[MOD] Tianxia: Silk Road Expansion

[Silversweeeper]

What is the team's stance on sub-mods? I was thinking of some minor additions for Srivijayan/Indonesian rulers (just some events here and there), but I will refrain should the team want that.

This is going to be a generic answer that hopefully will be useful for other potential submods as well.


If you're planning to make something for personal use (meaning you'll not post it on the forums or Steam; sharing it with a couple of friends for an MP game wouldn't be anything we could act on), we can't really stop you from doing anything even if we know about it.


If you plan to do it in a public manner (meaning you intend to post the submod on the forums/Steam), I can think of some guidelines:

- Make sure you follow the modding rules. It is in your interest to do so to keep the moderators from taking a dim view of what you're doing, and the Tianxia team might have conditions when it comes to Rule 5 (see below).

- Don't put more Tianxia files in the submod than you need to (e.g. if you're not tweaking the map at all, there's no reason for you to put our map files in your submod) and tell us what (if anything) you'll be using from the mod (as per Rule 5). We'll almost certainly not have a problem with you putting some of our files in the submod because you needed to make some changes or you reusing some of our script to do something similar, but there might be things that we can't share (e.g. because we got it from another mod and you need to ask them) or that we won't share.

- If we change something in the main mod and it breaks your submod (or the CK2 devs change something in vanilla and it breaks your submod), we're not responsible for fixing it, and even if your submod is meant to be hooked into something in the main mod we are not required to maintain that system or the functionality that you used.

- Don't claim your submod is an official part of Tianxia (unless it formally becomes that through some kind of mutual agreement) or that you're part of the Tianxia team (unless you formally become part of the team). We don't want to take any praise away from you, and we also don't want to be blamed for anything that's not on us. Calling your submod "X: a Tianxia submod" or something like that would almost certainly not be a problem, and we'd probably not mind you discussing or linking a submod in this thread, provided you've not ignored anything written here or any other conditions we've asked you to adhere to.

- Related to the above, while we won't steal your work, it is possible that we'll be doing something similar at some point since we -- after all -- are trying to flesh out the same part of the world and likely are taking inspiration from the same things. You'll have to accept that that is a possibility, and you can't use the existence of your submod to keep us from adding something similar down the line.

 

[Tabris01]

A question: Qhat are you doing on succession for China? Are you keeping it primogeniture or will there be a custom law?

 

[Silversweeeper]

A question: Qhat are you doing on succession for China? Are you keeping it primogeniture or will there be a custom law?

Right now, China has primogeniture (that sometimes becomes gavelkind due to factions) with access to heir designation by default, though they'll lose access to heir designation if they swap to one of the unreformed religions that allows Chinese Imperial (and must pick something that gives them Meritocracy + Stability (with some extra conditions; see dev diary 21) when reforming to keep Chinese Imperial post-reformation). Giving them a custom law isn't currently something we're planning to do, but it isn't impossible that we'll give them something new in the future if we figure out something we want them to have instead and find the time to implement it.

 

[Tabris01]

I'm currently experimenting for myself in HIP with an adaption of imperial elective onto the chinese model; basically restricting it to members of the ruling family with a strong bias towards the eldest son however with the court retaining and as the dynasty grows weaker over time expanding their influence on the decision as happened with Tang Gaozong as well of course with the late dynastical rulers.

Since I'm currently working on my bachelors thesis and it's eating up a lot of my time I didn't get much coding done yet, but if I get to it, get it to work and you're interested I could send you the files

 

[RedBaronFlyer]

I don't know if honorary titles can be allowed to vote with imperial elective, but perhaps you could do that, and it would cause the eunuchs to have a say? It could work like imperial elective commanders where their individual voting power goes down the more commanders you have employed.

