Genetics, Fertility, & Mortality
Genetics, Fertility, and Mortality is a lightweight, vanilla-friendly rebalance of how characters are born, die, and pass on congenital traits. The goal of this mod is to make this part of the game more immersive and challenging, and rein in certain overpowered strategies.
Genetics: Some congenital traits have been rebalanced, such that beauty traits are more impactful, the stupid and imbecile traits are much worse, and the fecund trait is less overpowered but will actually appear now. Congenital traits are also moderately less likely to be passed on to offspring, and high-tier congenital traits are no longer virtually guaranteed to be passed on in at least a lesser form. Conversely, tiered congenital traits are more likely to crop up randomly and during character generation (the quick trait, for example, has a 5% chance to randomly appear, up from 0.5%). The result is that it’s more difficult to min-max trait inheritance via incest and eugenics, but you will have access to more marriage prospects with good (and bad) congenital traits.
Fertility: Base fertility has been reduced from 50% to 30%, alongside several other tweaks to how fertility functions. The result is that families are smaller and fertility modifiers are more impactful and harder to cap out (fertility has a hardcoded cap of 100%). Fertility also falls off harder with age for both men and women, but the maximum pregnancy age has been raised from 45 to 50 (it’s very unlikely that a female character will get pregnant after 45, but it is now technically possible if you stack enough fertility modifiers). These changes work together to make it more challenging to propagate your dynasty, but more rewarding to pursue a fertility-based playstyle.
Mortality: Death chance has been quadrupled, but the death health threshold has been lowered to 2.5. Characters are now born with base health ranging from 4.75 to 5.25, with a 0.25 health bonus for females (down from 0.5 in vanilla). The sickly, ill, wounded, and severely injured traits are deadlier. Health loss due to old age is slightly reduced, but characters will be guaranteed to lose health every year by 62 instead of 65. What these changes mean is that characters shouldn’t be dying of old age in their 50s, but illnesses and injuries are more deadly than before at all ages and a competent physician is more important than ever.
Genetics, Fertility, and Mortality is compatible with most mods on the workshop. All visual and quality-of-life mods should be compatible. As long as a mod does not edit congenital traits or the defines governing trait inheritance, fertility, and health, it should be compatible.
Genetics, Fertility, and Mortality is NOT compatible with Higher Mortality. GFM and Higher Mortality change many of the same files, and have a different approach to game balance (for example, Higher Mortality increases base fertility, whereas this mod decreases it). I believe that my mod’s approach to balance is superior to that of Higher Mortality, but it is a matter of personal preference.
Genetics, Fertility, and Mortality is not achievement compatible.
Version 1.1.0 of GFM brings compatability for patch 1.6 and the Fate of Iberia flavor pack. It also includes a few balance changes, such as slightly lowered pregnancy chance, harsher prowess penalties for negative physical traits, and increasing the health penalties for ill, wounded, and severely injured characters.
If you have any questions or feedback, let me know in the comments below. If you enjoy this mod, I would appreciate a rating so it reaches more people.
You can check out my other mod, Harder Difficulties, here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2609741647
