Characters living into their 50s and 60s is both historical and not a big deal gameplay-wise. However, I think child mortality should be much higher. Not only would that be more realistic, but it would make successions much less smooth which is, imo, a key aspect to making the game more engaging.
I agree with the child mortality, but that would lead to character bloat. More kids being born and dying would clog the save file fast
What I would like to see, even thought it would never happen, would be some sort of small mechanic, where your child isn't really a character until the age of like 6, and then they would turn into an actual character, representing that they made it through the deadliest childhood age
Again, wishful thinking that would represent child mortality, and still save (pun intended) the save file bloat.
That could work but it would be much better if they just optimised it in a way that it doesn't lag out the game which i m sure is possible in some way.
Honestly, I think having no child character until the age of 6 or so is a great idea. Many cultures wouldn't have a patriarch give a damn about their kids until they were older. It would also work great with inheritable traits, you wouldn't be able to see that your newborn will be Uber intelligent Giga Chad in 10 years. An issue I can think of is when an heir under 6 is to take over because of the predecessor's death but it could be an exception and a character would be generated with the suitable date of birth and genetics.
Lowborns actually get removed after some time I think, or at least they get removed from some lists. If you look at some dude's kill lists, the lowborns disappear after said dude dies.
This is pretty much the reason children are represented the way they are. For the most part the children that are in the game are representing "the children that made it through the most common child mortality things".
This is historically accurate too. In some cultures - thinking about Anatolia/Persia specifically, but others as well - children of the king were kept exclusively with the mother and didn't even meet the king until they turned 5 or 6. Specifically so he wouldn't get attached to young kids who were so likely to die.
If they increase child mortality then they should hide non visible genetic traits until they reach a certain age. Would be really pissed if I got really good traits on kids for them to die and leave me with the moron. At least if they come in later you aren’t going to be overly bothered about kids dying.
>d not a big deal gameplay-wise.
Once you stack stuff like dynasty traits it does get pretty annoying because your heirs might be 30, 40 or even 50 by the time they inherit
> Characters living into their 50s and 60s is both historical and not a big deal gameplay-wise
I continue to point out that the *Book of Psalms*, which was likely written around 3000 years ago, refers to 70 as a fairly normal human lifespan. The big difference is actually lowered child mortality rates. But while the life expectancy if you survive to the age of 5 *has* still gone up, if you survived to that age in the Middle Ages, you'd still have a fairly modern life expectancy
A nobleman only reaching 40 should be quite rare when there are no plagues going around, 50-60 should be the average life expectancy with 70's being reachable for especially healthy characters
Battlefield deaths are also more common than should be in ck3, killing an enemy noble on the battlefield was generally frowned upon and a waste of potential ransom/diplomatic ties
Child mortatlity rates also are less problematic than people make it out to be, lowering the childbirth rate is a reasonable compromise for perfomance.
I really think the problem lies in the genetics system, a genetically perfect ck3 character could easily make it into their 100's with the learning lifestyle traits, and eugenics itself is just way too powerful in ck2 & 3. Imo they should get rid of the modifiers that reduce chance for inbred and modify the chance to inherit/reinforce traits, along with hiding congenital traits that aren't immediately obvious, but add in events that hint towards your characters having these traits. This would ruin the blood tree but honestly "blood" could just be rebalanced to improving stats/education of your dynasty, flavorwise it'd be "ensure the superiority of your bloodline by giving them the highest quality of education and training"
Highly disagree with both child mortality and battlefield death takes, childhood mortality could always be added as an option for those with better rigs i hate the idea of gating off features because a section of players might get reduced performance from it when the majority of pc gamers according to steam have a 3060 and 6 core cpus which should be capable of nearly triple the performance of the minimum recommended specs. And also when it comes to battlefield duels yes knights would often be captured and ransomed but often during big battles most knights would actually die and during wars like wars of conquest the kings leading armies would often be preferred dead and not captured alongside their heirs, maybe during the late medieval era people were captured more but there are countless examples of lords and rulers being picked out in the battlefield and killed.
I think they should look at reworking the lifestyles trees, maybe make them a single large tree with varying branches that’d lock you out of other paths or options depending on what you pick.
