Dynasty bloat and infant mortality rates

[elvain]

Oh, God! Have you ever made a positive post on this forum, or one in which you shown even a tiny bit of appreciation or respect to the work of the makers of CK2 or CK3? I haven't had the honor of reading one.

I'm fascinated by the ability of some people to find a problem in every solution, in every explanation, no matter how petty the problem or how reasonable the solution/explanation is.
Maybe you could try making your own game or at least a mod of somebody else's game, use the visions and the ideas you are full of... offer it to others and then deal with people like you Hope you'll enjoy it half as much as this kibbitzing

 

[prismaticmarcus]

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.

that's what we're saying. why do you want bigger family trees?

 

[Ollum]

that's what we're saying. why do you want bigger family trees?

I want bigger family trees, because they give a better immersion in medieval-based game. In real history this big family trees was on the agenda. And a lot of children and a lot of died children is more realistic (realism gives more historical immersion), than small number of children and all living, like today families.

 

[ray243]

Oh, God! Have you ever made a positive post on this forum, or one in which you shown even a tiny bit of appreciation or respect to the work of the makers of CK2 or CK3? I haven't had the honor of reading one.

I'm fascinated by the ability of some people to find a problem in every solution, in every explanation, no matter how petty the problem or how reasonable the solution/explanation is.
Maybe you could try making your own game or at least a mod of somebody else's game, use the visions and the ideas you are full of... offer it to others and then deal with people like you Hope you'll enjoy it half as much as this kibbitzing

People don't exist purely to praise the devs unconditionally. If the game makes a game that we enjoy, we'll praise them for it. But right now, all we are doing is pointing out issues that we are concern about and hopefully it can be resolve before the game is out.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

I don't want the "dead character" database to be twice as large as it is right now.


Especially with effects that can target dead characters existing (and thus have to check against the list of dead characters to find valid targets).

Yes, having more children born and more children die *might* be immersive - but even historical records don't always record the stillborn and the infant deaths consistently.
There are historical royal families that will variously list just the children that made it to a reasonable age; children that made it to reasonable age *and* early infant mortality; or children that made it to a reasonable age, early infant mortality *and* stillborn babies - for the same royal couple, depending on the historical record.


For CKII they've adjusted the rate of child deaths several times already, and the birth rate is deliberately depressed to get the desired number of people surviving to adulthood.

Raising the (artifically low) birth rate and the (also artificially low) mortality rate won't do anything to solve what appears to be your major issue, that of dynasty bloat. That is more caused by virtually any marriage the player makes being one that passes on the dynasty, and the AI also making more "matrilineal" marriages than was historic. Thus there is less dynastic and surname collapse than historically occurred.

If you turn matrilineal marriages off, you will see dynasties going extinct far more often.

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.

In practical terms it looks very similar, except for each line having more (effectively) meaningless characters. The amount of links to the next generation remains the same. The number of marriages looks very similar (assuming the 2 that died later died before about 16), and thus the dynastic links to other families remains the same.

As far as inheritances and dynastic links the two situations are functonally identical *except* for the lower load on the game from less dead characters.

 

[elvain]

People don't exist purely to praise the devs unconditionally. If the game makes a game that we enjoy, we'll praise them for it. But right now, all we are doing is pointing out issues that we are concern about and hopefully it can be resolve before the game is out.

There's huge space between "unconditional praise" and unconditional complaining.
If your goal is really to help resolve some issues, it might be worth to learn that constructive criticism with signs of shared respect is way better method than constant kibbitzing and spreading of negativity.
Most of us address the issues we are concerned about. But only some of us like you ignore and/or dismiss all signs of positive outcomes and development.
Atmosphere of negativity and disrespect (which you constantly spread around in almost every post of yours I have read so far) isn't really one which would inspire creative solutions for the issues you are concerned about.

 

[Chlodio]

If you turn matrilineal marriages off, you will see dynasties going extinct far more often.

I have always played them turned off and epidemics set to deadly and still, rarely do large houses get wiped out.
With the death of Henry III of France in 1589, the entire male line of Philip the Bold (1245–1285) went extinct, and the crown reverted to Philip's youngest brother's heir of the body. Hence Henry IV was a 10th generation descendant of the French king, that just doesn't happen in CK2.

