Do people not realize how shitty healthcare was in medieval times?

[aono]

I was thinking more along the lines of... the rich (or those able to afford good food) would be eating a wider variety of food, more fruits and vegetables, more protein, and so their immune systems would be functioning better than the stinking peasants who ate horse dung and drank 20 gallons of warm ale per day.

Also you shouldn't forget they lived in a lot of less infectious (not more healthy!) environment.
I mean population density. We're living in thousand-sized cities, with good mobility between regions, so our urbanic society is attacked by every kind of microbe every damned second. It wasn't the thing in low-urbanic medieval society, and restoring some part of roman globalization gave us Black Death.

I am not saying that in medieval times most people died at their 30s. I am saying that most people had a bigger possibility to die especcialy after their 40.

Yeah, I don't, of course, arguing that. I'm trying to say that if you want speaking about HOW EXACTLY BETTER with a sense of historical accuracy, if you want speaking about realistic aproach of history, you don't speaking about "healthcare was shitty". You're speaking about "they used such treatment, that, by analysis such as [this] should reduce recovery chance at X% by modern times, also incurable things in medieval times should also add X%. That's my model, that's raw data I used, that's my interpretation".
Also it's valid option to say "another man made this model: [model announced and linked]. I believe it's true, because this man is renowned scientist for his field, so I believe this model should be taken as guideline".
Let me use your soccer simulator approach (and sorry, I'm not soccer fan at all, so feel free to correct me if shot force is bad example):
Scientific-based approach: to make such shoots as game players do, their shot force should be N; but common shot force for soccer is lesser, as [this] statistics says. I believe that should be changed.
Non-scientific-based approach: that players are shitty and they should be more shitty in-game.

 

[stylian]

Candies? They did! The wealthy ones were the only ones who could get candies... because they were highly expansive. It's funny that some candies were used for medicine...

But you are right about Coca Cola and cigarettes.

To put the record straight, sugar was indeed consumed by the rich but in very small quantities. A handful of sugar would be sold at the price of an knight's armour in the Middle Ages provided you could get your hands on it. Before the voyage around Africa by Vasco da Gama or the colonisation of the Americas, Europe's sugar supply was limited via routes through Muslim countries. Some production in the Eastern Mediterranean such as in the 'dutchies' of Cyprus and Crete (interestingly called then Candia) was unable to offset the impact of traderestrictions.
Btw my 'county' there are still remnants of medieval sugar factories at several areas.

 

[JohnKR]

64 was the average, mate. That's the very definition of common, it's the age most people managed to get to before croaking whether of disease, natural causes, or violence.

64 was not the outlier, as dying at 90 or 100 would be, it was the norm.

It was not the norm. I really don't where you found that average. We can't have such an average. But actually in game that's the average. It may be 2 years up or 2 years down but that's the average. You can look at it. And we can make averages for the game. We can't make accurate averages for medieval europe when we don't even know the population.
Stop trying to be clever. And if you have the time to look about averages then take a look! http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/life-expectancy-in-the-middle-ages/
Don't look at wikipedia. Look at the ages of royal members and kings. You will see that of them died in their 40s and 50s. At england 1000ad only 5% of the monks survived their 40s .

 

[aono]

It was not the norm. I really don't where you found that average. We can't have such an average.

We can't make accurate averages for medieval europe when we don't even know the population.

We don't really know what was with healthcare in medieval times, no one (at least known for me) living historican didn't saw it. We have estimates, based on archeology, evidences (unreliable), our thoughts about what's possible, hundreds of factors. So if you want to have arguements based on facts, you should first realize you don't know facts. You know some interpretations for some evidences.
So if you want to really speak about realistic approach in historical game, you should realize there are a lot of different theories about any fact, especially everyday facts. Not only everyday (let's say Paradox wanted to include Richard III of England; which traits should he have? take your pick between Tudor interpretation, Richardians one or any in-between!), but especially everyday. This automatically should make you very careful with flatness. You can be if you are absolutly sure (you can be really convinced by some interpretation), but then you should include - or at least be ready to include when any question arise - your interpretation into your arguement.

