okay - allow me to be the most imature here :
how about one romance not canceling the other, quite the opposite - jade empire style? you could get both girls - major romp in the hay there!
dao2 had isabela - major orgy player in dao 1 than in 2 she goes saint and you had to jump hooks to get her as romance ?!?!?
now I know they said they'd do around 8 characters ....
yet with a party of six and 2 major cities - baldur's style I'd sugest something on the order of 15 chracters - 3 full parties
don't ask me how many bg series had , but I do remember I kept swithching all sorts of combinations to get the banter - and I'm positive a certain heir to a planar sphere was courting a mage girl (minsk was her bodyguard)
so there was romance among them too.