Deus Vult Improvement Pack - Discussion

[jordarkelf]

Hi Sgian,

you can just overwrite all files. Keep in mind that if you use additional mods, you must manually merge them.
Continuing a savegame is possible, but you will not get any of the new scenario fixes until you start a new game.

If you also use the addon, continuing an old save may lead to some weird effects in inheritance laws all over the map: any country with the monastic supremacy religious law will get the female inheritance law since I had to reuse the tag. Outside of that, there should be no problems.

[Sgian Dubh]

Thanks for the quick reply and the hard work.

The only additional mods I use are a graphics mods for the screens. I am going to guess that won't have any impact...


I am going to make a new directory and put the new DVIP in there. Then copy my save game and see what happens. But I may just re-start. I'm not that far in and I really want to try some of the changes.

Thanks for continuing to make a really fun game even better!

[Galliun]

I'm not sure I should be posting here, but I will just case

Well, I have CK and DV (obviously), up to date (again, obviously), and I wanted to try some mods. Especifically (or is it specifically? I always mix them up), DVIP (+ DVIP Addons) and BOPACK, for the events. Problem is, I'm still to see any event from BOPACK, and several events from DVIP (mostly the one that makes people lose stats randomly, but there are others) appear with "UNKNOWN STRING WANTED" in every field.

What can I do to fix this? Is DVIP (+ Addon again, heh) compatible with BOPACK?

Oh, and another thing, almost forgot. When I convert to EU 2, will all the extra kingdoms appear in EU 2? Let's say I'm King of Aquitania, will Aquitania show up?

Hmm... I think that's it. Sorry if I jumbled it too much, I can re-explain if needed.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. - First post

[jordarkelf]

DVIP+Addon is compatible with event mods like Bopack, but you must manually merge the two modtext.csv files, as well as add the Bopack events to db\events.txt.
I guess you overwrote my modtext.csv file with Bopacks, and forgot to add their events to the events.txt file.
CK isn't as easy to mod as newer games unfortunately!

[Galliun]

Ha! Most likely. How do I go about fixing that, then?

Oh, and another thing, a friend of mine downloaded both DVIP and BOPACK so we could play multiplayer, but the game says we have different versions. What gives?

Edit - And damn, thanks for the fast answer!

[jordarkelf]

Take both modtext.csv files and open them in Notepad, then paste all the stuff from one of them -- except the last line(s) #EOF -- at the bottom of the other file, above the #EOF. Make sure the file still ends with that string. Put the merged file in the config folder.

To add the events to the game, add the following to the db\events.txt file:

# Bopack
event = "db\events\BOP_char_events.txt"
event = "db\events\BOP_flav_events.txt"
event = "db\events\BOP_hist_events.txt"
event = "db\events\BOP_prov_events.txt"
event = "db\events\BOP_smack_events.txt"

If you've already overwritten my files with Bopack's, it's best to redownload and re-extract.

As for the multiplayer issue - CK is EXTREMELY sensitive about all files. Graphic mods are fine, but even a single space added somewhere in a file in the other folders can throw the versions off. When I play multiplayer, we often zip up the entire config, db, and scenarios folder and share them on a forum so we all have exactly the same files.

[Galliun]

Will do. Just one last thing, I think you missed the question, I'll paste it here.

"Oh, and another thing, almost forgot. When I convert to EU 2, will all the extra kingdoms appear in EU 2? Let's say I'm King of Aquitania, will Aquitania show up?"

That sums it up. Thanks for all the help!

[jordarkelf]

I added the new tags to the default converter's conversion file, but personally I never really like the default conversion results. Still it does a rather decent job, and so I tried to find good matches for the converter. Aquitaine converts to one of the French minors, Toulouse; Lotharingia to Lorraine, etc..

3rd party converters can do a better job, but you'll need to manually add the tags: EU2, EU3.

[Galliun]

As sort of a follow-up to my last question, considering I'm getting EU 2, what mods should I get that would fit in with DVIP the best? AGCEEP? Any other?

And if I go with EU 3 (plus expansions)?

Edit - Pfeh, I don't even know why I'm asking, I'm still a long way from getting there. It's still 1250 here, heh.

[jordarkelf]

For both games, the more tags and cultures that are available, the better the conversion will be.
I'd go with AGCEEP for EU2, and MMP for EU3.

Bear in mind no automated conversion will be perfect: I have converted a game to EU3 three times so far, in all cases I had to manually go in and adjust the result -- even after starting with a good modified converter cvdata.txt file.
A good conversion takes a lot of time to setup -- imagine the Turks and Arabs are wiped off the map. How do you represent the effects of a Christian North Africa and Middle-east, and with it an easier route to India and Africa? In such a game America might not be discovered by Europe until centuries later (why finance a discovery of a western passage if the eastern route is free?), and without the muslim threat will there instead be wars of the HRE against the Byzantine ERE?

