biologically speaking) like.... you know, women. Even if realist (and interesting), it adds a layer of complexity that most won't like/accept*.

* Don't compare it to "Sovereign death = game over". Different topic and non negotiable.

Whatever. I've always had a mild phobia of babies, so maybe I'm not the absolute best person to be deciding all this.

I'm all for this. Screw the egalitarians. They don't live in the real world anyway.

I'd cringe every time someone suddenly had a baby like it was a big surprise. "Hey, look what fell out of me today! A baby! Let's ship it off to the nearest castle to be raised. I have a dungeon to raid."

If players end up valuing men and women differently for different reasons and purposes in the end, all the better.

Wouldnt that apply to female sovereigns too? So picking a female one would give you a disadvantage which cannot be justified other than for realsim in a fantasy game....alas not at all.

In any case, special Buildings designed to "educate the aristocracy" that increase certain administrative attributes of Royal Family members stationed in the city, and grow up in the city, would be cool.

I think their should be a "Parental" talent, which could allow interesting bonuses and/or decisions in the Talent/Weakness ratio of your children, and potentially your children's children.

Part of what I envision is simply a greater sense of "Parenthood" in the empire, were all children have a greater chance to be born with more talents than weaknesses.

Another Part, however, makes me want a decision for each child (I want X gold per turn spend on this child's Education and Care!). Or (I want child to be raised in City A @ 10 gold per turn, or I want child to have his own bodyguard and accompany me on the field for 15 gold per turn) ... Bringing a toddler into a warfare environment could have a chance to raise both a Blood Crazed, Murder Crazed Maniac, but it could ALSO raise a Wise and Strong Great General.

Leaving your student Pampered in the Capital could lead him to be a slovenly and lazy oaf, or a Wise and Organized City Planner.

There are both interesting decisions, and having the Parenthood talent would give a better chance for the positive outcomes to be aquired.

Not to say that a Slovenly Oaf or a Blood-Crazed Murderfiend coming of age would be "entirely" bad. For instance, maybe the Slovenly oaf makes all buildings in the city he governs cost more, but in his creativity the Prestige is also increased per building.

Maybe the Blood-Crazed Murderfiend is also an incredibly skilled warrior fighting to a fierce brutality that demoralizes enemies, even if he is not the best commander. Would make a great Pycho Prize-Fighter to fight in the Front lines of your more Organized Child's Armies.

Also, maybe the lazy oaf has had more leisure time to think of various psycho-sematic possibilities, and is a wild-card at diplomacy. Either he does sub-par/below average on Trade or Diplomatic venues, or he shows his Savant prowess and becomes an incredibly excellent diplomat/merchant for a particular treaty or two. or perhaps you find he is a great diplomat only when negotiating with X country, for some as of yet undecipherable reason.

The Point being, that everyone has their uses, but the "good ones" are really, really good.

Tasunke: very good point!

Bodyless: I was thinking about this too, but it would make female sovereigns less useful in the game. You must have the first generation of children.  However for the next generations of heroes - no female = no child. It could make heroines very valuable. And if they increase your chance the child remains in your kingdom in cross-faction marriage...

be better if you could only have an army of females haha.

I fail to see how "to be forced to spend some turns at home" equals "weakening". You may want to say "take some choices away from the player in very concrete circumstances". And difficulty based on just "buffing numbers" is dumb difficulty (sometimes needed). Difficulty on adding extra game mechanics that add to the decission/choices pool on the other hand...

Well, assuming that for the most part, every turn might end up = year (or 6 months, or 4 moths) ... Pregnancies probably woludn't last that long. Maybe a turn or two at the most.

So ... I think there should be an event of a Magical Pregnancy. The child is Prophesized as X, Y, and Z, and the pregnancy is lasting for an incredibly long time (5-10 years).

There could be a zillion twists, turns, and challenges to this ...

but if you do have the child, you get a really good Champion, and any good/bad results that the prophecy foretold.

And if the female Sovereign picked talents that give benefits for being in a town, it's not like she is going to care too much for being in a place she wanted to be anyways. No matter if 1 turn or 200. Unless she had urgent errands to run somewhere else like recruiting Long Cat in the wilds.

