How does the game decide to kill a <40-year-old PC with 6 health "from bad health"?

[blackninja9939]

The player court is not pruned, only the AI's court gets pruned of characters. Player courts do have "useless" characters be given a health penalty, with the penalty size depending on the court size, but to be considered useless they basically have to be of literally no importance in the court or have a relation to anyone. Can't have a council position or minor title etc. This penalty is also only temporarily applied during the death evaluation and if they do not die then the penalty only lasts inside of the death check.

 

[blackninja9939]

Then it sounds like there's a bug. When I invite large numbers of characters to my court, they start dying in droves. My character did not die, so it should not be applying health penalties, according to your post.

If you have a lot of people in your court then in their death evaluation they are more likely to die, simple as that, if they live then they move on until the next check. If you keep filling your court you will keep with the higher chance they die each tick until you have a smaller sized court. Otherwise courts would end up being massive very easily.
The ruler characters are not given this health penalty as they are of course not a useless character.

 

[blackninja9939]

So in other words, you are saying that the same pruning mechanism that works to keep AI courts small also functions on the players court? Yes, as I was saying.

No not at all, I just specifically said the pruning that happens to the AI court does not happen to the player court.
The health penalty for larger courts is entirely separate from the AI pruning.

 

[blackninja9939]

But it is still true to say that the game is pruning your court, because that's what it's doing. Maybe it is not the exact same algorithm, but it is still pruning.

Not really. The pruning is removing characters to limit the size of the AI courts regardless. The death chance does not flat out kill the characters, just makes it more likely they die if they serve no purpose at all and even that is only a chance whereas in the AI pruning it is a guaranteed removal.
The health modifiers are not even particularly severe and remember they only apply to totally useless characters without relations. The AI pruning does not even give a chance to live through it if they are a useless character.