Gameplay wise, is Fecund a bad or good trait?

[DaniTheHero]

In a game where practically the only thing that holds you back is partition, having a trait that increases fertility by 50% + 5 extra years of fertility for women sounds like a recipe for disaster.

[VoiD]

One of my favorites, makes reaching 5k+ dynasty members easier

[Genghis San]

Indeed, during partition it's not a good trait to have in my opinion. I avoid fecund spouses until I have primogeniture.

[Zeetarb]

Not sure if it helps, but I try to marry them off to courtiers who I really want to have a kid due to their traits

[Razorblade]

Partition is an issue easily solved by becoming an emperor. Even if you have a couple of unlucky deaths before that time, you can take back your lands easily with your superior Men-At-Arms.

Fecund, meanwhile, provides you with extra lives and extra Renown; it's a good trait.

[DaniTheHero]

Originally posted by Razorblade:

Partition is an issue easily solved by becoming an emperor. Even if you have a couple of unlucky deaths before that time, you can take back your lands easily with your superior Men-At-Arms.

Fecund, meanwhile, provides you with extra lives and extra Renown; it's a good trait.

If you have 5 male children, and lose nearly all your counties when the eldest ascends to the throne, it's quite annoying heh. I personally get over it by using the disinherit function, though it does ruin my Dynasty perks progression early on.

[Razorblade]

Originally posted by DaniTheHero:

If you have 5 male children, and lose nearly all your counties when the eldest ascends to the throne, it's quite annoying heh. I personally get over it by using the disinherit function, though it does ruin my Dynasty perks progression early on.

Holding counties isn't that important, imo. Levies are useless, and you can get money by just having more/bigger vassals and a high development/mine capital. Renown is a much rarer resource than gold.

[DaniTheHero]

Originally posted by Razorblade:

Originally posted by DaniTheHero:

If you have 5 male children, and lose nearly all your counties when the eldest ascends to the throne, it's quite annoying heh. I personally get over it by using the disinherit function, though it does ruin my Dynasty perks progression early on.

Holding counties isn't that important, imo. Levies are useless, and you can get money by just having more/bigger vassals and a high development/mine capital. Renown is a much rarer resource than gold.

Not sure that's correct. You get a lot of golds from developed and well chosen buildings , it's a huge benefit. They also give you direct power, as you can't really fight larger amount of vassals if you don't have your own holdings.

You improve your knights and Men at arms with buildings as well after-all.

[dwarfpcfan]

it's bad until you get to high partition, then it's just another mildly useful perk.

[Dizzy Ladybug]

Having a large domain is possibly the most powerful thing in the game. It's so powerful PDX changed the AI to forcibly revoke titles until it hit its domain limit. Before then, the AI was content on sitting on 1 county due to partition giving everything else away and AI rulers were so much weaker for it.

As for the fecund trait, it is a nice trait for dynasty members to have, but I prefer to limit my children just to keep the inheritances down. I like my primary heir to inherit a large domain. I prefer not to bother with fecund but I respect anyone who wants to use it. Having a large dynasty is a lot fun in too.

[Razorblade]

Originally posted by DaniTheHero:

you can't really fight larger amount of vassals if you don't have your own holdings.

Vassals rarely get the chance to rebel if you're proactive about delegating and getting alliances/friendships with them.

[kong.jingying]

I think the comments above show that (like so many options in CK3), the answer comes down to "it depends."

From a RP perspective, fecund is probably great- one of the best traits. What ruler in the 9th-15th centuries wouldn't want more kids?

From a mechanics perspective, still great, especially if you play with the new 1.9.1 danger rules. Those things can wipe an entire generation even on normal-dangerous mode. And marrying kids to other rulers is one of the best ways to generate both renown and get alliances; fecund makes your kids more attractive marriage options.

There are things that can offset the downsides to fecund, too. Some were mentioned above: keep the fecund trait to nicely traited courtiers, change partition type, etc. In certain cultures and/or religions, you can shuffle excess children into the priesthood. I actually reformed a culture once just to add that as an option; partition is messy. There are also chastity options in the lifestyle tree, chastity belt objects floating around the world, the chaste trait, marrying someone of an opposing sexuality... nothing foolproof, but there are options if you really want the health boost.

But in the end, it's you-do-you. Some people hate dealing with partition issues, some people find it immersive or an interesting gameplay challenge. I think it's fun to play around with different options.

[kong.jingying]

Side note: I just realized I've never gone down the intrigue dynasty rewards path. It might be kind of fun to do a fecund-sadistic-intrigue dynasty with, just to see what happens...

[spasti696969]

No, Fecund is the best. Take Fecund for the 4th pick on the Blood legacy. You'll have an army of vassals and knights from your family.

[Trehek]

The pros of Fecund are great. The only con is potentially tricky succession, which can be mitigated by several means:

If you feel you have a dangerous amount of male heirs, you could divorce and take an infertile (old) wife instead.

You could disinherit troublesome heirs. If you go that route, don't grant them land since landed heirs are more expensive to disinherit.

You could use a religion with Monasticism to force undesirable children to Take the Vows, which is an alternate way to disinherit them.

Pay attention to and manipulate, where your titles will go. As long as each brother's primary title will be a kingdom (or smaller) under one of the main heir's primary title(s), they will end up as your vassals and everything will be well. Some titles, such as Crete which is a two-county kingdom, are excellent heir dumps. Let someone get it just to quickly conquer them back. If one or two titles seem troublesome and are at risk of falling outside your heir's realm, you can spend prestige to declare an election law on them. Then come to good terms with your vassals and vote for your main heir, and most if not all of your vassals should follow suit. Having your council on internal politics for blanket vassal opinion can help a great deal.

Succession isn't always perfect, especially if you die at unopportune times, but with these methods it's possible to control it to a great degree. Siblings becoming independent rulers can be a good thing too, as that will reward you with renown gain. And simply having a ton of offpspring will make your dynasty grow and increase your renown gain from living dynasty members.

[spasti696969]

Train every son in Martial and try to raise them yourself if possible. Try to get traits like Brave, Chaste, and Zealous. Avoid traits like Lazy, Lustful, and especially Ambitious. When they turn 16 have them join a holy order.

This takes them out of the line of succession. In my last game I had 5 of my 7 sons take the vows. The one who wouldn't do it because he got lazy and Lustful, I just murdered all of his male children. Kept the line closed and all the females stayed matrilineal to keep the dynasty growing. Worked out brilliantly.