Please stop the natural deaths of people in their twenties

[NewbieOne]

As per title. I know that the life expectancy in the middle ages wasn't huge but 20-something is too much of a stretch. Isn't this a leftover from before detailed causes of death were introduced in a patch?

A "natural death" is connected with malfunction of the internal organs or some kind of protracted disease suffered at an older age, as opposed to e.g. dying of pneumonia. Perhaps a mediaeval person could end up there around age 50 due to previous illnesses, consequences of bad nutrition or some other unhealthy aspects of life, but it's not like a 20-something could actually just die a death of what's popularly referred to as old age (there's always a more direct attributable cause).

There are already some causes of death in the game, other than battle or assassination, that could happen to a young person:
- after a period of illness,
- bedridden and infirm,
- in an accident,
- a maimed cripple,
- as a result of severe stress (or something along these lines).

Could those be used instead when someone dies before reaching 40 or 50? Or perhaps organ failure (not exactly natural when it happens to a relatively young person)? Twenty-somethings (not sure but I may've seen younger than 20) don't die natural deaths.

 

[SonofWinter]

If your health score is 1 out of 10, then sorry, that just happens. You can get cancer at 16 and essentially die of "natural causes." Also, just because it says 'natural causes' doesn't mean it was. A good poisoner, might kill you and make it look 'natural.'

 

[Wizzington]

If your health score is 1 out of 10, then sorry, that just happens. You can get cancer at 16 and essentially die of "natural causes." Also, just because it says 'natural causes' doesn't mean it was. A good poisoner, might kill you and make it look 'natural.'

Natural causes is always natural causes. Death by assassination with unknown assassin is called 'suspicious accident'. Furthermore, I have been recording the health scores of people who die of natural causes young and its all over the place - I had a woman with 7.5 health keel over from natural causes at 25. Not sure this is intentional really.

 

[Kalelovil]

A "natural death" is connected with malfunction of the internal organs or some kind of protracted disease suffered at an older age, as opposed to e.g. dying of pneumonia.

Even today a surprising number of people have congenital heart defects which go undiagnosed until they die suddenly while likely appearing to be in good health. And that's just one common example.
A 'natural death' does not just mean death from old age.

 

[Wizzington]

Even today a surprising number of people have congenital heart defects which go undiagnosed until they die suddenly while likely appearing to be in good health. And that's just one common example.
A 'natural death' does not just mean death from old age.

Sure, but this is a game. Does abstracting congenital heart defects as random natural deaths add anything to the game besides frustration? And is it reasonable that a 7.5 base health character has a congenital heart defect?

 

[Kalelovil]

Sure, but this is a game. Does abstracting congenital heart defects as random natural deaths add anything to the game besides frustration? And is it reasonable that a 7.5 base health character has a congenital heart defect?

Yes. Sometimes people just do die with no prior warning or signs of poor health.

I haven't been experiencing a large number of characters dieing at that age, maybe you have just been unlucky in your most recent game?
Although if you have collated statistics with a reasonable sample size showing that this happens to say 30% of your characters that would be another matter.

In any case, Crusader Kings 2 is game in which you learn to go with the flow and adjust to changing circumstances. If one just plays to win then they'll be ruling of Europe within 100 years, and I don't think that is fun.

 

[NewbieOne]

If your health score is 1 out of 10, then sorry, that just happens. You can get cancer at 16 and essentially die of "natural causes." Also, just because it says 'natural causes' doesn't mean it was. A good poisoner, might kill you and make it look 'natural.'

Poor health with a cancer death at 16 would be closer to 'after a period of illness' or 'bedridden and infirm', I believe. The good poisoner would probably avoid detection but the death would still have been at too young an age to die "naturally".

Even today a surprising number of people have congenital heart defects which go undiagnosed until they die suddenly while likely appearing to be in good health. And that's just one common example.
A 'natural death' does not just mean death from old age.

Strictly speaking no natural death is from old age because there's always a more direct cause, such as organ failure. It's true that some conditions work like you described (this can happen even to a teenager), but that would be very, very rare and I'm sure the reception of that death would be different, with a heavy emphasis on the young age of the deceased. 'Unknown cause', 'unknown illness' etc. would be more appropriate, I think.

