What are some of your wildest AI succession moments? Is this normal?

Hi, all. I’m a new player to CK3 who took advantage of Steam’s spring sale a few weeks back and bought the entire collection with all DLCs.

Anyway, I finally found time last night to play the game, and I chose the Chinese tutorial character, Qin Guan, to slowly learn about China’s new government. It has been a wild 10 years to start and I wanted to know if the AI is always this chaotic when storytelling?

You see, I married one of the starting Huangdi’s nieces, a princess with ties to the hegemony for a massive prestige boost. She was only 7, so I figured I’d have time to study and pass all the civil exams before starting a family when she came of age. That seemed smart, right? Well, the first Huangdi caught consumption and died by the end of the first year. His primary heir, a 5-6 year old boy, then took his place and immediately a civil war broke out because much of the country didn’t like that. Rightly so. Another rebellion happened shortly after the first ended, so poor guy couldn't catch a break. In the meantime, I smoozed his regent and became the ward of the young ruler so I could influence his traits and build my relationship with him, which seemed to work. He appointed me to a court position which provided nice income until I built enough merit to become a governor.

Everything was going well and he invited me to his coronation when he turned 13-14. It was cool from a roleplaying perspective. I of course went, rubbed shoulders with noble family members, and I grew my relationship with the newly crowned ruler… Well, he was newly crowned until I arrived home from the coronation and got a notification that he had died from consumption, just like his father! His younger brother then took the throne, but get this. He also died from consumption at the age of 9, ruling for only about a month! So now, the last and final son, who’s only about 4 years old, is the ruler and must deal with another civil war looming. Go figure since that appears to be a constant theme here.

Does this happen a lot in your games? Not saying I was expecting a cozy game experience by any means as this is exhilarating. I’m not sure what to expect next. It’s just crazy to think that my first playthrough in tutorial mode has filled with so much death, division and despair in such a short time!