It almost seems like you should make a fixing reapers due/vanilla spin off mod with all the stuff you are doing to make it more sensible.
[MOD] Tianxia: Silk Road Expansion
- Thread starter LumberKing
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I'm not terribly interested in doing a standalone "Vanilla RD rework" mod -- not because I don't want anyone else to be able to make use of my tweaks if they so desire, but because I don't really feel that I'd have the time or energy to support it as a standalone (and it'd require more work than just copying the relevant files and calling it a day, seeing as some Tianxia-specific stuff will be present in the files and would have to be separated out) -- but if someone else feels they'd like to separate the RD rework out into a vanilla-compatible mod or wants to incorporate them in some other mod, well, just ask and chances are we'll approve it with very minimal conditions (crediting Tianxia and not breaking the DLC locks, most likely).
We'll not under any circumstances be doing anything along the lines of a separate "Tianxia without the RD rework" version, seeing as that'd be a significant drain on dev resources for as long as Tianxia continues to be updated. I am keeping both the possibility that what I create might not end up being to everyone's liking and the general Tianxia approach to let vanilla take precedence where possible in mind while doing the overhaul; however, seeing as some of the Chinese alchemy/medicine stuff would be weird to have exist in a vacuum as far as RD goes if RD is active, and seeing as some of the stuff in RD that -- at least subjectively -- isn't in a good spot is highly relevant to us (e.g. the AI being able to ask its vassals to maybe not fight each other), I'd much rather make an attempt to make the whole thing work (subjectively) better than put up "Vanilla content; do not touch!" signs where I spot any issues not strictly relevant to the bare minimum necessary for Tianxia.
Tianxia's focus remains the Far East and related things rather than overhauling vanilla in general, but when we do something that is fairly closely tied to something from vanilla chances are we'll do some polishing to the vanilla setup, and if just tweaking a few numbers or adding a few checks feels insufficient a larger rework might be considered on a case-by-case basis. If any given rework ends up making someone feel that Tianxia no longer is for them, well, you can't please everyone, and at the end of the day my interest in working on Tianxia is contingent on me not having to extensively overhaul any given release version of Tianxia to make it enjoyable for me to play; I'm certainly not making every design decision based on whether it'd be what I'd do if I was modding only for myself -- and I try to do what I can to accommodate other playstyles and preferences where reasonable when implementing various things -- but given the choice between "Keep working on a Tianxia that's going to be very unenjoyable for me/that will require a ton of extra work to be made enjoyable for me" and "Take what currently exists and go off and make my own mod [that I'd likely not be publishing]" the latter option seems vastly preferable.
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Why not reach out to the Cleanslate folks? Seems like these sort of vanilla bugfixes/sanity improvements are right up their alley.
CleanSlate is about fixing non-functional script, improving performance, and fixing fairly straightforward oversights or obvious "Vanilla's devs probably inverted this command"-level issues. I don't think they'd want a larger overhaul considering that'd move them away from "Here's an unofficial final optimization/bugfix patch for vanilla to build your mod on!"; considering they've left out other reworks they're likely in favour of -- the instigators and primary contributors are the (core of?) the CK2Plus team, so CK2Plus's reworks would presumably be closer to their ideal CK2 -- I don't think they want to move away from that.
That said, considering we make use of pretty much all of their improvements and that we've got nothing against the team or what they're doing, if CleanSlate wants something from us that falls under the general "Tweaks/improvements/overhauls to/of vanilla" heading they're effectively guaranteed to get to use it if they ask.
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does tianxia compatible with other mods such as graphical mod, or mod that add new building?
Shorter answer:
Unless the mod specifically -- not "This is probably compatible with everything!" or any other generic statement to that effect -- states that it is compatible with Tianxia and it was updated fairly recently (mid-December 2023 or later), assume that it isn't compatible. If the mod was updated recently and claims to be compatible with Tianxia, then it is still the responsibility of that mod to ensure compatibility. We will not be attempting to keep track of which mods make that claim, we will not be checking that claim for them, and we will not be taking any steps whatsoever to ensure that compatibility is maintained when we update Tianxia; we'll not go out of our way to break compatibility, but "This might/would definitely break compatibility with mod X!" will not have an impact on what we do or how we do it.
Longer answer:
Graphics:
I have close to zero graphical modding experience, especially stuff like portraits and unit models, but from what I know of how CK2 modding works in general that really depends on how the mod is set up and whether that comes into conflict with Tianxia (or CleanSlate).