Sure, but this is a game. Does abstracting congenital heart defects as random natural deaths add anything to the game besides frustration? And is it reasonable that a 7.5 base health character has a congenital heart defect?

One in a million chance or something? Those natural deaths at young ages happen way more often.

Yes. Sometimes people just do die with no prior warning or signs of poor health.

I haven't been experiencing a large number of characters dieing at that age, maybe you have just been unlucky in your most recent game?
Although if you have collated statistics with a reasonable sample size showing that this happens to say 30% of your characters that would be another matter.

Nope, not only the latest game. The general trend seems to be for people to die natural deaths beginning with about 35 but some are younger, like 26. That's younger than I am and I don't really feel like I'm dying any time soon, especially not of a natural cause. This is actually something I thought about.

In any case, Crusader Kings 2 is game in which you learn to go with the flow and adjust to changing circumstances. If one just plays to win then they'll be ruling of Europe within 100 years, and I don't think that is fun.

Actually, it wasn't anybody important or critically important from powergaming perspective, more like emotionally, as in my royal couple's daughter or some such person. Then I thought come on, this happens too young, too often.

As I said, I think it's a leftover from before causes of death were patched in. As in, I suspect on the technical side it's something like the ELSE of the IF loop, i.e. everything other than those detailed causes but no restriction was put in connection with age. But I'm just guessing here. It might as well be an assassination that worked suprisingly well and attracted nobody's attention (but in this case there'd still be suspicions, I guess, especially if you have a good Spymaster). Perhaps adding a couple more causes or shifting the young victims towards 'bedridden and infirm', 'after a period of illness' or 'of an unknown cause but with no sign of criminal involvement' could do the trick.

 

[Tiuz]

Are you certain all assassinations/plotted deaths are reported as such? If i remember correctly the addition of seeing causes of death was also accompanied by the announcement that these will not be reported as such if the played character is not being suspicious about anything being out of the ordinary.

So the high death toll among the young ones might just be some scheming bastard/dishonourable person running rampant.

 

[Effixel]

Historically speaking, I once read that average life expectancy around 800 was 25 years... It actually started to boom up to 80ish years only very recently. So I'm afraid that people dying young is realistic. I agree that nobles must have had a better lifestyle, and therefore lived longer. Still, the french King Francois II died of poor health before his 20's , and this was in the 16th century.

 

[NewbieOne]

Historically speaking, I once read that average life expectancy around 800 was 25 years... It actually started to boom up to 80ish years only very recently. So I'm afraid that people dying young is realistic. I agree that nobles must have had a better lifestyle, and therefore lived longer. Still, the french King Francois II died of poor health before his 20's , and this was in the 16th century.

Sure but that wasn't a natural death and expectancy is a statistical average that takes various kinds of death into calculation. If illnesses are a separately named cause, as is infirmity, wounds and a couple more, natural death is pretty much reduced to "old age", (basically organ failure if "bedridden and infirm" has been split out), which doesn't make that much sense before 50, I think, even in the middle ages.

 

[Wizzington]

Historically speaking, I once read that average life expectancy around 800 was 25 years... It actually started to boom up to 80ish years only very recently. So I'm afraid that people dying young is realistic. I agree that nobles must have had a better lifestyle, and therefore lived longer. Still, the french King Francois II died of poor health before his 20's , and this was in the 16th century.

The reason it was 25 is because less than half of all kids survived to adult age. If you factor out deaths in childhood and deaths from injury (which this obviously is not), the upper class frequently lived into their 70s and 80s. The game also already has random deaths from illness so I don't see why we need to double up on this with random natural deaths.

 

[Wizzington]

Are you certain all assassinations/plotted deaths are reported as such? If i remember correctly the addition of seeing causes of death was also accompanied by the announcement that these will not be reported as such if the played character is not being suspicious about anything being out of the ordinary.

So the high death toll among the young ones might just be some scheming bastard/dishonourable person running rampant.

Yes, completely certain. Look in the code for yourself.

 

[Tiuz]

That's a shame.