[Galliun]

Ah, but that is what makes this interesting!

Anyway, I'm sure that, by the time I switch to EU (be it 2 or 3), I'll come here and ask for help again. If I can't figure it out on my own, of course

By the way, which do you recommend? EU 2 or 3? I was looking at some pics, and the 3d interface of EU 3 didn't appeal to me, but EU 2 might be... not as good. What to do, what to do...

[jordarkelf]

I prefer EU3, especially for a conversion game. EU2 only has historical events, which might not make sense: if the ERE survives, it will have no events, likewise a Kingdom of Jerusalem will have nothing to do all game long. And the existing countries will be railroaded: HUN will be declaring war on a small Turkish state in far asia because it happens to have gotten the TUR tag, and maybe in your game England and France are long-time allies or even held by the same family, but in EU2 suddenly they start fighting wars because history tells them to.

EU3 OTOH has contextual events, which fit the altered setup better: events generally make sense, and are tied to situations, not countries. It also has almost no tag limit, so you can create as many countries as you need to convert.

If you do decide to convert to EU2, you should make sure all countries that do not resemble their historical situation use the fantasy AI file, not their proper one. Or rewrite their AI files yourself (if you know how to).

[Varnado]

If you're still working on perfecting DVIP, I'd like to talk to you about Bosnia. I'm proposing a small change that shouldn't take much time or effort. Here's what I'm talking about.

There is a very contentious debate since the nineteenth century to today over exactly which Yugoslav ethnic groups "owned" exactly which towns and regions, and this debate is nowhere more contentious than in Bosnia. Both Serb and Croat historians and archeologists like to "claim" pre-Ottoman Bosnians as among their own people. Each side has strong evidence in and against its favor. DVIP just splits Bosnia between the culture among what I think is an unrealistic line. Vanilla avoided the problem altogether by having a single Yugoslav culture.

I dislike DVIP's solution, personally, since I think it is ahistoric and buying into a modern issue. I think two alternatives would be better:

First, you could create a separate Bosnian culture and give it to Bosnia. Though the culture was not very much different from either surrounding it, as far as anyone today knows, it has at least as much claim to being an independent culture at this time as Serbian or Croation do from each other. I don't know where you could get space for an extra culture from, unless you have an unused one sitting around still. That, and the fact that a free culture could be better used elsewhere, in my mind make this option inferior.

Second, you could just merge the Serbian and Croation cultures into Serbo-Croatian culture. In the middle ages, Serbs and Croats spoke the same language (as today), had no nationalist sentiments dividing them, and were really only apart religiously and geographically, both of which are already modelled outside of their in-game culture. If all Russian cultures are put together in one, why not Serbo Croation? With this solution, you'd be able to put an extra culture in. Especially if you combine them I think it's best to make the Carantanian/Slovenian culture independent, since in the past and today they are far more different from either Croats and Serbs than Croats and Serbs are from each other, and it's annoying to see at least modern Slovenia as Croation when it never has been. Really all of the duchy of Carinthia should be Carantanian culture in 1066.

[jordarkelf]

Touching the balkan is really sensitive issue. I really dislike vanilla's "south slavic" as it lumps all the Yugoslavs in one monolithic culture, from bulgarians (Macedonians) to carinthanians (Slovaks) to Croats and Serbs. The post-1.05 IPs split it between Serb and Croat, which I followed.
There aren't any extra culture tags. I have a long list of cultures I'd love to add, believe me!

Don't look too much at 'culture' by the way -- its main purpose is to decide what name list is used. And there are certainly differences in what names are/were common in Croatia vs more common Serbian names: Antonije vs Antun, Djordje vs Juraj, etc..

I welcome adjustments to the Serb/Croat split if you can recommend them, but merging or further splitting these cultures is not something I'm open to.

[loseth]

Second, you could just merge the Serbian and Croation cultures into Serbo-Croatian culture. In the middle ages, Serbs and Croats spoke the same language (as today), had no nationalist sentiments dividing them, and were really only apart religiously and geographically, both of which are already modelled outside of their in-game culture. If all Russian cultures are put together in one, why not Serbo Croation?

I agree. I think we'd get a much better result if we modelled differences in Balkan culture with the things that really mattered and that we can measure relatively well:

- Religion: Catholic or Orthodox?
- Inside or outside middle-East-Roman borders?
- Coastal or inland?
- Economically (e.g. in terms of currency) part of the East or West?
- Aside from Old Church Slavonic, most common elite language is Latin or Greek?

It’s a big project, but I’d much prefer to use events to emphasise these things than to make judgement calls on the uber-contentious issue of who’s a nation and who isn’t in the medieval Balkans.