For example, a portrait mod that simply overrides the portrait files for southerngfx (i.e. the Iberian Portrait Pack) wouldn't run into any problems if that's all it does (at least not based on my understanding of portrait modding), while a portrait mod that adds a new spanishgfx and hooks that into the vanilla culture file would have a different outcome depending on when it is loaded -- if it loads before CleanSlate it'll be as if it never existed since CleanSlate overrides the whole cultures folder, if it loads after CleanSlate it'd result in an attempted merge that might get weird, and if it loads after Tianxia it could potentially revert some Tianxia changes to vanilla cultures; we have some of those, including for a few cultures close to the western edge of the map -- meaning the side-effects could be as mild as "The mod effectively fails to load" or as severe as "Breaks something non-graphical in Tianxia".
A "unit pack" mod would likely be similar to a portraits mod in how different the outcome might be, seeing as that's (to my understanding, at least) tied to the gfx entries for cultures in a very similar manner. A dynasty CoA mod would all but certainly either be broken or break Tianxia, seeing as there's only one interface file for hooking that in and we have changes in that file. A title flag mod would most likely be fine, though depending on the load order it might not show up properly. A title CoA frame mod would probably break or create issues, seeing as we've appended changes to CleanSlate's setup and they have changed their setup from the one vanilla uses. I have no idea about general interface mods, though we've done some tweaks there (e.g. changing the Bloodlines interface) that might conflict, and CleanSlate's major restructuring of the interface folder might result in conflicts with something that is based on the vanilla setup. Traits icon changes would probably be fine, assuming they just override the specific trait file(s) rather than the interface files. I'm not going to attempt to list everything else; in short, some things are likely to be all but guaranteed to be fine, others all but guaranteed to break stuff.
I don't really keep up with graphics mods in general (or really most other mods of any kind), but I believe BLG has a Tianxia-specific compatch/submod, which likely works at this time -- Nendur is quite experienced when it comes to portrait modding, and it was updated after 14.0.0 (and I don't believe we did anything in 14.0.1 that would have broken it) -- though we are not prepared to make any guarantees even in that case.
Buildings:
Assuming a building mod is compatible with CleanSlate, that it doesn't override any of their files that we have overrides for, that it doesn't override Tianxia's own files in a weird way (somewhat unlikely, seeing as we've got e.g. "SoH" in the file names), and that it doesn't do something with special units that fails to account for Tianxia's cultural buildings that have special units (for some hardcoded reason, each holding can at most provide one special unit type -- camels, horse archers, war elephants, or the like -- at a time), chances are a mod that adds more buildings would work if that is all it does (i.e. it just sets up building definitions and localisation for them); however, we are still not guaranteeing anything.
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Dev diary 84: Reaper's Due adjustments (part 2)
It is finally time for another dev diary, this time focusing almost entirely on the seclusion mechanic. You'll perhaps catch some localisation that's missing or odd event pictures below; both will of course be looked at before release.
Assuming you play with Reaper's Due active and aren't playing most of your games as a tribal or nomadic ruler, chances are you are very familiar with the seclusion mechanic from vanilla; a disease appears somewhere, you watch the disease map mode as it moves closer to your capital, you shut the gates, you get some often predictable events you've likely seen a lot, you run out of food because you get spammed with rats and hungry courtiers, everyone starves, and you eventually open the gates. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Overhauling the whole "You probably should go into seclusion because there's a disease nearby!" concept or the "You can't just live in seclusion forever!" idea is not really feasible -- or desirable, since the basic idea is sound -- so you'll still be expected to head into seclusion semi-frequently, and you'll eventually want to leave too, but that still leaves a good number of things.
Let's start with something very minor: Tribal rulers can now go into seclusion, seeing as there doesn't seem to be much reason to forbid that; a few events might perhaps end up being restricted for them (it'll be checked on before release), but "People are sick outside; maybe don't let anyone in or out" doesn't really require living in a castle/city/temple/family palace. They will, however, have a harder time getting sufficient food.
That brings us to a much more significant change: The food mechanic is no longer something that randomly comes into play X months into the seclusion; instead, it comes into play right from the start. Upon shutting the gates, food will be gathered from your capital, with the amount depending on how the province is doing, the terrain, and a number of other factors. The peasants might perhaps be a bit upset, but, as we all know, though some of them may die that's a sacrifice we're all willing to make, and at least they are likely to die surrounded by friends and family rather than on whichever battlefield you're sending your levies to next; never let it be said you didn't do anything for the peasants!