 

[Tabris01]

Well, commander is a honorary title, isn't it? It should be doable, I think

 

[Silversweeeper]

I'm not entirely familiar with Imperial Elective (I've not played as the ERE since well before HF (well, aside from often starting as them when running observer games or jumping in to take screenshots...)) and haven't looked too much at succession logic modding yet (since I have been rather preoccupied with other things when it comes to modding), so I'm not entirely sure about the details of how it works, but it feels like a bunch of things would need to be changed to make it work well for China/Chinese Imperial empires in general.

At a quick glance, there's a lot of irrelevant things in the logic (e.g. checks for ERE minor titles and bonuses for Greeks and Romans), things that need to be changed (e.g. the current logic would allow for the election of someone who'd be disqualified from having Chinese Imperial due to having the wrong religion), and things that'd risk resulting in really weird outcomes (e.g. the bonus due to having the same culture as an elector might work really weirdly if the Mongols rule China, and foreign eunuchs might mess it up even without that being the case), and with some other things (e.g. the Mandate of Heaven and Foreign Policies) being worked on/planned for China (and partially other Chinese Imperial empires) it might be a bit risky to throw in a new succession law at this point, so I think we'll hold off on attempting it until we've done some other things that already are planned and have had the time to think through what we actually might want to try.

 

[Silversweeeper]

Just some tributaries, doing tributary things...

 

[Silversweeeper]

Development Diary 24 - Expanding the Grace System + new Tributary types

As you probably are aware, Jade Dragon introduced offmap China and the associated Grace, Tributes, and Boons. As previously mentioned, we have transferred what can be transferred from that system to Tianxia, with the intent of expanding on it to some extent for those that have Jade Dragon, and some work on that has now been done.

The cost for nearly every Boon (except for the Request a Trade Contract Boon, as that already was rather expensive) has been increased significantly from vanilla.

This has in part been done because it has become somewhat easier to obtain Grace if China is your suzerain, in part because you'll only inherit half of someone's Grace if it is negative, in part because some things were rather cheap (a 50 year long peace deal with China used to cost a measly 250 Grace, for example), and in part because there is a way to get the cost discounted to the original price.


Tributary Tiers:

Spoiler

As you might have noticed in the screenshot above, and in the teaser posted yesterday, there has also been some changes to the kinds of tributaries that China gets. In fact, there are now four different tiers, each with some advantages and some drawbacks, and there are ways to move between the tiers (more on that below).

Tier 1 - Peripheral Tributaries:

When a realm that is not near China (bordering it or within two sea zones from one of its provinces) voluntarily becomes a tributary, they become a Peripheral Tributary.

Peripheral Tributaries:
- Gain a tiny amount (12, plus another 12 if you belong to the same culture group as the EoC and has a "Chinese enough" religion (Taoist, Buddhist, unreformed Shenist/Muist/Thanist, or HF-reformed Shenist/Muist/Thanist/Ryukyuan with specific picks), plus another 12 if you belong to the same culture and religion as the EoC) every year.
- CAN attack Peripheral Tributaries and Imperial Tributaries.
- Are NOT protected by China (unless you have an alliance).
- Will NOT cause a Grace penalty if being attacked by a realm that isn't a tributary (tributaries never incur such a penalty).
- Will NOT remain a tributary of China after the holder's death.

Tier 2 - Imperial Tributaries:

When a realm that is near China voluntarily becomes a tributary, or when China forces someone to become a tributary through war, they become an Imperial Tributary. This is also the only kind of tributary that pretender empires use.

Imperial Tributaries:
- Gain a small amount (24, plus 24 for matching culture group and a "Chinese enough" religion, plus another 24 for matching culture and religion) of yearly Grace.
- CAN attack Peripheral Tributaries and Imperial Tributaries.
- CAN call China to defend against a non-tributary, but China is free to refuse.
- Will NOT cause a Grace penalty if being attacked by a realm that isn't a tributary.
- The relationship does NOT end when the holder dies.

At present, Dali starts out as an Imperial Tributary of Song in 1066 (and remain as such until they're annexed by Yuan). Goryeo is an Imperial Tributary of Jin from 1127.1.9 (and a regular permanent tributary from 1126.1.1) until 1259.7.21, after which the Mongols get them as a tributary until the end of the game, with the Imperial Tributary type being used between 1260.5.5 (the date at which, for gameplay reasons, Yuan is founded) and 1279.3.19 (the defeat of Song).

