Death in Battle event is completely broken

[CeeBod]

So I know that this is not exactly a new topic to these boards, but seriously the "You have died" event from having your leader in a battle is just completely, overwhelming, ridiculously, retardedly broken!

I had a Brilliant Strategist warrior king with an inherited handgun from the Hermetic Society that had a single combat skill of 75. He died in a battle so one sided that having killed around 500, my army lost a grand total of 12 men, and yet 1 of them was my king? WTF?

My very next war after his heir inherited and took over, I was putting down a peasant rebellion and my new leader also insta-died in battle. I ragequit and managed to reload from an earlier autosave. I then had my leader sit in a reserve army that only got called into action when the opposing army was routing. He died. Again!

Fast forward about 100 years - I'm only now using my leaders in battle incredibly sparingly. I have another with a very high martial skill and lots of attributes that should make him excellent at surviving battles - he's brawny, brave, he's young and completely healthy, he has the handgun to add to his excellent personal combat skills. I used him in 1 fight against a much smaller army, and he got into a duel that he easily won. But then he got the event firing months later about feeling like maybe he really died in that battle giving him depression. (erm WTF again?) I cured it with a potion of eudaimonia. His 2nd time in battle, he was in a reserve army that only reached the field of battle on the same day that the battle ended in my favour - he barely even had chance to participate in the rout, except guess what - he insta-died!

If the king was being held in the air as his own banner for every battle and giving everyone a free shot, you would still get a lower chance of death. This is not just broken it's laughably broken.

 

[Cardolam]

Yes, leaders (or at least the player character) die too much in battle.
As for the event giving the character a depression I think it's a nice touch and it is very well thought out.

 

[GuardianGI]

Agreed. Devs should change all the instakill crap into severely injured or something so that physicians and being strong actually mattered. And also remove injuries during routing phases.

 

[MK1980]

...
should make him excellent at surviving battles - he's [...] brave
...

i think brave is actually a risky trait to have as a battle commander. it's decent for a duelist (personal combat bonus) and generally as a ruler trait (opinion bonus), but afaik it increases the chance that this combat death event happens. i've had some post battle pop up on some brave characters that awarded them bonus prestige for fighting bravely in the melee or whatever, but i guess it might even be a different outcome to that same event that can also end in instant death if it rolls a different result.

kinda makes sense i think. a glory seeker who ignores personal safety out of a feeling of honor would have much higher chances to die on the battlefield

...
feeling like maybe he really died in that battle giving him depression. (erm WTF again?)
...

pretty sure that event is supposed to represent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_stress_disorder
i was suprised when i first got it (i think it was added with the holy fury update, never had it before), but it kinda makes sense. just because people back then didn't have a proper scientific word for it doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

 

[Testy]

And also remove injuries during routing phases.

Brian Boru might have something to say about that.

 

[Tryvenyal]

What is broken? Isn't war about killing in battle? What protects your warrior king? Except his clothes draws attention to him, meking him a target for enemy archers etc? Even in a melee, ha can make clumsy move, fall over his recent kill and become a easy target for the most untrained opponent.

Beeing brave does not help him. That makes him take hasty decisions for the glory

Skill can reduce the chanse/risk but beeing commander means you might die!

 

[Rhone]

Death in combat was surely a pretty rare cause of death for Medieval monarchs?! Harold and Richard I are the only English kings I can think of during the CKII period. Byzantines only had 3 emperors killed in battle over a much longer time period (Nikephoros I, Constantine Laskaris and Constantine XI).

It's a very rare event, and the game would ideally reflect this.

 

[Tryvenyal]

Death in combat was surely a pretty rare cause of death for Medieval monarchs?! Harold and Richard I are the only English kings I can think of during the CKII period. Byzantines only had 3 emperors killed in battle over a much longer time period (Nikephoros I, Constantine Laskaris and Constantine XI).

It's a very rare event, and the game would ideally reflect this.

They were not commanders, were they? I´d rather guess they were Generals. A general rarely lifts his blade, does he?

 

[Kazanov]

Do not send them into battle unless you want them to die in glorious battle, ck2 101.

 

[nightgerbil]

Its actually become a really brilliant way to manage vassals. Unhappy rebellious vassals of mine are now appointed commanders and get to lead 300 levies into 4k enemy stacks. Repeat until their heirs become the new count/duke/lord mayor. Makes it really strong cos it lets you play without the revoke vassal allowed rule enabled. So great for early/low tech starts.

 

[jfb8300]

Do not send them into battle unless you want them to die in glorious battle, ck2 101.

But this doesn't help the AI in terms of it basically sarcrificing their rulers in battle. The code is broke, paradox has to fix ASAP.

 

[Rhone]

They were not commanders, were they? I´d rather guess they were Generals. A general rarely lifts his blade, does he?

Well, regarding Harold and Richard I, I think they were commanders in the CKII sense of the word, in as much as they would have commanded flanks. Henry V, Edward III, The Black Prince (not a monarch I know) all commanded flanks (typically the centre) and were active combatants.