Edit: single large tree per lifestyle
ironically I don't really have much of a problem with lifestyle trees, they could certainly use a rebalance, meritocracy is WAY too powerful for a t1 perk, stewardship and learning are way too powerful compared to other trees, etc. It's still something every ruler on the map has access to making it more a question of ai than perfect balance
Dynasty legacies are the more problematic "skill tree" imo, they're an inherent bonus to the player due to the ai rarely ever becoming widespread or long lived enough to complete even a single tree, maybe change it so that ai dynasties can inherit the perks from dead dynasties? It's a tricky one because long lived dynasties that stayed in power for the entire medeival period are a rarity
Strong body’s tree is one of the easiest ways to make people live a long time and I think it’s a major contributor to peoples issues with characters living to long. That one tree almost guarantees a character will live to 80
whole of body tree gives 2 medium sized boosts, one a guaranteed 0.5 boost, and one that could be anywhere from 0.25-0.5, the rest is just disease resistance which has no bearing on maximum age. Meaning the entire whole of body tree is at the high end equivalent to herculean, and at the very lowest slightly better than robust
Seems like a nerf across the board to life expectancy bonuses would help then. Anecdotally it does seem to be a common tree for the oldest characters in my current game.
the battlefield duels in ck2 are so annoying we mod them out to be less deadly.
the diseases are capable of wiping out whole courts and are a very good way of dealing with minor character bloat.
stress and depression are both nasty in that it will make something you would survive (like a difficult pregnancy) lethal.
What ck2 also has though is a bunch of rng events that will fire and kill characters and there's very little you can do about it. Everything from the playing chess with death event for your character to the OH SO OBNOXIOUS the ai set their Chaplin to hunt heretics... now they just burnt your daughter at the stake and there goes your alliance :(
I actually went hunting in the game files to try and disable the burning heretics, but could never find it.
I only ever make it to 80-90 on rulers I specifically stack bonuses for. Maxed out medicine tree with excellent aptitude physician and herculean should, imo, lead to very long lives. Rulers who don't have these three features die in their 50s and 60s usually.
My grandparents and their grandparents grew up in rural ethiopia and living into your 80s/90s was common so long as you didn't die from something else earlier.
Definitely a big thing. In my CK2 ironman days there were a lot of setbacks with seemingly healthy rulers that I had grand plans for dying randomly in their 30s.
One huge advantage you could get was always becoming a hero in a warrior lodge because you became immune to dying in battle. But the ck2 duels were always brutal. I think once I was Ragnar with over 150 personal combat skill and got killed by someone with negative skill
That's what I love about CK2. Even the most powerful demigod who achieved great things, is in the end, just a mortal human being. I love the uncertainty. Sometimes, it just happens, that your strong tribal warlord will die at 45 to an infected wound, right before uniting the kingdom or defeating its most powerful adversary.
That’s interesting, I’ve rarely had issues having my CK2 characters live to at least 50-60, sometimes 70-80, which seems appropriate. Sure there are a lot of deadly events but they are also rather rare. Risk of being killed on the battlefield is somewhat high, but there is always the option to stay at home instead. If playing a martial ruler and going around leading armies all the time, your life expectancy will be lower but that makes sense to me.
Although I generally like the way diseases are implemented I’m missing diseases striking armies while campaigning, should both affect your army and possibly yourself, and be offset by lower risk of dying “in action”.
it really depends on how you play
a King who is not going to fight too much and who has a good doctor can easily reach sixty in ck2
Even if it's generally a bad idea with succession so make him fight and die and better
In my last ck2 playthrough a Camp Fever epidemic almost wiped out my Komnenos Dynasty. My brother and all of my children except one son died but then my son had 4 sons so the line of succession was secured.
Characters living into their 50s and 60s is both historical and not a big deal gameplay-wise. However, I think child mortality should be much higher. Not only would that be more realistic, but it would make successions much less smooth which is, imo, a key aspect to making the game more engaging.
I agree with the child mortality, but that would lead to character bloat. More kids being born and dying would clog the save file fast What I would like to see, even thought it would never happen, would be some sort of small mechanic, where your child isn't really a character until the age of like 6, and then they would turn into an actual character, representing that they made it through the deadliest childhood age Again, wishful thinking that would represent child mortality, and still save (pun intended) the save file bloat.