Tier 3 - Imperial Protectorates:

For those that would rather have a guarantee that China will protect them, there's the Imperial Protectorate tier.

Imperial Protectorates:
- Gain a moderate amount (36, with the same extras as before) of yearly Grace.
- Can attack Peripheral Tributaries, Imperial Tributaries, and Imperial Protectorates.
- CAN call China to defend against non-tributaries, and China MUST defend if they want to keep the relationship going).
- WILL cause a Grace penalty if being attacked by a realm that isn't a tributary.
- Pay the discount price for all Grace interactions (aside from those related to lowering your tributary tier or border adjustments; more on this below).
- The relationship does NOT end when the holder dies.

All vanilla tributaries of the Western Protectorate, as well as the land that belongs to the Western Protectorate in vanilla, start as Imperial Protectorates, though some of the more distant ones might become Imperial Tributaries down the line.

Tier 4 - Imperial Client States:

Finally, there are Imperial Client States, for those that want to be as closely tied to China as possible without becoming a full vassal.

Imperial Client States:
- Gain a large amount (48, with the same extras as before) of yearly Grace.
- CANNOT attack any other tributaries of China.
- CAN call China to defend against non-tributaries, and China MUST defend if they want to keep the relationship going).
- WILL cause a Grace penalty if being attacked by a realm that isn't a tributary.
- Pay the discount price for all Grace interactions (aside from those related to lowering your tributary tier or border adjustments; more on this below).
- The relationship does NOT end when the holder dies.
- Have access to the Request Border Adjustment Grace decision.
- Can be targeted by Border Adjustment requests from China.

Goryeo is an Imperial Client State under Yuan after 1279.3.19.

New Grace Interactions:

Spoiler

Border Adjustments:

Please ignore the insanely long tooltip and obvious cheating with Grace.

An Imperial Client State can ask China to consider handing over any controlled counties in any duchy that is a de jure vassal of a kingdom or empire title that they hold, provided the duchy in question isn't in the China region and isn't a de jure vassal of China. This is quite expensive (costing 2000 Grace/duchy) and can only be done once per ten years (unless either party dies), but it is an option if you'd rather not break the whole tributary arrangement and attack China (which is... unwise...).

China can also request border adjustments from its Client States (if they're not county tier) in turn, asking for any land they hold inside a duchy that's de jure part of China or part of the China region and that isn't a de jure vassal of a kingdom or empire title held by the Client State's ruler. They pay 1000 prestige and 1000 gold per duchy instead of Grace, and ask all the Client States holding any land there at the same time (they all accept or refuse separately).

Increasing or decreasing your tributary tier:

Pay no attention to the length of the tooltip!

It is possible for a tributary to ask for a change to its tier if it lives up to certain conditions and it has been 25 or more years since their last tier change (or the suzerain or the tributary's holder has died).

Conditions for increasing your tier:

- To become an Imperial Tributary, you need to be a lower tier tributary (a Peripheral Tributary or some kind of tributary not associated with China) and need to hold at least one province that either borders China/an Imperial Tributary/an Imperial Protectorate/an Imperial Client State or is within two sea zones of such a realm. This means China won't end up protecting some random count down in Sumatra or something (which happned a few times during previous iterations) unless they already have a presence nearby.

- To become an Imperial Protectorate, you need to be an Imperial Tributary, need to need to hold at least one province that either borders China/an Imperial Protectorate/an Imperial Client State or is within two sea zones of such a realm, and can't be a nomad. This means China won't ever end up being forced to defend some random tributary in the steppes, and also means that you need to be reasonably close to China itself to be able to rely on their protection.

