"Bella Gerant Alii" - A Balance Improvement Mod for CK II

[GAGA Extrem]

One thing I found (v1.8): Playing as King of Jerusalem starting in 1136, I noticed that my vassals the Grand-Masters of the Holy Orders suffered from the 'lost_capital' triggered modifier. They count as landed, but do not have land...

Yes, noticed that too. I think I have to add an "is_landed = yes" check to the triggered modifier.
edit: Nevermind, did that already for 2.0. ^^"
And: It doesn't work.
edit2: And now it's fixed.

As an aside, did you make advances on the character capture during siege events? That would give another incentive to go to war for a little... monetary return.

The event in general is done, but targeting is still a bit off (tends to capture unimportant courtiers the AI will not ransom, does not target wifes, etc.).
If you have some time and want to tinker, you can find the event inside the "GAGA events.txt", first one in the file.

Does the new CB for distant religious war also count for AI or is that only the player? Wonder how Agressive nations like Sweden and Denmark will be in the east now.

Everyone can use it. However, if it is too easy to abuse it, I will restrict the "holy war" CB by prestige and/or piety requirements as well.

I'll probably try other mods for awhile because I love to play the Byzantines. I really do like what you're doing though.

You know, fcs, just change the line in the title history file. It takes ten seconds.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I was able to merge a mercenary company with my own levies. Am I supposed to be able to do that? Can anyone else do the same or is it just a quirk that I've run into for this particular game?

There should be no restriction for that. Merging has always worked.

Great work with your mod Gaga, but I think there's a problem with the Distant War CB. I'm King of Italy and I've 1300 points of prestige but when I try to declare a distant war it says immediately that the war ended inconclusively as soon as I push the declaration of war. How can I fix this?

That's odd. I will have a loom at it.
edit: Fixed. Uploading a hotfix.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I'm thinking the -2 health that pregger women get is to high. Finally upgraded past 1.3 and everytime a woman gets pregant she dies. Not sure if it's just back luck or not, but two games in a row with all of my woman dieing after getting pregnant seems there's more then just back luck involved.

Mortality is significant, esp. for females with low health. But from my games, I found it to be on an acceptable level. Bad luck, maybe?

I could aswell, I like it that way, makes it easier to fight with mercs and your own levies.

It's a bit exploitive, tbh, because the leader of the merc will command your army if he has the highest martial level. That way I was able to hire a martial 19 bandit commander for my levies... ^^"

Hotfix 1.9c for the distant holy war CB is up.
:wub:

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I was going to suggest a "scarred" trait, actually. At the moment it's possible to be wounded and then the wound disappears without a trace.
EDIT: Would it be possible to introduce this? It'd properly model the rise of empires instead of the usual.

We have maimed, scarred is not necessary.
Kingdom/Empire creation decisions are a long time go.

I cant help feeling that the new holy war cb might not have quite the desired effect.

After having played for 200 years I can only say: It is a desaster. Almost as bad as vanilla, the HRE all over egypt and Iberia...
:/

Small(ish) request: Can something be done for the coptics of ehtiopian states? Like a modifier or more importantly something involving ownership of Egypt leading to a the ability (through decision or title) to Create the Coptic Empire. Which would a reasonable balance to the other two christian Empire representing their faith.

Maybe later.

- add modifiers for secondary traits (i mean not virtues or sins). For example Homosexuality should not appear on characters under 15. "genetic traits" such as quick genius attractive should appear at the age of 10. Attractive could disappear when wounded or maimed. etc.
- add the type of marriage on the character sheet (regular or matri-mariage)
- somehow add a crusade target reminder (i always struggle to remind the crusade target after it's called). top of screen button please ?
- add a message so that as soon as ANY character in the world is excommunicated a popup appears. Excommunications were a serious matter back in those days and we should be aware when it happens.

Genetic trait appearance is hardcoded. No chance. As for the rest: We have more than enough traits imho.
Crusades have a crusader banner in the upper left.
Notifier might be possible

GAGA, first please forgive me to ask you in this thread, but as you seem to be an experimented modder, may I ask you a question? I need to know if there is a way to pick a character child based on any stat to give him/her something by decision. I would like to pass a trait to the child who has the better martial stat, but I don't know how to find him. Thanks in advance, and again, sorry!

You can use skill ranges and set character flags.

Should the penalty for having female councilors also apply to other women? Where's the female empowerment movement? I mean...we're only ~850 years early!

It would be nice if it could be lower, but since there is no "general_male_penalty" modifier, not easily possible.

I don't suppose we have an ETA for the Core and submods again?

When the core features are in and balanced. That will take a while.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I will have a look at it tomorrow (or: today ).