I believed you disagree last quote.

 

[Sunspawn]

Some production in the Eastern Mediterranean such as in the 'dutchies' of Cyprus and Crete (interestingly called then Candia) was unable to offset the impact of traderestrictions.

What were the bloody dutch doing in Cyprus and Crete?

 

[DPS]

mortality rates get exageratted because infant mortality was severe enough to alter the averages, if a child survived into adulthood they could expect to live to be elderly, assuming war or crime didnt kill them. yes, people died a lot more from sickness, but it wasnt to the point where nobody lived to be 40



i think the game actualy needs to tone down the non epidemic sicknesses slightly, maybe by 15%, the characters modeled in the game are noble rulers and their court after all, epidemics are fine although. The game could also make getting sick more common/dangerous for children, to reflect child mortality rates, people had lots children because half of them dying before adulthood or having stillborns was common, even for nobles.

as it stands now i can have ten children and all of them usualy live to be adults ingame.

CK 1 actually modelled the infant/child mortality rates of the times better than CK 2 does. I'm not sure, but I suspect that it was changed for the reason Ternega mentioned--not putting a bunch of kids in the game who die before they can have any impact would just slow down performance without adding much value. If that bothers you, just pretend that for each kid you have in the game who makes it to adulthood, you had another child that didn't.

And JohnKR, no one in this thread is saying that the life expectancy at the time was 64. They are saying that if you made it to 21, you could then expect to live to 64--the catch was in making it to 21, which roughly half of the population didn't. Factor that in, and you'd get a life expectancy of around 45 or so, which seems about right, as best as we can tell.

 

[AchedTeacher]

mortality rates get exageratted because infant mortality was severe enough to alter the averages, if a child survived into adulthood they could expect to live to be elderly, assuming war or crime didnt kill them. yes, people died a lot more from sickness, but it wasnt to the point where nobody lived to be 40



i think the game actualy needs to tone down the non epidemic sicknesses slightly, maybe by 15%, the characters modeled in the game are noble rulers and their court after all, epidemics are fine although. The game could also make getting sick more common/dangerous for children, to reflect child mortality rates, people had lots children because half of them dying before adulthood or having stillborns was common, even for nobles.

as it stands now i can have ten children and all of them usualy live to be adults ingame.

This is half true but still not fully. It's totally true that the brunt of dying was done by children before the age of 5. In countries like Sweden as late as the 1800s these numbers were as high as 400 in 1000 not making it to age 5. It's true that kids that made it that far generally made it further, but saying people who made it that far commonly reached into the 50s or 60s is also exaggerated. It still wasn't a terrible untimely tragedy for someone to die of an infection at age 25, for example.

 

[RagingJaws]

It was not the norm. I really don't where you found that average. We can't have such an average. But actually in game that's the average. It may be 2 years up or 2 years down but that's the average. You can look at it. And we can make averages for the game. We can't make accurate averages for medieval europe when we don't even know the population.
Stop trying to be clever. And if you have the time to look about averages then take a look! http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/life-expectancy-in-the-middle-ages/
Don't look at wikipedia. Look at the ages of royal members and kings. You will see that of them died in their 40s and 50s. At england 1000ad only 5% of the monks survived their 40s .

This.

English (*Anglo-Saxon) Kings from the House of Wessex were lucky to eke past 36. Though that was due to factors other than war, in some cases. If I had more time and thought it might sway more people, I'd go through more of them.

In my opinion, diseases might take more lives earlier than their historical counterparts did but at the same time, I doubt players are putting their character in harms way by leading troops. It evens out and it's not like there are no options for the player to take to combat illness.

 

[Narr666]

i got the assumption here´s a tendancy in the forum to replace a myth with another myth. Yeah, life expactency was low due to child mortality. The common misconception was that people barely reached their 40s, which isn´t true. Of course people lived to ages of 60, 70 or even 90.

