newbie having some trouble

[bret]

I just got the game a couple of days ago,
and I've started several games as the Highlands,
but I always end up quitting and starting a new game when everything falls apart.

Few problems:

My kings rarely have children- in the few games I've started I've only had one king who had a male child. Most of the time they have either no children or one female child.

Just about every knight I recruit ends up being a spy.
This is what usually causes me to start a new game.

In one game I tried- As soon as the game started I paused it, set my prince as a spy, set my king as a spy, and with the initial money I had I recruited a spy. My hope was, that with my king/prince counter-spying and the fact that the game had just started, the spy I recruited wouldn't be an enemy spy. I played several hours on that game, and eventually promoted the spy to 4 stars, the whole time I had him counter-spying, but he turned out to be an enemy spy and he killed my king. In the game previous to this one 4 of my knights were enemy spys. A landlord stole a province from me, a spy I had counter-spying murdered my princess, I inprisoned one of my marshals for trying to start a revolt and a merchant stole all my money and left.

So anyway... am I doing something wrong or is this just normal?

[Angryminer]

Welcome to the forum, bret! :halloha:
1. About offspring:
Basically that's just a matter of being lucky. I played games where I got to the crown of europe with one dynasty and I played games where I changed bloodlines almost each generation.
The best strategy is to count on a lack of offspring and thus adopt the province everywhere to get rid of nostalgia. That makes sure that no civil war breakes out when the king dies and thus the kingdom remains stable.
2. About spies:
Spies have two ways to infiltrate a kingdom. Either they are hired as a new spy or, less likely, they assassinate a knight and impersonate him. That means knights who originally were loyal can turn out to be spies.
Thus you should exchange spies whenever possible. Once a spy has spent enough time in my court I usually start sending him on missions until he eventually gets captured so I can make some use of him before I exile him. My king is almost always a spy at my court.
Even when you distrust your spy he will still work as a counter-spy. So if you have a 5-star counter-spy and hire a new spy he will reveal wether the new spy is an enemy spy even if he himself is a spy.
Also, choose your enemies wisely. The AI usually sends spies to it's worst enemy. Read the gossips to find out who has experienced spies and who doesn't. It can be a really big problem to have the wrong enemies.
3. Losing the game isn't something bad. The medieval wasn't always fair. There are situations where you are lost whatever you do, that's part of the game. I usually enjoy seeing the AI do well. :smile:

Angryminer