After shutting the gates you will -- assuming you've got at least one demesne county that food hasn't been gathered from recently -- get the opportunity to send out a foraging expedition. There's some risk of the person you send out running into trouble, however, particularly with certain traits.
Of course, if you feel that the person that went out to get food would be risky to bring back because they might make you sick -- either because there's a disease or because you dislike them -- you can thank them for their assistance and tell them that since they're already outside they can stay there. It'll end any friendships or lover relationships with them, however.
You will also -- assuming you're neither a child nor incapable -- get to pick an initial -- you will perhaps have opportunities to change it later on (it's a bit random how often you get that opportunity) -- approach to life in seclusion, with one to three picks plus "Life as normal" being available (the options depend on traits). This will affect which event pool you get non-shared events from. For example, you might decide that you want to enjoy yourself and have a greater chance of getting to know your court -- possibly at the cost of your food stores running out more quickly -- or that you'd rather just relax, or perhaps that you're interested in spying on people that look like they might be up to suspicious things. In the first case, it's probably safe to ignore the possibility of the peasants outside the walls finding out what you're up to; what will they do, attempt to scale them? Bah!
You're also very likely to get the opportunity to pick someone to help guard the food supplies early on (with later opportunities to pick someone else if they become ineligible for some reason, e.g. death).
The traits of the "food guard" will have an effect on what they get up to; a character that's too kind might let friends and family eat a little extra, while a dishonest character perhaps will take bribes to let people eat... and someone that does their job too well might make enemies that might seek to get rid of them. Choose wisely!
The rate at which the food stores runs out depends on both what you're doing in seclusion and some random flavour events -- yes, this includes the good old "Rats or courtiers eating more than they should" events, though the latter can be mitigated by a good pick in the event above and the former by Mittens and their feline kin -- but it'll be more gradual than in vanilla even if there's some small randomness to it. You'll also perhaps have the opportunity to take some new steps to partially refill the food stockpiles; prisoners of yours might start looking rather plump after a while, for one thing. Oh, and unlike in vanilla, traits matter when it comes to the AI butchering people, and doing so would make a pacifist lose piety!
Moving right along, two of vanilla's rather predictable mini-event chains in seclusion -- "Child asks to leave", a.k.a. "Child has a peasant lover", and "The steward wants to investigate tunnels -- have been significantly overhauled. Let's start with the tunnel one, because it fired first when I was grabbing screenshots.
The tunnel event chain no longer requires your steward to be in seclusion with you -- how many of you didn't know that that was how it was set up, and that the event chain later on assumes they might be involved in a murder attempt on you even if they have every reason to be loyal? -- and can instead use a very wide variety of courtiers that conceivably could be curious... or up to no good. They're no longer under any obligation to go to you ahead of starting their investigation, either.
What might happen next? Well, everything from vanilla's event chain firing (with minor modifications) to the courtier getting lost and dying because they didn't have any maps -- or because you gave them slightly modified maps -- to them discovering an SRS member to out to their liege to them managing to sneak an assassin in. It's not completely random -- you'll not be murdered by your best friend, for example -- but it's no longer "If they get maps then they'll find someone that claims they were visiting a now deceased lover" 100 % of the time.
The "Child asks to leave" event chain now picks from a wider pool of relatives, and their reason for leaving is no longer always "They've got a previously unknown lover outside!" -- and that option has been redesigned a bit to account for the possibility that the character that asks might not have had much chance to get a lover; did your previously imprisoned young child meet someone during the prison guards' "Bring your daughter to work" day? -- as there are other plausible reasons to leave, such as attending meetings of various shadiness, drinking with friends, and of course taking walks outside because seclusion is so boring for them. The option they'll go for -- and what they'll possibly claim they want to go outside for, should you ask -- depends on traits, and there's also a possibility that they'll skip the "Ask for permission" step and attempt to leave without you noticing.
Some other things that might happen (not an exhaustive list):
- Courtiers might get upset because you're doing something they disapprove of, e.g. a non-believer being upset if you focus on praying.
- Courtiers might feel they owe you for keeping them safe.
- The servants might get murdery if you or your courtiers are very disagreeable and food is running low.
- Characters with certain traits might demand you open the gates and perhaps not be happy if you refuse, even though it's not an act of tyranny to take basic precautions should there be an ongoing epidemic.
- Cannibalism might start spreading if you've taken advantage of it while in seclusion.
