Anyone else run out of characters?

[SAS]

Playing as Rome and the last 50 years of game time I run out of characters. My major families all have enough but with my legion cohorts getting more and more I run out of leaders for them. Every nation I conquer I accept 2 of the families but since they are minor and don't have children they die out. I had to limit my legions to two or even a single cohort to maintain the army. Anyone else having issues with this?

 

[Emre Yigit]

Oh, indubitably, yes.

 

[Lord Lambert]

I completed a world conquest and was able to fill every governor slot so Id say not really, no

 

[Emre Yigit]

I completed a world conquest and was able to fill every governor slot so Id say not really, no

Governors are easy. We're talking cohorts.

 

[barnabas]

I'm about to end a Rome run and never had this issue. I have 10 or 12 legions with plenty of generals to choose from. Some of my generals come from the main families, the better ones are usually minor characters.

I didn't accept any of the families from the countries I conquered. I took the -0,50 AE each time.

 

[Lord Lambert]

Governors are easy. We're talking cohorts.

If you are making enough Legions to run out of characters in a normal run, I would argue you probably have too many Legions

 

[John MacWhat]

What do you mean by run out of? Literally exhausting the number of characters or having to tolerate the appointment of worse skilled people? Because the latter definitely happens the wider you go

 

[Todie]

If I actively tried to run out, I might. Though, not without actively appointing significantly more admirals and legates than I need to wage my wars.

 

[Warrior2099]

Please take a look at my thread - I also noted that it looks that all system (how many children characters/ couples may have, what is number of our characters before penalties are activated) we have if we play REPUBLICS in game may result in problems.

I post my thread just few hours ago, almost in the same time:

What do you think about current family system (children) in Republics? Does it work in longer term?

I stopped playing IR around 1 year ago (January 2020). When I came back now I encountered absolutely new system which regulate how many children our characters may have (I always considered that this part of game is most crucial, because all our...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

In proper file (00_defines) which regulates these issues we have:

BASE_NR_OF_CHILDREN_PER_COUPLE = 2

and later:

COURT_SIZE_CHILD_PENALTY_THRESHOLD = 120
SUBTRACTION_CHILDREN_COURT_SIZE_PENALTY = 1

I asked few questions in my thread how these numbers can be understood:

- Especially how COURT_SIZE is counted if we use HISTORICAL GENDER RULES (not MIXED RULES) - if all characters are counted to the COURT_SIZE or only characters which may be eligible for offices (so if women are counted there or not).

- Im also not sure if BASE_NR_OF_CHILDREN_PER_COUPLE = 2 is not too low number (somebody told me that this is not hard cap and that COUPLES can have more children not only if they have special traits but also in other situations but I'm not sure if this is correct).

 

[SAS]

Interesting responses, thanks all. Although I don't know why you would only have 10 Cohorts as an endgame Rome. MOOOOOORE!

 

[Herennius]

Moving towards end game in my Rome playthrough, I would say that options have become at least a lot tighter. No more you play the game of having a much better minor character and a bad stat one from a great family, which needs another job. I even had (after a sucessful war creating two new governships) temporarily the situation, where the governor pick screen had no selectable character. I was able to "fix" this by granting citizenship to some foreigners. And no, it is is not me having a dozend legions around (only one) or several world wonders built at the same time (only one as well) - just the governorships are starting to grow in numbers.

I would indeed say that natural reproduction is on the low side. How much might depend on playstyle (e.g. if you shuffle jobs a lot, more characters might get the chance to marry and get kids and the problem will be smaller) and for sure, it is initially masked by the starting character pool, a lower need for character (being small = less offices to fill) and frequent early total annexations giving you the option to easily fill your ranks by integrating/imprisoning+releasing.
In the end game you have likely less annexations, but more jobs to be filled and the low natural reproduction had effect on several generations - and the result is a (nearly) emptied barrel, when it comes to finding office holders.

 

[Warrior2099]

Moving towards end game in my Rome playthrough, I would say that options have become at least a lot tighter. No more you play the game of having a much better minor character and a bad stat one from a great family, which needs another job. I even had (after a sucessful war creating two new governships) temporarily the situation, where the governor pick screen had no selectable character. I was able to "fix" this by granting citizenship to some foreigners. And no, it is is not me having a dozend legions around (only one) or several world wonders built at the same time (only one as well) - just the governorships are starting to grow in numbers.