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Maybe what Hardeknut said is to blame? Once a kingdom can afford the distant Holy War CB, they take over that duchy then proceed to expand via normal Holy War CBs. Likewise, perhaps his suggestion of all Holy War CBs costing some prestige and piety might work?

The problem is that this way the reconquista will be severely hampered. I think I will deactivate the CB for now, but add it in an extension.
Rather make the AI more likely to use the "religious assistance" CB or add a special assistance CB for wars with heathens involved.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Or you might increase the requirements in piety a bit, as 150 is not that hard to achieve. I have originally set it to 400 piety and 600 prestige, and one had to work hard for this - the effects were much better.

I will change it to 500 prestige, 500 piety AND crusader trait.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I have too many pregnant wifes who die with version 1.9. I'm not sure the malus for pregnancy is a good idea.

It certainly is a good idea p), just maybe a bit too high.
I had a few dead wifes in my game as well, but nothing too serious. I will, however, have another look at it in my next game. Maybe a reduction to -1.5 would do the trick.

That would be a good idea. Still, I would reconsider the crusader trait, as this would not really help the Danes, or any northern noble for that matter.

Crusader trait against anything except pagans, maybe?

 

[GAGA Extrem]

That should work, shouldn't it?

can_use = {
		ROOT = {
			prestige = 500
			or = {
				and = {
					trait = crusader
					FROM = { NOT = { religion_group = pagan_group } }
				}
				FROM = { religion_group = pagan_group }
			}
			not = { 
				any_war = {
					using_cb = religious_all
					attacker = {
						character = ROOT
					}
				}
			}
			piety = 500
			NOT = { religion_group = pagan_group }
			NOT = { same_realm = FROM }
			OR = {
				NOT = { religion_group = FROM }
				is_heresy_of = FROM
				is_parent_religion = FROM
			}
			top_liege = {
				religion = PREV
			}
		}
	}

edit: Apprarently not. Hum. Do I need to switch to holder_scope before checking religion?
edit2: Gah! I somehow broke the whole CB. x(

Could you have a look at the mess and fix it?

 

[GAGA Extrem]

What I was thinking about would be a change to the birth event so that there's a chance of the mother dying in childbirth - however, there does not seem to be an on_action for regular births, only for bastards....

Exaclty. If we had a birth event, I wouldn't have to resort to these cheesy tactics.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I'll give it a go.

Thank you.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Okay, I guess you had an error of some kind in the "is_valid" part as this works great for me. Here is my entire CB:

Odd, I did not change anything except for the "can_use" part. ^_-
Anyway, it works now - thanks for your support.

Now onwards to make pagans and muslims playable...

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Is there any way you can set a timer on a particular CB so you can only use it every 3650 days?
Something in the "can use" part?
I dont suppose he code can figure out "must be 3650 days since last used" as a needed requisite?

Just apply a character modifier that lasts for 3650 days when the CB is successful or aborted.
Then add an requirement to "can_use" that requires the charcter NOT to have this modifier.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Ahhh brilliant but what if the king dies do the heir then inherit the requirement? It has to follow the king title somehow like the crown tax burden you created.

Burden of a Crown is a triggered modifier. That means this modifier checks it's requirement (tier = emperor) and is applied to any characer that fulfills the condition.

I am not sure if there is any simple way to transfer character modifiers from one character to another.

Edit:
2.0 is out.

You are now able to play as any character (no religious restrictions) and open succession (aka turkish succession) is now availalable for everyone.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

If i WIN war started with Distant Holy War Cassus Belli i LOSE 150 piety?
When i win war for infidels my piety was dropped?
Explain, why?

If you declare a holy war, you trade some of your piety to aquire a heathen duchy.
The piety loss is used to make this a decision instead of a no-brainer. I might add a trait (maybe zealous?) or a nickname at a later point, but as it is now, you will pay for using this CB to avoid easy abuse.
Might be switched to prestige, though.

Hi GAGA
1. Primogenture succession not possible - As a Dutchy I got all the requirements met except for the HRE must be high or absolute crown authority. As I'm not playing HRE I have zero control of what it does with its authority laws so can you take this requirement out?

No, because CK2 will check for your de-jure liege. Since you are de-jure part of the HRE, you have to abide it's laws. I cannot really change that without serious impact on gameplay.
You will, unfortunately, have to use another succession law.

2. Can't revoke titles as King of Bavaria - I formed the Kingdom of Bavaria and Salzburg tried to go independent - after I squashed them and the sued for peace I tried to revoke the title and it said that HRE Crown Authority must allow revokation. This is another dependency on HRE to function even though I was first independent and now a King, can you fix this?

Same as above: De-jure law overruls your de-facto power as a king.

I like the idea of playing pagans from day one without looking up character IDs, but because of the way this is done, they don't start with Warrior Cult anymore. Shouldn't be hard to fix (allow the building for the day one pagans in addition to real pagans) just a heads-up.