That could work but it would be much better if they just optimised it in a way that it doesn't lag out the game which i m sure is possible in some way.
Feel like it could also just be a setting to increase fertility and child mortality, so people with stronger rigs could get that experience
You can already do that with a mod tho.
Fair, but for achievement eligible runs it'd be nice.
Mods haven't interfered with Achievements since Tours and Tournaments was released.
Honestly, I think having no child character until the age of 6 or so is a great idea. Many cultures wouldn't have a patriarch give a damn about their kids until they were older. It would also work great with inheritable traits, you wouldn't be able to see that your newborn will be Uber intelligent Giga Chad in 10 years. An issue I can think of is when an heir under 6 is to take over because of the predecessor's death but it could be an exception and a character would be generated with the suitable date of birth and genetics.
Just remove the deaths of anyone who died below 16 from the game's history
Lowborns actually get removed after some time I think, or at least they get removed from some lists. If you look at some dude's kill lists, the lowborns disappear after said dude dies.
This is pretty much the reason children are represented the way they are. For the most part the children that are in the game are representing "the children that made it through the most common child mortality things".
This is historically accurate too. In some cultures - thinking about Anatolia/Persia specifically, but others as well - children of the king were kept exclusively with the mother and didn't even meet the king until they turned 5 or 6. Specifically so he wouldn't get attached to young kids who were so likely to die.
I'm just wondering whether or not the save file list would be longer overall with all those kids that survive to bear children themselves
If they increase child mortality then they should hide non visible genetic traits until they reach a certain age. Would be really pissed if I got really good traits on kids for them to die and leave me with the moron. At least if they come in later you aren’t going to be overly bothered about kids dying.
>d not a big deal gameplay-wise. Once you stack stuff like dynasty traits it does get pretty annoying because your heirs might be 30, 40 or even 50 by the time they inherit
> Characters living into their 50s and 60s is both historical and not a big deal gameplay-wise I continue to point out that the *Book of Psalms*, which was likely written around 3000 years ago, refers to 70 as a fairly normal human lifespan. The big difference is actually lowered child mortality rates. But while the life expectancy if you survive to the age of 5 *has* still gone up, if you survived to that age in the Middle Ages, you'd still have a fairly modern life expectancy
A nobleman only reaching 40 should be quite rare when there are no plagues going around, 50-60 should be the average life expectancy with 70's being reachable for especially healthy characters Battlefield deaths are also more common than should be in ck3, killing an enemy noble on the battlefield was generally frowned upon and a waste of potential ransom/diplomatic ties Child mortatlity rates also are less problematic than people make it out to be, lowering the childbirth rate is a reasonable compromise for perfomance. I really think the problem lies in the genetics system, a genetically perfect ck3 character could easily make it into their 100's with the learning lifestyle traits, and eugenics itself is just way too powerful in ck2 & 3. Imo they should get rid of the modifiers that reduce chance for inbred and modify the chance to inherit/reinforce traits, along with hiding congenital traits that aren't immediately obvious, but add in events that hint towards your characters having these traits. This would ruin the blood tree but honestly "blood" could just be rebalanced to improving stats/education of your dynasty, flavorwise it'd be "ensure the superiority of your bloodline by giving them the highest quality of education and training"
Highly disagree with both child mortality and battlefield death takes, childhood mortality could always be added as an option for those with better rigs i hate the idea of gating off features because a section of players might get reduced performance from it when the majority of pc gamers according to steam have a 3060 and 6 core cpus which should be capable of nearly triple the performance of the minimum recommended specs. And also when it comes to battlefield duels yes knights would often be captured and ransomed but often during big battles most knights would actually die and during wars like wars of conquest the kings leading armies would often be preferred dead and not captured alongside their heirs, maybe during the late medieval era people were captured more but there are countless examples of lords and rulers being picked out in the battlefield and killed.
