Dynasty bloat and infant mortality rates

[ray243]

One thing I've noticed about CK2 is that infant mortality rates is very, very low for a game set in the middle ages. We know that historically, it is not easy for an infant to survive into adulthood. It's why so many dynasties eventually fall apart, as they just do not have enough heirs living to adulthood.

But in CK2, because of the very low infant mortality rate, dynasties seems to bloat very easily. Once a dynasty got pass a certain threshold, they will start to bloat massively and you'll never run out of heirs from your dynasty. Is the devs going to implement some sort of mechanics to better reflect the high infant mortality rates during the middle ages?

 

[PhilzuNeide]

While I agree with your general thought I can kind of understand why they don’t do it. Imagine playing Karen (the Zoroastrians) and being this close to becoming Sayoshant after decades/centuries of grueling conquest and political trickery. And then all your children die young and you get a Game Over screen. Would be pretty frustrating, wouldn’t it? My guess is that they choose to ignore the child mortality to create a more fun experience for everyone.
I mean if you really want to play hardcore historical mode modding the child mortality rate should be pretty easy

 

[the glory of plain]

best to use low birth rate to mimic history
the game already have too many redundant character

 

[Leivve]

So most child deaths were caused by accidents, and the rest were caused by problems that are tied to the child growing up in such an impoverished state. rulers often had less kids then the average peasant, because they were more likely to survive.

 

[elvain]

Agree with what others wrote above: nobles had in general fewer kids than regular people... and those kids had higher chance of survival.

And even if medieval infant mortality was higher, than in CK2, please care to notice that this is a game.
I guess you don't want to have two dozens of children with every your character only to see 2/3 of them dead by the age of 13, before they can effectively inherit anything.
First it isn't fun, to see them dying, and sedond, it makes it very hard to keep a track on them and even click at them.
That said it's good that infant mortality in CK2 is lower than was in reality, and let's hope it will stay that way in CK3

 

[Lord Frost]

Stillbirth was much more common then, as well. Should it be reflected in game? No. Ultimately we're playing this to have fun, not be confronted with all of the harsh realities of medieval life.

 

[ray243]

Agree with what others wrote above: nobles had in general fewer kids than regular people... and those kids had higher chance of survival.

And even if medieval infant mortality was higher, than in CK2, please care to notice that this is a game.
I guess you don't want to have two dozens of children with every your character only to see 2/3 of them dead by the age of 13, before they can effectively inherit anything.
First it isn't fun, to see them dying, and sedond, it makes it very hard to keep a track on them and even click at them.
That said it's good that infant mortality in CK2 is lower than was in reality, and let's hope it will stay that way in CK3

Yes, but low infant mortality rate means the game engine will end up having to support hundreds of different dynasties each with 50-100 members.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

the devs said that they thought about this and the decision was to model this by lowering fertility somewhat, which is much more sensible than having numeorus deceased children cluttering the files

 

[Yogh]

I agree with the need to raise infant mortality rates, if not for the sake realism, then at least to make the game more fun!

In my opinion, having fewer children, with a higher chance of them dying at young age, makes the game more challenging. In CK2, once you've changed succession laws to something that suits you (usually Primogeniture) you often end up only investing (education, traits, titles, etc.) in your first-born child, and not paying so much attention to the siblings. Often, you don't even land the brothers to make sure they won't make a fuss when your heir accesses the throne. While ensuring smooth succession makes the game easier, I can remember only a few instances in my countless hours of playing CK2 when my ruler was getting old or sick and had no suitable heir. However it is also in those moments, when pressed by the clock ticking and Death always coming closer, that I probably had the most fun playing: desperately trying to change succession law against my vassals' opinion, or switching to Seduction focus in the hope of getting a bastard child I could legitimise... I also found it was a more RP way to play.

All this to say, if it is technically possible to have a higher number of dead characters without affecting the game's performance too much, then please both slightly lower fertility rate and increase infant mortality rate. Or even better, give the option in the game settings for the player to set these numbers: maybe two or three options to chose from at the beginning of a game: "Realistic mortality/fertility rates" VS "Lower mortality rate" (VS - why not? - "Very high mortality rate/Low fertility").

 

[Chlodio]

So most child deaths were caused by accidents, and the rest were caused by problems that are tied to the child growing up in such an impoverished state. rulers often had less kids then the average peasant, because they were more likely to survive.

I do not concur with that hypothesis. The first ten Capetian king got an average of 7.2 legitimate children, usually third of them died before reaching age of eight. Nobles sired as many children they could, as they could afford to feed them and they always got a place for them, if they got five surviving sons, the oldest would be the successor, two others would forge a cadet branch, and two others would be sent to church career. In contrast to the peasants, who seemingly could only feed a certain number of mouths.

 

[Ruwaard]

the devs said that they thought about this and the decision was to model this by lowering fertility somewhat, which is much more sensible than having numeorus deceased children cluttering the files

This is also how CK II handles this issue. Both fertility and child mortality rates are lower than historically; the former is needed to compensate for the latter in order to get roughly the same number of children (in game and historically) that reach adulthood.

