A complaint from a veteran player.

The virgin event was likely a regional Joan of Arc event, they're still in. I never saw the greeting of armies thing, and I've basically been playing since 1.0.

sivistojko said:

4. Perhaps the most disappointing thing about Muslim rulers is that they don't have harems. What kind of Sultan or Caliph are you if you don't have a harem?

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According to many muslim scriptures, four women is the maximum amount one man is allowed to marry, so to answer your question: a good Sultan or Caliph.

Totally agree!

PDS could in my opinion develop a mod that added events and decisions, and which was as large in content as say Song of the Old Gods, and costed about the same, and I'd definitely buy it. Heck, a team of 2 or 3 writers, 2 or 3 artists, and 2 or 3 programmers could probably make a huge "Stories of the Old World" mod that was nothing more than events and decisions intended to enhance the rest of the game in less than a year of solid work.

sivistojko said:

I can't remember correctly the name of event but you get several options how to greet your armies after an important war. One of them is to allow soldiers to go through "Triumph gate"... Maybe this event was after I formed the Roman empire wince the triumph gates were early Roman invention.

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Oh, that. Yes that's an SPQR thing.

Well I agree with you when it comes to events, I think it will give the game a more roleplaying feeling. Whice I personaly like.

Greeks also have the option to blind or castrate someone with 25% chance of becoming cruel, which makes me never use it...

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I don't think this works -- I've castrated and blinded hundreds, and never gotten a cruel trait out of it.

+1!!!! I love this game, but it sure can get boring between wars, while you are waiting to save money, or when you are waiting to fabricate a claim. Having are deeper, more robust role playing mechanic would be so great. Harems, more prison choices (being able to toss people in the oubliette at will), being able to send your children to join mercenary groups, etc., etc. These things just make our attachment to the characters more rich.

Reklameus said:

+1!!!! I love this game, but it sure can get boring between wars, while you are waiting to save money, or when you are waiting to fabricate a claim. Having are deeper, more robust role playing mechanic would be so great. Harems, more prison choices (being able to toss people in the oubliette at will), being able to send your children to join mercenary groups, etc., etc. These things just make our attachment to the characters more rich.

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Basically, if Johann asked me to act as the producer for a "Stories of the Old World" expansion, all I'd need is one writer for 10 to 20 hours per week, one artist for 10 to 20 hours per week, and one coder for 10 to 20 hours per week for about one year; maybe a period of 6 months where I'd need them each for a solid 20 hours per week. I would do all the planning and preparation work to make efficient use of these personnel and would need a few months to plan the project before initiating the work.

Once the project plan was completed and the project was underway, PDS could pay their staff as usual (but alloting me the specified blocks of their time) and pay me zilch throughout development. At the end of 18 months of development, PDS would receive a functioning alpha of a "Stories of the Old World" expansion (suggested retail $7.99) that added what you are asking for to the existing game. For the sake of maximizing user experience, I would suggest that the expansion would require all the major gameplay expansions up to this point (Legacy, Sons, Songs, Swords, Republics).

They could pay me nothing until the alpha was submitted, and simply pay their staff as normal during 18 month development of the alpha. At the end of that period, PDS could then contract with me to complete the final project, or we go our separate ways. Yes, I realize that such an arrangement would run the risk of me producing an expansion for them (with significant portions of their labor, but a majority of my labor) for free. Even so, it would be a page on my dossier and potentially enough to get me going as an Assistant Producer with a game studio.

Assuming they liked what I built and wanted me to act as the producer for the final released product, in terms of contract, a mere percentage of retail net would suffice for me as I mainly would view it as my 'entree' into game development. I have a lot of project management, research, teaching and publishing experience, and I'm presently working on some online certificate programs in various programming languages. But I have for years wanted to make the switch from academia to either game design (ideal) or programming. When you are my age, and lack specific experience in game design or programming it is just very hard to get the role that you are actually most suited for (Producer).

On the other hand, I could try to put together a functioning mod that was perhaps 20% of what I would propose for the alpha release, and get PDS attention that way. All things considered, in the absence of something like a gentlemen's agreement or expressed interest, I'm likely to put my time into other projects.

Anthropoid said:

Basically, if Johann asked me to act as the producer for a "Stories of the Old World" expansion, all I'd need is one writer for 10 to 20 hours per week, one artist for 10 to 20 hours per week, and one coder for 10 to 20 hours per week for about one year; maybe a period of 6 months where I'd need them each for a solid 20 hours per week. I would do all the planning and preparation work to make efficient use of these personnel and would need a few months to plan the project before initiating the work.