Most of vanilla's seclusion events also remain in some form -- sometimes extensively rewritten, sometimes not; the AI logic is one of the things that's gotten quite a bit of work -- so you'll also still possibly get the chance to discover lovers or get your own, have courtiers with symptoms that you perhaps want to throw out or hug, or even get to experience the Masque of the Red Death event chain if you're eligible for that one.
I hope you'll find the new seclusion event chain enjoyable, and look forward to feedback on it once you've got the chance to play with it. It's here to stay, but quite a few things can be tweaked if they need to be, such as eveny frequencies, AI logic, and event outcomes/rewards.
Aside from the seclusion rework, I'll also take the opportunity to reveal one minor thing I added a while back for those of you that are Hellenics with a suitable culture and decide that Rome needs some major urban rennovation after kicking out the guy with the funny hat. You'll get access to a new decision that allows for bread and circuses... after some restoration work has been undertaken, of course.
The above is yet again me deciding that vanilla really missed an opportunity in 3.1 and adding a slightly cheaper near-copy-paste Grand Amphitheatre. You'll of course lose out on the Apostolic Palace if you go for the above, so it's more of a sidegrade than a buff for what's presumably already a rather powerful realm.
That's all for today. I currently expect the next dev diary -- which likely will show off some of the general flavour events for the RAS -- to be posted somewhere around the end of April or the beginning of May.
It is finally time for another dev diary, this time focusing almost entirely on the seclusion mechanic. You'll perhaps catch some localisation that's missing or odd event pictures below; both will of course be looked at before release.
Assuming you play with Reaper's Due active and aren't playing most of your games as a tribal or nomadic ruler, chances are you are very familiar with the seclusion mechanic from vanilla; a disease appears somewhere, you watch the disease map mode as it moves closer to your capital, you shut the gates, you get some often predictable events you've likely seen a lot, you run out of food because you get spammed with rats and hungry courtiers, everyone starves, and you eventually open the gates. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Overhauling the whole "You probably should go into seclusion because there's a disease nearby!" concept or the "You can't just live in seclusion forever!" idea is not really feasible -- or desirable, since the basic idea is sound -- so you'll still be expected to head into seclusion semi-frequently, and you'll eventually want to leave too, but that still leaves a good number of things.
Let's start with something very minor: Tribal rulers can now go into seclusion, seeing as there doesn't seem to be much reason to forbid that; a few events might perhaps end up being restricted for them (it'll be checked on before release), but "People are sick outside; maybe don't let anyone in or out" doesn't really require living in a castle/city/temple/family palace. They will, however, have a harder time getting sufficient food.
That brings us to a much more significant change: The food mechanic is no longer something that randomly comes into play X months into the seclusion; instead, it comes into play right from the start. Upon shutting the gates, food will be gathered from your capital, with the amount depending on how the province is doing, the terrain, and a number of other factors. The peasants might perhaps be a bit upset, but, as we all know, though some of them may die that's a sacrifice we're all willing to make, and at least they are likely to die surrounded by friends and family rather than on whichever battlefield you're sending your levies to next; never let it be said you didn't do anything for the peasants!
After shutting the gates you will -- assuming you've got at least one demesne county that food hasn't been gathered from recently -- get the opportunity to send out a foraging expedition. There's some risk of the person you send out running into trouble, however, particularly with certain traits.
Of course, if you feel that the person that went out to get food would be risky to bring back because they might make you sick -- either because there's a disease or because you dislike them -- you can thank them for their assistance and tell them that since they're already outside they can stay there. It'll end any friendships or lover relationships with them, however.
You will also -- assuming you're neither a child nor incapable -- get to pick an initial -- you will perhaps have opportunities to change it later on (it's a bit random how often you get that opportunity) -- approach to life in seclusion, with one to three picks plus "Life as normal" being available (the options depend on traits). This will affect which event pool you get non-shared events from. For example, you might decide that you want to enjoy yourself and have a greater chance of getting to know your court -- possibly at the cost of your food stores running out more quickly -- or that you'd rather just relax, or perhaps that you're interested in spying on people that look like they might be up to suspicious things. In the first case, it's probably safe to ignore the possibility of the peasants outside the walls finding out what you're up to; what will they do, attempt to scale them? Bah!
You're also very likely to get the opportunity to pick someone to help guard the food supplies early on (with later opportunities to pick someone else if they become ineligible for some reason, e.g. death).
