Children dying

[SalieriM]

Has anyone seen anything similar?


First I thought it was a cursed ruler with some weird trait combo that triggered all the kids but one to die on birth. But now his surviving son seems to have the same curse.

 

[Kakafika]

I've had rulers whose children died more often than not, but wow that's some bad luck! Do they have 'weak' or something?

 

[SalieriM]

Most of the traits are good, and there's nothing that could potentially indicate something like this.
Since the picture was taken, 2 more children have died at birth. Lost 2 wives too, one at birth, one of pneumonia while pregnant.

 

[SalieriM]

Something is definitely wrong here, I've never experienced anything like this in any previous game - same version.

 

[riknap]

odd. here I thought I've long normalized this some time ago
what age are they when they die?

 

[SalieriM]

With a couple of exception, they die a few days after being born. One managed to survive 6 months and another a little over a year.

 

[riknap]

if you still have the save, could you hover over the skulls and check why they're dying? I'm curious if they're dying of the same thing...

 

[SalieriM]

Died a sickly infant on 10 February, 1068 at age 0 (born 5 February, 1068).
Died a sickly infant on 16 April, 1070 at age 0 (born 1 May, 1070).
Died a sickly infant on 19 September, 1071 at age 0 (born 16 September, 1071).
Died a sickly infant on 2 March, 1078 at age 0 (born 16 February, 1078).
Died a sickly infant on 8 October, 1082 at age 0 (born 3 October, 1082).
Died a sickly infant on 18 September, 1087 at age 0 (born 3 September, 1087).
Died a sickly infant on 8 February, 1090 at age 1 (born 24 March, 1089).
Died a sickly infant on 10 June, 1096 at age 0 (born 8 June, 1096).
Died a sickly infant on 22 March, 1100 at age 0 (born 8 March, 1100).
Died a sickly infant on 28 October, 1104 at age 0 (born 9 October, 1104).
Died a sickly infant on 9 July, 1109 at age 1 (born 9 December, 1108).
Died a sickly infant on 21 May, 1114 at age 0 (born 2 May, 1114).
Died a sickly infant on 11 April, 1119 at age 0 (born 10 April, 1119).
Died a sickly infant on 7 January, 1131 at age 1 (born 8 May, 1130).

 

[richvh]

The ones under age 1 are mostly going to be event 1000109007, triggered from event 1000109005 (both in childbirth_events.txt), which is supposed to simulate stillborn infants and mothers dying from complications of childbirth (something that was added since I gave up the reins of control); the rest are infants that took ill and died. Still that's pretty bad luck, there's only a 32% chance of an infant dying from that event if the mother has health lower than 3, and a lower chance for if the mother's health is higher.

 

[riknap]

@richvh
I don't recall adding those events, so it's possible it was from one of the integrated mods. Which files have them, so that I could tweak them?

(that said, in my recent playthroughs I've only encountered the occasional child death so I think it's just rather bad luck on your part - I'll still try tweaking it down though)

 

[richvh]

As stated in my previous post, the events are in childbirth_events.txt.

 

[SalieriM]

It looks like things got better with the 3rd and 4th generation. There are still occasional deaths, but the survival rate is at least above 50%.

Looking through the family records, 3 of the mothers which birthed a combined total of 6 children had pneumonia (-5 health, -50% fertility, etc.), but I don't remember when they got it as I was never notified other than on death. Given that they were pretty fertile, I don't think they ever had pneumonia during pregnancy. I actually checked when these mothers died and it was years after their last child, except in one case where she died soon after the child was born/died. So unless pneumonia can persist for years before killing, I may have only encountered one case where the health of the mother was less than the base health when giving birth.