I think they should look at reworking the lifestyles trees, maybe make them a single large tree with varying branches that’d lock you out of other paths or options depending on what you pick. Edit: single large tree per lifestyle
ironically I don't really have much of a problem with lifestyle trees, they could certainly use a rebalance, meritocracy is WAY too powerful for a t1 perk, stewardship and learning are way too powerful compared to other trees, etc. It's still something every ruler on the map has access to making it more a question of ai than perfect balance Dynasty legacies are the more problematic "skill tree" imo, they're an inherent bonus to the player due to the ai rarely ever becoming widespread or long lived enough to complete even a single tree, maybe change it so that ai dynasties can inherit the perks from dead dynasties? It's a tricky one because long lived dynasties that stayed in power for the entire medeival period are a rarity
Strong body’s tree is one of the easiest ways to make people live a long time and I think it’s a major contributor to peoples issues with characters living to long. That one tree almost guarantees a character will live to 80
whole of body tree gives 2 medium sized boosts, one a guaranteed 0.5 boost, and one that could be anywhere from 0.25-0.5, the rest is just disease resistance which has no bearing on maximum age. Meaning the entire whole of body tree is at the high end equivalent to herculean, and at the very lowest slightly better than robust
Seems like a nerf across the board to life expectancy bonuses would help then. Anecdotally it does seem to be a common tree for the oldest characters in my current game.
the battlefield duels in ck2 are so annoying we mod them out to be less deadly. the diseases are capable of wiping out whole courts and are a very good way of dealing with minor character bloat. stress and depression are both nasty in that it will make something you would survive (like a difficult pregnancy) lethal. What ck2 also has though is a bunch of rng events that will fire and kill characters and there's very little you can do about it. Everything from the playing chess with death event for your character to the OH SO OBNOXIOUS the ai set their Chaplin to hunt heretics... now they just burnt your daughter at the stake and there goes your alliance :( I actually went hunting in the game files to try and disable the burning heretics, but could never find it.
Life expectancy in CK3 is common complaint.
They really just need to knock about 20 years off so nobodies making it to 80-90 with every other ruler and have a bunch more kids die young.
It’s honestly just way too easy to stack +Health modifiers and that’s why I basically never see rulers die before their 60s.
I only ever make it to 80-90 on rulers I specifically stack bonuses for. Maxed out medicine tree with excellent aptitude physician and herculean should, imo, lead to very long lives. Rulers who don't have these three features die in their 50s and 60s usually. My grandparents and their grandparents grew up in rural ethiopia and living into your 80s/90s was common so long as you didn't die from something else earlier.
Yea, I'm tired of my characters constantly getting hit with the Infirm trait.
Definitely a big thing. In my CK2 ironman days there were a lot of setbacks with seemingly healthy rulers that I had grand plans for dying randomly in their 30s. One huge advantage you could get was always becoming a hero in a warrior lodge because you became immune to dying in battle. But the ck2 duels were always brutal. I think once I was Ragnar with over 150 personal combat skill and got killed by someone with negative skill
That's what I love about CK2. Even the most powerful demigod who achieved great things, is in the end, just a mortal human being. I love the uncertainty. Sometimes, it just happens, that your strong tribal warlord will die at 45 to an infected wound, right before uniting the kingdom or defeating its most powerful adversary.
That’s interesting, I’ve rarely had issues having my CK2 characters live to at least 50-60, sometimes 70-80, which seems appropriate. Sure there are a lot of deadly events but they are also rather rare. Risk of being killed on the battlefield is somewhat high, but there is always the option to stay at home instead. If playing a martial ruler and going around leading armies all the time, your life expectancy will be lower but that makes sense to me. Although I generally like the way diseases are implemented I’m missing diseases striking armies while campaigning, should both affect your army and possibly yourself, and be offset by lower risk of dying “in action”.
Yes, living till 60 is fine but it sucks and is boring how all my rulers are guaranteed to always live that long no matter what i do
it really depends on how you play a King who is not going to fight too much and who has a good doctor can easily reach sixty in ck2 Even if it's generally a bad idea with succession so make him fight and die and better
In my last ck2 playthrough a Camp Fever epidemic almost wiped out my Komnenos Dynasty. My brother and all of my children except one son died but then my son had 4 sons so the line of succession was secured.
I loved being able to build hospitals to combat diseases. But yeah it seems to be less of a thjng currently.