- To become an Imperial Client State, you need to be an Imperial Protectorate, need to hold at least one province that either borders China or is within two sea zones of China, you can't be nomadic, and you can't be tribal if you don't have a presence in the China region or are a de jure vassal of China. This means China won't end up tightly controlling distant realms even if it might be willing to protect some of them.

- To become a full vassal, you need to be an Imperial Client State, need to hold at least one province that either borders China or is within two sea zones of China and can't be either nomadic or tribal. This simply means that China won't be particularly interested in acquiring tribal land.

To decrease your tier, you need to pay Grace. It costs 250 Grace to stop being a Peripheral Tributary, 500 Grace to become a Peripheral Tributary as an Imperial Tributary, 1000 Grace (halved if you don't live up to the conditions for becoming an Imperial Protectorate) to become an Imperial Tributary as an Imperial Protectorate, and 2000 Grace (halved if you don't live up to the conditions for becoming an Imperial Client State) to become an Imperial Protectorate as an Imperial Client State.


Of course, it wouldn't be particularly fun if you could just get up to the tier you want to be and could get all the benefits you wanted without any risks...

China has the option to make the "suggestion" that you become a higher tier tributary as long as it would be possible for you to make such a request (meaning you've not changed your tier the last 25 years and you're close enough/etc.) and as long as you don't have any pesky NAP or Chinese Peace Deal (which they won't be handing out to tributaries except as part of an Imperial Marriage).

This costs them a significant amount of prestige and gold (scaling based on the tier of the target and the tributary tier that is being requested) and presents the tributary with three options: Accept the request (in which case you get half the gold the EoC paid), pay the Grace cost of downgrading from your current tier to maintain the current status quo (only possible if you actually have that much Grace), or refuse outright and hope for the best (which costs the same amount of Grace and can reduce your Grace below zero).

If the request is refused (using either of the options), there are two choices for the EoC: Accept that your "suggestion" isn't being followed, or declare war to force compliance (the AI will never pick this option if the tributary picked the option to pay Grace).

If China wins the war, the tributary's tier gets forcibly increased (possibly resulting in vassalization). If China loses, the tributary breaks free and all of China's tributaries get the opportunity to decrease their tier for free. White peace is not an option.


All tributaries of China also decrease their tier one step if the throne of China is usurped (e.g. through a successful Claimant faction) and will be transferred from the former EoC to the new EoC when that happens (if they didn't break free completely) instead of remaining tributaries of the deposed EoC.


I can also inform you that the AI seems fully capable of using all of these new decisions (possibly barring Border Adjustments; no Imperial Client States have come into being during my test games). Various realms some distance away from China sign up as Peripheral Tributaries for a little Grace, weak Peripheral (or Imperial) Tributaries near China try to increase their status to something that keeps them safer, and more powerful tributaries near China sometimes ask to lower their tier.

Finally, as already mentioned, Jade Dragon is required to use this system, as the Grace system as a whole is heavily based on the one that was introduced with that DLC and it would not be reasonable to open it up to everyone.

 

[leo567]

Will be included startdates in pivotal moments of chinese history? Like for example Huang Chao Rebellion, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, the Red Turban Rebellion etc...

 

[Arcvalons]

Will it be possible to conquer China as a Norse Zunist and keep all the features? aka these features are not tied to culture or religion right?

 

[Silversweeeper]

Will be included startdates in pivotal moments of chinese history? Like for example Huang Chao Rebellion, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, the Red Turban Rebellion etc...

We are not adding any start dates that are not in vanilla, so Huang Chao is between start dates and the Red Turban Rebellion is after the last start date. There might be something added down the line that might result in something similar to the Red Turban Rebellion if there's a non-Chinese ruler of China, and maybe also against low-Mandate rulers, but that partially depends on whether we can get the Mandate of Heaven to work in a way we like and whether we can figure out how to do it in a fashion that's reasonably fun (which just spawning a huge stack of rebels as for a Decadence Revolt is unlikely to be) for the player if they're the EoC, they're a vassal of the EoC, or they're nearby.

