How long does it take for a child to grow up?

[kccarmea]

And by "grow up" I mean useful. I have a 4 year old who's just eating for free and I need to put her ass in the mines!

[Aquila]

Originally posted by kccarmea:

Just learned I can kick kids out of my village just like adults. I have 4 kids taking up valuable space so I kicked out 2 and added 2 more adults.

not how u want to strengthen your dynasty and have good name

[johnman742000]

Agree they should be able to work earlier than 18, I just took my boy on a hunting trip at age 8. He should be able to at least start picking berries or something. Or working in the pig pen. And the fact that when I try to talk to him he says he doesn't feel like talking right now, that would have gotten me in big trouble when I was a kid and that wasn't even the middle ages? You don't tell your dad you are not in the mood to talk, that's just rude!

[Mowglia]

Originally posted by Pash:

Originally posted by kccarmea:

Just learned I can kick kids out of my village just like adults. I have 4 kids taking up valuable space so I kicked out 2 and added 2 more adults.

not how u want to strengthen your dynasty and have good name

I think I read somewhere that villagers having kids allows you to go over the population cap. 18 years isn't so long given the speed time moves in this game. Keeping the sprogs might be the only reasonable way to get more villagers at this point?

Now I'm in two minds, lol.

[pfreelantz]

yeah, I agree. Kids should be able to start "apprenticing" for certain jobs at 8-10. Maybe put in a restriction where you need to have some adult working in the same role and give them a modifier....maybe something that scales form 50% effectiveness that increases as they approach 18.

Otherwise there's absolutely no reason to have skill-based buildings allow more than 2 employees before you have like 100k dp. I'm sitting at just over 10k dp and can't possibly eat all the food 1 hunter collects (not even a good hunter) and an 8x8 plot of carrots. Once all your houses are built and daubed, the amount of firewood you use drops to ~4-5/hr in winter. I'm dumping stuff on the floor simply because I can't use it and no other villages have any money to buy things.

[Mowglia]

Talking of kids, I'm wondering what happens when the character dies and the heir takes over. Specifically imagine grinding diplomacy, hunting, and farming to 10 again, lol. That's gonna hurt.

So this apprentice idea: Maybe the heir could follow us around after a certain age, and have the heir's skills slowly scale to 2/3 our existing skills as they approach 18? This would take the sting out of skilling the slow skills again at least.

[schutt]

The game has full political correctness. So children do not die, no one gets sick, no child work, no slavery. That is ok, but therefor the children can not work before 18. I would opt for "double grow rate" having them listed as one year older every other season (two years older per year) until 18.

[NightRain]

I'm enjoying this game so much, but have to agree that I really struggle to get my head around asking a 17 year old man "Do you have a minute?" who replies with "Mummy says I'm not allowed to talk to strangers.". I'd love to see kids working as animal breeders or like so many others have said as berry gatherers, etc. I was doing gofer work and tea making on my dad's building site when I was like 7/8. I got extra pocket money for this and was so happy.

The really funny thing is one of the game loading screens shows a father teaching his 3-4 year old son how to use a bow.

As someone else suggested, maybe a disclaimer screen of some sort stating that this is a period based game and is in fact not real life and that youngsters were married and had kids of their own by 13/14 back then. I'm guessing this is a legal thing though and that some..... would be outraged at this and campaign to have the evil game showing child labour and exploitation of women banned.

It wouldn't shock me if people in the game stop working at random intervals so they can take a 'Me day'.

Either way, this topic comes up so often that I hope the devs will explain why it is as it is.

[kccarmea]

Originally posted by Mowglia:

Originally posted by kooto:

Unless kids start to work at age of 5 we will see one gender villages all over :D

I was trying to pair the villagers off with each other to start; now I actively prohibit any funny business :p

I know, they can't keep their hands off each other. I have to room all the men and women in separate houses.

[g0815krieger]

You take your son to a hunt at age of 8, and at age of 10 he still can´t shoot a hare on his own.

Damn that stupid bastard can´t be my son.

[Recksters]

Is that still the case?

[Philtre]

Originally posted by Feathers:

Is that still the case?

Is what still the case? Kids not being able to work until 18? Yes, that's still a thing. However, children born in your village no longer count towards your dynasty rep, so now they don't affect your population cap. And the amount of food and firewood they use has always been much lower than adults use, so they're not really a problem.

[Recksters]

Weird... Some jobs should be available to them at 12, like gathering stuff, and then some simple jobs like hunting, fishing at 16...

[rhwilson1953]

Originally posted by kccarmea:

How long does it take for a child to grow up?

It can take a extremely long time. I'm 68 and my 88 year old pappy says I'm still not too old to take behind the woodshed.

[Dr.Chazzzzz]

The devs let you have more than 3 day seasons but wont let the kids grow up faster or work younger. Its the devs biggest fail IMO.

[IDerpedYourMom]

I had my first job at 8. The kids I saw in Afghanistan were working the fields by 10. I'm betting the biblical conditions I saw in Afghanistan are closer to reality. Children married off by first blood.