I've been tracking my current town, now in it's 46th game year. I've had just under 1100 people inhabit it in the 230 (RL) years it's existed.
A total of 492 citizens have died in that time.
459 citizens have died of 'Old Age'. Outside the first 3 years, the town has been at 5 hearts and 5 stars. The town has been at full education (except for nomads) since the beginning. There is currently 1 hospital open and staffed full time.
No citizen dies of old age before their 60th birthday. No citizen lives past their 90th.
Of the 459 old age deaths over 230 years:
74 people have died between 60 and 64
79 people have died between 65 and 69
93 people have died between 70 and 74
82 people have died between 75 and 79
64 people have died between 80 and 84
67 people have died between 85 and 90
13 people have died at 60
7 people have died at 90
Other deaths include
2 by cave in (26, 71)
8 in childbirth (33, 21, 28, 40, 37, 32, 34, 39)
12 crushed by rocks (20, 55, 71, 46, 70, 20, 32, 61, 22, 48, 58, 26)
1 burned in the forge (25)
1 froze to death (21)
1 hunting accident (67)
2 from Measles (44, 28)
1 from bad medicine (19)
4 from starvation (44, 51, 50, 20) (pre 1.02 patch)
1 from a weak heart (38)
Average age at death for all deaths is 71.66 years
Average age for old age deaths is 73.99 years
Of the 612 currently living citizens
91 are under the age of 9 (2 game years)
84 are 10 - 19 years old (2 - 4 game years)
90 are 20 - 29 years old (4 - 6 game years)
91 are 30 - 39 years old (6 - 8 game years)
87 are 40 - 49 years old (8 - 10 game years)
66 are 50 - 59 years old (10 - 12 game years)
51 are 60 - 69 years old (12 - 14 game years)
42 are 70 - 79 years old (14 - 16 game years)
10 are 80 - 89 years old (16 - 18 game years)
I have been pursuing an aggressive growth strategy as I reach for a goal of 500 houses built.
Thank you, torgonius. Excellent research.
These are interesting statistics. Thank you for posting them!
This is truly excellent... would help get a good idea about how many graves you'll need factoring in the death rate + decay rate !
I didn't understand the 230 RL year part though.. You are in year 46, so what's 230?
@nmid I am guessing he means years that the people themselves age as opposed to one game year (4 seasons).
A citizen ages 5 years in every game year. Equating 1/1 with 1701 means that now in 4/47 in game, the year is 1932. I'll post the links to my conversion chart, citizen tracker and family tree when I get home from work later.
@torgonius, in the game I'm currently working on (fanfic to be posted) I've had four people die so far of old age (2 in childbirth as well), all under 65. Sometimes I hate probabilities in the short run. I've got 4 of the original 8 adults left, so we'll see how they go.
I'd love to do a study on how average health impacts life expectancy.
My current game has been 5 hearts since the 3rd year, so it could mean I've skewed the data towards a maximum.
I just never leave the game long enough at 2.5 hearts to collect meaningful data.
That's one of the most awesome things about this game though... we have to solve the puzzles ourselves.
Sorry for the slight necro but I am interested in what climate was used in your game (and if this might have some sort of effect).
I could almost swear that I've had citizens die of old age in their (late) 50's. In fact I'm almost certain of it happening in my last game... but maybe it could have been a husband at 60 with a younger wife of 55ish...
I have also seen posted a number of claims on other sites of citizens reaching older than 90 although I have never seen it myself.
I had a fellow the other day who made it just to 90. Here's the stats from that town by the end of Year 19:
1 in the 20-25 range (childbirth)
1 in the 25-30 range (childbirth)
6 in the 60-65 range
10 in the 65-70 range
5 in the 70-75 range
3 in the 75-80 range
2 in the 80-85 range
2 in the 85-90 range
1 in the 90-95 range
My sense is that this is close to what
@torgonius got.
Note that this comes from the genealogy program I was using to track families and I had to convert Game-Year/Season into calendar years, so the age may not be a precise match to the age reported in-game. Because 12 seasons = 5 life-years the math of converting involves rounding errors. It would have been way easier if 12 seasons were 4 or 6 life years.
I ran my town a bit longer. 90 is the hard cut for age. I watched several people who were 89 die as soon as they hit 90.
I was away for a couple of weeks, so I haven't had a chance to run the same test with a 2.5-3 heart town.
