CK II - Low birth rate as patrician dynasty

[prothis]

One line summary of your issue
Low birth rate as patrician dynasty

Game Version
3.1.0

What expansions do you have installed?
All of the above

Do you have mods enabled?
No

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
Honestly not sure if this is a bug, by design, or just bad luck:

Playing as a patrician dynasty in the Republic of Venice, I am experiencing consistently low birth rates within my dynasty. It rarely happens that a dynasty member in my realm has more than one offspring. Often they have none. This has led to my dynasty size stagnating at around 20 even after significant game time has passed.

Dynasty members who are married off into other realms do not seem to have this problem, they often have 5+ offspring.

I have taken an active approach to marriage, checking out the attributes of those involved and arranging them as soon as my dynasty members come of age.

Steps to reproduce the issue.


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[Spaninq]

So, something I've noticed in the many hours I've played this game is that there appears to be a "soft cap" to the number of courtiers you can have in your court at one time, which is around 30 courtiers. If I dismiss some of my courtiers that aren't related to me (keeping my physician and useful commanders, obviously), I've found that my unlanded family members will produce children. I believe it's a feature in the game that keeps things from running to a crawl.

Keep in mind that random apostates and peasant leaders might wind up in your court after being banished from another realm, and you can usher them out of your court just as easily. Just make sure you do it before they have children. For whatever reason, children of courtiers that leave your court won't follow their parents.

 

[prothis]

So, something I've noticed in the many hours I've played this game is that there appears to be a "soft cap" to the number of courtiers you can have in your court at one time, which is around 30 courtiers. If I dismiss some of my courtiers that aren't related to me (keeping my physician and useful commanders, obviously), I've found that my unlanded family members will produce children. I believe it's a feature in the game that keeps things from running to a crawl.

Keep in mind that random apostates and peasant leaders might wind up in your court after being banished from another realm, and you can usher them out of your court just as easily. Just make sure you do it before they have children. For whatever reason, children of courtiers that leave your court won't follow their parents.

Thanks, much appreciated! I have not been able to verify whether this is the case but it does seem plausible - I have a significant number of courtiers (indeed mainly folk who arrived from other realms). Will see if reducing their numbers resolves the issue.

 

[babuchas1]

So, something I've noticed in the many hours I've played this game is that there appears to be a "soft cap" to the number of courtiers you can have in your court at one time, which is around 30 courtiers. If I dismiss some of my courtiers that aren't related to me (keeping my physician and useful commanders, obviously), I've found that my unlanded family members will produce children. I believe it's a feature in the game that keeps things from running to a crawl.

Keep in mind that random apostates and peasant leaders might wind up in your court after being banished from another realm, and you can usher them out of your court just as easily. Just make sure you do it before they have children. For whatever reason, children of courtiers that leave your court won't follow their parents.

In theory, as far as I know, been of your dynasty and married should not get the fertility or health penalty even when over the court limit, right? But I have seen this not only for your family, also for the other patrician families, that very often go extint because they don't have childs or they just have 1-2 daughters.

 

[jonjowett]

I often have large numbers of my dynasty in my court - albeit as a feudal ruler. And they rarely have more than one child. (When they do, it's probably the result of seduction.)

I seem to remember another forumite saying that there's a soft cap of 2 living children for unlanded courtiers. For example, there are these settings in defines.lua:

   CHILD_BIRTH_TO_PREGNANCY_WAIT = 3,
   BASE_NR_OF_CHILDREN_PER_COUPLE = 2,
   EXTRA_NR_OF_CHILDREN_FOR_PLAYERS = 2,
   COURT_SIZE_CHILD_PENALTY_THRESHOLD = 30,

 

[OdinTGE]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...enociding-my-courtiers.1058583/#post-23580531

Point 3 applies here.

 

[babuchas1]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...enociding-my-courtiers.1058583/#post-23580531

Point 3 applies here.

Thank you that is the best explanation I have read about this issue. But then maybe they should consider changing the rules for patricians, because very often (poor guys) they do not have close relatives landed if the player is the doge, and that is probably why they very often go extinct.