 

[ray243]

There's huge space between "unconditional praise" and unconditional complaining.
If your goal is really to help resolve some issues, it might be worth to learn that constructive criticism with signs of shared respect is way better method than constant kibbitzing and spreading of negativity.
Most of us address the issues we are concerned about. But only some of us like you ignore and/or dismiss all signs of positive outcomes and development.
Atmosphere of negativity and disrespect (which you constantly spread around in almost every post of yours I have read so far) isn't really one which would inspire creative solutions for the issues you are concerned about.

I don't agree, I think it's mostly some fans that are trying to dismiss any form of criticism. Some post might appear as being more negative than it is, because I am not going to raise any issues with things I agree with. I simply don't feel a need to talk about it as I think silence is the best form of agreement/praise.

I'm not going to stop raising issues that I have with the current game developments just because you told me to stop. That's up to the prerogative of the mods. If you find issues with this, tend you can feel free to ignore my post.

What you've done is not offer any solutions to the problems I raise, other than simply having issues with me not being as excited about the game as you are. A number of people have said despite the workarounds in CK2, the issue of dynastic bloat is still not fully resolved. New dynasties and small dynasties can die out easily, but big dynasties rarely die out or find themselves reduced to a smaller population.

It does not help that the game rarely wipes dynastic courtiers off the map, which increases the survival rate for the big dynasties.

 

[Rubidium]

I have always played them turned off and epidemics set to deadly and still, rarely do large houses get wiped out.
With the death of Henry III of France in 1589, the entire male line of Philip the Bold (1245–1285) went extinct, and the crown reverted to Philip's youngest brother's heir of the body. Hence Henry IV was a 10th generation descendant of the French king, that just doesn't happen in CK2.

But that's a matrilineal marriage issue in and of itself. Philip the Bold had plenty of female-line descendants (starting with Henry III's sister).

 

[elvain]

I don't agree, I think it's mostly some fans that are trying to dismiss any form of criticism. Some post might appear as being more negative than it is, because I am not going to raise any issues with things I agree with. I simply don't feel a need to talk about it as I think silence is the best form of agreement/praise.

I'm not going to stop raising issues that I have with the current game developments just because you told me to stop. That's up to the prerogative of the mods. If you find issues with this, tend you can feel free to ignore my post.

What you've done is not offer any solutions to the problems I raise, other than simply having issues with me not being as excited about the game as you are. A number of people have said despite the workarounds in CK2, the issue of dynastic bloat is still not fully resolved. New dynasties and small dynasties can die out easily, but big dynasties rarely die out or find themselves reduced to a smaller population.

It does not help that the game rarely wipes dynastic courtiers off the map, which increases the survival rate for the big dynasties.

Maybe these "fans" managed to understand the devs intentions and design little better than you and aren't as concerned as you are, because they can see what you can't.

And maybe they are trying to tell you that you don't need to be so concerned and negative. And tell you that if you change your tone to be less negative, it might actually increase a chance of your points being taken seriously. Because nobody really cares to listen those ever-discontent people, who can never be satisfied because they always turn everything into seing negatives and opportunity for criticism. Maybe an attempt to show some sort of understanding of others may help you get your ideas matter more not only among the discontent among us, but also among the creative ones, and the developers themselves.

Maybe these "fans" don't want to ignore you because they respect you as a thoughtfull person with similar priorities and likings as theirs and they would like to see you turn your thoughtfullness into creativity rather than insatiable criticism.
Or maybe not and all you should do is to disagree with everything

 

[GiantSpaceHamster]

