Ageing (with dignity?)

[unmerged(28803)]

As well, I wouldn't call anyone before the middle half of the 20th century squeaky clean, so I'm not trying to say they were on par with modern society, but the middle ages often is portrayed far worse than it really was as a reaction to the Victorians portraying it far better than it actually was.

I definitely agree with that. The so-called Dark Ages were far from as dark as one would believe from the baggage left by pre-1960s historians.

Still, average life expectancy was shorter than today and there are obvious reasons for it. There are accounts of Saracen doctors being horrified by the medical practices of the crusaders - remedies like cutting a cross into the back of a patient suffering from gout, and salting it. Even taking propaganda into account, there must have been big differences. Science was more advanced overall in the Moslem culture, partly thanks to them rediscovering (or never even forgetting) the ancient Greeks earlier. After the first crusade, one of the most common causes of death for the Latin population of the kingdom of Jerusalem was fever. Even though the majority of them were privileged (merchants, officials, knights, nobles) and would have lived in better circumstances than the mostly Syrian majority of commoners. It's not like Westerners were allergic to the Levant. A hotter climate probably made things like awareness of basic hygiene tell.

It seems as if circumstances varied a lot, from time to time and place to place. It was possible to live to a very advanced age, and lead an active life, so it's not like I'm saying that everyone everywhere was a barbarian.

 

[keynes2.0]

It's a character driven game so I don't think it's more important that the player be aware if a character is healthy or infirm when aged then it is to quibble what the particular ratios of healthy to infirm people are. I'm fine with a 68 year old who is healthy as a horse and leading crusades, just so long as I am told that he is healthy as a horse.

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

What about this:

Make a "candle" symbol next to the portrait. The candle stands for the general
health of a character. If the candle is great your guy is healthy. He can still die
by event but a natural death is not very likely. The candle will "burn down" and
get smaller even if he has no serious illnesses. If he has serious illnesses the
candle will burn down faster. It cannot recover. So if you have had a serious
sickness for 20 years and loose the illness via event it will still have lowered your
overall lifetime preventing guys getting to old that have suffered a lot of illnesses.

I LOVE the idea of the candle.

***

Let's be clear from the start: It's not true that people in the Middle Ages got old at their 35's. Consider the life expectancy after 5 years old, and it rises to 65. There's like 50% of children dying at birth or when they are 2, 3 years old. That lowers the average statistics a lot and creates the fake image of people living only until their 40's.

If you didn't die by the sword or didn't catch any major disease (like the flu, or a pneumony, or some virus, etc), you could live easily to your 70's. Noblemen, kings, dukes, etc, used to do a lot of excercise, hunting, sparring, fighting, etc, but their diet was really, really bad, and some of their living habits (like heavy drinking not-so-watered wine) were not helping. As a result, noblemen rarely got to their 70's.

Bishops and ecclesiastic noblemen were an exception. Usually, they did as much excercise as their secular kinsmen, but they had healthier habits, most of the time. So they lived 70, 80, sometimes even 90 years.

Now, the common folks are not easy to quantify, because of the very varied strata inside the Third Estate. But anyway, we won't have to use them at anytime, here we use noblemen.

So, noblemen getting into their 70's? Why not? Could happen with little problem. What is more of a problem is that they hardly catch up a disease. Being older means being less healthy, and getting important illnesses easier. If you make that, surpassing the 50's, the chances of getting some severe disease increment in 30, even 40%, well... that would be it.

And, also, I want to see more paranoid and mad kings. Charles IV of France rocked! Running across the Louvre shouting "I am made of crystal, nobody touch me!" or getting out of Paris for days and coming back covered in rags and injuried...

 

[Duckett]

This thread has the best collection of good ideas in the CKII forums.
I really like the idea of events determining the effects of your characters age, not only "You are older, but wiser" but also "You feel less virile". A 50 year old rarely has as much wit or energy as he had when he was 20, it'd be cool if this could be represented.

 

[evilon]

Also keep in mind that, while you get more experience with age, you can forget things you knew before, you get more "set in your ways" and actually more dependant on routines to function!.
So ageing can go both ways; wiser and more experienced, more careless (depending on personality to some extent), and possibly get stuck in old ways, archaic etc. (Darwin and the ability to adapt anyone??).

 

[vwclaymore]

Also keep in mind that, while you get more experience with age, you can forget things you knew before, you get more "set in your ways" and actually more dependant on routines to function!.
So ageing can go both ways; wiser and more experienced, more careless (depending on personality to some extent), and possibly get stuck in old ways, archaic etc. (Darwin and the ability to adapt anyone??).

Agreed. There should be positive and negative aging events.

 

[sumdood]

I like the idea of events related to aging. Diplomacy and stewardship should rise with age, unless the ruler develops dementia at an old age. Martial should raise mostly from battle experience, not necessarily old age. Elderly rulers will be more tired than young rulers, but I'm not sure how this would be represented. Perhaps a decrease in intrigue due to the decreasing ability to multitask?

 

[RedRooster81]

I LOVE the idea of the candle.

***

Let's be clear from the start: It's not true that people in the Middle Ages got old at their 35's. Consider the life expectancy after 5 years old, and it rises to 65. There's like 50% of children dying at birth or when they are 2, 3 years old. That lowers the average statistics a lot and creates the fake image of people living only until their 40's.

If you didn't die by the sword or didn't catch any major disease (like the flu, or a pneumony, or some virus, etc), you could live easily to your 70's. Noblemen, kings, dukes, etc, used to do a lot of excercise, hunting, sparring, fighting, etc, but their diet was really, really bad, and some of their living habits (like heavy drinking not-so-watered wine) were not helping. As a result, noblemen rarely got to their 70's.

Bishops and ecclesiastic noblemen were an exception. Usually, they did as much excercise as their secular kinsmen, but they had healthier habits, most of the time. So they lived 70, 80, sometimes even 90 years.

Now, the common folks are not easy to quantify, because of the very varied strata inside the Third Estate. But anyway, we won't have to use them at anytime, here we use noblemen.

So, noblemen getting into their 70's? Why not? Could happen with little problem. What is more of a problem is that they hardly catch up a disease. Being older means being less healthy, and getting important illnesses easier. If you make that, surpassing the 50's, the chances of getting some severe disease increment in 30, even 40%, well... that would be it.

And, also, I want to see more paranoid and mad kings. Charles IV of France rocked! Running across the Louvre shouting "I am made of crystal, nobody touch me!" or getting out of Paris for days and coming back covered in rags and injuried...

This is one of my favorite posts from a great thread. Aging is one of the things on my mind for CK2 lately. Doomdark has mentioned in the VDD#1 that there will be odd things for crazed characters to do (limited by game mechanics: can you really name your horse to Marshal of France? Can that lovely old olive tree in your courtyard really be named Prince-Bishop of Valladolid?)

Now OT, older lieges should get events for turning over the reigns of government slowly to their heirs; if you have three sons who are all dukes watch out! At that point, succession laws can be challenged, and bequests made. It would be nice to able to name your heir apparent regent once your character's traits start failing, handing over more power as time goes on. And of course the church can come knocking for spiritual legacies in order to keep your soul safe from hellfire.

But all this should I agree depend on traits, yours and your heirs' and your other magnates'. With characters having specific locations, you could name your heir regent then make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which is how William the Bastard inherited Normandy, incidentally.