Once the project plan was completed and the project was underway, PDS could pay their staff as usual (but alloting me the specified blocks of their time) and pay me zilch throughout development. At the end of 18 months of development, PDS would receive a functioning alpha of a "Stories of the Old World" expansion (suggested retail $7.99) that added what you are asking for to the existing game. For the sake of maximizing user experience, I would suggest that the expansion would require all the major gameplay expansions up to this point (Legacy, Sons, Songs, Swords, Republics).

They could pay me nothing until the alpha was submitted, and simply pay their staff as normal during 18 month development of the alpha. At the end of that period, PDS could then contract with me to complete the final project, or we go our separate ways. Yes, I realize that such an arrangement would run the risk of me producing an expansion for them (with significant portions of their labor, but a majority of my labor) for free. Even so, it would be a page on my dossier and potentially enough to get me going as an Assistant Producer with a game studio.

Assuming they liked what I built and wanted me to act as the producer for the final released product, in terms of contract, a mere percentage of retail net would suffice for me as I mainly would view it as my 'entree' into game development. I have a lot of project management, research, teaching and publishing experience, and I'm presently working on some online certificate programs in various programming languages. But I have for years wanted to make the switch from academia to either game design (ideal) or programming. When you are my age, and lack specific experience in game design or programming it is just very hard to get the role that you are actually most suited for (Producer).

On the other hand, I could try to put together a functioning mod that was perhaps 20% of what I would propose for the alpha release, and get PDS attention that way. All things considered, in the absence of something like a gentlemen's agreement or expressed interest, I'm likely to put my time into other projects.

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That sounds pretty cool, and I'd wish you good luck.

Though it would have to function without ANY other DLC to be a viable paid DLC

The basic complaint is that outside of war and breed, there's nothing else to do, really. Plotting is mechanical. That's it. You can't really do much in the game, so it's warp speed until the next war. Blobbing doesn't help as it reduces the number of enemies/options and causes the game to become a this blog vs that blob. I sometimes encourage factions just to get something fun to do, like crushing a rebellion and then revoking all their kingships.

MarshalN said:

The basic complaint is that outside of war and breed, there's nothing else to do, really. Plotting is mechanical. That's it. You can't really do much in the game, so it's warp speed until the next war. Blobbing doesn't help as it reduces the number of enemies/options and causes the game to become a this blog vs that blob. I sometimes encourage factions just to get something fun to do, like crushing a rebellion and then revoking all their kingships.

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Yeah , .I just sometimes run console events during the down time , wish like the OP said more actions .
I mean am a evil cruel impaler , where is my blind or castrate as a other nation then mediterranian . ( I can mod it in , so it just a little whine for those who can't )

I really wish something more along the lines like old testament bibbles scriptures ... X number of sheeps , x number of virgins , x number of slaves and other provisions
see i kept it mild .

canuckinmontrea said:

That sounds pretty cool, and I'd wish you good luck.

Though it would have to function without ANY other DLC to be a viable paid DLC

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Hmmm . . . very mixed feelings about that. I suppose the best option from a "more options for the consumer" standpoint would be, for there to be content in the Stories DLC that would interact with and/or depend on content in each of the other paid DLCs; but which would, nonetheless, function flawlessly and without storyline gaps if the DLC is installed with only the vanilla game. My lack of actual experience in game design makes it difficult to imagine if this would really be viable or not, but I suppose it would be, though it might make the work more complicated.

I had an idea a while back I thought would have been so amazing but then I gave up when I saw how resource hungry the game was without it. I hate how you can at a glance know every single trait a person has across the entire known world. I wished that the only way to learn traits was through interaction in some fashions. Like if you are trying to get married you can either blindly marry or court choices for a bit. At the most one should only know the traits of friends, enemies, and their court members and maybe vassals. Everything else should require some sort of interaction like spywork, diplomacy, courtship, or some other such thing.

sivistojko said:

Greeks also have the option to blind or castrate someone with 25% chance of becoming cruel, which makes me never use it...

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Bah, cruel rulers are so nice!

The triumph event (which I presume you're describing) only fires if you're playing as the (E)RE and have just won a major war - e.g. an invasion, GHW, jihad, etc.

CplKatie said:

I had an idea a while back I thought would have been so amazing but then I gave up when I saw how resource hungry the game was without it. I hate how you can at a glance know every single trait a person has across the entire known world. I wished that the only way to learn traits was through interaction in some fashions. Like if you are trying to get married you can either blindly marry or court choices for a bit. At the most one should only know the traits of friends, enemies, and their court members and maybe vassals. Everything else should require some sort of interaction like spywork, diplomacy, courtship, or some other such thing.

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That would be very cool. But yeah, would seem to involve a veritable complete overhaul of the engine. Since they didn't do that b/w II and I I'm guessing it would be quite an undertaking.

