How many characters exist in a single seven century playthrough?

[Mindel]

If I remember correctly, developer statistics indicate that the game has something beyond 10000 living characters on the map in later centuries. Of course, characters are being born/introduced and dying all the time, so it isn't clear how many characters, living or dead, actually exist in a single game by the end.

Does a dev know an estimate?

 

[majdavlk]

Chars can breed almost infinitly i think, the only limit being your physical resources.

 

[Ilion]

If I remember correctly, developer statistics indicate that the game has something beyond 10000 living characters on the map in later centuries. Of course, characters are being born/introduced and dying all the time, so it isn't clear how many characters, living or dead, actually exist in a single game by the end.

I had created a little mod for myself -- I defined an inheritable trait which I give to my initial character (and any children he starts with).

Doing a simple text-replacement in the save file, I see that in my current game from the 769 start to 871 (*), there are 47,239 characters, living and dead, and 1,118 of those are descendants of my initial character, whether through mother or father.

So, that's just in one century. Image how many there might be after 5 or 6. At the same time, I expect that the number of *living* characters will eventually rather level off as holdings are built and populated in the initially empty holdings slots.

(*) Using the CK2+ mod, with "ancient religions"; so, starting as the Roman Pagan Duke of Latium, then as king of Latium (basically, Lombardy), then emperor of the Latin Empire (Italy, Sicily, Burgundy, Africa, parts of Egypt and Jerusalem), I just completed my Claim War conquest of the ERE. I need only to take Antioch from the (equally pagan) Abbasids, and I can form the Roman Empire.

 

[HandicapdHippo]

Doing a simple text-replacement in the save file, I see that in my current game from the 769 start to 871 (*), there are 47,239 characters, living and dead, and 1,118 of those are descendants of my initial character.

From what I recall the game doesn't store lowborn courtiers who never held land or had any children/Got married after they die in the save, so the actual number of characters is likely to be much higher.

 

[Ilion]

From what I recall the game doesn't store lowborn courtiers who never held land or had any children/Got married after they die in the save, ...

That's good; the save file is huge enough as it is. Now, if only it would eventually prune all dead characters (say, 50 years after their death) who both never held lands and never had children (regardless of whether they had ever married).

 

[DPS]

TBH, I wouldn't be surprised if there are 10,000 or more living characters by the end of some play-throughs.

 

[Less2]

Does the game give out charids to new characters entirely sequentially? If so you can figure out what the first newly-generated (i.e. not defined in history files as a much lower character id), then subtract that from the newest charid to figure out how many have spawned.

 

[Ilion]

Does the game give out charids to new characters entirely sequentially?

Yes and no There are gaps in the ids of set-up defined characters; but, as far as I can tell, once the game is underway, new characters are spawned with consecutive ids.

 

[Rags17]

TBH, I wouldn't be surprised if there are 10,000 or more living characters by the end of some play-throughs.

Considering the fact that there are nearly 2,000 provinces on the map with an average of around 3-4 holdings per province that's a potential 6-8,000 courts right there. Each of these courts will have a minimum of the holder plus six courtiers (the bare minimum to fill all Councilor positions) for up to 56,000 characters total. In practice a lot of those titles will be held by one character (eg a three county Count, a King with two Ducal and four County titles etc) so the actual character count will be less, against this of course is the fact that most higher level courts will have much more than the minimum number of courtiers.

My best guess is that by 1453 there should be around 35-40,000 characters in play.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

prior to Reaper's Due the devs released that there can be 40,000 living characters at one time

 

[Blk82]

I think there are an average of 15,000 characters alive at any given moment, being lower at the start of the game. I would guess "in-game" life expectancy to be around 35 years for a character. If a character is created appears 55 and lives to be 60, they are only in the game for 5 years. Depending on the proportion of characters created in adulthood, the "in-game" life expectancy can be significantly lower than the average age of characters at death. Also, the number of characters created is higher than the number of births, due to characters entering the game as adults. Also, the player character is not subject to pruning or the health malice of a courtier, so the average PC lifespan

The game starts with about 10,000 characters. Every year, about 430 are added, or 43,000 a century. The game lasts for 684 years from the earliest start date, so about 294,000 are created in the course of the game, and another 10,000 exist at the start, so I would estimate somewhere around 300,000.

 

[majdavlk]

i think that barony level titles and landless titles do not get the minimum courtiers