Thanks for the report, will fix that.
That being said, moslems will probably not receive the correct buildings either... :/

Why some nations are Open law? Mostly Eastern European and on the Balkans plus Sicily countries. Is this supposed to be so?

It seems to be used as default law (instead of gavelkind). Fixing that will require a lot of entries into the history files, so it will be low-priority.

Placing a timer on holy war cbs AND perhaps a prestige cost too might be even better. As Denmark I had conquered pretty much the entire baltic by 1100...fun but too much of an exploit imo. You would be silly to play a king in this game and NOT go for the baltic. Its simply is too tempting. Instant I win button.

Truly 'tis. I guess I will have to adept holy war.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Ok, understood for Bavarian Kingdom. Whats the edit for de- jure I need to make to allow for vassels to revoke titles?

That's no small edit. You either have to change the whole de-jure setup within the HRE or you have to change the effects of crown authority itself.
The first change will require time or will complelty remove you from the HRE (so you won't be able to claim emperorship at any point without conquering de-jure territory (which will again be affected by the HRE laws).
The second change will affect ALL kingdoms and empires within the game... :/

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I see, so the impact it will have on game is low right? Just wanting to know.

From what I noticed, open succesion will lead to claim wars if any other family members are landet, so there will be more succession wars overall.
On the other hand, unlike gavelkind, the demesne will not be split, so the AI might create and keep some more titles. All in all it sounds as if it is not too bad if you ask me.

However, I have just played one short game as a count with open succession so far, so it's hard to estimate the real impacts. From what I noticed it seems to be useful for small or low title holders to keep their demesne together, but the many pretenders and succession war possibility is a HUGE turnoff for kingdoms and empires.

That said, I noticed that the Byzantine Empire has now open succession as well - maybe that will even lead to a more realistic and balanced behaviour with more succession wars?

However, I do not know if the AI keeps open elective.
From what I have noticed, it usually tries to switch to seniority or primogeniture if it has the chance, so with some luck most characters might try to switch to gavelkind, creating almost the Status Quo Ante Patch.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

First, thanks for outstanding mod! Second, on to the question... Can you explain in short what is needed now to get any conquest- or holy war-like CB (apart from fabricating it yourself)? I've read txt, but still I'm unsure about most conditions and in game, at the very begining, it seems I can't wage war on anyone, even neighbouring pagans, heathens ect.

Holy War: Have a border or a vassal with a border with any heathen duchy outside your realm and have a liege of your religion. Do NOT be pagan.
Invasion: Request an invasion CB for 500 piety from the pope.
Claim: Have a claim on the target title.

Remember that you always have to declare war on the target's liege, not the target itself.
So if you want to attack a bordering muslim duchy as Castille, you must select the top liege of the duchy and declare war on him.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I went from version 1.8c -> 2.0 and am now not receiving any of the event decisions during Intrigue Events such as Feast, Hunt, and Fair. Did you adjust anything in regards to this or am I an isolated case for this?

I did fix an error for grand tournaments, but nothing for hunt or feasts events, and from what I ahve noticed, they seem to work.
The AI will, however, rarely enact this decisions now as it will be more keen to save up money.

I changed the pregnant trait to only be -1 health. Much better now, they all don't die as soon as they get pregnant. It still happens, just not to every woman every time.

I, too, have already reduced it to 1 in 2.1.

Hi there, thought I can help out with this great mod. I've created a buildings.txt file that should fix all the pagan&muslim buildings not appearing at the start of the game. I had to update almost every frakkin building and that took a long time. Please note, I've only really tested at 1066. Lastly, anyone is free to use this file.
View attachment 48471

Thank you, will have a look at it.

There seems to be a bug? One of my courtiers got killed, and then some woman said she knows the person that killed him, and asks that I imprison him. But before I even get to say yes or no to her demand, the guy she accused somehow ends up in her jail, even though the woman is just a courtier, and so shouldn't be able to jail people? I didn't get a screenshot, but pretty sure there is a bug because when I clicked on the character menu of the accused, it said in the part where it states the guy's location, something like (the name of the accuser) YES_ALL - something like that quite don't remember.

Seems to be a bug with the event chain. I will have a look at it if I have some time, but since this is not an issue caused by my mod, low priority.

Been playing 2.0 a while, about 80 years into the game now. I know you wanted to lower the lifespans a bit, but i think it might be a bit much now. I have had like 4 rulers die young already, only one lived to be past 40. I know someone will tell me that it is realistic, but it can be very annoying in the game when you finally get a decent ruler only to have him die at 35.

I have not really changed mortality for regular rulers. Only children and pregnant wifes are more prone to die.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Version 2.0b is out.

I think with this the worst problems are fixed, now I can start fine tuning stuff and add more flavor.