Ars Magica

[morsrattus]

I'm new to modding in general, and CK2 modding in particular...and this project is pretty darn ambitious, so maybe that's not such a great idea. However, I plan to try and mod the game to better suit Mythic Europe, the setting of...

I'm still in the process of learning how to mod, and some of the things I plan to do may not even be possible. I would love, however, to get advice on how to do it. Right now, I am mostly focused on getting the Order of Hermes working - which is an endeavor in itself, given the many Houses involved in it. Basically, I plan to use the Societies system to model each House separately, and use events to get interaction between them to produce wizard politics in a way that is orthogonal to standard landholding. I've got a lot of events and storylines to write in here, and that's gonna be a loooong work, too, but that's not the part I'm afraid is impossible.

HOUSES

Spoiler

House Bjornaer - Stewardship-based, mostly because I wasn't sure how to go. Delving into spirit lore and animal magic stuff, will probably draw on werewolf event stuff for inspiration here.
House Bonisagus - will likely resemble the existing in-game Hermetics most. Learning-based, based around magical research and prestige through study and knowledge.
House Criamon - I'm not even sure where to begin here. Weird shit happens. Either Learning or Diplomacy-based, unsure which fits better.
House Ex Miscellanea - At the moment I'm throwing up my hands here because their gimmick is collecting tons of little traditions.
House Flambeau - Martial-based. Knightly wizards, able to boost their own abilities a lot and focused on going out to do dangerous and stupid things.
House Guernicus - WIZARD COPS. Investigating other people for crimes. Intrigue-based.
House Jerbiton - Diplomat wizards. Diplomacy-based, lots of 'make people like you' or 'do magic to screw with grand politics' stuff.
House Mercere - Stewardship-based. Might be open to people without the designated 'can do magic' trait, might not. Ways to earn money and do exploring.
House Merinita - ????-based. I don't know. Weird faerie bullshit. Learning, maybe?
House Tremere - Martial-based or Intrigue-based, unsure which. Big on working together and taking things over. Soldiers with the goal of wizard world rulership is their gimmick, basically.
House Tytalus - Spymaster wizards. Intrigue-based, lots of cabals and plots.
House Verditius - craft wizards. Learning-based, will make artifacts and sell them.

However, this all leads to one big challenge that I don't even know if it can be handled. To make this work in the way I envision, see, I plan to rework and create a new succession type, and in reading through the wiki I don't know if I can. If I can't...well, I have to cut back on plans and do something more standard.

But the idea would be that as part of rising through your House's ranks, you can take an Apprentice, someone with the Gift. This might even be a child if you felt like pissing off the parents by kidnapping them. Anyway, the point is, this Apprentice would become part of your Dynasty and your first apprentice would be made your heir, or possibly an event to let you pick your heir between them or let them murder it out, if you have more than one. Haven't thought that far ahead yet.

This would also be tied to a new holding type - the Covenant, designed to have smaller troop sizes but to augment them better with upgrades based on the idea that your wizard character would be making magical upgrades to the place and the people, giving them minor enchantments and so on. (In the setting, the covenant is a shared base for a party of wizards that work together; this is obviously untenable for CK2.)

Are these things possible? Can I make a new holding type, or am I better off just making a set of new and weird castle buildings, perhaps finding a way to limit them to people with the 'can do magic' trait, the Gift? Is the succession idea even slightly possible?

 

[morsrattus]

Looking over console commands and what I can do with them, I am pretty sure I can do the apprentice-adoption into your dynasty just fine. The hard part will then be declaring them your successor, since I'm not sure I can at all do succession bullshit.

 

[ngppgn]

Interesting project. I'd recommend checking out the Princes of Darkness mod, which is a total conversion on the World of Darkness including both the clasic and the new mage setting. I reckon you might find some material that overlap with ars magica.

Also, a work of advice: plan ahead which comcepts from vanilla do you want to keep with their original meaning and which ones do you want to convert. Are religions still religions? Is prestige still prestige? And so on.

You cannot create new holding types, but can simulate that by having several mutually exclusive sets of buildings for one holding types based on conditions on the original owner.

