[Mod] Chinese Mod

Zusk · Apr 7, 2014

Chinese mod is a mod for CK2 that allows for East Asian and South East asian characters to spawn in Northern India. Current features include

*Two New Culture Groups
*Eight New Cultures that are both usable with the ruler customization DLC and will randomly appear as courtiers in Indo-Aryan leaders courts through events. The new cultures are currently;
-Chinese
-Japanese
-Korean
-Tibetan
-Khmer
-Viet
-Thai
-Shan
*Over eighty new historical dynasties for these new cultures!
*Ten new events!
*Compatible with most everything!

Download Link for the newest version 1.2, Released April 11th: http://www.mediafire.com/download/qbzwvcoj4z4rglp/Chinese_Mod_1.2.rar

Change log;
1.3;
April 11th, 2014
Download link for 1.2: http://www.mediafire.com/download/qbzwvcoj4z4rglp
Incorporated the Chinese Portaits mod
Added a new religion for Chinese Pure Land Buddhism!
Added a new, very rare event to simulate a Chinese Warband entering India
Added new options to some of the old events
Reduced the MTTH for most of the Buddhist pilgrim events
Fixed a few issues with the South East Asian Cultures
Still working on that CoA, should get it finished next version

1.1;
April 7th, 2014
Download link for 1.1: http://www.mediafire.com/download/i1fejmtlyb0x6b5
Added Tibetan, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Shan, Thai and Khmer cultures
Added over 50 new dynasties for the new cultures
Added 7 new events these characters.
Japanese and Korean culture characters are extremely rare and will only spawn in Bengali and Assamese provinces with a extremely long MTTH
Slightly increased the MTTH of the initial events in order to balance things out.

1.0; Initial Release
April 6th, 2014
Download Link for 1.0: https://www.mediafire.com/?gzrcznqrek369ol
Added the Chinese Culture
Added 30 different dynasties for Chinese characters
Added 3 events for spawning Chinese characers in Indo-Aryan Courts

It is advised you use the Mongol Portrait Pack DLC with this mod
Thanks to cybrxkhan and fargoniac for their work in the "New Cultures" thread.

Future plans:

I have a set of custom COA's for the custom Dynasties already packed into the mod but I cant for the life of me figure out how to
use them. Ill try fiddling with them later but for now ill stick with the default for the sake of compatibility.
The Kara-Khitan decides to expand further into Central Asia?
More Chinese interaction with the Indians?

Jokolytic · Apr 7, 2014

This is good! I would prefer to see Tibet but this is altogether a nice idea. Although I would imagine at least some of the Chinese travelers to be Christians or Muslims.

antigravitycat · Apr 7, 2014

Very nice, I'm going to download and test you mod. I was wondering if Paradox added any interaction between Chinese and Indian Buddhist monastics and rulers, like there was in history, but sadly I didn't find anything related to that in the expansion.

ahhheygao · Apr 7, 2014

Nice, I'll take a look at what events you've added! In my private mod, I introduced the Chinese and the Khitans only from the Silk Road, so perhaps I'll incorporate your India diplomatic/religious/trade route as well.

But "Middle Kingdom"...? Pssh, any true Chinese would know that the proper translation should be "Center Kingdom!"

Zusk said:
I have a set of custom COA's for the custom Dynasties already packed into the mod but I cant for the life of me figure out how to
use them. Ill try fiddling with them later but for now ill stick with the default for the sake of compatibility.

It's fairly simple to edit the coats_of_arms.txt interface file, but you'll need to create a NEW religion for the Chinese in order for them to use that unique Chinese-style CoA--otherwise, they'll be forced to use the Indian CoAs when they're Buddhists (or you'd have to force Indian Buddhists to use Chinese CoAs). So what I did in my private personal mod is that I created a clone of the Buddhist religion called Chan Buddhist (Chinese Buddhist would work, too, but it's too long for my liking).

Zusk said:
The Kara-Khitan decides to expand further into Central Asia?

Do it. You must.

Zusk said:
More Chinese interaction with the Indians?

Quite a few Chinese Buddhists made pilgrimages to India, not to mention the Indian sea trade with Southern Chinese merchants. Yes, there are diplomatic ties between India and the Chinese dynasties, but my impression is that diplomatic interaction is much rarer than the religious and trade interactions.

Zusk said:
Reworked portraits?

