Fertility is a JOKE

[Raymond]

So, at 50 years old after 400 years IG (starting 769) i need to stop my campain for the most stupid reason this game as ever offer to me. I've got a vow of celibacy active on my character (48 years old, average 6 health and no injury, nothing.), my wife have depression + anxiety + CHASTE (like my character btw), she's 40 ♥♥♥♥ing years old, i've got 6 children. 4 son, 2 daugter. All have Genius trait. I had to fo for an ultimogeniture to avoid a "Chuch spec" first son to inherit... and then what ? We have a baby. A ridiculous one, no bonus at all, 1 year old when the father die, no hope to win the huge world VS califate war on the go. This was the most intense game ever, ruined by a ridiculous baby born. What "vow of celibacy" mean ? And i was paranoïd, i tripled check, send everything i can (first spy, second spy), then sent everyone to kill her, they didn't. At the end, i've try to put her to jail, she escape. The children is here, and go 1st on my succession list even with the wife in exile to avoid my wrath. This is really dumb i'm so angry... that was a 20h game.

[Jiks]

Ray, you could well be right. Equally, if this very unfortunate thing hadn't happenned this thread would never have been created.

Without some serious digging around in the games code we will never know and that is probably all for the best ... in the same way if this real life business was (a la Iain Banks) a sim itself I wouldn't want to know that either...

*goes way of topic and off the deep end*

[EllyBeeShaped]

Ray, this is CLASSIC confirmation bias. As galadon3 said, if "everything is going well" and your guy is old, then you've had a long streak of good luck. You should not expect it to continue forever; however, human nature is STRONG and it compels you to screw up statistics. Every human is bad at statistics, we all have to make a conscious effort to correct ourselves when we start thinking like this.

The game doesn't "cheat" to make things more interesting. The game doesn't even really know what "doing well" -is-. Consider that many people play in many different ways; if Paradox could make a game that can tell what you want to do, and intentionally screw you up, then they have essentially made a thinking AI and they would probably not be making this game, they'd be changing the world ;)

[Admod, the Equivocal]

Haha. Seduction focus and the player didn't hire anyone to find out. He thinks it's his. AI for the win.

[kazaddum]

Originally posted by SKull:

Hence why ultimo is a bad thing in my view.

Pfff, the usually very long individual reigns are worth it.

[securitas04]

@Alx Koonz

If you are Catholic and have Free Investiture, you could have appointed your loser heir as a Bishop, which disqualifies him to reign. I believe he must be an adult. If you are Byzantine, you can award the son you want to be ruler the Despot title, making him the heir. Since you mentioned a Church event, one of those must be true. So if you have a saved game from a point where you can do that...

https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Succession#Disqualification

[Chill°bucket]

Originally posted by galadon3:

Its funny how often that theory crops up, "Everytime I do really good the Game is stacked against me and throws a big problem at me"
Never considering the fact that "I did really good" means that everything went smoothly for quite some time. Its funny how nobody ever considers then that the game was stacked for their advantage.^^

But I guess its a basic human reflex to assume when things go well its one owns merit, when it goes bad its: bad luck / evil gods / the cheating game.^^

Ok, first I have to say that I have no proof of my opinion other than what I have seen in my games in many hours. So I could be totally wrong. But please keep respectful and negate my opinion with proof not with disrespectfulness. If you have proof that I am wrong I instantly say, "well i believe you, it was just an opinion". If you don't please talk in a respectful way with me.

The game doesn't even really know what "doing well" -is-

This is wrong in my eyes. As I see it the AI "puzzles" the whole time at the deJure state of Kingdoms and Empires. This is the longterm goal of the AI and in my eyes one of the parameters how to deal with the player.

Example:
1. When I play a succesful irish lord who is trying to form Ireland and has already a good part of it conquered I normally get good heirs, good events, aso. Same when I am the strongest party in Spain and have eliminated most enemies and am on the way to form the Empire.

2. When I formed Ireland/Empire of Spain and now conquer territory out of this deJure territory things change normally. Heirs are often bad no matter what I do and I have to deal often with negative events (ruler gets mad, dies early,....). Especially when I break into already "puzzled" territory, i.e. a complete deJure Scotland.

I don't think that this is by accident. In my eyes in the first case you get a %-bonus for good heirs/good events when the AI detects you the "best candidate" to form the deJure realm, in the second case you are the "intruder" who makes again "disorder" and you get a %-malus.

I don't see this as "cheating". This is not Total War. The AI is not the "enemy side". The AI tries to handle the deJUre // deFacto territories, the relationships of countless identities, aso. When you are succesful at "making order" you are on the "AI's side" and get a %bonus, if not a %malus. That is logical for me, not cheating.

If I am wrong please proof. But please stop talking me to an idiot without any proof.


-Y> And again, if only a little bit of this opinion is true it's not OT, as then it is very likely you encounter the problem of < bad heir / then hard attack or rebellion > at some point and it is part of a basic strategy to prepare an interreign for such a child.