 

[Arko]

Yes, but low infant mortality rate means the game engine will end up having to support hundreds of different dynasties each with 50-100 members.

You seem to forget there's a much lower natality than it should. Dead characters still bloat the game performance in CK2.

 

[viola]

It wouldn't exactly be great game design for a player dynasty to be wiped out because RNG and high infant mortality decided to deny it any heirs, which is why infant mortality has to be toned down compared to history in game.

 

[Ollum]

Higher children mortality would be very good, but fertility should be higher. Obviously some characters will be less fertile and even infertile, but some characters must be more fertile to balance higher children mortality. In FAQ we have a mention about herbal, medieval contraceptives, so higher default fertility will not be problem.

 

[Rubidium]

Again, the low-fertility/low-child mortality model used by the game is functionally equivalent to a high-fertility/high-child mortality model, but doesn't bloat the interface and the save file (and thus decrease performance) by making it keep track of a bunch of dead children who died at birth or shortly thereafter, with no effect on anyone.

 

[Ollum]

Again, the low-fertility/low-child mortality model used by the game is functionally equivalent to a high-fertility/high-child mortality model, but doesn't bloat the interface and the save file (and thus decrease performance) by making it keep track of a bunch of dead children who died at birth or shortly thereafter, with no effect on anyone.

Low fertility/low mortality isn't fully equivalent of high fertility/high mortality. Family tree with parents and 3 alive children looks different than family tree with parents and 9 children, 3 alive, 4 died during infancy, 2 died later.

 

[ray243]

You seem to forget there's a much lower natality than it should. Dead characters still bloat the game performance in CK2.

Surely that's what CK3 can do better? In terms of data-resource management and having higher system specs that takes advantage of more memory space being available?

Low fertility/low mortality isn't fully equivalent of high fertility/high mortality. Family tree with parents and 3 alive children looks different than family tree with parents and 9 children, 3 alive, 4 died during infancy, 2 died later.

Low fertility do not solve the issue of dynastic bloat. Once a dynasty get past a certain threshold, it is near impossible for it to die on the map.

 

[elvain]

Low fertility/low mortality isn't fully equivalent of high fertility/high mortality. Family tree with parents and 3 alive children looks different than family tree with parents and 9 children, 3 alive, 4 died during infancy, 2 died later.

Yes, but since this is still primarily a game, we should care that it is much more user friendly to deal with a family with only 5 children which either survived until adulthood or died after reaching 3 years of age, than a family of 9 children out of which 3 died in early infancy and their only effect on game is to make the interface less user friendly and decrease performance

 

[elvain]

Surely that's what CK3 can do better? In terms of data-resource management and having higher system specs that takes advantage of more memory space being available?



Low fertility do not solve the issue of dynastic bloat. Once a dynasty get past a certain threshold, it is near impossible for it to die on the map.

1) the question is why should the game need to do that. Why should it waste resources on loads of children, which will have no effect on gameplay than overloading the performance?

Wouldn't it be better if the devs use their time and cspacities on something more reasonable? Lile for instance developing non-feudal governments?
If they waste their time on nonsense like this, they'd have even less time for things which would actually matter in game.

2) depends. Many families would in reality fade once they don't have enough landed titles to land their members. Medieval dynasties usually didn't completely die out. It was just the important lines of those dynasties, which held important land or offices.
And even CK2 simulated this relatively fairly and historically: if a dynasty had only one line where to land its members, the side lines do die out to some degree if they lose chance to inherit anytng.
And with 2 unlucky generations in a row you can effectively lose a valid heir of your dynasty, if you didn't spread them far and wide.
It happens lot less often, but it does. Perhaps because we are still discussing a video game which is primarily meant to be fun, not a history simulation.

 

[ray243]

1) the question is why should the game need to do that. Why should it waste resources on loads of children, which will have no effect on gameplay than overloading the performance?

Wouldn't it be better if the devs use their time and cspacities on something more reasonable? Lile for instance developing non-feudal governments?
If they waste their time on nonsense like this, they'd have even less time for things which would actually matter in game.

They could have used the resources that have gone into 3D models to save up space for additional characters? The problem is dynastic blot is a big issue, especially in late game CK2, you end up with too many dynasties.

2) depends. Many families would in reality fade once they don't have enough landed titles to land their members. Medieval dynasties usually didn't completely die out. It was just the important lines of those dynasties, which held important land or offices.
And even CK2 simulated this relatively fairly and historically: if a dynasty had only one line where to land its members, the side lines do die out to some degree if they lose chance to inherit anytng.
And with 2 unlucky generations in a row you can effectively lose a valid heir of your dynasty, if you didn't spread them far and wide.
It happens lot less often, but it does. Perhaps because we are still discussing a video game which is primarily meant to be fun, not a history simulation.

Except it doesn't really do that as often in CK2 imo. Sidelines can become absolutely bloated, and the dynasty does not die out because there is just too many members of the dynasty. Yes, small dynasties in charge of small counties can die out, but big imperial dynasties is near impossible to die out.