REAL DEATH 1.0 FOR STAINLESS STEEL
In Real Death I have expanded over my Good Old Men submod. A variance to the age when your characters can get old and die has been introduced. Many mods offer variances in the age of possible death, this is nothing new, but I feel I have fine-tuned it using statistical analysis and in-game testing with results closer to real life and satisfactory from a gaming point of view.
In Stainless Steel old age begins at 65. You don’t have to worry about your character dying before then, unless it is in war, a plague, or an assassin’s job. However, after that age is reached the chances of dying each turn are about 50%! No wonder very few make it beyond 66 or 67.
In RD the beginning of “old age” is 56 years, which makes sense. Even in these times, people in their late fifties become more prone to things like strokes, heart attacks, cancer, etc.; let alone in the Middle Ages. Of course death can happen at an earlier age, but it is infrequent. Some argue that a big chance of early death was a reality in that era, I won’t deny it but having many characters dying young (which the linear probability-of-death in M2TW will cause) is not good from a gaming point of view. This is the problem with other age mods. A counter-argument could be that those that died young never lived to be prominent or do something useful, so they don’t appear in the game.
I investigated the age of natural death of 40 prominent people of medieval times (kings, queens, popes, artists, scientists, notables, etc). The range was 32-96, with a mean of 63.7 years.
This means that once your king (or any other character; generals, wives in the family tree, spies, priests, popes, etc.) is at or beyond 56, death may come at any time. However, no need to worry (too much) because the chances of dying each turn are a mere 3%.
While you will see quite a few people dying in their prime, you will also see many of them reaching their late 60’s, their 70’s, even 80’s. The maximum age is set at 89; assuming that even if someone were to live beyond that, he or she will retire from activity. If maximum age is set higher, the chances of dying each turn go down and too many people will be reaching advanced age, which is as undesirable as too many people dying young.
The average life expectancy should be about 66.5 in Real Death, which is about the same life expectancy in regular SS. The age of death of 100 characters in my last test was as follows:
The difference is a wider range for possible age of death (56-89) instead of the typical 65-68 we have now.
Fortunately, most will have an heir before passing away… But also, we will see more kings dying before having a grandson of age, to ensure the continuity of the bloodline beyond the immediate heir. An uncle will probably become next heir in that case… Historical! That is why I have integrated my Royal Women submod, to offset a bit this effect on bloodlines. That way, at least Uncle will probably be of royal blood. This will cause a more unpredictable game, more realistic. What if your favorite general dies at 56? What if your corrupt, unpopular, mad, impious, “uninhibited”, extravagant, cuckold, stupid and every-other-bad-trait king lasts all the way to 89? William the Conqueror lived to 75 in one test, 56 in the next. A source for interesting AAR’s…
And with more old geezers around, come the new old age traits. I have revised them so Senility might begin anytime after 65, but there’s only a 4% chance per turn of getting it. There’s about a 34% chance of gaining at least Somewhat Senile by 70, 56% by 75, and 71% by 80. But remember “somewhat senile” isn’t full-blown Alzheimer. It’s just like when you can’t remember where you put the car keys. Of course, characters with bad luck will gain additional levels and become Senile or Totally Senile. More ill effects have been added to these traits, since a demented general is very likely to be a terrible governor.
Too Old to Fight will come at a variable age after 62 (thanks to aduellist for his idea), with Sickly characters gaining it more easily, while Robust ones tend to resist it. There is a chance that a robust general will be a worthy warrior all his life, even into his eighties! (Well, actually a sickly one might achieve that too, but the chances are about 1 in 5,000). Generally speaking, however, most characters will become too old to fight some time in their 60’s, a few in their early 70’s.
The venerable characteristics of this trait (+ authority, + popularity) from Good Old Men have been removed since we don’t know at what age it will happen, and if he will be venerable enough by then. Instead, a reduction in command has been added.
An acknowledgement to KaPPPa, for his original research on the workings of old age in M2TW.
A creepy note:
ROYAL WOMEN 1.1
This submod includes Royal Women, which causes the “of xxx blood” trait to be transmissible, like hemophilia, to the male sons of royal princesses. That way more of the family tree will remain related by blood to the dynasty founder. However, improvements have been introduced, hence it is version 1.1.
***The blood trait can now be transmitted from mother to daughter if both are princesses.
***Foreign princesses marrying into your family will give a “royal relations” trait to their sons. (This is as it was before, but it had been dropped in RW 1.0 because I had taken those same triggers, tweaked, for my mod). In addition, royal relations now give some real benefits (instead of just that “sense of entitlement”). These are usually similar to those gained by being of that blood, but somewhat reduced. Your princesses that you give away to other factions will transmit those benefits (from your blood) to their sons as well. Being thinner, these relations are only transmitted (after the original princess) from father to son. But a line of males could keep “French Relations” alive for a long time in Scotland’s family tree, for instance.
MERCHANTS MOD
While I’m at it, I might as well add another interesting little tweak. Many have noticed that merchants do not gain experience in SS as they used to in vanilla, except by taking over other merchants, which incidentally is mighty difficult given the lowered chances of success. Also, gaining monopolist traits has become impossible because all regions that had two of a same resource now only have one.
Here, merchants have a small chance per turn of gaining GoodMerchant and Monopolist traits. This chance is just for being alive… It is assumed that whatever he is doing, trading a resource, traveling, sitting in a city, the merchant is always active in his trade and learning.
I have tested this one for quite a long time and the results are like this: Most merchants will gain about 5-6 finance in a lifetime. A few lucky ones gain more and become uber-merchants. A few unlucky ones will die without having gained a single finance, or perhaps only one or two.
This tweak works nicely with Real Death because if a guy lives long years, he will also likely become a great merchant.
Instructions:
Put descr_campaign_db and export_descr_character_traits in Stainless_Steel_6/data, and export_vnvs in Stainless_Steel_6/data/text. First, backup any file that will be substituted.
Savegame compatibility: No.
Other mod compatibility: Yes, if it doesn’t alter any of the files given here. Even then, merging is probably possible. Compatible with any mod in which characters age every other turn, regardless of the relationship between years and turns.
REAL DEATH 1.0 + ROYAL WOMEN 1.1
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Originally Posted by Gnostiko
It is a result of the modifications in descr_campaign_db and calculated according to KaPPPa's data, however in-game testing seems to turn out a little different from the statistically-predicted results; this could be chance, or something's a bit off in KaPPPa's algorithm (but close enough).