[Varnado]

Touching the balkan is really sensitive issue. I really dislike vanilla's "south slavic" as it lumps all the Yugoslavs in one monolithic culture, from bulgarians (Macedonians) to carinthanians (Slovaks) to Croats and Serbs. The post-1.05 IPs split it between Serb and Croat, which I followed.
There aren't any extra culture tags. I have a long list of cultures I'd love to add, believe me!

Don't look too much at 'culture' by the way -- its main purpose is to decide what name list is used. And there are certainly differences in what names are/were common in Croatia vs more common Serbian names: Antonije vs Antun, Djordje vs Juraj, etc..

I welcome adjustments to the Serb/Croat split if you can recommend them, but merging or further splitting these cultures is not something I'm open to.

I think you've actually done pretty well on that issue, or at least as well as you can with the current number of cultures and Serb/Croat separated. I just think it would be better for those two to be together--names can be fudged a bit, since from everything I've seen at least Serbian and Croation were very regionally inconsistent even within themselves on that issue during the middle ages. I won't bother you any more if you would prefer not to touch it, though. I assume there isn't a way to change what names are available based on religion as well as culture, I've seen enough Christian Arabs with Muslim names in Spain in my games.

Another question--Is anyone playing with the code for CK that you know of? There are a lot of things which could really improve the game if someone is, like adding new provinces, new cultures, a better peace system, maybe even more types of titles beyond Count-Duke-King.

[jhanso]

awesome to see you that you still help all us lost souls jordarkelf. just returned from a long hiatus off CK, to rediscover that yes, i do love this game. playing as apulia ive got eyes for the papal state. now if i claim its 'kingdom' title of papal states or even steal rome, will i get some sort of christian backlash? and while i can see that i now have 'tarnished' reputation from annexing capua and salerno, so im guessing something like 5/20 (as in EU3), where can i see the actual value listed? also, DV states that it has a new system for finding wives, but it still seems to be the old manner of going through all the provinces. was the new system just one of my (many) pipe dreams, or is there a better way for finding wives/husbands?

[jordarkelf]

You should not be able to get a claim on PAPA, except by (bugged) event.

If you conquer Rome, AND the Pope does not exist, you can get events demanding you give the province up. Refusing this as a Catholic can lead to you being excommunicated. If you're not Catholic or Orthodox, there can be a call for Crusade if the Papacy does exist. The Pope may also request a province elsewhere, so sometimes you can keep Rome.

There is no way to get the raw badboy value outside of the savegame.

In DV there is the ledger, between the + and - buttons on the minimap. One of the pages lists all unmarried females and the courts they're in

[jhanso]

i really appreciate your help jordarkelf, thanks man . i swear this game got a f*ckload harder since ive been gone. another question i have is one of my children matured with high stats in dip, int and stew but when i clicked on my court screen to make her my chancellor/steward her stats showed only as 5/6/6 (when actually they were still like 11/12/12). my king was a kinslayer so this courtier had 0 loyalty, but the stats of the other courtiers who also had 0 loyalty or close to it were fine. is this a bug? or a reaction to something? also sometimes courtiers say theyre leaving my court but then they come straight back with 100 loyalty in the space of a day. that happened twice, again a bug? I learnt a lot from my stupid king who lived till 80 (and is still alive) with kinslayer for 30 years so the entire court left eventually and all the vassals had to be incorporated, in the end he won though as im just going to restart a new game. any suggestions on fun nations? in the past ive enjoyed the nations starting on the edge of christianity for the hasty expansion, but it seems things have become more difficult in terms of AI agressiveness and admin efficiency. what do u like to play?

[jordarkelf]

Stats not being right -- no idea... loyalty should not influence this.

Low loyalty courtiers leaving and returning: sort of a bug. When a courtier leaves a court by event, his loyalty is immidiately reset, but there is not always a valid court for him to depart to. In that case he will return to his home court (when departing, courtiers always return to their original home if they have no job or familial binds in another court, and their original court exists). This cannot be prevented. Another thing that helps here is that often a disloyal courtier will also be disloyal in his new court (since they tend to pick similar courts), so they might get the same event there and return home.

Fun nations -- check the threads in the main CK forum. Apulia, Poland, Denmark are some of the favourites of most. In general, any small kingdom or duchy near heathens can be fun to play. Avoid the Christian realms in the middle of Christianity, and avoid huge kingdoms like Germany and Byzantium. Micro-management (aka rebel-stomping) is not much fun in the long while.

As for settings like AI aggressiveness, I recommend low values (weakling or coward). At higher values the AI becomes suicidal. Difficulty can be any (events are scaled accordingly).

Admin efficiency should never be below 80% for too long. Low efficiency values lead to very bad effects.