You cannot have noew succession laws, but can hijack the existing ones with on_death events. For example, you could use a dummy culture that disinherit from blinding, and a dummy blinding trait. Then, on death of a ruler, all dynasty members get the dummy culture, and all of them except the designated as heir get the dummy blinging trait. Recalculate succession and you will then pass on to the designated heir. Then you'll have to restore the xultures and remove the traits of the dymasty members. And this is a bit if a brute force approach, finer ones could be achieved.

 

[morsrattus]

Thanks for the advice! I am leaving a lot of vanilla still in place - religion is religion and all that - because Mythic Europe is, in many ways, an overlay onto real history. A Christian wizard and a Muslim wizard are unlikely to get along unless both are not very religious (though sympathy traits will be easy to get from wizarding events in the right groups), say.

 

[morsrattus]

Is there a command to set society ranks, or just set to grandmaster?

 

[Andrelvis]

Is there a command to set society ranks, or just set to grandmaster?

See the societies.info file in the /common/societies folder, particularly these parts:

society_rank_up = x                        # ranks up a society member by x. Scope must be a character

society_rank_down = x                        # ranks down a society member by x. Scope must be a character

set_society_grandmaster = (yes/no)           # Set or unset a character as the grandmaster of their society.

 

[flintsparc]

You might wish to combine efforts with Princes of Darkness. Its a World of Darkness mod, but in trying to describe Mage for the time period of 767 AD: Pax Hermetica we had to borrow heavily from Ars Magica information. We also sketched out a bookmark for 410 AD: Dark Age of Magic

The mechanics we have been using are CK2 with some World of Darkness elements (like Spheres), but using Ars Magica flavor.

We recently updated the Princes of Darkness Mod to make use of society and have focused on the War of Princes for 1230 AD (Canon material) and After the Black Death for 1355 (Shattered World); both of those emphasizing Werewolfs. But we hope to return to the Mages soon.

Societies is a great approach for handling the Hermetic houses, and something I was thinking about using.

Dynastic adoption can be tricky, but I mostly have it working for players to embrace characters as childers. To reduce decision-making overhead for the game engine, I have AI characters create random characters as heirs. I might suggest that approach for you as well.

Be careful with changing holdings and reducing troops sizes. I experimented with that for a bit, cutting down the size of troops to 10% of vanilla, but boosting the stats to represent supernaturals involved. I never got it to work quite right for the AI. While the numbers were there, the AI would only rarely ever move out of a county. It might be that I needed to reduce fortification. Regardless, making such big changes to the vanilla troop counts throws all the balancing the game devs out the window. If you succeed at this, please share your findings

This post contains some of the redone buildings with their "structures" being kinds of influence. Like a Ghoul Night's Watch commander, or a bribed Tavern Keeper. These aren't in the current mod, but they will probably be coming back in some form. There has been requests for it to return because folks like the flavor.

You probably don't have to create a new holding type to achieve lower troop levels. Modifying the Defines and rewriting (or even removing and making new) buildings should be sufficient. I've found that for simplicity, it was actually better to get rid of holding types, so all the holdings in Princes of Darkness are Feudal. Tribal, Republic, Nomadic holdings have different mechanics for raising troops or different succession methods. I would have loved to have used Republic holdings and houses so big cities could have rival families fighting for control, but the hardcoded requirement that all Republic leaders be male ruined it for female characters and it would cause trouble if one of them came to power.

I've put a lot of art assets into Princes of Darkness for religions (which I am using as sects, like Magical Traditions, Vampire Covenants, Werewolf Tribes), coats of arms, special titles flags (mercs, empires). If any would be of use for you, feel free to take them.

Mage characters in 767 AD Ascension in game:

Spoiler

Magical Traditions religion symbols from Ascension in game:

Spoiler

Magical Traditions Coat of Arms from Ascension:

Spoiler

Magicka vs. Reason government types from Ascension in game in 1466 AD:

Spoiler

Magical Traditions Map in the Ascension in 767 AD Northern Europe, semi-random placement (certain traditions restricted to certain cultures):

Spoiler

Magical Traditions Map in the Ascension in 767 AD Arabia to India, semi-random placement (certain traditions restricted to certain cultures):

Spoiler

Magical Traditions Map in the Ascension in 1466 AD, semi-random placement (certain traditions restricted to certain cultures):

Spoiler

The latest release of Princes of Darkness uses societies for Vampire bloodlines, Roads/Paths (philosophy), Cainite Knightly Orders, Cults and political factions. If you take a look at it, it should be pretty straight forward about how you can use your own. I've also got society clothes with societies as appropriate, so the Tremere get hermetic garb.

