Was the frequency of randomly acquired negative congenital traits increased?

[Rydelfox]

Looking over the birth events, there are a few events other than the eating one that can affect the baby's traits
If you are Christian, Muslim, Norse, or Tengri, there is a once-per-dynasty chance of getting a vision about the baby. A good vision prevents all negative congenital traits and sickly. Additionally, Christian and Muslim good vision babies get either attractive or quick, Norse good vision babies get strong, and Tengri good vision babies get shrewd. On the other hand, Christian bad vision babies get left-handed and extra intrigue, Muslim bad vision babies get hunchback and extra learning, Norse bad vision babies get blind, giant, and extra intrigue, and Tengri bad vision babies get feeble and extra stewardship.

There's an event where the bay can kick, and if the mother hopes they are a warrior, they can get +2 martial and have any negative congenital traits removed.

There's an event for pagans where you can throw a fertility festival, and the most expensive option is quite likely to remove all negative congenital traits and gain attractive.

If the mother is a drunkard or a hashish addict, there is a chance for the baby to be slow, have slow upgraded to imbecile, have quick removed, or have genius downgraded to quick. If that happens, the mother may get an event to kick the habit.

A pagan mother can get an event to offer a sacrifice for the child, which gives a chance for them to become strong, attractive, or quick, depending on your choice.

A Christian mother can take a vow of chastity, humility, charity, or temperance. If you keep that vow (don't have a trait opposed to it), it can remove sickly and all negative congenital traits. This is more likely if you have a trait that matches your vow. Afterwards, you may get an event about keeping your vow, which can give you a trait related to the vow. If you refuse, there's a small chance the child may become sickly.

With the weird cravings event, if looks like there is a base 10% chance of getting it. It's more likely if you have less than 3 children and none of your children have harelip, ugly, or clubfooted or if this is her first child. It's also more likely if the mother is hedonistic or gluttonous. It's less likely if the mother is temperate, or has 3, 4, or 5+ children already. It's also less likely if pregnancy flavor events are set to limited in the rules.
If you select one of the foods, there's a 70% chance for them to gain the congenital trait, but also get +2 to a stat (Clubfoot and diplomacy for quail, harelip and intrigue for hare, and ugly and learning for trout)
If you are the mother and aren't gluttonous or you are the spouse and aren't greedy, you can pay extra to have her eat whatever she wants, which doesn't give any of the penalties, but can give gluttonous. If you are the spouse and are greedy, you can just refuse, which will upset the mother and may give her stressed, but won't risk congenital traits.

Of course, all of these can be prevent by turning pregnancy flavor events off, which may make pregnancy work the way it does without Holy Fury.

 

[Evangeline]

Thank you, this was very helpful. There must be a bug in the weird cravings event then, because since HF, I have NEVER had a single pregnancy pass without it, so it must be have a 100% chance of occuring, not 10%. And if I choose one of the weird food options, the chance of the child gaining e.g. harelip appears to also be 100%.

 

[Stanislav I]

Bad outcomes SHOULD be more common than good ones, although I will concede that the actual ratio may be out of whack. Pregnancy is a very stressful time and what these events try to show is all of the usual anxieties and fears made real - children coming out deformed or with a disability because of something the mother ate or did during pregnancy. Hell, I would argue that if you read enough women's magazines you will see the same overblown fears today, everything from the mortal danger of soft cheeses and second hand smoke to the need to sing to the child in the womb or sleep on a certain side.

90% of pregnancy related advice is still to this day complete and utter BS (father of four kids here).

Sorry, but no they should not. You are basically saying that the game should be biased against the player. What does pregnancy stress have to do with imbecile, ugly or harelip? This is pure genetics. I'm not talking about pregnancy events alone - I think the game is overall biased to produce too many freaks. IMHO for regular parents the distribution should be something like 80% regular kids with no bad/good congenital traits and 20% chance of either bad or good. Instead, every game I get one or two freaks in each generation. This is silly and makes no sense or connection with reality, either today or medieval.

But I do agree on the pregnancy advice BS

 

[Rydelfox]

Thank you, this was very helpful. There must be a bug in the weird cravings event then, because since HF, I have NEVER had a single pregnancy pass without it, so it must be have a 100% chance of occuring, not 10%. And if I choose one of the weird food options, the chance of the child gaining e.g. harelip appears to also be 100%.