But the tip to look to the kings and dukes, people from whom we got record of, is a good one. Child mortality wasn´t the only reason life expactency was about 20 years lower than today. You can just use common sense to see that there were many reasons to die in the middle ages. Look at yourself, look at your friends. Due to the rather baffling discussions (because I am really confused on how RD is perceived, because the "dying like flies" factor does not happen in my 2 ongoing campaigns) I ask friends, if they were still alive without modern treatments. I asked them if they had an illness which would have killed them.

Many did. One third to half would have been dead. That´s not a scientific approach, but you can see that there were many reasons to die after being a child.

So the death rate isn´t to high in my opinion, I would say it was far too low before RD.

 

[stylian]

What were the bloody dutch doing in Cyprus and Crete?

It wasn't the Dutch. The Venetians took over Crete in 1204 following the fall of Constantinople and later Cyprus in 1489 from the Lusignans. The latter acquired the island from the Templars in 1192 or so who bought it from Richard the Crusader King aka Lionheart a year before.

 

[Sunspawn]

It wasn't the Dutch. The Venetians took over Crete in 1204 following the fall of Constantinople and later Cyprus in 1489 from the Lusignans. The latter acquired the island from the Templars in 1192 or so who bought it from Richard the Crusader King aka Lionheart a year before.

Than why are those duchies called dutchies?

 

[Elenhil]

I wonder why people tend to think the nobility had a significantly higher life expectancy? It's not like they had the most health-friendly lifestyle and/or a wide genetic pool (via sound "healthy looks"-driven marriage patterns), don't you think? In a sense, the more 'rustic' a populace is, the more potentially healthy it is. And the image of an oppressed Mediaeval serf forced to toil till an inevitably early grave takes him is, like the very term 'Middle ages', an idealogical construct.

And, looking over the centuries at the agendas the various elites (scientific, civic, etc) used to push in perfectly 'natural' spheres like childbirth, child-rearing, etc, makes one think civilization (sophistication, elightenment) is a bit overrated. Seriously, pick any yesteryear's 'authority' on child-rearing and you're bound to laugh your head off. The things early 20 century paediatricians used to promote! The things Victorian paediatritians used to promote! The things some high-brow Mediaeval authors claimed was good and proper! Envy the uneducated masses who were free from that elite nonsence and did not, for example, care if women's breasts adhered to a certain aesthetic ideal (which required handing your baby to a wet-nurse rather than breastfeed yourself). Or if they child looked too undignified crawling 'like an animal' (which required forcibly making small children to skip to the more 'dignified' toddling). I bet few people factor in the sheer health benefit of ignorance of such 'enlightened' health and lifestyle regulations.

 

[Morwys]

I don't think people are dying ENOUGH. Also if you manage to get past the age of 30 you would have considered yourself lucky.

I can't believe people are saying people are dying too much in this game, and yet they are playing a game that is supposed to be a medieval simulator. My goodness.

Edit: Ever had strep throat? Want to know what would have happened if you didn't get antibiotics? The infection would spread to your heart and you would die. Ever had an abscess on your knee? Nathan Mayer Rothschild the richest man in the world in the 19th century died of that because antibiotics weren't around yet.

I agree. And besides, the experience may vary: I realized my old wish of playing CK2 without matrilineal marriages and got my first game over ever because of lack of heir - everyone just died - HOWEVER, I'm currently in a game with three character in a row that reached the early 60s.

So, yeah, the game looks fine to me as it is.

 

[RoverGrover]

It was not the norm. I really don't where you found that average. We can't have such an average. But actually in game that's the average. It may be 2 years up or 2 years down but that's the average. You can look at it. And we can make averages for the game. We can't make accurate averages for medieval europe when we don't even know the population.
Stop trying to be clever. And if you have the time to look about averages then take a look! http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/life-expectancy-in-the-middle-ages/
Don't look at wikipedia. Look at the ages of royal members and kings. You will see that of them died in their 40s and 50s. At england 1000ad only 5% of the monks survived their 40s .