CplKatie said:

I had an idea a while back I thought would have been so amazing but then I gave up when I saw how resource hungry the game was without it. I hate how you can at a glance know every single trait a person has across the entire known world. I wished that the only way to learn traits was through interaction in some fashions. Like if you are trying to get married you can either blindly marry or court choices for a bit. At the most one should only know the traits of friends, enemies, and their court members and maybe vassals. Everything else should require some sort of interaction like spywork, diplomacy, courtship, or some other such thing.

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That's a cool idea. Maybe you could have 1-3 ambassadors or so who could travel to other courts and send back reports telling you what going on there. You would then learn the stats of everyone there plus alliances, who their vassals are,Newhart they rule, the state of their holdings, wars they are fighting and troop movements, etc. of that court. Even if it had no effect on the AI it would add a really nice "Fog of Peace" for the player.

Maybe you could hire additional ambassadors (aka spies) from time to time to expand your knowledge of the world as the game progresses and your court becomes more sophisticated about the world at large.

A few that I have ideas for:

Sonnets Under the Tea Olive Tree - eastern merchants offer to sell saplings, as they grow the unlock various events involving people in court, and the player can always just cut them down. Unlocks for a player under age 55 and older than 20 who has at least 100 florins and a spouse with whom they are not in love. I would envision at least a dozen event forks spaced out every 5 to 10 years, and with decision trees that can spawn sub-event series and have a wide range of differing effects on both the player his family and court. The central theme of the tree story would be that the tree is beautiful and symbolizes the potential for connubial love and devotion or some such crap like that . . .

The Haunted Cellar - One of the players clerics believes his cellar is haunted. Is it worth the risk to explore it yourself. Unlocks for all ruler types if they have a local cleric with Paranoid trait and positive relations with the player. At least 3 decision popups that can lead to either death of the character, insanity, finding a treasure, gaining a trait, probably brave.

Nurgul's Frugal wife - Your court cook's frugality is driving the man insane. He pleads with you to help him to learn to convince her to spend the the ample savings they have accumulated. They are a childless couple and quite aged so what they have not spent when they die will go to the church. The event would put the character in the role of private detective/therapist and reveal certain shocking secrets that could lead to kidnapping, murder, rebellion or ill-gotten wealth.

The loyal doggie - the player acquires a miniature spaniel dog, and a series of events involve training and adventuring with the dog, consequently shaping both the dog and the character.

Rekindling the flame - spawns for a male character whose wife has the gluttonous trait and for whom relations are less than 50. Player must choose to how to deal with his wives worsening problem with gluttony and obesity.

. . . and on and on and on I could go for pages. Those are just a few generic ones (meaning available to all character types, irrespective of religion, culture, age or sex) that I came up with off the top of my head, based on folk tales or famous stories that occurred to me. Ideally there would be about 500 or perhaps as many as 1000 of these, stratified into a typologocial structure: pre-conditions such as personality traits or specific relations; potential gains and losses; type of story, etc.

I would envision a whole taxonomy of events so there would be half dozen to a dozen distinct events for young male rulers of Tengri religion, another 3 to 7 for aged Tengri, another 4 for pre-menopausal female Tengri, and 9 for post-menopausal Tengri (something like that). The same would be true of every religion: 15 to 24 events each for male and female rulers of all religions (stratified across age segments as just described). some religions might deserve more than others, but the basic idea is to create a body of events that have some pre-conditions to fire so that they will generally only fire in about 1/3rd of play throughs. A similar breakdown of events could be done for culture+religion specific characters (French Catholics, Occitan Catholics, etc.).

Approaching it this way would yield a pretty large set of events comprising: culture/religion generic events that occur depending on secular or idiosynratic features but otherwise can occur at virtually any time in the game to any ruler; religion and/or culture specific events.

Other even family categories that could be expanded and stratified in similar fashion would deal with:
historical eras
geopolitical pre-conditions
recent historical events (wars, betrothals, marriages, granting of lands, etc.)
physiography of the demesne/realm (e.g., demesne of three or more counties that with >50 percent coastal counties; demesne with three or more counties with >50 percent mountainous counties; demesne with only one county; demesne with two castles, etc., etc.)

What I'm talking about here is enough events to literally fill a 750 page book with the text involved, for all events, and probably a lot more than that if the code is counted too. The game would become a living breathing "story" of leading your dynasty through history if sufficient time and effort are put into something like this. It is totally understandable PDS has not done something like this: the base game and the expansions necessary to make most of the major alternative cultures/religions of the era and area playable needed to be completed first. But now that that somewhat anorexic figure is alive and well, it is time to put some serious meat on her bones!