I would indeed say that natural reproduction is on the low side. How much might depend on playstyle (e.g. if you shuffle jobs a lot, more characters might get the chance to marry and get kids and the problem will be smaller) and for sure, it is initially masked by the starting character pool, a lower need for character (being small = less offices to fill) and frequent early total annexations giving you the option to easily fill your ranks by integrating/imprisoning+releasing.
In the end game you have likely less annexations, but more jobs to be filled and the low natural reproduction had effect on several generations - and the result is a (nearly) emptied barrel, when it comes to finding office holders.

I'm trying to find out what is current regulation of marriages, I also asked about it in reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Imperator/comments/mg5v3p

Because it's most crucial element to understand if we may face really problematic situation with new characters.

Till 1.5 it was a rule (for REPUBLICS) that only 2 (when game was launched, later this number was changed to 3) characters could marry (and these characters had to be from great families).

This was serious problem but we were able to "fix it" - base number of children was 1, then number changed to 2 if character had at least 20 PROMIENENCE and then - to 3 if character had 80 PROMIENENCE (or more). Of course I speak about REPUBLICS (I didn't play factions with MONARCHY).

Because of this mechanics we could easily keep enough characters, because we could farm a lot of PROMIENENCE in wars (when our generals captured settlements they got PROMIENENCE. It was annoying - sometimes we just had to wage a wars to farm PROMIENENCE for our characters - but was possible.

There is also penalty for number of children our characters may have which is set by 00_defines.

Now number of characters in pool (COURT_SIZE_CHILD_PENALTY_THRESHOLD) is set at 120. When we have more characters - base number of children our characters may have is decreased by 1. So now it's decreased from 2 to 1.

This level (COURT_SIZE_CHILD_PENALTY_THRESHOLD) was higher before and was set at 180. And as we see - before even if we had more characters we could manage our characters in this way that they still could have 2 children, even when penalty was activated (maximum number of children before 1.5 or 2.0: 3 if character had more then 80 PROMIENENCE).

These numbers make huge difference.

NOW MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION: if now PARADOX dropped rule that only 3 characters from our great families can marry (and then "produce" children in the same time) or did they keep this rule?

If they dropped and IF ALL characters can marry (also minor characters) - there should be no problem. There are adopotion events, we can persuade foreign characters to come to us - there are ways to get new people.

But if this rule was kept - significant problem should appear in later part of game.

If Paradox kept this rule as part of mechanics which was designed to create additional problems for bigger empires - it's very bad mechanics and I absolutely don't like it.

I MUST ADMIT - I don't understand if this rule was dropped or if was kept.

 

[John MacWhat]

Is it at all possible these character limit rules were meant to help performance? And if so, perhaps the solution is to tie the character limits to government rank, or even status as a player

 

[Todie]

Is it at all possible these character limit rules were meant to help performance? And if so, perhaps the solution is to tie the character limits to government rank, or even status as a player

I haven’t looker at the files for 2.0, but if i recall correctly, the limits were tied to country rank in earlier patches.

 

[Yuanshu]

Anyone else having issues with this?

This is relative, there are campaigns that are all right, others that practically you are with a lot of old people that don't breed.
Seriously, this family system is horrible without saying that it limits your immersion a lot...

 

[BarbarianHunter]

You'll get more (and younger) characters by using the "Imprison" option then releasing them all. You can sort by martial while releasing and immediately grant citizenship, easy but not as efficient as waiting until you place the legate to begin the +15 loyalty bonus for citizenship granted.

For Rome I generally wait to conquer Gaul, Gernalia, Prittania, etc...until late game as the lot can be carpet annexed. A bonus to waiting is Gaul can function as a vast reservoir of characters that can be granted citizenship from all the smaller tribes.

 

[Warrior2099]

Is it at all possible these character limit rules were meant to help performance? And if so, perhaps the solution is to tie the character limits to government rank, or even status as a player

If this is answer to my comment: if there is any relation with performance: no.

If there will be sense to tie it with status of player/ rank - YES, absolutely YES.

This system is just another complication in game and because of it - is part of game we should be focused on.

In general system is OK as it's something logical that smaller factions shouldn't have problems with characters suitable for all offices. Maybe not exactly "logical" but it can be understood that Paradox added this as part of system which cause additional problems for big empires. I understand it. There is some kind of logic here.