Agreed. There is no reason why she could not take care of city/state administration, crying on soldiers to speed their training and such things. Let us say the pregnant heroine/sovereign cannot attack. However she should be able to defend herself, if attacked. The length of the pregnancy may be altered to best suit the game. You can even find a real world explanation for this - there is a period of time when the woman is unaware of pregnancy or is aware, but not yet limited.  

I suggested this feature not to punish female heroes, but to give the depth to the dynasty system. I don't like babies jumping out of nowhere (luckmann's description was perfect). If you play the game and you receive a message "your wife/hero is pregnant", you may enjoy the good news (and enjoy the waiting, whether the child becomes a new hero in your empire, or a little bastard and thug..."

At this moment if I get the message "child was born", the first thing that comes to my mind is: "O, really. One goes to take a coffe and suddenly has a child. What a lovely surprise!". And if you play the female sovereign, it is even more unprobable. They cannot be that stupid. All women I know have realized their pregnancy sooner or later.

Well, this is a good point Winter.  And not only that, but perhaps children of a female sovereign are more loyal to your faction than they are to a male sovereign.  I mean, think about it.  Who is a child going to be more loyal to?

Female sovereign: "I gave you life.  I nurtered you and watched you grow.  And you would betray your Kingdom?!"

Male sovereign: "Hey, I slew dragons to put food on the table!  Yeah, I was never around when you were a kid, but Sammy, why would you betray the kingdom!...  What?  Your name is Frankie?  Well, yeah, that's what I meant..."

Likewise, you might have better quality children if the parents of the children stick around to raise them instead of bounce off to a dungeon.  I dare say, perhaps female sovereigns should get a bonus to their parenting skill to compensate for the time they spend pregnant?  Also, pregnancy in heros could be an interesting dynamic in warfare.  If you face a pregnant hero in battle, they might be greatly encumbered in battle by their pregnancy, but killing them might earn your hero the "baby killer" trait, which might considered a dastardly thing to do (not a big deal if you are evil already.) 

A queen not knowing she is pregnant does seem highly improbable, to put it mildly. But here in the U.S. we still occasionally have women come to full term and deliver a child without knowing that they were pregnant. There's a recent story about a woman having her second child and being completely surprised. (With over 7 billion of us around now, it seems like nearly any crazy story is actually happening somewhere...)

Some 'loyalty mechanics' would be great fun for the dynasty stuff, but I'd rather see variations like the one you describe based on the individual character of sovereigns or at least have some variety by faction. Some aristocratic mothers are no more emotionally connected to their children than Frankie's dad is, and I suppose history must have at least a few male royals who were doting fathers.

Here's a simple fix. The sovereign can't get married and can't have children unless they are in the presence of their wife (let's pretend bastards don't exist) or husband. The husband/wife is obviously not fit for travel since they'd probably die out in the wild, which means they have to be city-based.

If the turn duration represents a period of 1-3 months, and we assume the couple are trying really hard for a baby, then four to ten (scale based on charisma? who knows) game turns would be about right to conceive and give birth to a child. Since both the male and female sovereigns have to be inside the city for this to happen, there's no real balance issue and it doesn't matter who is the one giving birth.

Having children then becomes a matter of pressing the "make babies" button in the dynasty screen, no eglatarians are offended, realists are pleased, game balancing ceases to be an issue and we're all happy, except for those of us who want a super-realistic medieval sim, like myself. Except that actually I am still happy, because this is a game and not a simulator. : )

Actually, if your Pregnant Wife was with you in a Travel Caravan with/behind your army, it would make an interesting strategical objective to protect during battle ... :3

all in all, I think I would like 3 popups

1st (Lady Ann is pregnant!)

2nd(A Daughter has been born named Elizabeth. How would you like her to be raised?)

A-Aristocrat of High standing ... potential for prestige bonuses, potential to be lazy

B-Warrior on the front lines ... Great General or Sadistic Murderer

C-Studies/Scholar ... Generals, Merchants, Artisans, Philosophers, ect.

D-to become a fitting mate/bargaining tool ... usually more Docile, loss of most stats, more easily goaded into political marriages

3rd(Elizabeth has come of age! She Excells in the art of Commanding, and has a lucky addition of Prestige bonus. (and you get the unit, infocard, and stats))

So the first pop-up shows who is pregnant, the second popup shows that the child is born, and tells you the name (at this point you could probably also edit their name). Part of the Second pop-up will allow you to choose how they are raised. The third and final pop-up would be upon their acceptance into proper membership of the Royal Aristocracy, and they become a unit (when they come of age).