 

[morsrattus]

I'll take a look at it! I am planning to go full-in on Ars rather than take the ties to WoD, mind. (So the Tremere are wizards through and through rather than vampires, for example.) I plan to keep to the standard bookmarks, though - the Order of Hermes is founded 2 years before the Charlemagne start date, which is basically perfect.

e: eventually, I'll also be putting in other groups, like the Suhhar Sulayman, the Norse wizards, Mongol shamans or the Augustan Brotherhood, but I am honestly unsure what I am even going to start doing with India.

e2: this does mean if you start that early you get to play characters with some insanely inflated stat totals, but hey, if you're gonna be Bonisagus or Tremere or Flambeau, you should get to be crazy for a while.

 

[morsrattus]

Also, my current plans:

Spoiler

Everything revolves around The Gift. The Gift by itself is a purely negative trait, however. Its only effect on its own is -20 opinion with all others that do not have The Gift. (I actually want to change that to -20 with everyone that isn't Hermetic but I can't find a good way to do that.)

However, The Gift is required to get access to basically every kind of really powerful magic. Some magic will be available to those without the Gift, but the strongest abilities simply will not be.

The Gift has a 5% chance of randomly appearing in any given character. This rises to 10% if one parent has the Gift or 25% if both do.

The Order of Hermes requires the Gift to join any of them. The two methods of joining will be 'get targeted by the take-an-apprentice decision', which I suspect I will make unable to target non-ai characters so I can control the storyline of entry, and joining via an event chain which will spawn a character to be your master based on the choices you make, which will determine which House you join.

However, characters that do not join the Order but have the Gift will be able to gain magical abilities. These abilities will occur via random events, and will be strong but extremely limited compared to the decisions gained via joining. They will be unique to non-Hermetics, though, based on the simpler magic powers from Ars Magica. The Gift develops on its own, if it isn't trained.

Spoiler

I am unsure if I plan to put in House Diedne OR House Ex Miscellanea, because I don't know if I can create or destroy societies mid-game. The Schism War would be an extremely cool event to run through but would also be very difficult for me to make, given my level of experience. I'm struggling to decide how I want to do covenants and what I may do is just hijack the counties that the Domus Magnae of the Houses are in to give as titles to the grandmasters. I'm not sure if I can tie it to the grandmaster spot. If not, they'll end up belonging to the descendants of the Founders, which could be cool too, though I don't know if the game will fill out those family trees once I spawn in the historical Founders. Probably not, huh? That's...annoying, but I can deal with it, if that's the case.

Spoiler

My plans for the other groups are further away, but once I master what I need to make the Order, they should be easier to implement. The other traditions are smaller - only the Suhhar Sulayman has multiple houses - so they need fewer Societies. I will probably be raiding some adventure supplements for storyline ideas, too. My first and biggest event concern though is the recurring Tribunals and Grand Tribunals, and I have no idea as yet how I'm going to do those.

 

[flintsparc]

"The Gift has a 5% chance of randomly appearing in any given character. This rises to 10% if one parent has the Gift or 25% if both do."

1463 provinces. 1 to 6 holdings per province each with a holder. 6 court officers per province. +1 spouse per province count. Thats 10,241 characters at start. Probably closer to 20,000 when adding in various mercenaries.

So 512 characters with the gift (maybe 1,000).

You might want to weight the gift towards landed characters.

One reason to do this is because the more decisions, events, etc... that check for a character with a certain trait add load to the game. If a lot of characters are unlanded and are never interacted with by the player, they are requiring computation but not adding much to the play. So it might make sense to have many events and decisions to be player only, while there are simpler versions intended for the AI that perhaps are triggered by a monthly, annual or bi-annual event, etc... or upon something like a birth or title succession.

Societies can be destroyed during the game. Societies can also be set to be indestructible.

