Min erfarenhet, om fyra spelare startar samtidigt;
1 familj dör ut
1 familj lever vidare men blir aldrig stor
2 familjer växter till gigantiska proportioner
This kind of sounds like a logical outcome from the tables.
Perhaps a large family should mean less willingness to have more children, and perhaps higher mortality because of crowdedness (is that a word?). And small families should have better chance - more attention to the few children? That would maybe make the game better, but it may not be more realistic.
I can see that if you are 21, need 3 years to find a wife, 3 years to have a first son, and he lives you will be 47. A quite respectable age for a knight going through 27 years of adventure. And that is the best case. If the first wife dies, or the first son dies, you will be significantly older when your first son is 21.
How is it? If no son is 21 when you die, then someone else will step in until he is old enough to take over?
Another question: you have stats for your Charger but not for you wife, of your character sheet. Do you make a separate character sheet for the wife? I understand her Stewardship and Chirurgery matters most. And then I learnt and forgot a strange word: bailiff. His Stewardship also matter. How is it determined and where do you write it? I feel that a separate character sheet for some more things would be useful. I understand book-of-estates comes with something like that. Any good online resources that are more light weight?
I kind of feel that when it comes to family, estate and extended family, some kind of "fog of war" should be used, so things can be resolved when they matter, rather than following everything year by year.