Possible to reduce the number of Country Cousins?

[unmerged(28109)]

I'm getting pretty tired of having to look through 20 idiots to find my sons and non-idiot courtiers. I was wondering if it is possible to edit the events to reduce the frequency of the cousins showing up.

Maybe one every 5, 10, 15 or 20 years instead of one every single time someone dies. A bit of testing would show which time frame would be the best balance.

 

[richvh]

Not moddable, it's hard-coded. You can switch to elective inheritance and never see another one pop up, though.

 

[unmerged(28109)]

Elective is not a bad system until you get a frigid monarch. Then you can run out of heirs pretty quick. I'll give it a try though to see if the cousins cease stopping over 'for the night' and staying forever.

 

[richvh]

You can also marry them off; if your courtiers have heirs no replacement country cousins will show up.

Give your unmarriable courtiers counties - then if they don't have an heir, the country cousin won't show up in your court.

 

[unmerged(10168)]

Initial court should be smaller I think

So that when family members die there's no replacement by a country cousin. And why all men? Why no lady cousins? Is it possible to give them a sex change operation via an event, like triggered when a country cousin shows up you can change them into a lady?

Richmond

 

[lordvagrant]

I have found I have run out of cousins a few times, and been stuck trying to put a 2 rated adviser in position, or leaving some vacant.
I have noticed that the cousins do improve over time, before they finally dried up in my current game, they were coming with a 6,5,2 & 3, sometimes a 7...not too bad I thought.
I would like to see female cousins, competition for brides can get quite fearsome, adding a few more to the mix should help things.

 

[unmerged(10168)]

How about driving them away

Hmmm what then would cause a courtier to leave and not return? If loyalty was reduced to 0 or below would that cause these annoying people to go away (without generating a replacement?)

Richmond

 

[CaBhaal]

I have found I have run out of cousins a few times, and been stuck trying to put a 2 rated adviser in position, or leaving some vacant.
I have noticed that the cousins do improve over time, before they finally dried up in my current game, they were coming with a 6,5,2 & 3, sometimes a 7...not too bad I thought.
I would like to see female cousins, competition for brides can get quite fearsome, adding a few more to the mix should help things.

I too have seen their stats get better. No testing to prove it, but I believe their stats to be based off of yours. Mine have gotten better as I change liege, and once I have a new liege all Cousins recieved during that period all have the same base stats. Get a new monarch and the process repeats.

Bad thing is that as Liege if your stats are good enough then your cousins can have better stats than most other court's advisors. (My cousins all have 8's and 9's, not too shabby )

 

[unmerged(10168)]

But that doesn't change the fact that there are A too many of them and B they will ALWAYS (I've tested it) appear to replace some dead adult courtier w/c means no matter how you try you cannot 'breed out' your rivals because some bumpkin will take the throne you want. A more random appearance or a simple request to join your court should have been the method of their appearance not an enforced population explosion that even the black death can't beat.

Best regards,
Richmond

 

[unmerged(29096)]

But that doesn't change the fact that there are A too many of them and B they will ALWAYS (I've tested it) appear to replace some dead adult courtier w/c means no matter how you try you cannot 'breed out' your rivals because some bumpkin will take the throne you want.

I don't like the little buggers either (I periodically exterminate them with CrusaderEd), but it's not true that they make it impossible to breed out your rivals. A Country Cousin can only succeed to a throne if the succession law is set to Elective. A big part of my game is marrying my sons and brothers to eldest daughters of rulers who have no living legitimate sons. With Semisalic Primogeniture my sons'/brothers' children are then in pole position for the throne. I started out as Count of Gwent, but now have members of my dynasty ruling various bits of Europe thanks to this policy.

It is true that a human player is unlikely to reach game over due to the Country Cousin escape pod (provided a CC's been given land), but the AI isn't a player in this, as such.

 

[unmerged(10168)]

Yes he is

I specifically tried killing (with the cheat codes) a certain rival dynasty (just to see what would happen) and the AI would ALWAYS have a regenerated country cousin taking the place of the former ruler. Instead of escheating to the monarch or falling into abeyance theres always someone around to save the day.

Richmond

 

[unmerged(29096)]

I specifically tried killing (with the cheat codes) a certain rival dynasty (just to see what would happen) and the AI would ALWAYS have a regenerated country cousin taking the place of the former ruler. Instead of escheating to the monarch or falling into abeyance theres always someone around to save the day.

Ah, I see your point. So a Country Cousin always steps in to fill the shoes of a ruler dying with no legitimate relatives, and therefore an unrelated liege can never inherit a province from a vassal? That is silly... I sincerely hope, though, that a related liege (even a distantly related one) would always be preferred over a Country Cousin.

 

[Solmyr]

Lands where a family died out normally reverted to their lieges, related or not. Nothing silly about that.

 

[DoS]

Lands where a family died out normally reverted to their lieges, related or not. Nothing silly about that.

Thats true, happened quite often in the HRE during the midages.

 

[unmerged(29096)]

Lands where a family died out normally reverted to their lieges, related or not. Nothing silly about that.

That's exactly what I mean! It's silly that the way the situation is apparently handled in the game means that land will only revert to a liege if he's a relative.

 

[unmerged(10168)]

Thats just it

Lets say you own the Duchy of Sicily (this was the dynasty I 'experimented' with) w/c for arguments sake would be a vassal of the Kingdom of Germany - the King of Germany would not inherit the Duchy of Sicily unless by some quirk he came into the direct line of succession because some bumpkin would always be generated to take the place of the previous ruler. There's no chance of the title escheating back to the liege as what realistically would happen.

Richmond