Why does kings die so early?

[Kvltist]

The average life of a king is about 40yrs old for me, and its not uncommon to see them die in their 20's I cant remember ever having a king turn 55. It's quite annoying since it lowers your stability every time and puts you at the risk of losing your independence cuz of royal marriages.

Surely kings could live longer than that? Even common folk typicaly lived well into their 50's and 60's at this time

[Infinity]

If you make them into a general your ruler/heir will die much sooner (there is a hidden modifier).
If you avoid that you can get ruler to live up to 70, even got to 80 once.
These always RNG though.

[Kvltist]

Originally posted by Infinty:

If you make them into a general your ruler/heir will die much sooner (there is a hidden modifier).
If you avoid that you can get ruler to live up to 70, even got to 80 once.
These always RNG though.

Even if they never partake in combat? I would say about half of my kings have been a general at some point

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by Loka<:

Originally posted by Infinty:

If you make them into a general your ruler/heir will die much sooner (there is a hidden modifier).
If you avoid that you can get ruler to live up to 70, even got to 80 once.
These always RNG though.

Even if they never partake in combat? I would say about half of my kings have been a general at some point

Even if. It's because generals and kings have a check every month that gives them a certain chance of dying. If a character is a general and a king (or heir), they get two checks each month, which can pretty drastically increase their mortality. Or at least that's how I've heard it explained before.

[Mikey]

Originally posted by Loka<:

The average life of a king is about 40yrs old for me, and its not uncommon to see them die in their 20's I cant remember ever having a king turn 55. It's quite annoying since it lowers your stability every time and puts you at the risk of losing your independence cuz of royal marriages.

Surely kings could live longer than that? Even common folk typicaly lived well into their 50's and 60's at this time

Yes people did live to grow just as old as today in the middle ages however it was far from common and the average lifespan of 40-45 clearly shows that.
Your king dies at a relatively young age to depict just that.
Many children died in infancy due to malnutrition or disease, many youngsters died from accidents or disease and many grown ups died in their sleep due to a quarrel with their neighbour or disease.
Even kings weren't spared those trivialities as most of them (atleast during the first couple hundred years of this game) lived their life on the move rather than in a grand unheated and unhygienic castle.

A rather famous instance where I live was a king who got a splinter in his foot and noone could find it to get it out again. After a few days an infection had formed around the entry point but the king was a stubborn man and when the doctor said the foot had to come off he directed the doctor to the door with the words "I'd rather die a whole man than live as half a one".
A week later he died from gangrene...

[Kvltist]

Originally posted by Mikey:

Originally posted by Loka<:

The average life of a king is about 40yrs old for me, and its not uncommon to see them die in their 20's I cant remember ever having a king turn 55. It's quite annoying since it lowers your stability every time and puts you at the risk of losing your independence cuz of royal marriages.

Surely kings could live longer than that? Even common folk typicaly lived well into their 50's and 60's at this time

Yes people did live to grow just as old as today in the middle ages however it was far from common and the average lifespan of 40-45 clearly shows that.
Your king dies at a relatively young age to depict just that.
Many children died in infancy due to malnutrition or disease, many youngsters died from accidents or disease and many grown ups died in their sleep due to a quarrel with their neighbour or disease.
Even kings weren't spared those trivialities as most of them (atleast during the first couple hundred years of this game) lived their life on the move rather than in a grand unheated and unhygienic castle.

A rather famous instance where I live was a king who got a splinter in his foot and noone could find it to get it out again. After a few days an infection had formed around the entry point but the king was a stubborn man and when the doctor said the foot had to come off he directed the doctor to the door with the words "I'd rather die a whole man than live as half a one".
A week later he died from gangrene...

Those are just stereotypes -_- It is true many people died as children, but I believe I read somewhere that those who lived to become older than 5 had a average life span of 65.

People didnt just go around slaughtering eachother with no punishment, and it wasn't quite as unsanitary as you might think,the idea of people walking around covered in ♥♥♥♥ or that they only bathed once a year is just pure BS. Sure it did happen that kings died from unfortionate causes. But alot of them lived for a really long time beacuse availability to the best healthcare hygiene and food available, and naming one example of a king dying from a splinter doesnt say much. There are people who die from less today. And there was people who were fine from splinters back then.

[Malvastor]

From what I've heard, Medieval Europe was actually pretty fastidious about hygiene. All those Roman bathhouses didn't disintegrate as soon as Rome fell.

[Kvltist]

Originally posted by Malvastor:

From what I've heard, Medieval Europe was actually pretty fastidious about hygiene. All those Roman bathhouses didn't disintegrate as soon as Rome fell.

Exactely, they also made their own bathouses, there was plenty of simple wooden bathouses with ''bathmaidens'' inside that would allow you to bath in tubs of clean warm water and clean yourself toroughly.

Sure hygiene was nothing compared to today, but people didnt walk around covered in poop and dirt, humans want to feel clean.

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by Loka<:

Originally posted by Malvastor:

From what I've heard, Medieval Europe was actually pretty fastidious about hygiene. All those Roman bathhouses didn't disintegrate as soon as Rome fell.

Exactely, they also made their own bathouses, there was plenty of simple wooden bathouses with ''bathmaidens'' inside that would allow you to bath in tubs of clean warm water and clean yourself toroughly.

Sure hygiene was nothing compared to today, but people didnt walk around covered in poop and dirt, humans want to feel clean.

People tend to forget that just because they didn't have electricity 800 years ago doesn't mean everyone was mentally retarded. It doesn't take a state of the art modern medical lab to figure out that being filthy all the time is bad for your health.

[Kvltist]

Originally posted by Malvastor:

Originally posted by Loka<:

Exactely, they also made their own bathouses, there was plenty of simple wooden bathouses with ''bathmaidens'' inside that would allow you to bath in tubs of clean warm water and clean yourself toroughly.

Sure hygiene was nothing compared to today, but people didnt walk around covered in poop and dirt, humans want to feel clean.

People tend to forget that just because they didn't have electricity 800 years ago doesn't mean everyone was mentally retarded. It doesn't take a state of the art modern medical lab to figure out that being filthy all the time is bad for your health.

But warm water was invented in 1978 tough.

[Infinity]

I would like to add some more information as this post has become an historical discussion an isn't what Loka< probably wanted.

https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Ruler#Chance_of_death_and_life_expectancy

As you can see here, ruler death is checked daily, events that kills rulers do not count.

Stability hits should not happen if your ruler wasn't leading an army.

As with normal life expectancy, the older your ruler, the longer he will live, to an extent.

[Tasty Bunny]

Just King
King as general
King as general as leading an actual battle

That's all separate 3 death counter

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by Infinty:

Stability hits should not happen if your ruler wasn't leading an army.

Is this a version thing? Pretty sure stability hit happens no matter what the ruler's doing when he dies.

[Psychotic Fury]

Unless your the pope you always take a stab hit when rulers die. It says in wiki if they die in battle it gives -2 but ive never had that happen. I dont usually make rulers/hiers generals unless they have ♥♥♥♥ stats. And mine usually live to about 60 to 80. Rarely ever they die before 55.

[runequester]

I always just figured that the swank army uniform gave them additional chances for whoring and adultering.

So eventually, your king gets syphilis and croaks.

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by runequester:

I always just figured that the swank army uniform gave them additional chances for whoring and adultering.

So eventually, your king gets syphilis and croaks.

Found the CKII player.