It probably would make more sense if the Child was born in the same tile as the channeler, but ah well, its much more conventional for the wife to remain in the capital, and thus that is where the child will be born.

keep in mind that this is a "preliminary placeholder system"... they will improve it later. There is indication that you could even choose who to marry (it says "marriage is random (for now)"

That sounds like just one more good reason I hadn't thought of yet when I started a thread about why royal spouses seem wrong as 'pin-ups' and ought to start out as champions just like any other unit in the breeding system.

Initiating pregnancies should require both parents to 'share a stack' for some brief time (I don't think we can expect to see menstrual cycles properly woven into the code, but that would be awseome IMO). After that, the female's location determines where the new child appears, so we have both the chance of some very special champions who were literally born on a battelfield and the general strategic need to keep pregnant nobles/champions safe.

that would raise some issue with the female sovereigns.

Altough I'm not against such level of detail for something that I can consider "serious business", the effects of a female Sovereign aren't small. And in the end, Stardock is most likely to decide for the "fun factor".

Considering the time dilation of turns and that kind of stuff, more than "sharing a stack", with being in a close area of the map should be enough?

This is a fantasy game and sovereigns are at least proto-demigods, if not demigods to start with. A pregnant sovereign is by definition not in the same class as a pregnant noble/champion. The back story and game mechanics will be the determining factors. Unless the devs want it to be so, there's no reason for a pregnant sovereign to need more protection just because of the pregnancy.

But I kinda like the idea that some quest/events might involve the actual labor and delivery of a female soverign's child, now that you make me think of it. Nothing that would be a common factor in basic planning and decisions, but a way to make the gender difference have some more-than-cosmetic meaning in the game.

Re the time-space-sex problem, close proximity is interesting but also begs the question of a bonus/penalty to distinguish it from immediate proximity. Depending of course on how the in-game 'calendar' settles out. I still can't find a way to show what turn I'm at in 0.295, so I have no idea how far the devs might have moved from turn=day now that the dynasty stuff is in.

Having a different experience playing a female Sovereign from a male Sovereign would be great. And I'm not talking about male Sovereigns not being able to wear skirts...

I like the Idea of Spouses for Sovereigns to be Champions instead of "pin-ups" that remain in the capital.

However, I don't mind the current system. I will use an example of the female Sovereign. Her husband is a man not inclined to fighting, instead he cares for the Keep in the Capital City. Occasionally he will travel by carriage to the location of the Sovereign, and there they will be maritally "intimate". If the Sovereign becomes pregnant the spouse will stay with her, until the baby is born. Then, after a time of playing with the baby, both baby and spouse will return to the capital, and their the baby will be cared for the spouse and various wet-nurses. At age 20, the child has become a woman, with no personal knowledge of her mother, yet has heard many stories, learned of the Kingdom she lives in, and has trained many years to get to the point she is at today, leading armies or governing cities in her mother's honor. Her "coronation" into being a Royal Champion takes place in the central square of the Capital, and from their she leads her army onwards looking for adventure, glory, and prestige.

See!! Does it make sense Now!?  I can see that spouses "could" be champions as well, but I dont think they have to be. In any case, its FAR MORE LIKELY that the children will, from a very young age, grow up in the capital in the care of servants.

OK, but what about bastard childern, ie the ones that the Sovereign has with those that they are not married to?

If you are going for the detail, might as well go for it.

Then if there is anything like karma or good/bad this could could be one of the applications to determine which way your Sovereign moves.
A bit like Galatic Civilizations when picking which out come you take on random events and some planet colonizations.

Dave Chase

Adding a way for separate marrigage & breeding is probably too much complexity for many (most?) potential players, and might be no small hassle for the devs. I'd like to see it because I like 'good micromanagement' and only dislike highly repetitive UI tasks.

Still, no option to cuckold husbands and impregnate mistresses does not mean we have to go entirely without bastards. I hope to see a few quests and/or semi-random free champions involve characters like Jon Snow in A Song of Ice and Fire.

You might end up with a FitzChivalry Farseer whose very presence turns the kingdom into chaos...ah Robin Hobb...what a deadset legend. Have you read the Farseers GW?

for all we know, the magic inherant to the sions (children of sovereign and a mortal) causes a pregnant female sovereign to become even more powerful while pregnant (or at least compensates for any difficulty due to pregnancy).

And a sovereign can teleport to safety when s/he is about to be killed, maybe he/she could probably whisk his wife/her husband away too. so really, no special changes need to be made.

I am pretty sure he meant wives of male sovereigns... likewise, the husbands of female sovereigns should stay in the capital where they are safe instead of be taken to the battlefield (assuming the sovereign cannot use a single escape spell to teleport both of them away from combat). The sovereign, male or female, pregnant or not, can teleport to safety and is never in real danger; also is of near godlike power... no real reason a pregnant sov can't be on the front lines. but their mortal spouse should be kept safe; so I really don't think he meant it as "female sovereigns should stay in the kitchen" kind of comment.

give birth on the battlefield is definitely a "rule of cool" thing that should be accounted for (even if it gives no mechanical bonuses, just keep a record of it; aka, each person has a "born at" field, which can be a city, a location between cities, or the battle of X).

