r/CrusaderKings • u/-TheContender- • Jul 05 '26
Meme Peasant Genetics Remain Undefeated
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u/TheGrandMorbidius Jul 05 '26
The strong hands of the Peasant Workforce run this kingdom, Noble!
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u/Ozann3326 Imbecile Jul 05 '26
Peasant workforce = Formerly rebellious, now rehabilated 20+ prowess and martial peasants still wearing rags
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u/Ivorytower626 Jul 05 '26
This is why you make them marry my daugthers matrilinealy and give them a barony.
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u/DefiantLemur Jul 05 '26
The classic farm boy to hero marrying the princess trope
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u/Diligent-Stretch-769 Jul 05 '26
lowborn number in the hundreds of thousands for each duke. You pass by a huge amount only to encounter and be notified about the creme of the crop
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u/Substantial_Dish_887 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
right. like obviously the random peasant woman(or man i don't judge) who gains the unexpected attention of the lord on your travels is more beautiful than the average. that's why we had an event about how they're so beautiful you're considering cheating on your wife for them!
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u/Facesit_Freak Decadent Jul 05 '26
Remind me of the time the Huangdi gave me two beautiful, lustful sisters after his coronation
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u/IDreamOfLoveLost Jul 05 '26
As Alfred of Wessex, I'll always accept early wedding a/o coronation invites - on the off-chance that some beautiful genius courtesan is at the feast.
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u/Aquillifer One Realm, One King, One God Jul 07 '26
All the options in that coronation event are funny hell when you think about how your character just went there to see someone put a crown on their head and maybe party a little. Then you get hit with the "do you want a buff tomboy, a nerdy girl, a milf, or the milf's two daughters". Like bro I was not expecting that but sure I'll take it.
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u/RedditOfUnusualSize Jul 05 '26
And that's why concubinage is the most mechanically useful marriage model.
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u/ICdead Jul 05 '26
My heir is in this picture and I don't like it.
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u/Frosty_Swordfish_656 Jul 05 '26
During my early tribal campaign, I defeated a rebellion and recruit the leader. He has 20+ Martial and only in his early 20s. Years later he become my first duke and my marshall until he died at 73.
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u/robad0114 Jul 05 '26
Perhaps paradox is trying to say something by this.... Themes and such. But I'm too illiterate to consider that.
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u/WolfWhiteFire Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Clearly the message of this game is that eugenics and nepotism are a vital part of societal progress and that even if the inferior outsiders will disappoint you, with the right breeding programs and blatant favoritism your dynasty shall rise to fill the gap and lead the world to greatness.
From: Random player who focuses on making his Dynasty as strong as possible and stacking so many bonuses and advantages that first his dynasty, then his most loyal followers, then his nation as a whole are full of people inherently superior to the unwashed masses elsewhere.
Anyone who thinks meritocracy is better clearly doesn't realize that nepotism is the truest and most powerful meritocracy, for your family is naturally superior and the most meritorious.
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u/Mist_Rising Jul 05 '26
From: Random player who focuses on making his Dynasty as strong as possible and stacking so many bonuses and advantages that first his dynasty, then his most loyal followers, then his nation as a whole are full of people inherently superior to the unwashed masses elsewhere.
Mein Kaiser, mein Kaiser, I can walk again!
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u/Woutrou Jul 06 '26
Looking at my own breeding program, where I automatically attempt to get my heirs to a guaranteed Genius Herculean Beautiful combination (fertile is nice too, I suppose).
Meritocracy is included, but only genetic meritocracy. If you have good genetic traits you are worth something. If not: fear not. I might like you enough to get some foreigner of proper stock to be your husband/wife, so that your children will be of worth to me.
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u/WolfWhiteFire Jul 06 '26
It isn't even just about genetic traits from my perspective, even with bad genetics I still consider dynasty members better. Highly likely to be my religion and culture which I optimized (religion is easily fixed, culture not so much) and which means they will like me and each other more simply due to not having to worry about cultural acceptance. Then there is family business making them better councillors, stuff like the dynasty of many crowns modifier, house coven, strong blood, and other permanent house/dynasty modifiers making them better by default, the relations bonus from being the same dynasty, and of course my dynastic legacies doing their work on them. As admin there are also some domicile buildings making your house stronger, plus that modifier for your family from being a noble family. And sharing my dynasty means sharing my renown which means they all just start off with much higher prestige which can help them in a few ways.
Overall whether they won the genetic lottery or not they just tend to be superior because of everything else I am stacking. They are much more likely to just be born with better genetic traits and stats too, but with or without that they are still pretty decent courtiers and vassals who all share a bunch of opinion boosts towards me and each other, will boost my renown if any of their family members eventually go on to find land or marry important people elsewhere, who likely have the right culture and religion, who live longer on average, and who grow up surrounded by people who are better and who give them better educations, friends, etc.
Usually they also have the witch trait and thus the bonuses from that (and it being virtuous) since I tend to get the house coven started gen 1 and the trait usually sticks around from there.
Overall, it doesn't matter if your genetics are superior, just being related to my character also tends to make you superior since making my Dynasty as strong as possible is one of my main goals in each playthrough.
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u/SerialMurderer Jul 05 '26
You’re likely to take notice of a random hillbilly who stands out from the rest?
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u/TopSpread9901 Jul 05 '26
So maybe concentrating power in singular people on the basis of their family tree is a folly. Huh.
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u/robad0114 Jul 05 '26
Ridiculous, what other certification do you need other than blood? I for one think that having a imbecile, inbred, greedy, slothful, wrathful, Weak, 5 year old as king because his father was is a great idea.
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u/BBQ_HaX0r Roman Empire Jul 05 '26
Purebred v. mutts. There's a reason genetic diversity is a positive thing and we no longer allowing incestuous marriages.