The traits of the "food guard" will have an effect on what they get up to; a character that's too kind might let friends and family eat a little extra, while a dishonest character perhaps will take bribes to let people eat... and someone that does their job too well might make enemies that might seek to get rid of them. Choose wisely!
The rate at which the food stores runs out depends on both what you're doing in seclusion and some random flavour events -- yes, this includes the good old "Rats or courtiers eating more than they should" events, though the latter can be mitigated by a good pick in the event above and the former by Mittens and their feline kin -- but it'll be more gradual than in vanilla even if there's some small randomness to it. You'll also perhaps have the opportunity to take some new steps to partially refill the food stockpiles; prisoners of yours might start looking rather plump after a while, for one thing. Oh, and unlike in vanilla, traits matter when it comes to the AI butchering people, and doing so would make a pacifist lose piety!
Moving right along, two of vanilla's rather predictable mini-event chains in seclusion -- "Child asks to leave", a.k.a. "Child has a peasant lover", and "The steward wants to investigate tunnels -- have been significantly overhauled. Let's start with the tunnel one, because it fired first when I was grabbing screenshots.
The tunnel event chain no longer requires your steward to be in seclusion with you -- how many of you didn't know that that was how it was set up, and that the event chain later on assumes they might be involved in a murder attempt on you even if they have every reason to be loyal? -- and can instead use a very wide variety of courtiers that conceivably could be curious... or up to no good. They're no longer under any obligation to go to you ahead of starting their investigation, either.
What might happen next? Well, everything from vanilla's event chain firing (with minor modifications) to the courtier getting lost and dying because they didn't have any maps -- or because you gave them slightly modified maps -- to them discovering an SRS member to out to their liege to them managing to sneak an assassin in. It's not completely random -- you'll not be murdered by your best friend, for example -- but it's no longer "If they get maps then they'll find someone that claims they were visiting a now deceased lover" 100 % of the time.
The "Child asks to leave" event chain now picks from a wider pool of relatives, and their reason for leaving is no longer always "They've got a previously unknown lover outside!" -- and that option has been redesigned a bit to account for the possibility that the character that asks might not have had much chance to get a lover; did your previously imprisoned young child meet someone during the prison guards' "Bring your daughter to work" day? -- as there are other plausible reasons to leave, such as attending meetings of various shadiness, drinking with friends, and of course taking walks outside because seclusion is so boring for them. The option they'll go for -- and what they'll possibly claim they want to go outside for, should you ask -- depends on traits, and there's also a possibility that they'll skip the "Ask for permission" step and attempt to leave without you noticing.
Some other things that might happen (not an exhaustive list):
- Courtiers might get upset because you're doing something they disapprove of, e.g. a non-believer being upset if you focus on praying.
- Courtiers might feel they owe you for keeping them safe.
- The servants might get murdery if you or your courtiers are very disagreeable and food is running low.
- Characters with certain traits might demand you open the gates and perhaps not be happy if you refuse, even though it's not an act of tyranny to take basic precautions should there be an ongoing epidemic.
- Cannibalism might start spreading if you've taken advantage of it while in seclusion.
Most of vanilla's seclusion events also remain in some form -- sometimes extensively rewritten, sometimes not; the AI logic is one of the things that's gotten quite a bit of work -- so you'll also still possibly get the chance to discover lovers or get your own, have courtiers with symptoms that you perhaps want to throw out or hug, or even get to experience the Masque of the Red Death event chain if you're eligible for that one.
I hope you'll find the new seclusion event chain enjoyable, and look forward to feedback on it once you've got the chance to play with it. It's here to stay, but quite a few things can be tweaked if they need to be, such as eveny frequencies, AI logic, and event outcomes/rewards.
Aside from the seclusion rework, I'll also take the opportunity to reveal one minor thing I added a while back for those of you that are Hellenics with a suitable culture and decide that Rome needs some major urban rennovation after kicking out the guy with the funny hat. You'll get access to a new decision that allows for bread and circuses... after some restoration work has been undertaken, of course.
The above is yet again me deciding that vanilla really missed an opportunity in 3.1 and adding a slightly cheaper near-copy-paste Grand Amphitheatre. You'll of course lose out on the Apostolic Palace if you go for the above, so it's more of a sidegrade than a buff for what's presumably already a rather powerful realm.
That's all for today. I currently expect the next dev diary -- which likely will show off some of the general flavour events for the RAS -- to be posted somewhere around the end of April or the beginning of May.
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