You might want to ask rein005 for permission to use (OR modify) his Chinese Portrait Mod as base; it's a good place to start. I had actually already been working on my own Chinese Portrait Mod before he uploaded his, so what I ended up doing was combining our two mods together and incorporating the best elements of both into my private mod... but since yours is released to the public, you'll need to ask for his permission.

Zusk said:
Tibetan influence?

Yes, please.

Zusk said:
More off-screen cultures being seen such as Southern African Pagans appearing in Ethiopia, South East Asians appearing in India and maybe even far off cultures such as Koreans and Japanese appearing extremely rarely?

South East Asians had heavy interaction with India. Koreans, Japanese, and Jurchens on the other hand sound far less likely... though I wouldn't be surprised if some Korean Buddhists did historically make the pilgrimage during that time period.

cybrxkhan · Apr 7, 2014

Looks interesting. For what it's worth I do currently have the Khitan in my VIET mod (I'll probably get around to adding in an invasion for them soonish, and Chinese-esque features for them in the far future), so you might be interested in that.

Zusk · Apr 7, 2014

ahhheygao said:
-snip-

I wanted to avoid making a new religion just yet simply because I wanted to keep the mod as compatible and as small as possible for the moment being. If I do add custom religions I will probably add "Neo-Confucian" with "Confucian", "Shenism" and "Taoism" as heresies.

I only really have a few events, considering also making the ones with flavor that I added a bit more rare while adding a generic "Chinese traders arrive in $PROVINCENAME" so that there is not a disgruntled chinese general arriving in northern india every 200 years.

The Kara-Khitan could really work as a sort of mini-horde before the arrival of the larger ones.

Ill definitely contact rein005 about it, I need to be careful with changing the culture too much though as if I use the Mongol Portraits at all as a base and edit them I will need to add a "DLC check" event so that people need to have the Mongol Facepack DLC installed in order to play the mod.

I would like for South East Asian nations to have their own portraits as well but I don't believe anyone has done anything for that yet, ill need to look into it.

ahhheygao · Apr 7, 2014

Zusk said:
I wanted to avoid making a new religion just yet simply because I wanted to keep the mod as compatible and as small as possible for the moment being. If I do add custom religions I will probably add "Neo-Confucian" with "Confucian", "Shenism" and "Taoism" as heresies.

I'm of the opinion that Confucianism itself isn't a religion, and that its core nature should already be embodied in the Han Chinese culture. As for Shenism... I understand why you'd make it a heresy, but it's more like an unreformed version of Daoism as well as Neo-Confucianism. Neo-Confucianism is more like the reformed hybrid version of Confucianism/Chinese Buddhism/Daoism/Shenism concepts, though I don't think you can make a single religion the "reformed version" of multiple religions in CK2.

Zusk said:
The Kara-Khitan could really work as a sort of mini-horde before the arrival of the larger ones.

They should definitely be a menacing horde in Central Asia... who will in turn become the first victim when the Mongol hordes show up and explicitly target them.

Zusk said:
Ill definitely contact rein005 about it, I need to be careful with changing the culture too much though as if I use the Mongol Portraits at all as a base and edit them I will need to add a "DLC check" event so that people need to have the Mongol Facepack DLC installed in order to play the mod.

You don't need to include most of the Mongol portrait files... you can just reference them, and if the player doesn't have those files, tough luck--he'd probably get Chinese Arabs instead. I recall rein005 made some slight female eye modifications for his pack, but those are completely optional.

ahhheygao · Apr 7, 2014

Anyway, I've taken a look at what you've done... and I offer you my Coat of Arm files, if you're interested. Up to you. If you do decide to use them, just be sure to give credits.

Preview images:

The entry in coats_of_arms.txt:

Code:

culture = {
	religion = {
		"chan_buddhism"
		"confucianism"
		"daoism"
		"manichaeism"
	}
	
	templates = { 
		"coa_plain_muslim:1"
#		"coa_plain_pagan:1"
	}

	color = {
		{ 255 231 93 }		# 0		Gold
		{ 245 245 245 } 	# 1 	White
		{ 35 101 29 } 		# 2 	Dark Green
		{ 176 0 0 } 		# 3		Red
		{ 225 122 122 } 	# 4 	Rose Pink
		{ 20 20 20 }		# 5 	Black
		{ 80 40 0 }		# 6 	Brown
		{ 130 0 0 }		# 7 	Dark Red
		{ 205 87 10 }		# 8 	Orange
		{ 163 211 156 } 	# 9 	Grass Green
		{ 128 0 40 }		# 10 	Mulberry
		{ 11 11 118 }		# 11  	Deep Blue
		{ 133 194 226 }		# 12	Sky Blue
		{ 195 195 195 }		# 13	Silver
		{ 48 92 164 } 		# 14   	Blue
		{ 120 81 169 } 		# 15   	Royal Purple
		{ 0 168 107 } 		# 16 	Jade Green
	}
	
	rebel_colors = { 3 5 7 }
	
	banned_colors = 
	{
		{ 0 1 4 9 13 }				#0 Gold
		{ 1 0 9 13 }				#1 White
		{ 2 4 6 8 9 10 11 12 15 }		#2 Dark Green
		{ 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 15 16 }			#3 Red
		{ 4 0 2 8 9 16 }		#4 Rose Pink
		{ 5 6 15 }						#5 Black
		{ 6 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 11 12 15 16 } #6 Brown
		{ 7 3 6 8 10 11 15 16 }			#7 Dark Red
		{ 8 2 3 4 6 7 9 10 12 }		#8 Orange
		{ 9 0 1 2 3 4 6 8 12 13 }		#9 Light Green
		{ 10 2 3 6 7 8 11 15 16 }			#10 Mulberry
		{ 11 2 3 4 6 7 10 14 15 }			#11 Deep Blue
		{ 12 2 3 4 8 9 10 13 16 }		#12 Sky Blue
		{ 13 0 1 9  }				#13 Silver
		{ 14 2 3 4 6 7 10 11 15 16 } 		#14 Blue
		{ 15 2 3 5 6 7 10 11 14 16 }			#15 Royal Purple
		{ 16 3 4 6 7 10 12 14 15 }		#16 Jade Green
	}

	emblem = {
		file = "gfx\\coats_of_arms\\emblem_muslim.dds"
		noOfFrames = 1
	}

	# WHEN ADDING NEW, ALWAYS ADD AT THE END
	textures = {
		texture = {
			file = "gfx\\coats_of_arms\\pattern_chinese.tga"
			size = { x = 10 y = 6 }
			noOfFrames = 60
			color = 2
			emblem = no
		}
		texture = {
			file = "gfx\\coats_of_arms\\pattern_chinese1.tga"
			size = { x = 10 y = 6 }
			noOfFrames = 60
			color = 2
			emblem = no
		}
		texture = {
			file = "gfx\\coats_of_arms\\pattern_chinese2.tga"
			size = { x = 10 y = 6 }
			noOfFrames = 60
			color = 2
			emblem = no
		}
	}

Initially, I did make them triple-colored, but the auto-generated CoAs always turned out badly even when I tried to restrict certain color combos... so now I'm only using dual-colors.
I did have two-character family names at first (like Sima, Zhuge, Xiaho), but I didn't like how they turned out, so I just removed them altogether.
I had actually prepared over 500 family names (many of them historical ones from the Tang/Song census), but I quickly realized that having to click 500 times just to cycle through so many CoAs was a huge pain in the ass in-game because of the lack of random-generate option and drop-down menu selection.
I'm well aware that not all of them line up or center perfectly; the reason I didn't bother to correct them is because I'm using Zoroastrian/Muslim interface for Chinese, and the Zoroastrian/Muslim interface is notoriously inconsistent with how the CoAs are centered. No matter how I fix them, they'll always look off-centered somewhere, so I just stopped caring.

As for Chinese army unit avatars, I recommend the following combinations; these combinations were select after extensive and comprehensive testing of all vanilla components (used or unused) and currently released unit DLCs. My design philosophy is opposite of most modders' (including yours)--I will use every DLC resource at my disposal as I see fit, no compromises. The parts that aren't bolded are optional/whatever and can be replaced to a more generic and inclusive piece.

Light Infantry: Turkish Light Infantry model (turkish_light_infantry) + Dervish sword (holy_order_dervish_sword); the Dervish sword looks strikingly similar to the Chinese jian. Ideally I'd like to use Turkish Light Cavalry Rider model (turkish_light_cavalry), but unfortunately that model lacks the standing animation so it doesn't work for infantry.