If you look at the current POD build, vampire players chose their childer, while AI vampire land holders spawn random childer. Werewolves breed the old fashioned way, and their children get a kinfolk trait (similar to how you would use hereditary gift), then there is a random chance starting in their adulthood to go through the change into a werewolf and it is influenced if one or both of their parents were themselves werewolves or kinfolk. I actually haven't created a mechanic for passing on Mage dynasties yet, so I'll likely adopt whatever you do

 

[Payuset]

House Flambeau - Martial-based. Knightly wizards, able to boost their own abilities a lot and focused on going out to do dangerous and stupid things.

CERTAMEN!!!

you gave me an excuse!!

oh the memories...

played way too many Flambeaus who acted all stupid just so they had an excuse for Certamen, can't let those Tremeres have all the fun can't we?


I'd actually recomend that the diferent houses are based on traits, and you save societies for the tribunals or something

 

[ngppgn]

If you don't know what to do with India, just get rid of it. The game's performance will be grateful for that.

 

[flintsparc]

If you don't know what to do with India, just get rid of it. The game's performance will be grateful for that.

Deviate from vanilla at your own peril!

 

[Ramidel]

Will the Order of Hermes also extend into the Islamic world, or will you have the Suhhar active there?

 

[morsrattus]

I plan to have the Suhhar active there, but the Order will extend into Muslim Iberia and may have access to parts of the Levant. Haven't decided on that because the way I'm using to limit it is cultures.

(The Suhhar, on the other hand, will be limited by religion - Muslims, Jews, Nestorians and possibly Zoroastrians.)

E: also, there will be other groups, eventually. Augustan Brotherhood will be available within Christian Italy and the HRE, the Radskinna Compact or possibly just individual Norse traditions will be available in Viking lands, etc.

 

[morsrattus]

Have put event stuff on the backseat for now to determine traits. Focusing right now on the basic effects that the Hermetic Arts give. All Arts come in three stages - apprentice, journeyman and master. I'm still working out what all of them do, however. They will also unlock options in some events, where for example someone with good Perdo or Herbam might be able to make a show of power by cursing a farm's growth or making an entire forest lose its leaves or whatever. I am unsure if I'll be limiting how many Master-level traits you can get.

Spoiler

Creo, the Technique of Creation
Apprentice: +1 Health, +10% global tax mod.
Journeyman: +3 Health, +25% global tax mod
Master: +5 Health, +50% global tax mod

Intellego, the Technique of Knowing
Apprentice: +1 Intrigue, +1 Learning
Journeyman: +3 Intrigue, +3 Learning
Master: +5 Intrigue, +5 Learning

Muto, the Technique of Altering
Apprentice: +1 Stewardship, +1 Martial
Journeyman: +3 Stewardship, +3 Martial
Master: +5 Stewardship, +5 Martial

Perdo, the Technique of Destroying
Apprentice: +1 Martial, +1 Personal Combat Rating
Journeyman: +3 Martial, +3 Personal Combat Rating
Master: +5 Martial, +5 Personal Combat Rating

Rego, the Technique of Controlling
Apprentice: +1 Diplomacy, +1 Stewardship
Journeyman: +3 Diplomacy, +3 Stewardship
Master: +5 Diplomacy, +5 Stewardship

Animal, the Form of Animals.
Stewardship and Personal Combat maybe???

Auram, the Form of Air.
????

Aquam, the Form of Water
????

Corpus, the Form of the Body
Apprentice: +1 Health, +1 Personal Combat Rating
Journeyman: +3 Health, +3 Personal Combat Rating
Master: +5 Health, +5 Personal Combat Rating

Herbam, the Form of Plants
Stewardship and ????

Ignem, the Form of Fire
Possibly Martial and Personal Combat Rating???

Imaginem, the Form of Senses
Intrigue and ????

Mentam, the Form of the Mind
Some mix of Diplomacy, Intrigue and Learning?

Terram, the Form of Earth
Apprentice: +1 Stewardship, +10% Siege Defence
Journeyman: +2 Stewardship, +25% Siege Defence, +10% Siege Speed
Master: +3 Stewardship, +50% Siege Defence, +25% Siege Speed

Vim, the Form of Magic
Learning and ????

These will be purchased with Prestige as decisions, I think.

