Are my leaders infertile?

[unmerged(154589)]

Playing the 1066 scenario as Teranto, or whatever (the de Hautevilles).
It's now almost 1100 and I'm afraid of my leaders dying with no heirs at all.
The leader of Teranto, Abelard, has two brothers. All three of these guys have been married for decades and produced no children at all between the three of them. My leader has two traits that raise his fertility, and he is friends with his wife and chaste and everything, but nothing has happened.
How can I help these guys pop out a baby? The succession will go to one of his brothers if Abelard dies, but they are all a similar age and are going to die around the same time presumably, leaving my kingdom to be inherited by an outsider and losing me the game. How do you guys promote child-birth?

 

[TempestDK]

There isn't really anything you can do excpt make sure that they marry high-fertility women.

Most likely it seems that your male line do indeed have low fertility, since all three brothers are not producing children ... so to counter that you need to find young and highly fertile women.

Since Fertility is a hidden stat, you should look for women with many siblings. That probably means that her parents had good fertility, and since it is an inherited stat, she should have that too ... ofcourse lustful and indulgent girls with plenty of siblings are what you would want.

But even if you get some kids, it will probably need a few generations of careful marriage planning before the effects f a low fertility parent evens out

Switch to Salic law and you will get a "country cousin" to rule, if there are no heirs.

 

[unmerged(133776)]

Since your Ruler is Friends with his wife, there's a chance for the "I'm in Love with my wife' event, and then you might get some 'Blissful state' events to raise his fertility. Once those happen, and she starts reaching the end of her child-bearing stage, then find a way for her to meet an 'unfortunate' accident and then go shopping for a new 16-year old - high fertility wife.

Or do it now and and change wives every few years.

 

[unmerged(154589)]

Thanks for the advices, friends. Pleased to say that Abelard has produced 2 male heirs with his new 17 year old Croat wench.
About time!

 

[Yakman]

i have had similar problems with the de Hautevilles. but Abelard always seems to come through in the end.

 

[Snaake]

Change to a salic law, then once all male relatives (=dynasty members) are dead, a 'country cousin' will inherit (this always happens if the line of succession is empty: you can also assassinate everyone who is an heir via semisalic succession). He'll have the same dynasty name, culture and religion, and random (mediocre/poor) stats. As long as you keep the succession window clear of any non-dynasty members, you're safe to continue the game.

Edit: only noticed now that the country cousin advice had already been invoked, and you had gotten lucky and sired some heirs anyway. Good luck, and keep these pieces of advice in mind next time you run into a similar situation

 

[unmerged(154589)]

Oh as a follow up: At what ages do women lose fertility?

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Oh as a follow up: At what ages do women lose fertility?

Just like in real life, so about when they turn 40