Maybe everything is wrong what I say, but please respect my person and my opinion and just proof that I am wrong.

[EllyBeeShaped]

Ray, everything you said in your post is confirmation bias. I get why you believe what you believe, but you will have a better experience, and you will have more accuracy in planning and predicting, if you can convince yourself that the game DOES NOT do these things "on purpose", that it is entirely random.

There's no way to "prove" that it is confirmation bias except to tell you that the game has set percent chances for things like "bad heirs" to happen which are based on your traits and some randomness that doesn't change based on "if you go out side your dejure kingdom".

[Chill°bucket]

Originally posted by EBannion:

Ray, everything you said in your post is confirmation bias. I get why you believe what you believe, but you will have a better experience, and you will have more accuracy in planning and predicting, if you can convince yourself that the game DOES NOT do these things "on purpose", that it is entirely random.

There's no way to "prove" that it is confirmation bias except to tell you that the game has set percent chances for things like "bad heirs" to happen which are based on your traits and some randomness that doesn't change based on "if you go out side your dejure kingdom".

well, maybe i am wrong; but my opinion is more romantic ;) As noone seems to have knowledge about how the AI works (strange, is it so?) you can just believe in "randomness", "luck", "god" or "dejure". But why should I have a better experience if I don't think in deJure dimensions? I don't understand. In around 3000h playing it often helped me to plan my strategy.

And at the end it doesn't matter: if the OP would have had a Plan B for the worst case scenario of an interregium for a bad child inheritor (i.e. a good stack of money), either cause of randomness or AI-strategy, it would have been better.

Ok, I think the original topic is really not about dicussing such things, though I am not convinced about your theory of total randomness without any %boni%mali interaction of the AI other than traits a.s.o, but as noone knows....

[Segovax]

Originally posted by Ray 451:

Originally posted by EBannion:

Ray, everything you said in your post is confirmation bias. I get why you believe what you believe, but you will have a better experience, and you will have more accuracy in planning and predicting, if you can convince yourself that the game DOES NOT do these things "on purpose", that it is entirely random.

There's no way to "prove" that it is confirmation bias except to tell you that the game has set percent chances for things like "bad heirs" to happen which are based on your traits and some randomness that doesn't change based on "if you go out side your dejure kingdom".

well, maybe i am wrong; but my opinion is more romantic ;) As noone seems to have knowledge about how the AI works (strange, is it so?) you can just believe in "randomness", "luck", "god" or "dejure". But why should I have a better experience if I don't think in deJure dimensions? I don't understand. In around 3000h playing it often helped me to plan my strategy.

And at the end it doesn't matter: if the OP would have had a Plan B for the worst case scenario of an interregium for a bad child inheritor (i.e. a good stack of money), either cause of randomness or AI-strategy, it would have been better.

Ok, I think the original topic is really not about dicussing such things, though I am not convinced about your theory of total randomness without any %boni%mali interaction of the AI other than traits a.s.o, but as noone knows....

The combined fertility for the two characters in the OP is -1005%, but there are event triggers in the game that ignore fertility outright. So, it's not so much that the game cheats, it's more like, the game never tells you all the rules and ♥♥♥♥♥ you sideways.

[Joe Danger]

The only thing I got from this is the fact you got 6 genius kids....dude lmao why are you complaining about luck. I can go a whole playthrough without getting a genius heir sometimes.

[Raymond]

Wow, nice debate on my thread. I was so angry to be honest. So, for the "bishop appointment part" ... yeah, was my first though. But he actually need to be adult, yeah. And after losing my last game (right now) i swear : Ultimo = over. Ooooooooover. So many risk to be stuck on a very long regency. I'll go for primo again, like i alway did. My project is kinda hard. Start as a county in Lyon, make the dauphine duchy asap, then rise the kingdom of bourgogne and start building a fleet to reach jerusalem and create the kingdom of jerusalem before any crusade trigger. With Provence and Nice county, and as i usually take on venice to make a vassal republic, i almost succeded three time. But as a "never independant" leader (exept if i succeed in the kingdom of jerusalem creation, then i'll come back to take on the karling or whatsover) it's kinda hard. Actually, my better success is half of the kingdom -1 to create it. Allied with bizantines, ofc. This is why i became mad. This was.... "that" game.

[Raymond]

And joe. I alway have genius kid, but honestly, to reach this situation.... every people in my dynasty have an inbred risk almost. I take every genius girl, even at 2 years old, i can found. Alway. And when i'm large on genius i try to combo genius / strengh... but i only had one in more than 2k hours game time.

[that guy]

Originally posted by Alx Koonz:

And joe. I alway have genius kid, but honestly, to reach this situation.... every people in my dynasty have an inbred risk almost. I take every genius girl, even at 2 years old, i can found. Alway. And when i'm large on genius i try to combo genius / strengh... but i only had one in more than 2k hours game time.

It's much easier to combo quick + attractive, mainly because there are so many events that create quick + attractive courtiers to breed with. Quick characters can also learn shrewd, which would make them just about the same as geniuses.