Characters in CK3 live way too long

[LordofLight]

It is kind of silly. I've had a ruler live up to 120+ in one of my games. The only reason he died was due to stress once his kids started dying of old age.

They really do need to tweak the health system of CK3 in regards to age at the very least.

 

[Dread Og]

"Surprises" are important for good storytelling. Sudden deaths in CK2 led to some of my most memorable games because it'd put me under more pressure. Every ruler living a predictable amount of time in CK3 makes succession way too easy and the story boring. It feels like it takes a meme disease like Leprosy to kill somebody early in CK3 when there should be countless ways to die young. I'm not saying it should happen all of the time but diseases should be much more dangerous and assassination attempts should be more common.

 

[johnty5]

Agree that characters should have much greater chances of dying earlier in life. Those kind of “oh shit, a couple of people died unexpectedly and now I’m in a risky regency or staring a game over in the face” curveball moments were part of keeping CK2 interesting by throwing up obsticles to overcome (even if CK2 regencies were awful).

Don’t agree that we need realistic child mortality rates though. Ultimately, all it’d mean is we’d be spammed with endless “child born” and “child died” pop ups and we’d end up with slowed-down game due to massively increasing the character records - all for zero gameplay benefit.

 

[PDX-Trinexx]

There's a lot of high-quality feedback in this thread, thank you all for sharing it! We'll forward your thoughts on the matter to the development team.

 

[Erratorium]

I never had a ‘sickly child’ die so far, they all lived. It was more of a coin toss in CK2.
Same with the physician, in CK3 99% of the time ‘do no more than necessary’ is enough and I rarely got ‘bad treatment.
However I’m not a fan of some of the suggestions like ‘random heart attack’ (the heart attack should stay a rare event when the stress reach level 3. At least you choose to go into battle but some random ‘you die’ when everything is going well doesn’t feel fair to me)



Base fertility is already high but it can be even crazier with some artefacts, traits, lifestyle and other modifier.
In my ‘Mother of us all’ run that I just finished, I had 7 children in average early game and 9-10 average after I got the ‘pretty’ trait into my bloodline, even without the need for concubines.
Only 1 of my children died as a child (because of the drowning event) and 1 of my heir died around 40 (because of stress).

 

[Lollipop_but_rock]

It ruined my plan already because my every king live to 80+ without those perk.
Hiers either die before me or already have aging penalty.
It force me to keep my hier unlanded, otherwise I can't control my grandson, as it will be him actually be the next king.
Now I always had force revolts and surrender, just to prevent that

Agree, there's a big problem with that. You can prevent your heir to marry if you land him, but can't prevent your landed heir to marry his/her own children. And they will marry their children regarding their current status : marry their children (including your heir heir's) for count level alliances if you land them as a count even if they will inherit an empire from you. Super old characters are in fact ruining successions.

 

[Antimonum]

Rulers, that did not die in Battle or during millitary campaining or Hunting accidents usually did live over 60 years old because of the aboundance of Protein in game meat, although they ate white bread, but they did not consume as much sugar as modern People and had a regiment of marshal Training and Hunting to have a healthier life style. The problem is mainly death by "mysterious circumstanses". There are dacades in some Kingdoms, where every ruler died by poisonning or by an other plot. So for health alone much of the rulers should be able to live above 65.

 

[Ezumiyr]

I (very rapidly, so there are probably some mistakes) put together some data about the kings of France during CK's timespan.

On average, they died at 43.4. Lots of them died of various diseases, but mostly dysentery, and it's also probably the case for a lot of the "unknowns".
It seems like generally, a king with a full life died between 50 and 70. None of them lived more than 66 years.
Only one died in battle. So I don't think it should necessarily be a more frequent cause of death - high nobility was rarely killed in combat anyway, because their ransoms were very valuable.
However, there are indeed a lot of hunting and horse accidents leading to death.

Now, of course it's just the data for kings of France. If I have the time, I'll try to make something that looks better and includes more data for various ranks of nobility (trying to respect the "count, duke, king" system of CK) in more kingdoms.

 

[hellagrant]

IMHO the difference between players characters and ai characters ((because ai characters lifespan is more short) is that ai can be knights in their own/liege army while players can't unlesss lead g the army and they don't die in battle. Please add a game rule allowing player characters to be knight!

Can others confirm this? Also why was designed this way, very odd. I bet this is easily moddable.

 

[Lollipop_but_rock]

Only one died in battle. So I don't think it should necessarily be a more frequent cause of death - high nobility was rarely killed in combat anyway, because their ransoms were very valuable.