I think that lower fertility + lower infant mortality is not the same as higher fertility + higher infant mortality, there are some quite important differences. The realistic model (higher fertility and higher mortality) adds dynamism. It's more likely that you'll end up with either more children than you'd want or less, that you may have to rely on bastards or end up with a dimwitted clubfooted heir after he accidentally survived his potentially more talented siblings. Bad relations with a spouse become more important if you suddenly find yourself needing to make heirs right now, having low fertility characters (and homosexual or celibate characters) also matters more. Epidemics become more important and dangerous, and so does a good court physician.
More importantly, fewer children and lower infant mortality is ahistorical, it's fairly minor but still, the less of that the better.
I understand why it can be a problem for game performance. I'm assuming in CK2 the game stores dead young children in the same way as any other character, name, family relationships, attributes, portrait, birth and death dates and everything else. Instead, for every woman you could store a number of her children who died before a certain age, say, 10 years old. Or you could have two numbers for male and female children who died in infancy. On the interface each of these dead children would be shown with some sort of generic portrait and description of something like 'Child - died in infancy'. The impact on performance from just one or two extra numbers per woman should be very small.

 

[Tschobo]

I think that lower fertility + lower infant mortality is not the same as higher fertility + higher infant mortality, there are some quite important differences.

Will it though. I have to disagree with you on that in many parts. Some things you will pretty much make the game unfun or extremely tedious. In this thing you have to make a choice between player friendliness and realism and I prefer the first one. Much more playthroughs will be thrown in the ditch because your 5th son also died at infancy and you don't have a heir of your dynasty in sight. While it is realistic it makes more and more things complicated than it shoud for the game and aggrivates players also (and Paradox is known as the studio that tend to have games that are difficult to get into and this would be just another gripe in this direcation). There are many posts on reddit and other sites where they curse their bad luck with the RNG and other issues and such a thing would just be an icing on the cake. And playing a female ruler would be so much worse than usual (with all the regencies and limited actions if pregnant, especially if Paradox decides to empower the Regent more). Or creating own dynasty would be a horrible hassle as you probably have to restart as often as an Avar Campaign as a vassal of Bulgaria in the Old God starts when you have a bad RNG-time.

Also if you really want these modifiers to change, there is always modding available if you really really want this.

 

[ray243]

Maybe these "fans" managed to understand the devs intentions and design little better than you and aren't as concerned as you are, because they can see what you can't.

And maybe they are trying to tell you that you don't need to be so concerned and negative. And tell you that if you change your tone to be less negative, it might actually increase a chance of your points being taken seriously. Because nobody really cares to listen those ever-discontent people, who can never be satisfied because they always turn everything into seing negatives and opportunity for criticism. Maybe an attempt to show some sort of understanding of others may help you get your ideas matter more not only among the discontent among us, but also among the creative ones, and the developers themselves.

Maybe these "fans" don't want to ignore you because they respect you as a thoughtfull person with similar priorities and likings as theirs and they would like to see you turn your thoughtfullness into creativity rather than insatiable criticism.
Or maybe not and all you should do is to disagree with everything

How is pointing out your arguments doesn't resolve existing issues from CK2 being negative? I disagree with your points because I see things from a different perspective, and I've explained why. If you disagree, fine, just explain why you disagree rather than simply saying my tone is negative.

Telling me my tone is negative do not tell me why you think my argument is wrong or weak.

Will it though. I have to disagree with you on that in many parts. Some things you will pretty much make the game unfun or extremely tedious. In this thing you have to make a choice between player friendliness and realism and I prefer the first one. Much more playthroughs will be thrown in the ditch because your 5th son also died at infancy and you don't have a heir of your dynasty in sight. While it is realistic it makes more and more things complicated than it shoud for the game and aggrivates players also (and Paradox is known as the studio that tend to have games that are difficult into and this would be just another gripe in this direcation). There are many posts on reddit and other sites where they curse their bad luck with the RNG and other issues and such a thing would just be an icing on the cake. And playing a female ruler would be so much worse than usual (with all the regencies and limited actions if pregnant, especially if Paradox decides to empower the Regent). Or creating own dynasty would be a horrible hassle as you probably have to restart as often as an Avar Campaign as a vassal of Bulgaria in the Old God starts when you have a bad RNG-time.

Also if you really want these modifiers to change, there is always modding available if you really really want this.

Yes, it is an approach that works out well for the players. But it does not solve the issue of AI dynastic bloat. Your vassals can end up with massive families, especially if you are playing as a large empire.