The Iron Century start will be supported at some point in the future, but that will be the only FDaTK start date (unless vanilla adds another one) and it almost certainly won't be playable at the time when you get a new version; we still have stuff that needs to be done before the Stamford Bridge start is in a good place.

Will it be possible to conquer China as a Norse Zunist and keep all the features? aka these features are not tied to culture or religion right?

Culture isn't a factor when it comes to keeping the Chinese Imperial government form (which China needs to keep the Grace system operational), though it does restrict the option to become Chinese Imperial for other realms (which never can be the target of the Grace system) and it also restricts the availability Confucian Bureaucracy government (which is very similar but isn't used by China/pretenders) since we otherwise would override the government for a large number of vanilla characters that wouldn't really model their government after China's anyway.

The main reason for not having a check for culture is that it currently is not possible to easily fire an event going "You're not Chinese/Mongol/Jurchen/etc. any longer; do you want to culture flip back or lose the Chinese Imperial government?" whenever someone switches culture without hunting down every single place where someone might culture-flip and triggering the event, which would be really messy. If we ever get an on_action for culture switching, it is quite possible that there will be a culture check added, but without such an on_action it is a bit too messy to add it, and as AI stupidity with guardians or other things breaking China would be problematic and we'd rather not risk it.

However, while a Zunist technically could reform their religion (with HF) in a fashion that would give them all of the correct Features they're still considered to not be "Chinese enough", and would be considered that even if they had a Chinese culture.

The only religions that are able to have the Chinese Imperial government are:
- Taoist
- Buddhist
- (Unreformed) Shenist
- (Unreformed) Muist
- (Unreformed) Thanist
- HF-reformed Shenist with specific picks (see Dev Diary 21)
- HF-reformed Muist with specific picks
- HF-reformed Thanist with specific picks
- HF-reformed Ryukyuan with specific picks

Of course, as things currently stand, it would be trivial to add another religion to the list since everything relevant is tied to the same scripted_trigger (unless you want to permit e.g. a Muslim religion to use the government type, in which case you also need to mod the Iqta government and need to disable stuff like sending concubines to China (since that's incompatible with Polygamy), so if you want to do that on your own you can do so.

However, we are not going to open it up more (or at least not significantly more) for a few reasons:

- We want the mechanics we add for China/Chinese Imperial realms/Confucian Bureaucracy realms to be sensible no matter the religion that the holder has, and some pagan religions come with built-in features that don't really make sense for China (e.g. the Aztecs make human sacrifices, and the Norse go off conquering random coastal counties).

- Some non-pagan religions come with features that wouldn't be sensible for China to have (e.g. the Hindu caste system) or that wouldn't work well with some of the things that Chinese Imperial has (e.g. Divine Blood makes it really questionable to ship off your female relatives to foreign realms), and we'd rather not go around conditionally disabling Tributes or Boons or other things to account for a lot of rare-but-possible religions.

- Any change vanilla makes to a vanilla religion would force us to reconsider whether it still is "Chinese enough", which is even more extra compatibility work.

- We want China (and related realms) to be somewhat unique, and giving all of our new religions access to Chinese Imperial would make them less unique.

- We don't want to have consider every possible combination of religion, culture, Features, etc. and make a decision about whether it is "Chinese enough" or not.

- We want there to be ways to get out of Chinese Imperial, if you'd rather not use it after ending up with it, and allowing it in too many cases would make this difficult.

 

[Keizer Harm]

Love the system, and really appreciate the work you guys have put into it!
Question: isn't minus 8 prestige a month a bit harsh? I feel like that would easily put client states in negative prestige if they're too small. Any way you could tie that to realm size? E.g. a client state kingdom with realm size 60 would lose 10 prestige, whereas a client state county would lose like 0.5 prestige/month.

 

[Silversweeeper]

Love the system, and really appreciate the work you guys have put into it!
Question: isn't minus 8 prestige a month a bit harsh? I feel like that would easily put client states in negative prestige if they're too small. Any way you could tie that to realm size? E.g. a client state kingdom with realm size 60 would lose 10 prestige, whereas a client state county would lose like 0.5 prestige/month.