I guess that if you make those stats on a count / Duke who is a vassal and not on one very powerful King/emperor with plenty of vassals to be knights in his armies you won't have the same results

 

[Antimonum]

I (very rapidly, so there are probably some mistakes) put together some data about the kings of France during CK's timespan.
View attachment 827126
On average, they died at 43.4. Lots of them died of various diseases, but mostly dysentery, and it's also probably the case for a lot of the "unknowns".
It seems like generally, a king with a full life died between 50 and 70. None of them lived more than 66 years.
Only one died in battle. So I don't think it should necessarily be a more frequent cause of death - high nobility was rarely killed in combat anyway, because their ransoms were very valuable.
However, there are indeed a lot of hunting and horse accidents leading to death.

Now, of course it's just the data for kings of France. If I have the time, I'll try to make something that looks better and includes more data for various ranks of nobility (trying to respect the "count, duke, king" system of CK) in more kingdoms.

The French court was in this case less murderess but the 10 unknown reasons for Death could have be poisoned (at least some of them). The other who died as a result of desease and bad treatment of desease would be only relevant if you have the desease in the first place (and that happens in game mostly with infirm or with infectious deseases). A Ruler free of deseases, should not die of old age before 60-65 especially if he is genetically "enchanced" by the players cross-breading.

 

[Allen418]

Long lived rulers definitely make the game much easier and lower the difficulty. For me, one key difference between my first campaigns, where I could barely keep a kingdom together, and later ones was ensuring my ruler’s longevity. (That, and realizing I could move my rally point.)

I’ve always felt like ruler longevity, though, was part of a larger issue where stress is too easy to manage. Hunting and feasting relieve a lot of stress, and the activities get better at relieving stress the more you do it

Plus physicians are just too effective. Conservative treatment almost always works and never has a fatal outcome, no matter how inept the physician, and then the physician gets better. Flagellant relieves a ton of stress and the wound is always lost if you have even a novice physician. I also feel like small pox outbreaks used to be deadlier; I’ve come back to the game recently and now a handful of courtiers get it and most seem to recover. (Maybe I’m just more disciplined about keeping a physician.).

If it were up to me, all physicians would be more like what happens when you have a lunatic physician, except maybe less obvious, there would be constant stress happening (like when a ruler is imprisoned), some stressful events would result in 5 times ((10 times, whatever — several orders of magnitude greater) the stress (murdered child, dead soulmate, etc.), and stress relief from traits picked up from stress-related events (flagellant, drunkard) would have much more severe negative consequences (like if your stressed out drunkard ruler has a feast to relieve his stress, he sobers up from his weeks long drinking binge to discover half the kingdom is independent — which would then cause him stress).

Once the amount of stress a ruler was dealing with increased, I suspect longevity would decrease proportionately.

 

[Sc4r3crow]

The French court was in this case less murderess but the 10 unknown reasons for Death could have be poisoned (at least some of them). The other who died as a result of desease and bad treatment of desease would be only relevant if you have the desease in the first place (and that happens in game mostly with infirm or with infectious deseases). A Ruler free of deseases, should not die of old age before 60-65 especially if he is genetically "enchanced" by the players cross-breading.

Dude, Im guessing you've watched too much tv. Maybe do some research like Ezumyir did before making statements. No, western europe people didnt live past 60 much in middle ages, mainly because sanitation, they werent very clean. Any wound could get infected and pretty much kill you, because penicillin didnt exist. Medicine practices were actually worse than they were during the Roman Empire because the church would hold all knowledge and decide what could and what couldnt be read.

Anyway, the table Ezumyir posted pretty much sums it up: out of 16 kings only 2 lived past 60, most of them died on their 50's.

 

[Rigg42]

Don't hire a court physician if you want a more realistic mortality experience.

 

[Antimonum]

Dude, Im guessing you've watched too much tv. Maybe do some research like Ezumyir did before making statements. No, western europe people didnt live past 60 much in middle ages, mainly because sanitation, they werent very clean. Any wound could get infected and pretty much kill you, because penicillin didnt exist. Medicine practices were actually worse than they were during the Roman Empire because the church would hold all knowledge and decide what could and what couldnt be read.

Anyway, the table Ezumyir posted pretty much sums it up: out of 16 kings only 2 lived past 60, most of them died on their 50's.