 

[Tschobo]

Yes, it is an approach that works out well for the players. But it does not solve the issue of AI dynastic bloat. Your vassals can end up with massive families, especially if you are playing as a large empire.

Then lower fertility can solve the AI-dynastic blob. Or stronger plague settings. I know this is the "unrealistic" approach, but I am still defending the playerfriendly perspective instead of cluttering the gamefiles with half a dozen dead children for every ruler of every country..

 

[ray243]

Then lower fertility can solve the AI-dynastic blob. Or stronger plague settings. I know this is the "unrealistic" approach, but I am still defending the playerfriendly perspective instead of cluttering the gamefiles with half a dozen dead children for every ruler of every country..

It only works if the AI dynasties are tiny. If an AI dynasty reaches a certain threshold, you just can't stop them from bloating even further. Because every child born is a child very likely to grow into adulthood and have their own children as well. And that is problematic because dynasties becomes extremely entrenched.

Yes, the current system works alright if you are solely talking about the player's perspective in terms of managing his own dynasty. But it doesn't really work if I am a big emperor and I am stuck with tons of massive dynasties that simply will not die out. It's a player problem in terms of vassal management.

 

[Tschobo]

It only works if the AI dynasties are tiny. If an AI dynasty reaches a certain threshold, you just can't stop them from bloating even further. Because every child born is a child very likely to grow into adulthood and have their own children as well. And that is problematic because dynasties becomes extremely entrenched.

Yes, the current system works alright if you are solely talking about the player's perspective in terms of managing his own dynasty. But it doesn't really work if I am a big emperor and I am stuck with tons of massive dynasties that simply will not die out. It's a player problem in terms of vassal management.

I see your point, but then for the AI different measures should be taken. Like setting their attention only on the first two or three heirs and shuffle the rest in obscurity. Like cloister them or marry the off to the Count of Cornwall or send them away with a mercenary where they also won't be able to rise as leader or marry that easily. Or stronger illnesses. Yes this one is a harsh one but it would still not clutter the game files. If the AI tends to take these decisions it would be also a big step up. So the issue is that most of them are getting married and have children too, even if they won't have a chance to inherit anything. This should be actually decreased.

 

[ray243]

I see your point, but then for the AI different measures should be taken. Like setting their attention only on the first two or three heirs and shuffle the rest in obscurity. Like cloister them or marry the off to the Count of Cornwall or send them away with a mercenary where they also won't be able to rise as leader or marry that easily. Or stronger illnesses. Yes this one is a harsh one but it would still not clutter the game files. If the AI tends to take these decisions it would be also a big step up. So the issue is that most of them are getting married and have children too, even if they won't have a chance to inherit anything. This should be actually decreased.

I think one thing that should help is if there is a system that allows AI dynasties to fade away into obscurity. Right now, it doesn't cost you anything to educate your child. So any child born of any dynasty is a potential marriage prospect.

In addition, dowries are not a thing in the game, which means you can marry off your daughter even if you are a poor baron with no money.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

I have always played them turned off and epidemics set to deadly and still, rarely do large houses get wiped out.
With the death of Henry III of France in 1589, the entire male line of Philip the Bold (1245–1285) went extinct, and the crown reverted to Philip's youngest brother's heir of the body. Hence Henry IV was a 10th generation descendant of the French king, that just doesn't happen in CK2.

That's a fairly rare situation, even historically.
Most "dynasties" have a closer branch that could inherit than having to trace back over 300 years and then back down again.

However, it's worth noting that in CK terms this would *still* be the dynasty surviing, assuming that they were all legitimate sons (as the French succession process was *meant* to require). So this would still be the exact problem OP is complaining about, with the dynasty still being around 300 years later with the main line wiped out, and inheritance by a side branch.

 

[Ixalmaris]

Todays DD mentions stillborn in the last example doctrine.

So looks like they are a thing now.

 

[Fitzjacob]

Todays DD mentions stillborn in the last example doctrine.

So looks like they are a thing now.

Yeah, if that tenant is going to be a viable option then childbirth complications have likely increased. But being able to hide dead branches of your family should be sufficient to diminish UI clutter.