 

[Payuset]

Have put event stuff on the backseat for now to determine traits. Focusing right now on the basic effects that the Hermetic Arts give. All Arts come in three stages - apprentice, journeyman and master. I'm still working out what all of them do, however. They will also unlock options in some events, where for example someone with good Perdo or Herbam might be able to make a show of power by cursing a farm's growth or making an entire forest lose its leaves or whatever. I am unsure if I'll be limiting how many Master-level traits you can get.

Spoiler

Creo, the Technique of Creation
Apprentice: +1 Health, +10% global tax mod.
Journeyman: +3 Health, +25% global tax mod
Master: +5 Health, +50% global tax mod

Intellego, the Technique of Knowing
Apprentice: +1 Intrigue, +1 Learning
Journeyman: +3 Intrigue, +3 Learning
Master: +5 Intrigue, +5 Learning

Muto, the Technique of Altering
Apprentice: +1 Stewardship, +1 Martial
Journeyman: +3 Stewardship, +3 Martial
Master: +5 Stewardship, +5 Martial

Perdo, the Technique of Destroying
Apprentice: +1 Martial, +1 Personal Combat Rating
Journeyman: +3 Martial, +3 Personal Combat Rating
Master: +5 Martial, +5 Personal Combat Rating

Rego, the Technique of Controlling
Apprentice: +1 Diplomacy, +1 Stewardship
Journeyman: +3 Diplomacy, +3 Stewardship
Master: +5 Diplomacy, +5 Stewardship

Animal, the Form of Animals.
Stewardship and Personal Combat maybe???

Auram, the Form of Air.
????

Aquam, the Form of Water
????

Corpus, the Form of the Body
Apprentice: +1 Health, +1 Personal Combat Rating
Journeyman: +3 Health, +3 Personal Combat Rating
Master: +5 Health, +5 Personal Combat Rating

Herbam, the Form of Plants
Stewardship and ????

Ignem, the Form of Fire
Possibly Martial and Personal Combat Rating???

Imaginem, the Form of Senses
Intrigue and ????

Mentam, the Form of the Mind
Some mix of Diplomacy, Intrigue and Learning?

Terram, the Form of Earth
Apprentice: +1 Stewardship, +10% Siege Defence
Journeyman: +2 Stewardship, +25% Siege Defence, +10% Siege Speed
Master: +3 Stewardship, +50% Siege Defence, +25% Siege Speed

Vim, the Form of Magic
Learning and ????

These will be purchased with Prestige as decisions, I think.

Arent the bonuses kind of too high?
and wouldn't it make more sense to make it so most of the benefit they give you is the kind of spells you can cast?
for example
Perdo&Ignem -> +supply limit (on desert) - supply limit eveerywhere else
Rego&Mentem -> increased troop morale
Intellego&Mentem ->+% plot defense/ discover the plot of someone
Creo&Mentem -> +tech growth/ +% revolt risk
Creo&Terram -> -% build speed
Muto&Terram -> -% build cost
Perdo&Terram -> - fort level
Creo&Ignem -> look at dragons on AGOT mod
Perdo&Vim -> remove any of the above modifiers

all of these are examples of what spells could do, the advantage would be that you could do a lot of things the disatvantage is that it would be a pain to code all those decisions.

 

[morsrattus]

I'm not sure how much is too much, given the vast power magic has. That said, i do love that idea...but it represents a certain degree of difficulty for me that I'm kinda nervous about.

 

[Ramidel]

(The Suhhar, on the other hand, will be limited by religion - Muslims, Jews, Nestorians and possibly Zoroastrians.)

Interesting, given how the Suhhar is opposed to such discrimination. They should probably be cultured too, particularly given that Cordoba's sahirs went Hermetic and the Berbers were always anti-Suhhar.

(Canonically, there are Zoroastrians in the Order, the Suhhar, and of course as mobeds.)

These will be purchased with Prestige as decisions, I think.

Not Esoteric Knowledge/whatever you replace it with?

 

[morsrattus]

They are opposed, but generally speaking the other religions don't join so much. Forgot if Zoroastrians were in it or not and don't have my books at present. (I do recall that non-Muslims are mostly in a single house.) I might go cultural instead for them, really.

I could go with that currency, it'd just mean adding the decision to each House.