In your Medieval adventures, you might have come across a few areas of Crusader Kings III where you wish more customisation was possible.
Paradox Interactive has always been very open to the Modding community in order to foster the players' creativity while offering more freedom to CK3!
The Community Flavor Pack from El Tyranos does just that: Over 200 original models for 50+ cultures & religions with new crowns, hats, clothes, armours, helmets, cloaks, artifacts, jewelry, accessories, even hairstyles & beards and much more. Dress up for war or court as you would be between 867 & 1453, and impress your friends and subjects!
▲ Hi El Tyranos, tell us about your CK3 experience! How long have you been playing Crusader Kings?
► I discovered Crusader Kings II during a military deployment in Africa, 2012. I only had a 13” Notebook and CK2 was among the few games to run properly on it. I did not play it a lot initially but I always came back to it years after years. Then one day I bought all the DLCs I did not have yet and I just fell in love. I enjoyed writing the story of my dynasty. I even wrote several pages long reports of my alt-middle-ages. Funnily I’m not a strategy person, It’s the only game of that genre I play, I’m more of a FPS person.
▲ How did you decide to start working on the Community Flavor Pack?
► I was burned out from Arma 3, the previous game I modded for five years. I needed fresh air and a less complicated engine where I could spend more time relaxing on art and suffer less on encoding (in short, model import).
I picked an open source fantasy Viking model from the internet to be my test subject. I learned the CK engine in 4 days, found the import process was very quick and so the perspective to swap to middle age after a decade of 2nd world war modding seemed like the obvious choice. When I released CFP it contained that one helmet (now gone), 5 days later I added 9 more. Community’s reception was very positive from the start and so off it went. I won’t lie saying the social reward is among the most important motivation ressource for any modder in the long run.
▲ What is your process for crafting, let's say, a new Crown? How long does it usually take?
► Long story short: I make a very high quality model that I “stamp” on a lower resolution model to retain details such as curves or shades, then I paint materials and import it in game.
Now it is difficult to accurately convey the workload on art, be it digital or not. It all depends on one’s expertise, having a good or bad workflow or simply reproducing an artistic style one never did before.
As examples: The Iron Crown of Lombardy (above) took me two days — 18 hours — when plate armor set took me about two weeks — ~80 hours. I’d say my average is about a day or half a day per headgear, at least two-three days for a piece of clothing and a week for a well detailed courtroom.
▲ Do you have a favourite model so far?
► I’d say the Decorated Islamic Nasal because of how accurate it is and because it was my first serious collaboration with Atral, who helps me with his 2D dark magic stuff.
▲ Tell us about your most memorable CK3 moment?
► In multiplayer, as Duke of Flanders, I prepared an uprising against the French king only to notice all my friends betrayed me and rallied the king in his war against me. I ended up in prison, managed to escape, got a dog and named him after one of my friend’s nickname by pure cold blooded vengeance. Unfortunately the dog escaped during a hunt, my son died from typhus and I died from stress.
That's rough buddy...
▲ What do you like the most about CK3 ?
► I always said that CK3 is the best launch platform one could have ever dreamed of : it’s modular and it’s streamlined. But I especially like the community. Starting CFP was an ambitious idea in a community I didn't even know. Fortunately I met talented and mature modders as well as very respectful and friendly players.
▲ What's next for the CFP?
► 2022 is going to be exciting.
First I plan to keep producing what you’re used to, but I also decided to raise the bar one step higher with uniquely complex courtrooms (Byzantine, HRE, Papal) and two major expansions, the first one being named « Music of the Court ».
For those projects, CFP team expanded and I used the mod’s crowdfunding to hire a composer (Farya Faraji) for an original and historically accurate soundtrack, and an illustrator (Brian Abshire) for wall paintings. I’m also helped by usual external resident artists like my friend Arthur Pin.
These expansions aim to go beyond simple model additions in order to improve the overall artistic experience and at the best quality level possible, all while retaining the vanilla experience and game balance.
▲ What other things do you enjoy out of your Modding hobby? Anything you would like to share with us?
► I always say I’d need a hundred lives to learn and explore everything that interests me, but my daily life top 3 would be classical music and rock climbing.
I've been learning Clarinet for a few months and for connoisseurs, I’m working my first 6C in lead climbing.
▲ Where can we find more of your work & projects?
► CFP website features all links related to the mod: https://communityflavorpack.com/
► To simply stay tuned to CFP news:
Thanks for your time El Tyranos.
This was a very entertaining project with you, and I'm sure I am talking for the community as a whole: We can't wait to discover your next initiatives with the Community Flavor Pack!
For everyone else, thanks for joining us today and see you next month for another Community Spotlight!
