Ironman and mods compatibility

[Vias]

I don't know if this has been already discussed, but as everybody know, with CK2 and other PDX games you have to choose: either you play ironman and aim to achievements, or you use mods and you can't get them. Now, I agree that mods and achievement can't really live togheter because people could simply mod the game and get difficults achievement cheating, essentially.
What I do think though is that we should be able to mod at least some aestetic things without precluding ironman, like culture colours and flags, or name list. Thing like that you should be able to change, because if I don't like to see i.e. Persia/Iran green and want it blue, or if I find some flag anachronistic, like the byzantine flag, like other people have asked in the forum, and devs are not willing to hear out the community about this kind of things, why can't we just mod the game as we like in these aspects without compromising our ability to play ironman? I almost only play Ironman but I want to change freely this kind of things. It's not like is going to give me an unfair edge on getting achievement, and it's not cheating.

 

[Lordy's]

How about removing the iron man requirement for achievements alltogether? I mean who cares about those that 'cheat' to get them - it's their problem.
Alternatively, make everyone happy: Make each achievement twice - one "gold" version that requires ironman and a "silver" one that doesn't (and allows all kinds of mods). Write a script to adds a golden frame overlay to all 'gold' ironman achievement graphics. Doesn't seem to be that difficult to implement.

Also, speaking of achievements: I think it could be interesting to add an (optional) feature that allows to set one or multiple achievements as a 'target' at the start of the game and then have a progress tracker next to the "suggestions and things you could do" window at the top of the screen. Kind of like they had for the monarchs journey. Given that they want to reach a wider audience that might be a way to reach the players that prefer set goals over a sandbox where they feel lost without railroading anyone. The start a game screen might then also suggest interesting achievements to go for.

 

[Vias]

I agree, I didn't suggest to remove the ironman requirement because I tought "it's their philosophy" and tought they wouldn't do it but... it's not like you can't edit manually an ironman game, and there are also way to savescum. So, yeah, it's not going to prevent who cheats to do it, it only gives people who don't a choice that shouldn't be there (with or without mods). Another game that rely heavily on achievement to fix and customize users experience, like Skyrim, already give you achievents even if you use mods, so I don't see the harm in removing this feature.

 

[klopkr]

Music, localisation, GFX, and map modes better be achievement compatible.

 

[Will Steel]

I do hope graphical and sound mods are compatible at least. And yes, localization would be good too.

One of the major reasons I have no achievements in CK2 is because I've been playing with portrait mods for 8 years, even it they don't change anything.

 

[famaouz]

How about removing the iron man requirement for achievements alltogether? I mean who cares about those that 'cheat' to get them - it's their problem.

Some people do care actually, if everyone gets it, it's no longer special to them.

Besides, the stance can be reversed, why would you care about achievements anyway? If you don't care people get them willy-nilly, you shouldn't care about achievements either and thus the mods break achievements isn't a problem for you in the first place. I, for example, don't care about achievements at all, what do I get anyway? I can have sex with my own mother-sister and I would call it an achievement even when it's not a steam-achievement specifically.

 

[Lordy's]

Some people do care actually, if everyone gets it, it's no longer special to them.

Besides, the stance can be reversed, why would you care about achievements anyway? If you don't care people get them willy-nilly, you shouldn't care about achievements either and thus the mods break achievements isn't a problem for you in the first place. I, for example, don't care about achievements at all, what do I get anyway? I can have sex with my own mother-sister and I would call it an achievement even when it's not a steam-achievement specifically.

That's why I suggested to have a "gold" version. Besides, everyone can get these achievements right now without properly earning them as well. You can use exploits (or gain a lot of 'hard' achievements with event spawned troops), use third party tool like cheat engine to get yourself unlimited money and with that troops, or even use some shady software to manipulate steam directly.
As I said in my second paragraph, some people like to have goals provided by the game. For quite a lot of games, that's even the main concept: Here's a goal, achieve it. A little popup "you've gained an achievements" with a nice icon rewards our simplistic human brains.