However, how active they were would be open to debate I admit. They would have been surrounded by fanatically loyal heavily armoured Knights and Nobles who would have fought to the death to protect the king. I can easily imagine they just waved their swords around a bit and shouted a lot rather than delivering any decisive blows. Who knows though...

 

[Tryvenyal]

Well, there are commanders that does not die as well But I assume they are put to a minimal risk as well and they are probably making an effort to look like battleveterans after

in CK terms: if you want to exclude the bad events, you would need to exclude the good events asw. that means, don't do battle. You can RP your charachter beeing on a safe hill behind the battlefield as a general

 

[Kumicho]

The game NEEDS to take into account the actual result of the battle when determining whether a ruler dies. Period. You're leading an army that gets absolutely crushed? Sure, I could see a 50/50 chance of getting killed or captured. But when your ruler is at the head of a 10,000 man army that just crushed a group of 300 raiders, the chance of dying should be 0.0001%. Right now your ruler has an equal chance of dying on either of those two battles, and it's beyond ridiculous.

 

[Kumicho]

They were not commanders, were they? I´d rather guess they were Generals. A general rarely lifts his blade, does he?

The game makes zero differentiation between generals (say, a king directing his troops as a general might) and front-line warriors leading troops into battle (say, a Viking warlord leading his men). The game just assumes that the leader is both, charging headlong into battle while at the same time choosing tactics and strategy for the next phase of battle...

 

[Rhone]

I asked about the frequency of Battlefield events that lead to death/injury in another thread and I got a good answer from someone who know's a bit more about modding than I do. Credit to @Rags17 for the below;

In the folder /common/on_actions there is a file called 00_on_actions.txt. This file specifies all the events that will or may fire on various conditions, eg every year, every five years, every time the player dies, etc. One of those conditions is on_combat_pulse and fires every few days in combat.

The 00_on_actions events for the on_combat_pulse condition were changed in HF from a list of items to a single tombola event that then weights the possible outcomes based on character traits, health, combat skills etc. The tombola itself has a "weight" in the on_actions file of 500 and a "no event" chance of 2750. If you want to make battle events (both good and bad) less frequent then all you have to do is reduce the chance for the tombola down to say 100 or even 50. You can even zero it out altogether if you want to. If you want to change the individual chances of each individual outcome (eg wounded, maimed, killed, skill up, gain nickname) then you will need to open the tombola event itself and change it line by line, but that is a topic for another post.

The usual caveats apply - make a copy of vanilla file, this will break Ironman etc etc.

If I read the above correctly that means there is an 15% chance of a Battlefield event (good or bad) triggering every few days in combat.

 

[Xenrek]

What is broken? Isn't war about killing in battle? What protects your warrior king? Except his clothes draws attention to him, meking him a target for enemy archers etc? Even in a melee, ha can make clumsy move, fall over his recent kill and become a easy target for the most untrained opponent.

Beeing brave does not help him. That makes him take hasty decisions for the glory

Skill can reduce the chanse/risk but beeing commander means you might die!

Being noticeable actually would *decrease* your chances of being killed.

After all, if you kill the enemy king, then his heir or whoever else now leads from far away, but if you capture him you now have a tidy ransom, or a prize to hand over to your liege in exchange for favors/rewards.

 

[Serenity84]

pretty sure that event is supposed to represent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_stress_disorder
i was suprised when i first got it (i think it was added with the holy fury update, never had it before), but it kinda makes sense. just because people back then didn't have a proper scientific word for it doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

It's fine, but it fires too often. You often get it within 1-3 battles

 

[CeeBod]

I asked about the frequency of Battlefield events that lead to death/injury in another thread and I got a good answer from someone who know's a bit more about modding than I do;



If I read the above correctly that means there is an 15% chance of a Battlefield event (good or bad) triggering every few days in combat.

Thanks for that - potentially very helpful but I'm playing Ironman at the mo :/

Would I be right in assuming that the "tombola" of events only fires if you're present in a battle? My experience of commanders dying / being injured when I'm not present at a battle is that it seems like a really rare event (I've had literally 1 commander killed in a battle that I wasn't in over the last 300 years), but if I'm there then my commanders fling themselves onto enemy spears just as fast and as ridiculously often as my characters do! It seems kinda like the Observer's Paradox from Quantum Mechanics taken to extremes!

 

[bbatthew]

Well, there are commanders that does not die as well But I assume they are put to a minimal risk as well and they are probably making an effort to look like battleveterans after

in CK terms: if you want to exclude the bad events, you would need to exclude the good events asw. that means, don't do battle. You can RP your charachter beeing on a safe hill behind the battlefield as a general

The problem is that there are usually no good events in a battle. It's always something terrible.
-you lose your pet
-you lose a limb
-you lose an artifact
-you get PTSD (this is the only one that makes sense imo)
-you DIE

It's also very rare that your personal combat skill will be higher than the enemy commander's, so you're just increasing the chances you die by dueling him. They should lower the chances for these events immensely.