One of the problems I see is that sovs live ~800 years and near godlike in power, and their children, the sions, have significant powers as well. Having ONE mortal spouse and thats it, forever, seems silly on several fronts. First there is the whole notion that you never fall in love again in 800 years, second if you ignore the romance issue, there is the assumptions of a monogamous (vs polygamy) marriage (vs bachlor life with many sexual partners) on the part of the sov... also perfect loyalty to a mortal spouse extending even beyond their death hundreds of years ago, and finally, not utilizing the benfits of the powers of the sions.

having many sion children (who possess magical powers) would increase the power of your empire. It makes sense for both male and female sovs... and gives quite the advantage to a male sov (ghengis khan has sired over 1000 children; he wasn't the only male ruler to have done so). So as cool as it sounds, sions should NOT be born with ANY essence. They are mortals who might be slightly more likely (no in game effect) to sire a sovereign, but they are mortals. This means there is no tactical advantage to having more children (other then the usual "marry them off to someone")

I have given it some thought and came with some ideas.

1. even if the sovs live 800 years and have multiple mortal spouses, there is no reason to assume they are fertile for all those years. It could be a known bit of lore that sovs can only have children before the age of 40-50 or so.

2. low fertility rates for sovereigns result in only a few babies during their fertile years (aka, before age 40 or 50).

3. various convoluted in game explanations why male sovs don't have a bunch of kids from multiple women could be made (including religion, sovs only capable of having a baby with a loved spouse, the magic forces them into monogamy, etc etc), but those really don't stand too well; especially if sions are actually born with their own pool of essence (that did not drain the sov), making sions a valuable tactical asset in the war for domination. I guess we could go with "its just a game"... but I think the only logical explanation is that the sions are just mortal, therefore there is no special benefit to having tons of children; so a monogamous marriage (perhaps a political marriage with a noble) makes sense in that regards.

Those three reasons together could keep the bloodlines managable without breaking verisimilitude.

Alternatively, sions can have their own powers if it does cost the sov essence per child. This makes having children a costly endeavor that could pay off in the long term (like founding cities).

If your going to go that deep in then it would be required to include things such as Infant Mortality rates (Sids). Childhood maladities, both mild and strong ones, as well as the possibility of both Physical and Mental handicaps that could be randomly applied to each child from the ever growing Strength and Weaknesses Pools.

not necessarily. Those are extremely rare. And you could just say that sovs don't have such genetic defects.

besides which, even if you include a 1 in hundreds of thousands chance of getting such conditions, you don't mitigate the sheer benefit of massive reproduction given by sions being superhuman.

taltamir, I think you're homing in on the most interesting 'weakness' of the dynasty mechanics. Talk so far has been mostly about how these things will play out in 'zero-sum' conflict terms. But you raise two very important points: 1) the range of options for 'justifying' any given mechanic is very broad, and 2) the mechanics really deserve a good fictional cultural context to connect those mechanics to Elemental's game world.

Also, I never thought of sovereign offspring that could "drain the sov" of essence, but maybe the real trick to preventing 'dynasty spam' is not enforcing any given set of cultural values or a pseudo-biology but instead making all sovereign breeding a matter of minimum (1 point?) essence investment, regardless of the sovereign's sex. In other words, any sovereign is 'normally' infertile but can at any time choose to expend a small sum of essence to create offspring, either in her own womb or his partner's womb.

No I haven't, but I'm pretty sure that the friends who turned me on to Ice and Fire also like Robin Hobb, so I expect to be giving her a try sometime soon. I'm especially interested by the Liveship trilogy--seems like she might be working with some Moon Is a Harsh Mistress themes in the fantasy genre.

Is there a mechanism in place to keep cousins from marrying?  That would prevent some of the genetic defects 

Or the opposite. If you have two cousins which happen to be excellent spellcasters, you could favor their union to breed powerful wizards at the expense of other kind of champions.

This is how races of dogs are designed, ya know. Why not make the same thing with Champions?

(not part of the demo, btw, so no idea how the hero skillsets are organised)

cousins doesn't automatically mean genetic defects... what it DOES mean is the expression of recessive genes in a very high amount. Recessive genes that code for a defect are very very hard to eliminate from the genepool because they have no harmful side effect as long as you are merely a carrier AND as long as the total occurance within a population is low (aka, your chances of meeting another carrier is low).

This can be an ideal way to encourage recessive genes. More defects, but also increased chance of being mm recessive for the magic gene (M = muggle, m = mage). Of course, there is no reason to assume that magic has anything to do with actual GENETICS. its magic after all.

Magic isn't some sort of irrational and random pattern, it must have some roots in physical reality to exist. So ther emust be a factor that determine magical ability. If it's inherited (as it's often is), then it has to be related to genetics.

you know he's joking right?

this topic started off wrong as I thought it was going to be an interesting article to say "wow the miracles of life" to, and now here I sit trying to come up with a proper response. Basically, the devs are going to figure it out guys. lol. You know I hate to say it folks, but they aren't really listening to us. No matter where this thread goes the devs already have in mind what they want to do about marriages, offspring, and heroes/champions. I hate to be a naysayer but seriously, I think the only time we should be having discussions like this is when the Stardock comes forward and says "Help us with _____". Otherwise we are just wasting our time. I would prefer to have more posts like this one hosted by the devs and tallied after so many days. Because seriously, us just sitting here writing walls-of-text about every little thing is not going to get us anywhere. I'll even start one.. Heroes or Champions?

What if it is caused by your "soul" or by exposure to certain chemicals prenatally or by exposure to magic prenatally (example, from a spellcasting parent), or by contracts with extradimensional creatures who have a thing for "bloodlines". etc etc.

it is after all, magic.

I see what you mean. But in that case, it isn't inherited. It's attributed by your raising/bearing experience as a pheotus/child.

BTW, in my beta testing I've revealed that your children spawn in a stack with you if you haven't built any cities by the time they've come of age.  Check it out in my End Turn Hotkey Problem