Another reason to make them not require ironman is that they could show you what other players tend to do in their games. In CK2 that's not the case, since almost no one has any achievements at all - just look at how few players got the 'marry someone' achievement...

 

[Evangeline]

There are also programs with which you can give yourself any steam achievement you like without even playing the game at all, so cheaters are already able to get any achievement they want.

I'm also very much in favor of achievements for modders! So often I use a mod just because some little thing annoys me (e.g. in CK2 I removed the taDAtaDAtaDAAA sound that goes along with every single pop-up) and then being disappointed I could no longer get achievements because of this. By all means make them gold and silver if purists want that, just make me able to work towards varied goals while using mods.

 

[Darrigan]

I really like the silver/gold system here. For me this is a win-win for all. Maybe only allow the silver achievements only in a specific game mod, similar to Iron Man, but with mods allowed while disallowing console commands and manual saves.

 

[Morrowind3]

Isn't that already the case though?
Just look at the steam workshop under the "Ironman compatible" tags. Lots of graphic and sound mods.

I made some myself as well. You can edit Localisation/Graphic/Sound files all you want without affecting the checksum and thereby ironman, because you don't touch any scripts.

 

[kurthakon]

Imperator: Rome was their most restrictive ironman-mode game ever...
I really hope they allow us to change localizations and interfaces without disabling achievements, which unfortunately was not the case in Imperator: Rome.

In Imperator: Rome only textures, fonts or music could be altered without disabling achievements.

 

[Glorblach]

Some people do care actually, if everyone gets it, it's no longer special to them.

But since you can "cheat the system" in various ways, other peoples achievements shouldn't really matter to anyone.

Besides, the stance can be reversed, why would you care about achievements anyway?

I don't care about achievements in most games, but CK2 is one that I do. Not that I have (m)any since I play mostly with mods. But I use the achievements to play something different, otherwise it would be yet another viking game. Which is why I really enjoyed the monarchs journey. Yes, you can play whatever and whomever you want, but when spare time is limited (I have no idea what happened to it, but it seems to be less and less of it...) it is nice to have some "Hey, try this character" or "Try to do this, in this run" bits. Which is why I hope there are some interesting achievements in CK3, and not just the ones to see if someone plays it (glare at "The marriage game") or tedious ones (point at "Seven Centuries").

But, that is just how I use achievements, your mileage may vary

 

[kolpo]

Only 16.2% of the CK2 players has the easiest ck2 achievement(marry another character), 89.3% of the civ 5 players has the easiest civ 5 achievement(Discover an ancient ruin), 73.8% of the warhammer 2 players has the easiest achievement(successfully complete a ritual)*

CK2 has a very low achievement participation rate. Neither civ 5 nor warhammer 2 achievements require iron man and most achievements can be done in any difficulty level.

I would expand the suggestion to give ironman achievements a golden frame by tiering them:

Bronze: at least lowest difficulty level, no iron man, all settings allowed
Silver: at least normal difficulty level, no iron man, current settings restrictions
Gold: at least normal difficulty level, iron man, current settings restrictions
Diamond: at least highest difficulty level, iron man, only hardest(or historical) settings allowed

*Sources: https://steamcommunity.com/stats/203770/achievements https://steamcommunity.com/stats/CivV/achievements/ https://steamcommunity.com/stats/594570/achievements

 

[Juboboman]

Some people do care actually, if everyone gets it, it's no longer special to them.

Besides, the stance can be reversed, why would you care about achievements anyway? If you don't care people get them willy-nilly, you shouldn't care about achievements either and thus the mods break achievements isn't a problem for you in the first place. I, for example, don't care about achievements at all, what do I get anyway? I can have sex with my own mother-sister and I would call it an achievement even when it's not a steam-achievement specifically.

Which is dumb because there are literally achievement unlock mods out there that at the click of a button can give you whatever one you want.