It is a bit harsh and might be reduced a bit (but not down to a trivial level; we want there to be drawbacks to to getting closer ties to China even if they're not interested in integrating you or making border adjustments, so that you actually have to think about whether the extra protection/cheaper Boons/etc. are worth it). Right now, only the rank of the tributary and the tributary tier matters (the penalty is -0.25/-0.5/-1/-2 for a count/duke/king/empire Peripheral Tributary, with nomads counting as a tier lower than they actually are and the penalty doubling with each tributary tier), but it is possible that that part might be reduced a bit and that realm size might become a factor (and tribals might also get a discount).

 

[Otto500206]

When will you update this mod to Iron Century? Or it is compatible with Iron Century?

 

[Silversweeeper]

When will you update this mod to Iron Century? Or it is compatible with Iron Century?

That's a messy question to answer.

- The latest public version of the mod isn't compatible with anything past 2.7-ish; I believe it runs on the latest 2.7.X.Y patch, but there are things that haven't really been updated to make sense with Tianxia, several of which are from versions before 2.7 (e.g. the Black Death completely ignores everything added in the east because the plague patterns weren't updated). It would perhaps load fine with a later version, but there would be all kinds of issues because vanilla has changed a lot, anything we've added since that point obviously won't be in, and we are also not actively supporting that version, so if you feel like using it you're on your own.

- The latest internal version -- and the version we've given to the testers, which lags slightly behind -- is compatible with 3.2, but the Iron Century bookmark (and all other start dates that aren't Stamford Bridge, for that matter) isn't supported. While we plan to support it (and other start dates) eventually, it isn't something that's an extremely high priority because there are other things that we need to get done before Stamford Bridge works the way we want it to (and having Stamford Bridge in working order is one of our requirements for having something we are prepared to release).

- The next time (no; I can't give you a release date) we release a public version of Tianxia, it will be compatible with whatever the latest vanilla patch number is at that point, but it is quite unlikely that any start date that isn't Stamford Bridge will be supported at that point (and the Iron Century in particular needs some significant work) as it will take quite some time to make sure that even the top-tier borders are reasonable and the whole Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms mess likely will need some specific mechanics (that currently don't exist) to ensure that someone is likely to reunite China relatively quickly.

- At some point in the future after the next public version is released, we will be working to add support for all start dates that are in vanilla. However, support for more start dates in general -- and the Iron Century bookmark in particular -- could still take quite a while, depending on what kind of issues (and chances are there will be issues that haven't been caught by the team or the testers) are discovered in the next public version, how much compatibility we need to do due to vanilla patches (even relatively small patches can mean a lot of work), how many people are actively working on Tianxia at that point, what other things we want to get done (and more start dates isn't the only thing that's somewhat high on the list), how quickly we can find good resources (maps) telling us what the situation should look like, and a bunch of other factors.

 

[DC123456789]

Isn't there already a on_character_convert_culture on_action?

 

[Silversweeeper]

Isn't there already a on_character_convert_culture on_action?

Turns out there is. I could have sworn I checked for it way back when I was setting up the events that handle China converting to a weird religion, but maybe not (I think I wrote the first of those events almost a year ago). It might be worth adding a culture check after all...

 

[Keizer Harm]

Turns out there is. I could have sworn I checked for it way back when I was setting up the events that handle China converting to a weird religion, but maybe not (I think I wrote the first of those events almost a year ago). It might be worth adding a culture check after all...

I like the idea of Norse China though. I like extra restrictions that make China more special, but it should not be completely impossible to take it over and slowly convert it to a different culture, just as it isn't impossible to rule France as a Han character.

 

[Silversweeeper]

I like the idea of Norse China though. I like extra restrictions that make China more special, but it should not be completely impossible to take it over and slowly convert it to a different culture, just as it isn't impossible to rule France as a Han character.

There's a game rule for making it unrestricted again.