Limits ARE NOT BINDED with our rank and NEVER WERE.

Number of great families (I'm not sure if all data from wiki is updated to current version) was bidned with rank:

Characters - Imperator Wiki

imperator.paradoxwikis.com

Because marriages could occur only in great families - so in this way we could also have more marriages and more children when we expanded.

But CHARACTER LIMIT RULES (COURT_SIZE) is not related with our rank in any way.

The BIGGEST problem is that if limits (who may marry - if only few members of great families or if everybody) are still as they were before and these restrictions were not dropped - it's just disaster.

Before PROMIENENCE was removed as important factor we could MANIPULATE number of new characters if we saw that we may face problems by preparing characters with HIGHEST PROMIENENCE.

Now base number of children is 2 and can be reduced to one if we activate penalty.

This system also has some mechanics to save faction from situation that faction will run out from characters. And what we have in 00_defines

IDEAL_CHILD_PER_FAMILY = 4

and later:

MIN_SIZE = 4; #below this size the family will look desperately into adopting minor characters
MAX_SIZE = 18; #above this size the family won't look into adopting minor characters anymore

As I understand great families have tendency to have 4 children. I also guess that

BASE_NR_OF_CHILDREN_PER_COUPLE = 2

Is not "hard cap" and and if number of children in family is lower then 4 - couples get some fertility bonus (???)

How this rule: IDEAL_CHILD_PER_FAMILY = 4 interacts with this rule: BASE_NR_OF_CHILDREN_PER_COUPLE = 2 - I HAVE NO IDEA.

I think that if IDEAL_CHILD is more important then BASE_NR_OF_CHILDREN we can just increase number to 6. But on the other hand I just don't know if it won't result in spam of new characters

And what is most important - I have no idea how this system of marriages is organized now. If nobody answer me here in this thread or in reddit under my question, I will add separate question if anybody knows how marriage system act.

I don't understand why PARADOX didn't explained all this system - how these numbers interact with each other. I guess that modders could understand them - but I'm not sure if questions about numbers in current 00_defines is proper question for subforum about mods.

 

[Kadanz]

my understanding used to be that minor characters get generated automatically over the course of the game, so you always have people around to adopt and give offices to. Lately I'm not sure of that anymore, I've reached the point in my Rome campaign were I don't have enough characters to serve as commanders for all my legions, offices, governors and researchers.

 

[Poliut]

It could also help if you could welcome leaders' families when diploannexing them and not just the leaders themselves - currently when you annex someone, the leaders' relatives die by "fading into obscurity" when they could be included in the character pool as well. A lot those leaders tend to be up there, too. Getting only the 65 year old who's about to check out soon but not his 3 children doesn't really help much.

Arranging marriages between minor characters or relatives in a republican government may be useful there, too.

 

[Warrior2099]

my understanding used to be that minor characters get generated automatically over the course of the game, so you always have people around to adopt and give offices to. Lately I'm not sure of that anymore, I've reached the point in my Rome campaign were I don't have enough characters to serve as commanders for all my legions, offices, governors and researchers.

It could also help if you could welcome leaders' families when diploannexing them and not just the leaders themselves - currently when you annex someone, the leaders' relatives die by "fading into obscurity" when they could be included in the character pool as well. A lot those leaders tend to be up there, too. Getting only the 65 year old who's about to check out soon but not his 3 children doesn't really help much.

Arranging marriages between minor characters or relatives in a republican government may be useful there, too.

Do you know guys what is answer on my most important question here:

***

QUESTION: Do all characters now can marry or only 2 or 3 characters from GREAT FAMILIES?

Because answer on this question determines everything. With this answer we will know if game requires some modding to make situation that player will not face situation when will run out of characters. It's possible to mod game in this way that we will eliminate risk of bad luck to minimum.

***

We cannot depend on annexation or on random events. It's game about ancient times, not SF strategy where we lead ageing space empire.

I'm not modder but I think that it will be pretty easy to add a rule that when number of our characters below specific age (let's say 60) drops below some critical level (let's say 60) we get some fertility bonus or that BASE number of children is changed to 3 or 4.

I'm not sure what kind of solution should be implemented - but for sure I know that we must know answer on that "QUESTION" I wrote above.

Arranging marriages between minor characters or relatives in a republican government may be useful there, too.

Something like this - yes, it can be solution.