So the cheesers get it anyway, and the only people that suffer are people that play with mods but still want to "earn" them. Unlock mods being readily available makes the position that ironman should block them entirely indefensible.

 

[Vias]

Which is dumb because there are literally achievement unlock mods out there that at the click of a button can give you whatever one you want.

So the cheesers get it anyway, and the only people that suffer are people that play with mods but still want to "earn" them. Unlock mods being readily available makes the position that ironman should block them entirely indefensible.

^ This. There is already no way people don't cheat, so I don't see the harm in unlocking achievement with mods.

 

[wilcoxchar]

How about removing the iron man requirement for achievements alltogether? I mean who cares about those that 'cheat' to get them - it's their problem.

What's wrong with having ironman mode required to get achievements?

 

[cybrxkhan]

Concerning the first post, the reason why a lot of "simple" changes are not achievement compatible is because while a lot of these changes have simple results, the work required to carry out those changes may require code work - some simple, others much more complicated - and codework regardless of how complex it is, is often is one of the main reasons why the checksum changes. (I'm quite aware of this as a modder for CK2 and Stellaris, I get asked this question a lot by players who are understandably unaware of this.) Therefore, I feel given the way the game works, it's not as simple a matter as having only art mods okay for achievements.

However, I agree with many here that the devs might as well just make achievements available regardless of mods or not. It's possible to play Ironman with mods, so I think that's reason good enough (a lot of people seem to confuse Ironman compatibility with Achievement compatibility, as an aside, but that's another matter).

Other games like Civ are fine with letting players get achievements while playing with mods, or at least offer the ability for mods to do away with the requirement such as with Elder Scrolls and Fallout. Thus, I see no reason why Paradox games should be different. Still, this seems like an issue the Paradox devs across all their games have decided not to change their stance on for years, so I doubt it'll be different with CK3.

 

[Lordy's]

What's wrong with having ironman mode required to get achievements?

Ah, right. I mainly meant the "no mods" requirement. But there are also reasons to not require ironman mode: 1. If your save gets corrupted in ironman, you've got a problem... Not so much if that happens without ironman. 2. Many people don't play with ironman mode.
However, I also see the problem that without ironman, one can easily be tempted to cheat a little bit here and there using the console. What's bad about that? It's not that other people have a problem with other people cheating for the achievements (that's just silly), but that the player who cheated might have preferred to not have cheated (but did so anyways).
So I think bronzeman mode (multiple saves allowed, no console) with mods allowed is the best solution.

 

[wilcoxchar]

Ah, right. I mainly meant the "no mods" requirement. But there are also reasons to not require ironman mode: 1. If your save gets corrupted in ironman, you've got a problem... Not so much if that happens without ironman. 2. Many people don't play with ironman mode.
However, I also see the problem that without ironman, one can easily be tempted to cheat a little bit here and there using the console. What's bad about that? It's not that other people have a problem with other people cheating for the achievements (that's just silly), but that the player who cheated might have preferred to not have cheated (but did so anyways).
So I think bronzeman mode (multiple saves allowed, no console) with mods allowed is the best solution.

There's nothing stopping you from playing without ironman mode or playing with mods and having fun. It's just achievements, it's not actually anything important. If you really care that much about them that you absolutely need to get them in a specific playthrough, then play that playthrough without mods and with ironman mode. Simple as that.

 

[Lordy's]

There's nothing stopping you from playing without ironman mode or playing with mods and having fun. It's just achievements, it's not actually anything important. If you really care that much about them that you absolutely need to get them in a specific playthrough, then play that playthrough without mods and with ironman mode. Simple as that.

I think the flaw in your argumentation is pretty obvious: Since it's nothing important, why would you want the ironman and no mods requirement.

Of course it's not important. But having the little popup with a pretty icon saying: "Hey, by the way, you did something interesting." is nice. So why don't you want other players to enjoy this insignificant gimmick that no one really cares about?