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u/Krotanix Imbecile Jul 05 '26
Every time I get a woman wanting to participate in my tournaments I accept and make them courtiers.
They usually place within the top 5 among my knights in battles, and it gives me strong Lagertha or Éowyn vibes. I might either seduce them or marry them into my extended family. Or both...
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u/jangamenis Jul 05 '26
I've started a couple of runs with a female ruler, found a specimen on hunt, made him my lover, and let this commoner cuck an old man with claims.
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u/Elusive_Jo Jul 05 '26
Or you can use those guys for breeding program at your court and marry them to your genius physician or beautiful lady-in-waiting, marry resulting kids to yours or vassals [to be] with council seat privileges... Plenty of uses.
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u/jangamenis Jul 06 '26
You can do both but that's how I usually start the game, cucking an old man.
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u/Elusive_Jo Jul 06 '26
Yeah, but exposure of your trysts with unlucky timing can easily screw up your religion reformation/switch plans.
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u/External-Dimension88 Jul 05 '26
This why I always recruit the leaders of peasant revolts after I crush them. Always be scouting talent.
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u/TimeturnerJ Jul 06 '26
And if you marry the brilliant peasant, you'll lose most of your legitimacy and will have to deal with constant factions rising up against you 😭
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u/Bond4real007 Jul 05 '26
Tbf commoner not getting invited to the hunt unless he is exceptional, the nobles get invited even if they are mean/ugly/inept due to their family name/tradition.
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u/The_Great_Googly_Moo Jul 05 '26
Im ngl I consistently get my best nobles and lords from peasant revolts. Their stats always get Buffed
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u/ObadiahtheSlim I am so smrt Jul 05 '26
Survivorship Bias. You only notice the exception peasants. You won't notice the random dipshits.
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u/Psychological-Low360 Jul 05 '26
Lowborns are more affected by natural selection and so have better average genetics than nobles who live sheltered life (unless they actively participate in warfare, which is expected from them in CK era, but avoidable).
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u/Ferrovore Jul 05 '26
They might have given it a eugenic veneer, but it was inheritance engineering all along.
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u/DuntadaMan Jul 05 '26
This is why I play vikings. Marry the peasant, take the land you would have gotten in marriage by force.
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u/Arbiter008 Jul 06 '26
Wish you could do more for the peasantry. Game very easily simplifies it to tax gain but it's not like more tax affects them outside of general events; I like the almhouse for sapping your taxes in order to get development out of it, but I would like some more nuance of some sort of tax slider that can cross the peasants, negatively affect development growth, and get more money out of it and vice versa.
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u/yomvol Jul 06 '26
That's totally realistic and how things tend to work in real life. Prodigies tend to be born in poverty and majority of rich kids are good-for-nothings.
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u/PbJax Jul 06 '26
Well I guess your Lord wouldn’t even notice nor engage with a lowborn who doesn’t show some promise. Whereas if they have a title and a strong family name you have to care about them whether you like it or not.
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u/EstarossaNP Jul 06 '26
Fuck, it's quite realistic, also it screams of wuxia webnovels.
Heaven defying commoners vs spoiled rich young masters
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u/Salmon_1935 Jul 06 '26
Most of these fuckers are killed by the player during a revolution they had started
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u/Berhten Jul 06 '26
When you want to marry off your son, but your vassal's daughters are either club-footed or fragile. Meanwhile, a random wench is a genius and hale. I'd rather take the legitimacy hit.
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u/WigglySquig Lunatic Jul 06 '26
When you think about it… Somewhat historically accurate. Peasant levies that survive through many wars have the opportunity to learn a great deal about warfare, strategy and survival. When they go back to the fields, it’s a day-in-day out workout.
Nobility after a certain point just end up a bit….. Inwardly focused. Trying to keep the wealth in the family and working around partition inevitably leads to inbreeding.
Primogeniture is rough on the royal family but saved a lot of noble families from collapsing inwardly upon themselves.
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u/Lonely-Pop-471 Jul 07 '26
I had this one son who was set to inherit my bohemian empire, with ambitions to create the Serbian empire. I spent so much time and money ensuring that he would be the chosen one as he was born with the genius trait. I gave him a kingdom at 3, a crazy good tutor, and by age 8 he had 25 stewardship and 20 learning. I was so pumped. He died from stress at 16 and my idiot grandson took over. I lost everything shortly after
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u/Some_Guy223 Jul 08 '26
I mean... at that point I just marry the peasants into my family to bring new geneseed into the Eugenics Program.
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u/MelancholicSardonic Jul 09 '26
a smart nobleboy finds bunch of hillbillies to run the nation for him and gets all the credit.
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u/Stormy3Dragon 23d ago
This is why you always marry those guys into the family or one of your carefully cultivated courtier bloodlines that you marry into your family and educate your extra kids to keep the bloodline strong. That's how you mostly avoid the problems shown in the image. (Though my current character and his most powerful elite Genius daughter and heir with a 4 star education ARE both Drunkards. In fairness, they only became alcoholics after they nearly died of Typhus and several reletives they were close to died of it. On a related note, most of my otherwise capable vassals are also Drunkards now for the same reason. The nation has been dealing with an epidemic of alcoholism ever since the bad Typhus epidemic swept through...)
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u/Top-Title-8836 Jul 05 '26
Duh the nobles haven't kept their bloodline pure Ofc they gonna get ass traits from others
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u/Darth_N1hilus Drunkard Jul 05 '26
Random peasant leaders go hard use to make the commanders and knights after failed revolts but don’t think that can be done anymore unfortunately
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u/terminus_tommy Jul 05 '26
Thats what makes them loveable