Another thing I'd like to test is to see if the health rating declines for the 60-70 year olds before they die 'young'. For my current town, I'm doing a full census every 5 game years (25 aging years), tracking individual health and happiness.
This is a great deal of carefully crafted information gathering. Well done! I wish I had the dedication for doing this on my own, but I just don't have it in me. I always get distracted by building the town. I like to watch people when the village first starts and see how things progress, but the population reaches 20, and I've all but lost the attention span.
So thank you for those who can generate this insight for us. It's very interesting!
I hope it is okay for new members to necro some of these earlier threads.
I was thinking about death because I noticed that all of my first generation deaths were in their late 70's early 80's. That seemed quite old to me, considering what I'd seen about death ages in posts on the other forum. Does health and happiness impact aging? My health and happiness are almost always 4.5 to 5, even if there is a hard season of cold or hunger as along as recovery is quick. Now that things are stable and I have too much food and plenty of variety, I wonder if people will live even longer. I hope anybody doing detailed census analysis will post their research about what impacts life expectancy.
In the first 17 years of Boltona, there have been 24 deaths by old age. The eldest was 86, the youngest was 60, and the average was 75. I believe that the eldest I have ever seen in one of my colonies was 92.
I am also interested to know if there is any correlation between high health and longevity. My villages usually have 5 hearts after the first five years, when I have all food groups, but it seems to me that quite a few die in their 60's, even low sixties, while of course I do have a few that hang on until their 80's. But it seems to me more die in 60's. Could just be my imagination, as I have done no tracking at all.
I have not noticed a connection between health, happiness and life span.
@slink, 92 is the oldest I've ever heard of. The highest I've seen is 90. I'm not sure that life span isn't at the mercy of the Great God RNG who in his/her infinite wisdom grants long life as seems fitting. Seriously, I had a person last night who had 1 half of 1 heart health and was the primary carrier in a typhus epidemic that claimed 5 or 6 lives. She was the physician! She lived to be 80 something. Some of the people who died from Typhus had 5 hearts.
I build my cemetery so that it will be done about the time the oldest settlers hit 60. Aside from a random accidental death, this keeps everyone happy. My towns are usually 5 hearts by then and I see people die anywhere between 60-and the upper 80s'. If there is some causation effect going on, I have not been able to discover it.
Just a random point, based on some comments above.. When one measures the age of death, and compares it to the health, and say, "guy died at 60 with 5 hearts", did he have 5 hearts all along? Is it possible that part of the age of death is affected by the heart, not only at the time of death, but through the entire lifespan? If that's the case, then earlier citizens would have less of a chance to live old, as the first years of a town usually gets a little flakey for health. So you would have to wait until at least the 2nd generation to have "proper" numbers...
This is totally untested, and is a thought that came across my mind as I was reading this thread, first thing in the morning, before drinking my coffee... so take it with a grain of salt :)
In Boltona, the world years of birth and people ages at death, for the 24 people who had died by the year 17, are as follows. The immigrants had died off except for Katheron, who was still alive at age 83. I estimated their birth years by the date at which they turned 10 people years old. The next generation was only beginning to die off in year 17. There had been a total of 159 people living in the colony.
Original Immigrants
Salvaro b. -3, d. 84
Anay b. -2, d. 75
Lizabettie b. 0 d. 61
Antino b. 0 d. 80
Fredden b. -2, d. 83
Katerine b. -3, d. 68
Jarvie b. 0, d. 60
Aime b. 1, d. 73
Parrion b. -2, d. 85
Shastacy b. -2, d. 85
Drusillar b. 0, d. 86
Heller b. 0, d. 80
Katheron b. 1, still alive at 83
Lemmit b. -1, d. 78
Vincesca b. 2, d. 80
Estherine b. 0, d. 70
Lariel b. -1, d. 80
Vergio b. -2, d. 84
Jericka b. -2, d 74
Delandry b. 0, d. 73
Children Born In Colony
Tian b. 1, d. 62
Flemington b. 1, d. 78
Lornell b. 1, d. 73
Blaire b. 2, still alive at 78
Carine b. 4, still alive at 68
Mychalmers b. 4, still alive at 68
Talinett b. 4, still alive at 68
Loriano b. 4, d. 67
Zollison b. 4, d. 66
Parke b. 4, still alive at 68
Cartell b. 4, still alive at 68
Serenice b. 4, still alive at 64
Yoland b. 4, still alive at 64
Vanesha b. 4, d. 60
No more deaths beyond Vanesha, by year 17.