Here's the section that calls the event:

Spoiler

#Mother has weird cravings.
random_list = {
    #Yes
    10 = {
        modifier = {
            factor = 1.5
            NOR = { num_of_children = 3 }
            NOR = {
                any_child = { trait = harelip }
                any_child = { trait = ugly }
                any_child = { trait = clubfooted }
            }
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 0.5
            has_game_rule = {
                name = pregnancy_flavor
                value = limited
            }
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 1.75
            trait = hedonist
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 1.5
            trait = gluttonous
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 0.35
            trait = temperate
        }
        character_event = { id = HFP.20573 days = 40 random = 10 }
    }
    #No
    90 = {
        modifier = {
            factor = 0.5
            NOT = { num_of_children = 1 }
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 1.75
            num_of_children = 3
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 2
            num_of_children = 4
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 3
            num_of_children = 5
        }

    }
}

The 10% is the base chance with no modifiers applied. Worst case scenario (first pregnancy with hedonist and gluttonous), there's a 50% chance of it running. One of the modifiers to it's chance of occuring is the number of children you have, with the chances skewed to be more common in earlier pregnancies. Combine the fact that you're less likely to notice if Spare Heir #6 doesn't get the event with the fact that most characters stop around 3-4 children, and it's going to seem a lot more common than that.

EDIT: Best case scenario, a temperate mother who already has 5 children has a 0.5% chance of getting the event.

Sorry, but no they should not. You are basically saying that the game should be biased against the player. What does pregnancy stress have to do with imbecile, ugly or harelip? This is pure genetics. I'm not talking about pregnancy events alone - I think the game is overall biased to produce too many freaks. IMHO for regular parents the distribution should be something like 80% regular kids with no bad/good congenital traits and 20% chance of either bad or good. Instead, every game I get one or two freaks in each generation. This is silly and makes no sense or connection with reality, either today or medieval.

But I do agree on the pregnancy advice BS

Some of them possibility have non-genetic explanations - for example, fetal alcohol syndrome can cause facial abnormalities and brain damage, though these would probably be better represented by non-congenital versions of the trait, such as dull instead of slow.

 

[Evangeline]

Hmm, seems to me that the problem is the line
NOT = { num_of_children = 1 }

because it differs from all the other lines (the NOT). Perhaps this is causing it to always choose option 1 (has weird cravings) because of the NOT instead of just 0.5 and then number of children? I'm not a coder so I'm just guessing here.

 

[Rydelfox]

That's a modifier - if you don't have at least one child, your chance of not getting the event if halved, bumping it from a 10% chance of getting them event to 20%.
However, not having a child also meets this:

NOR = { num_of_children = 3 }
NOR = {
    any_child = { trait = harelip }
    any_child = { trait = ugly }
    any_child = { trait = clubfooted }
}

which increases the weight for getting the event by 50%, resulting in a 25% chance to get the event.

Removing the NOT would make you less likely to get the event on your first child, which doesn't seem to be what they are going for, since all the others decrease your chance to get the event as you have more children.

 

[Evangeline]

Well then I really have no explanation for why the chance is always 100%. I mean, this is not exaggeration or hyperbole or something, just very honestly telling you that I have yet to see a pregnancy without this event in HF and I've played it for over 100 hours since HF released.

 

[Rydelfox]

I suspect it just feels like 100%. Try writing down each pregnancy you get and record whether you get the event, then check the numbers over a long period of time. I suspect the number will be well over 10%, since since early children are skewed higher, but still much lower than 100%, probably closer to 20%.

I can directly confirm that it's not 100% since my in my session today, my first got pregnant 2 times and never got the event, and my third wife (people keep murdering my wives) got pregnant twice and got the event the first time.

 

[RelVleDy]

Great observations from Rydelfox. Thanks for digging into the code. I'm seeing three problems then:

"Of course, all of these can be prevent by turning pregnancy flavor events off..."

An awkward solution. I think several of us like the pregnancy content; just not the Weird Cravings event. Does Limited affect any of the other events, or just Weird Cravings? If it's just Weird Cravings, using Limited would help without hurting the rest of the pregnancy content.

"If you select one of the foods..."

Unfortunately, even if we master the outcomes of this event, the same cannot be said for the AI, who will select idiotic choices.

"With the weird cravings event... It's more likely if you have less than 3 children...with the chances skewed to be more common in earlier pregnancies..."

This is bad news, because usually the oldest child inherits, and bad congenital traits can result in realm instability. Furthermore, the game sees rulers as "special interest" and won't expunge them, so it's these characters who are most likely to have 1-3 children who acquire Harelip, Clubfooted, and Ugly (15%, 15%, and 10% chance respectfully).