So instead of using the data on wiki drawn from the encyclopedia Britannica we should use the word of a fantasy author? Whether you agree with them or not, I fail to see how arbitrarily discounting them in favor of Woodbury makes sense. The science in this thread is just unbelievable

 

[Narr666]

So instead of using the data on wiki drawn from the encyclopedia Britannica we should use the word of a fantasy author? Whether you agree with them or not, I fail to see how arbitrarily discounting them in favor of Woodbury makes sense. The science in this thread is just unbelievable

She is a anthropologist and has two historians as parents, though.

Can´t really assess her expertise, but writing fantasy books do not disqualify you being a scientist (looking at you, Tolkien). "The science in this thread is just unbelievable" is really just arrogant and rude, especially when you have not even tried to research her background.

 

[RoverGrover]

She is a anthropologist and has two historians as parents, though.

Can´t really assess her expertise, but writing fantasy books do not disqualify you being a scientist (looking at you, Tolkien). "The science in this thread is just unbelievable" is really just arrogant and rude, especially when you have not even tried to research her background.

And discounting the other in her favor? Perhaps my response was arrogant, but in my opinion so is that. It wasn't presented as "here's a competing viewpoint" it was "ignore wiki and instead use this source"

The science jab was more at the look at ages of royalty. As though a quick glance at historical figures on wiki would give a legitimate basis for average life expectancy.

I'm not trying to offend, but I also disagree completely with just ignoring the other information to use hers. I don't know much about her, but I'd not argue to discount her completely... as I'd argue not to discount the wiki table either.

 

[Sahraine]

you mean

like the united states?

 

[Narr666]

And discounting the other in her favor? Perhaps my response was arrogant, but in my opinion so is that. It wasn't presented as "here's a competing viewpoint" it was "ignore wiki and instead use this source"

The science jab was more at the look at ages of royalty. As though a quick glance at historical figures on wiki would give a legitimate basis for average life expectancy.

I'm not trying to offend, but I also disagree completely with just ignoring the other information to use hers. I don't know much about her, but I'd not argue to discount her completely... as I'd argue not to discount the wiki table either.

Yeah, mine was rude as well so we are even.

I presented my arguments before the Woodbury thing, you presented yours. Let´s hope for a game rule so we both are pleased.

 

[stylian]

Than why are those duchies called dutchies?

Hahaha! you are right! my bad

 

[CrackdToothGrin]

Perhaps I'm coming in too late and out of the loop on the prior conversation, but I plotted the dates and reasons of death for about 150 kings and queens during the game's time frame, and found that the median age of death was 46 for all reasons, and 50 for "uncaused" reasons (excluding deaths from combat, captivity, or accident, etc.).

Some more interesting stats were:

• ~5% of the deaths were from assassination.
• ~5% from falling off of horses, usually in connection with hunting
• ~7.5% from dysentery, if not more. (Lots of "Got sick on campaign" deaths of around ~5% with no known cause). If you add those into the prior, it's almost 1/7th the amount of "Cause of Death" to die from disease on a campaign. That doesn't include the random "old age" or illness deaths on campaign, which would increase it further. Going off to war was, statistically, quite dangerous outside of the combat, which by itself got a little over 7% of the people I data-crunched.
• ~3-4% some form of "Digestive Malady" of some kind.
• ~40% were "caused" by an outside force, like combat, captivity, or accidents. The French, for instance, seemed to have fallen off of horses quite a bit.
• ~25% were general, good ol' "Death by Old Age" (An assumption, going off of the age and lack of known cause of death).

I don't know how this jives with the way the game kills off characters, since most of my endeavors are involving portraiture, but it seems like most would make it to their mid-forties. However, it was still quite common for rulers to die - completely without reason, seemingly - in their twenties.

Obviously, each point of data, each ruler, had many children, brothers, sisters, wives, etc. that we know little to nothing about.

In terms of age ranges, I saw:
• ~3.5% died before twenty.
• ~11% died in their twenties.
• ~23% died in their thirties.
• ~18% died in their forties.
• ~27% died in their fifties.
• ~18% reached sixty, but only ~3.5% of them made it to seventy.

Disclaimer: Please do not consider this definitive science. It's just some excel work using publicly-available data.