I think option D should have a 1% chance of backfiring in the traditional fairytale way.

The dynasty system does seem like a possibly vast bucket of hooks for quests and random events. Every once in a blue moon, I'd like to see the entire diplomatic landscape thrown into chaos by a starcrossed-lovers or prodigal-child type of event.

"My liege, your heir and the heir of Krax have both disappeared from their households, leaving letters that claim they have renounced their titles and eloped to the Isles Outside the Game Map. The council in Krax appear to believe we have kidnapped the boy, but it seems equally likely that your daughter is already on her way to captivity in Krax lands..."

"My liege, rumours abound that the princess, your daughter, consorts with a dragon in the far reaches of farreachamere, and sends word that she shall not be back for dinner, until at least you agree not to serve broccoloflower or make her the pink dress again tonight"

A dragon you say! This could end badly (or very well indeed!)

Puts a whole new spin on the "for the blood of your first born son I will grant you a boon of unimaginable power," if it cripples your dynasty line.

If a turn equals 1 year, than it makes this an easy answer. Simply have Pregnanices and birth occur during in between turns, and only if the champion/soverign is at a city. Keep a constant birth Rate. So if a champion/sovereign has been out in the field for many, many turns, she/he is due for a a twin or triplet inorder to make up for lost time.

If you want spice it up a bit, don't have a constant birth rate, and allow pregnancies/births to occur only if the champion/soverign is at a city. then create a racial/faction trait the gives the ablity to have pregnancies/births to occur outside in the field or in enemy territory. This would be a more barbaric/warlike trait.

This game has a fantasy setting, so you could have both genders give birth through magical conception with a catalyst such as a crystal, and a vial of the partner's "essence". All descendants of the sovereign should genetically inherit this form of procreation. As far as I understand it, channelers are unique in their ability to utilise magic, and so adding this trait would be only a further point of distinction, making them almost like a seperate race.

In this way, both genders become just as valued, making them equal in the game for all intents and purposes, the only difference being cosmetic. This may not necessarily be a good thing, but it is a simplification that could possibly be settled on by people on both sides of this discussion. For myself, I don't mind it either way it goes.

How is taking the most powerful unit of an empire out of the game NOT a weakening of said empire? Imagine if it was leading your army to an attack of an enemy army...your sov suddenly gets teleported to a city and your army wiped out.

The difficulaty is set by placing different enemy empires in the world. Difficulty by numbers is only used when you give the AIs certain bonuses. And while this is not desirable, there will certainly be some difficulty levels which do that just to give some players a challange. I dont see why one should make this dependent on cosmetic decisions by the player.

I dont really like the idea of a simple button to "make a baby". Whats stop someone from pressing that button EVERY turn? Yeah you get an army of heroes. not so fun.

It'd be foolish to implement pregnancy and not include systems that take it into account, don't you think? Damn, if I were to mod it in, I'd include a in game check that would say something like "Not looking for kids" that while active would prevent the female sovereign (or the spouse of the male SOvereign) from getting pregnant. After all, I'd find very stupid that a female active-in-the-field Sovereign were to get pregnant while out of a city and keep adventuring while bearing the child (and give birth out there while in battle...). Unless she is from some kind of vagrant-like tradition and have "mobile cities". A female could deal with the topic by picking city related talents. ANd if she really wants to kick some ass, she wouldonly need to activate the mentioned check to make sure that "stuff" doesn't happen.

And then still need to define things for such a system of pregnancy. Like turns? If it's a insta thing of one turn, then why bother? If it takes more than one turn (thing that would impact in born children growth), then it could be considered.

Difficulty it's not based on just placing opponents in the map (especially if dumb and needed of numeric bonuses to compete at low levels). And you totally miss the point of female Sovereign pregnancy if you talk about a cosmetic choice. After all, to advocate for female preganancy (or both, who knows) is to advocate for gender not being just cosmetic. I thought that was quite obvious.

And in case it wasn't obvious either for any of the readers, I don't expect pregnancy to make it in the game at all. Especially because I'd demand some extra bits for the city population growth systems and blah blah blah. Oh, and I don't see Stardock implementing it anyway. But theoretical discussions are fine anyway.