Archers: Turkish Pikemen model (turkish_pikeman) + composite bow (Bow_02); the Turkish Pikemen model highly resembles the typical medieval Chinese armor outfits.

Heavy Infantry: Turkish Pikemen model (turkish_pikeman) + Dervish sword (holy_order_dervish_sword) + Arab iron shield (Shield_Arab_01); as seen in screenshot in above post.

Pikemen: Turkish Pikemen model (turkish_pikeman) + Byzantine spear (byzantine_pike); the Byzantine spear is arbitrarily chosen because it looks the best to me. Note: the pike, not the guisarme used by Byzantine Pikemen.

Light Cavalry: Turkish Light Cavalry Rider model (turkish_light_cavalry) + Indian Light Cavalry horse (indian_light_cavalry_horse) + Byzantine spear (byzantine_pike); again, the Byzantine spear is arbitrarily chosen because it looks the best to me; the Turkish Light Cavalry horse is the same as the Indian version, except it has extra pair of composite bow and quiver of arrows. To me, that backup set is more befitting of Mongols/steppe tribes more than the Chinese. The standard vanilla light horse is okay, too, but it doesn't look as good as the Indian/Turkish versions.

Horse Archer: same as Light Cavalry, except with vanilla composite bow (Bow_02).

Knights: Turkish Pikemen model (turkish_pikeman) + Russian heavy horse (Russian_Heavy_Horse) + western banner (Banner_Sword); Western banner is so that they show country CoA on the flag; the triangular Muslim banner doesn't show CoA. I chose Russian heavy horse because it looks the most badass out of all the Eastern armored horses, but you can of course go with vanilla Muslim, Turkish, Indian, Finno-Ugric, or Byzantine heavy horses as well.

Zusk · Apr 7, 2014

Updated to 1.1! See the changelog in the OP for what was added

ahhheygao said:
I'm of the opinion that Confucianism itself isn't a religion, and that its core nature should already be embodied in the Han Chinese culture. As for Shenism... I understand why you'd make it a heresy, but it's more like an unreformed version of Daoism as well as Neo-Confucianism. Neo-Confucianism is more like the reformed hybrid version of Confucianism/Chinese Buddhism/Daoism/Shenism concepts, though I don't think you can make a single religion the "reformed version" of multiple religions in CK2.

They should definitely be a menacing horde in Central Asia... who will in turn become the first victim when the Mongol hordes show up and explicitly target them.

You don't need to include most of the Mongol portrait files... you can just reference them, and if the player doesn't have those files, tough luck--he'd probably get Chinese Arabs instead. I recall rein005 made some slight female eye modifications for his pack, but those are completely optional.

I think a character that follows the Chinese Folk religion can be simulated by simply making them the "Pagan". As most of confucianism is really off of the map having things like reformation would not really work for them.

ahhheygao said:
-snip-

Really wonderful work here! I have a issue though, mainly in that the characters you use for the CoA's don't match up with the dynasties I use. As I don't want the dynasty CoA to not match up to what the character actually means such as 元 being the CoA for the Yuan Dynasty.

If you could send me your CoA file I could get this working though!

Super-Soviet · Apr 7, 2014

ahhheygao said:
Nice, I'll take a look at what events you've added! In my private mod, I introduced the Chinese and the Khitans only from the Silk Road, so perhaps I'll incorporate your India diplomatic/religious/trade route as well.

Please release this.

ahhheygao · Apr 7, 2014

Zusk said:
I think a character that follows the Chinese Folk religion can be simulated by simply making them the "Pagan".

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Shenism is so embedded in Chinese culture that anyone NOT Buddhist wouldn't consider it a heresy. In the end, I just chose not to represent it by itself, using that same "part of the culture" cop-out excuse.

Zusk said:
Really wonderful work here! I have a issue though, mainly in that the characters you use for the CoA's don't match up with the dynasties I use. As I don't want the dynasty CoA to not match up to what the character actually means such as 元 being the CoA for the Yuan Dynasty.

If you could send me your CoA file I could get this working though!

Okay yah, I understand what you mean. You've been referencing static-image coat of arms in your 00_dynasties.txt a la Dynasty Shields DLC, but once you have all the Chinese characters you want in the CoA pattern templates, you can just dynamically reference the template code to generate the result you want. Okay, here's the Photoshop file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xru8iiygufo3upt/Zusk.zip

The font I used was DFKai-SB, Regular, 48pt, Strong, RGB 255/0/0

I don't understand why there are two "Song" duplicates, though:

Super-Soviet said:
Please release this.