No TV, but myself being a contemporary Physition IRL (no joke), I can tell you from experience - there is no death by old age. There is death by Desease and by unnatural causes (like murder or accidents) Rulers were healthier, as a general rule, since they were not malnutritioned as some of the common folk, who basically did not eat enough protein as children. The graph shows too much unknown and/ or unnatural deaths to be some kind of reliable statistic of mortality by old age. Generally children are more prone to death by dysentery but a physically fit 60 old man is less so, even in the middle ages. CK3 has enough of infirm which is a generalisation of bad health in old age, that cuts down your life span significally. If a character has no infirm trait and no known desease - he is healthy enough to reach 65, even in the middle ages.

PS In some medieval courts murder was the prominent reason for death, which has nothing to do with health

 

[X_FloW]

Don't hire a court physician if you want a more realistic mortality experience.

This topic isn't entirely about court physicians, it's also about life expectancy which court physicians don't control, it's also about diseases not being as deadly as they should be, it's also about "Sickly" children living 99% of the time, it's also about how there are no sudden deaths from medical emergencies, it's also about drunkards living to their 60s, physicians are way too overpowered but I still need someone to treat my wounded soldiers, but I also don't want them to be able to cure literally cancer when we're still struggling with it to this day...

So maybe tone physicians down, not hiring them isn't fixing anything.

 

[Rigg42]

This topic isn't entirely about court physicians, it's also about life expectancy which court physicians don't control, it's also about diseases not being as deadly as they should be, it's also about "Sickly" children living 99% of the time, it's also about how there are no sudden deaths from medical emergencies, it's also about drunkards living to their 60s, physicians are way too overpowered but I still need someone to treat my wounded soldiers, but I also don't want them to be able to cure literally cancer when we're still struggling with it to this day...

So maybe tone physicians down, not hiring them isn't fixing anything.

I'm not suggesting that all of these things shouldn't be addressed long term. The fact remains not hiring a court physician gives you a much more realistic mortality experience in the game as it stands. The majority of your Knights living into their late 50's and 60's isn't realistic either. Your knights succumbing to their minor wounds isn't really that unrealistic. Especially if you balance that with the fact that death from dysentery while on campaign isn't represented at all in the game.

 

[Sc4r3crow]

No TV, but myself being a contemporary Physition IRL (no joke), I can tell you from experience - there is no death by old age. There is death by Desease and by unnatural causes (like murder or accidents) Rulers were healthier, as a general rule, since they were not malnutritioned as some of the common folk, who basically did not eat enough protein as children. The graph shows too much unknown and/ or unnatural deaths to be some kind of reliable statistic of mortality by old age. Generally children are more prone to death by dysentery but a physically fit 60 old man is less so, even in the middle ages. CK3 has enough of infirm which is a generalisation of bad health in old age, that cuts down your life span significally. If a character has no infirm trait and no known desease - he is healthy enough to reach 65, even in the middle ages.

PS In some medieval courts murder was the prominent reason for death, which has nothing to do with health

Dude, you insist in your flawed theory. You might be a physician, but your history knowledge is lacking. Here's a list of english kings and the age they died:

List of English monarchs - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If you actually check it out you'll notice its pretty much the same pattern presented by Ezumiyr table. Yea, some of them lived past 60's, but we have people today who live past 100 years and we cant say its common for modern people to live that long.

 

[Antimonum]

Dude, you insist in your flawed theory. You might be a physician, but your history knowledge is lacking. Here's a list of english kings and the age they died:

List of English monarchs - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If you actually check it out you'll notice its pretty much the same pattern presented by Ezumiyr table. Yea, some of them lived past 60's, but we have people today who live past 100 years and we cant say its common for modern people to live that long.

The same flaw of citing a list of mixed natural and unnatural deaths. And please do not speak of my knowledge of history, without knowing, since my interests in History predate my medical ones.
It is very simple: The Monarchs on the list that died from natural causes earlier had an obvious disease or died by a hidden unnatural cause. The ones without disease reached above 60. Even in medieval Europe there was no death by old age. Just people were generally worse in treating diseases and diseases were deadlier.
It is different if you are a peasant who grew up eating porridge only and have a worse health generally because of it.

 

[MatthewP]

The same flaw of citing a list of mixed natural and unnatural deaths. And please do not speak of my knowledge of history, without knowing, since my interests in History predate my medical ones.
It is very simple: The Monarchs on the list that died from natural causes earlier had an obvious disease or died by a hidden unnatural cause. The ones without disease reached above 60. Even in medieval Europe there was no death by old age. Just people were generally worse in treating diseases and diseases were deadlier.
It is different if you are a peasant who grew up eating porridge only and have a worse health generally because of it.

Your basic point that people die for actual causes is clearly right. But I think it’s peripheral to this conversation. The game neither includes all the various causes nor abstracts them into a realistic overall likelihood of death. One of the two should be done, or more likely a little of each.