Paradox Interactive has always been very open to the Modding community in order to foster the players' creativity while offering more freedom to CK3!
The Community Flavor Pack from El Tyranos does just that: Over 200 original models for 50+ cultures & religions with new crowns, hats, clothes, armours, helmets, cloaks, artifacts, jewelry, accessories, even hairstyles & beards and much more. Dress up for war or court as you would be between 867 & 1453, and impress your friends and subjects!
▲ Hi El Tyranos, tell us about your CK3 experience! How long have you been playing Crusader Kings?
► I discovered Crusader Kings II during a military deployment in Africa, 2012. I only had a 13” Notebook and CK2 was among the few games to run properly on it. I did not play it a lot initially but I always came back to it years after years. Then one day I bought all the DLCs I did not have yet and I just fell in love. I enjoyed writing the story of my dynasty. I even wrote several pages long reports of my alt-middle-ages. Funnily I’m not a strategy person, It’s the only game of that genre I play, I’m more of a FPS person.
▲ How did you decide to start working on the Community Flavor Pack?
► I was burned out from Arma 3, the previous game I modded for five years. I needed fresh air and a less complicated engine where I could spend more time relaxing on art and suffer less on encoding (in short, model import).
I picked an open source fantasy Viking model from the internet to be my test subject. I learned the CK engine in 4 days, found the import process was very quick and so the perspective to swap to middle age after a decade of 2nd world war modding seemed like the obvious choice. When I released CFP it contained that one helmet (now gone), 5 days later I added 9 more. Community’s reception was very positive from the start and so off it went. I won’t lie saying the social reward is among the most important motivation ressource for any modder in the long run.
▲ What is your process for crafting, let's say, a new Crown? How long does it usually take?
► Long story short: I make a very high quality model that I “stamp” on a lower resolution model to retain details such as curves or shades, then I paint materials and import it in game.
Now it is difficult to accurately convey the workload on art, be it digital or not. It all depends on one’s expertise, having a good or bad workflow or simply reproducing an artistic style one never did before.
As examples: The Iron Crown of Lombardy (above) took me two days — 18 hours — when plate armor set took me about two weeks — ~80 hours. I’d say my average is about a day or half a day per headgear, at least two-three days for a piece of clothing and a week for a well detailed courtroom.
▲ Do you have a favourite model so far?
► I’d say the Decorated Islamic Nasal because of how accurate it is and because it was my first serious collaboration with Atral, who helps me with his 2D dark magic stuff.
▲ Tell us about your most memorable CK3 moment?
► In multiplayer, as Duke of Flanders, I prepared an uprising against the French king only to notice all my friends betrayed me and rallied the king in his war against me. I ended up in prison, managed to escape, got a dog and named him after one of my friend’s nickname by pure cold blooded vengeance. Unfortunately the dog escaped during a hunt, my son died from typhus and I died from stress.
That's rough buddy...
▲ What do you like the most about CK3 ?
► I always said that CK3 is the best launch platform one could have ever dreamed of : it’s modular and it’s streamlined. But I especially like the community. Starting CFP was an ambitious idea in a community I didn't even know. Fortunately I met talented and mature modders as well as very respectful and friendly players.
▲ What's next for the CFP?
► 2022 is going to be exciting.
First I plan to keep producing what you’re used to, but I also decided to raise the bar one step higher with uniquely complex courtrooms (Byzantine, HRE, Papal) and two major expansions, the first one being named « Music of the Court ».
For those projects, CFP team expanded and I used the mod’s crowdfunding to hire a composer (Farya Faraji) for an original and historically accurate soundtrack, and an illustrator (Brian Abshire) for wall paintings. I’m also helped by usual external resident artists like my friend Arthur Pin.
These expansions aim to go beyond simple model additions in order to improve the overall artistic experience and at the best quality level possible, all while retaining the vanilla experience and game balance.
▲ What other things do you enjoy out of your Modding hobby? Anything you would like to share with us?
► I always say I’d need a hundred lives to learn and explore everything that interests me, but my daily life top 3 would be classical music and rock climbing.
I've been learning Clarinet for a few months and for connoisseurs, I’m working my first 6C in lead climbing.
▲ Where can we find more of your work & projects?
► CFP website features all links related to the mod: https://communityflavorpack.com/
► To simply stay tuned to CFP news:
- https://twitter.com/ElTyranos_
- https://discord.com/invite/tmb7cXT
- https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/mod-community-flavour-pack.1418887/
Thanks for your time El Tyranos.
This was a very entertaining project with you, and I'm sure I am talking for the community as a whole: We can't wait to discover your next initiatives with the Community Flavor Pack!
For everyone else, thanks for joining us today and see you next month for another Community Spotlight!
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