Reapers Due - So the Umayyads just went extinct

[DorostheConquer]

I'm liking Reaper's Due so far, but by Hel and Fenrir, not even the Muslims can keep their royal families alive anymore. I'm a couple centuries into the game, and while I've so far kept my own family alive, I've noticed that the rates of disease and the rates of birth are causing entire dynasties to get wiped out, at an average rate of one noble house every two weeks. As ruler of Norse Scandinavia, I'm getting County and Duchy titles back due to lack-of-heirs at least once every three months, and a few titles (like Gottingen) have reverted to me so many times that I've just given up and kept them myself (is there any point to Viceroyalty laws anymore?). Most noble houses aren't lasting more than a single generation - the oldest one, at least in my borders, got to four generations and two branches, but is about to die off. Of the great Norse houses around from the start of this game, none remain; intentionally, there may be "a few" left, but the Umayyads (who in previous versions averaged hundreds of members) just died off, and the Karlings are down to two - a sickly disfigured gay king, and his heir-and-daughter, a Norse Finnish girl who has been my hostage since birth, and much to the Catholic world's dismay, is about to get surprise-married to my own son and heir.

In other words, the death rate on this DLC is OP.

Don't get me wrong, I always thought it would be nicer to have an increased death rate, particularly more child mortality to hep better reflect historical reality. But Reapers Due needs a serious rebalance - particularly the rate at which people contract leprosy, cancer (medieval people are getting cancer at the same rate as modern teenagers with cellphones), and syphilis (in the tenth century? Really?), as well as, perhaps, an increase in birth rates to help make up for all the carnage.

 

[TheDungen]

Yeah the character death rate is a bit crazy sometimes I have gone through almost 100 coptic popes in less than 50 years of gameplay, then again I would really see disease be worse on the realms.

 

[Fishman786]

ATM there may be a very serious bug which causes events with a MTTH (e.g. getting sick) to occur more frequently every time you resign and re-load. So if you've been 'save-scumming' (aka just enjoying the game non-competitively according to your own rules) then this could be behind the high death rates.

 

[Jerat]

In my current game, AI charlemagne managed to create francia ( didnt see this happen before, very nice) but he died from cancer and karlings died out at about the year 820, at the moment some random bavarian count got emperor of francia and the ruling dynasty of francia changes about every 5 years. Only dynasty with enough members to be completely unable to die out, are the abbasids of course, who else?

 

[McGrey]

Umayyads? Please!

No Karlings!

In general I agree, the death rate, in particular in the early game, is a bit high. Although for the player it drops considrably after you get a good hospital in your capital going. So it might be hard to balance the death rate for players and AIs alike.