Alleged Infertility
This is a mod that makes a specific fraction of the world’s population infertile; those people cannot bear children if female, or sire if male. But this deficiency is not advertised as a trait, it comes as a surprise. This part of the game means that one in twenty individuals, or one in ten monogamous couples, will live through the opening sequence of Up.
There is also the dimension of accusation. Which partner has the problem? That does not reveal itself, but as the ruler you can decide who might be responsible, who is "Allegedly Infertile". Your people will probably believe your judgement – until proven otherwise. Blame your spouse and you have a reason to seek divorce. But if you have only yourself to blame, then no amount of Henry VIII role-play will fill the crib; you’ll have to hope for relatives to continue the dynasty.
Except, players have escape routes. If you should find yourself suspecting your own infertility, and lacking dynastic heirs to take over after you, then there are always means to "acquire" heirs. They range from the honourable tournament option (requires the Tours & Tournaments DLC), the diplomatic adoption from your vassals, and the scheming suppositious pregnancy where you fake a pregnancy and childbirth. All those means have costs and can turn out well, or badly.
Overall this mod is relatively lightweight and almost universally compatible, adding a difficulty factor that can be tweaked with a Game Rule. The heir acquisition methods are not truly historic, though some draw from popular folktales of the times. If this mod is well-received I aim to add more methods, such as finding the most virtuous person in the land to crown as your successor (based on the legendary Emperor Yao) or just selling the title to the highest bidder (based on the infamous Benedict IX).
The mod is universally compatible if properly used. It should work with total conversions, if you load it before them in the loading order.
The mod changes these two vanilla files:
- common/scripted_modifiers/00_marriage_scripted_modifiers.txt; this is to allow the Alleged Infertility trait as a divorce reason, and make the AI less likely to marry someone who was accused of infertility.
- events/activities/tournaments/contest_events.txt; this is to support the Tournament method of Heir Acquisition.
Putting this mod high in the loading order will be best; other mods can still override these two if necessary. If the scripted modifiers file is overridden then you cannot divorce people for alleged infertility; if the events file is overridden then the tournament option will disable itself in the decision.
This mod is compatible with Stik’s Gamerule Gadget which you can use to change the fertility fraction mid-game.
Currently this mod has the original localization (English), and a German translation, with thanks to finallyciv! I have copy-pasted the English localisations to the remaining languages so that it is playable in each localisation, but translations are very much appreciated! I will include those files in the mod itself.
It has also been translated to Chinese by 牛奶大魔王 for the mod 集成汉化·|收复失地|: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3403925213 – thank you!
Revisions:
Old revisions of this mod are available below. Click the link to download.