The weird cravings event is basically a bad congenital breeding ground, and given it's likelier to happen in first-born children (the majority of rulers usually have one child in their lifetime) and considering the chance for inheriting bad traits, it all snowballs with long-reaching consequences into save games. Even if it's a base 10% chance, we have to multiply that for every mother in the world having a child, and even if the mother dodges the event, multiply it all again for the 2nd-3rd children. I understand pregnancy events can give positive traits too, but it's far outweighed by the frequency of Weird Cravings.

 

[Rydelfox]

Looking over the the event controlling the pregnancy events, limited halves the weight of all pregnancy events, or at least the events during pregnancy - I didn't check the post-birth events.

Going over the events again, one of the reasons that weird craving seems so common is that it's not competing with any other events. Other cases have multiple possible events. For example, a pagan mother can get the fertility festival event, making a sacrifice to the gods, or no event.

I think a good solution would be to replace with effects with non-congenital versions - ugly would be replaced by uncouth and slow with dull, while harelip and clubfooted would need non-congenital versions created. This would properly reflect both the beliefs of the time (with the food event) and more modern understandings of birth defects (the drunkard/hashish addict event) without the unrealistic effects of making them genetic

 

[RelVleDy]

I agree with that as a solution. It reminds me of when Paradox implemented the Sturdy trait and such. To save Paradox time, I recommend they rewrite the event to accommodate their available non-congenital traits, but exclude harelip and clubfooted choices entirely. I agree being an alcoholic could damage a baby, but the notion that eating rabbit causes harelip is absurd.

Speaking of other events, I laughed when you noticed this:

If you are Christian, Muslim, Norse, or Tengri, there is a once-per-dynasty chance of getting a vision about the baby.

lol wow, not even once every 400 years, or something!? Once-per-dynasty? That content won't help us much at all to counter-balance the Weird Cravings event.

 

[Karlington]

the notion that eating rabbit causes harelip is absurd.

Not true. My mama's cousin's friend's co-worker's aunt ate rabbit's heads during pregnancy and her kid was really good at spying but harelipped.

 

[AderikBrogan]

To those who claim its purely genetics, while I am not an expert, epigenetics also play a factor. Genes that are expressed based on external stimuli. Now to be honest Ive only rarely (tbh I cant even remember the last one) had a character with any genetic defects and I have gotten these events before. I do see a lot of bad traits in the character finder.

 

[Stanislav I]

To those who claim its purely genetics, while I am not an expert, epigenetics also play a factor. Genes that are expressed based on external stimuli. Now to be honest Ive only rarely (tbh I cant even remember the last one) had a character with any genetic defects and I have gotten these events before. I do see a lot of bad traits in the character finder.

This game is based on characters, and I get random freaks in 80% of cases which makes it no fun. Maybe it's just me, but I think the game is not balanced in this respect. Yes the times were rough, but not to the point of such a freakshow. The devs should fix this and decrease the odds of bad congenital traits overall, not just event related.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

Looking over the the event controlling the pregnancy events, limited halves the weight of all pregnancy events, or at least the events during pregnancy - I didn't check the post-birth events.

Going over the events again, one of the reasons that weird craving seems so common is that it's not competing with any other events. Other cases have multiple possible events. For example, a pagan mother can get the fertility festival event, making a sacrifice to the gods, or no event.

I think a good solution would be to replace with effects with non-congenital versions - ugly would be replaced by uncouth and slow with dull, while harelip and clubfooted would need non-congenital versions created. This would properly reflect both the beliefs of the time (with the food event) and more modern understandings of birth defects (the drunkard/hashish addict event) without the unrealistic effects of making them genetic

Clubfoot isn't congenital anyway, harelip may or may not be.

The way this is propagating is just a problem.

 

[Karlington]

Clubfoot isn't congenital anyway, harelip may or may not be.

The way this is propagating is just a problem.

Clubfooted and Harelip are both congenital. The chance to inherit is 15%, same as most congenital traits. If you want to verify they're in common\traits\00_traits.txt , both have inherit_chance = 15

Ugly is also congenital, but the chance to inherit is only 10%.

 

[RelVleDy]

Clubfooted and Harelip are both congenital. The chance to inherit is 15%, same as most congenital traits. If you want to verify they're in common\traits\00_traits.txt , both have inherit_chance = 15

Ugly is also congenital, but the chance to inherit is only 10%.

It also shows inheritance chances on the traits wiki.
https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Traits