Zusk can probably do it just as well/better than I did; all I've done so far was adding a new Khitan horde event as well as having occasional Chinese courtiers show up along the Silk Road provinces. I haven't gotten around to filling out all of the Kara-Khitan's character and province history entries because I usually play 867 anyway.

Zusk · Apr 7, 2014

ahhheygao said:
I guess what I'm trying to say is that Shenism is so embedded in Chinese culture that anyone NOT Buddhist wouldn't consider it a heresy. In the end, I just chose not to represent it by itself, using that same "part of the culture" cop-out excuse.

Okay yah, I understand what you mean. You've been referencing static-image coat of arms in your 00_dynasties.txt a la Dynasty Shields DLC, but once you have all the Chinese characters you want in the CoA pattern templates, you can just dynamically reference the template code to generate the result you want. Okay, here's the Photoshop file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xru8iiygufo3upt/Zusk.zip

The font I used was DFKai-SB, Regular, 48pt, Strong, RGB 255/0/0

I don't understand why there are two "Song" duplicates, though:

Zusk can probably do it just as well/better than I did; all I've done so far was adding a new Khitan horde event as well as having occasional Chinese courtiers show up along the Silk Road provinces. I haven't gotten around to filling out all of the Kara-Khitan's character and province history entries because I usually play 867 anyway.

Thanks for catching that, It looks like I messed up there, got the symbols mixed up.

Thanks a lot man, ill work on getting these in right now.

.Me · Apr 7, 2014

I am very interested in this mod, I and bitmapmedivh we are working on a mod centered in China, complete with a map that reaches Japan. We have already added a series of portraits and much more, what do you think of a collaboration?

some screenshots of the portraits:
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/794065437385056769/5279C740DC2615DAAC8012A7E35FF70F6427E4D3/
http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/794065437385061612/26E3C9A5E5958E5E884EE7D23E191C8D2700F11F/
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/794065437385066301/5ADEB7D0278F9D14C1F0E82125CAD2F579B9D57C/
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/794065437385070281/61C40AFA526E07D4427CD871B6DD9188AC8DB4B2/
http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/794065437385075250/C969301DB3BFD6E7CF7725EE96918966DD3A4C6E/

(obviously for the Chinese we use the magnificent chinese portraits pack of rein005)

Zusk · Apr 7, 2014

.Me said:
I am very interested in this mod, I and bitmapmedivh we are working on a mod centered in China, complete with a map that reaches Japan. We have already added a series of portraits and much more, what do you think of a collaboration?

some screenshots of the portraits:
http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/...18966DD3A4C6E/
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/...D9188AC8DB4B2/
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/...AD2F579B9D57C/
http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/...91C8D2700F11F/
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/...FF70F6427E4D3/

The screenshots are not working for me, regardless the project sounds pretty cool! Send me a message about it!

.Me · Apr 7, 2014

Zusk said:
The screenshots are not working for me, regardless the project sounds pretty cool! Send me a message about it!

I edited the post, try now, however, ok

Zusk · Apr 7, 2014

.Me said:
I edited the post, try now, however, ok

It works for me now, really looks wonderful! I love it.

Send me a message about it, I would love to collab with you guys.

Goodfortune99 · Apr 7, 2014

Really chool looking mod you have here my friend! Any more flavour events planned for this mod?

.Me · Apr 7, 2014

Zusk said:
It works for me now, really looks wonderful! I love it.

Send me a message about it, I would love to collab with you guys.

ok, I sent you a message

Zusk · Apr 7, 2014

roplox said:
Really chool looking mod you have here my friend! Any more flavour events planned for this mod?

Of course! planning on adding for example some events to expand on the "Chinese Envoy comes to our Kingdom" event either culminating in the chinese closing off relations with your nation/declaring war against you or the chinese opening up trade relations with your nation.

Really planning a ton of flavor events

CiderMuffin · Apr 8, 2014

A thing you should consider, instead of just lumping the group as Chinese could you make them into Cantonese and Han? Maybe during the time of the Yuan Dynasty and Mongol empire there is a chance that instead of Cantonese and Han you receive Mongolian visitors.

Also is this just events or do you plan on adding countries like Tibet, Malaysia, or lower parts of China?

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