[MOD] Britannia 479 AD - The Winter King

[Luca0312]

-thanks for the calculation effort I wasn't expecting something so precise^^ well, I'm at 6.2x

-Alps region setup kingdom of Burgundy + North Italy ; year 1032 (so historical). the map itself extends from Burgundy to Rome and from Baleares to Tyrol. 2048*2048 map.

-I find some of the texture too big for the scale (snowy rocks especially but I think you don't use them so much for England^^). yes, the engine is very flexible and powerful.

All made by hand or do you use some semi-automated technics/shortcuts ?

That sounds great! As I wrote some posts earlier, I always wanted to play CKII as an italian ruler but could never stand vanilla Alps... ;-) ...I'm really looking forward to see your work!

I really can't think of any shortcut or automated technic I used... it was a long painful hand (well, mouse) work. Being familiar with Photoshop helped a lot. Having a very detailed coastline map of the area helped as well. Anyway, my first hills looked sooo ugly... ;-) ...it took some time to understand what looks good in game and what doesn't, how to properly turn the terrain map into elevation data and mix it with real-world elevation data, etc.

First few days were a total pain... but then, doing it, I became quicker and quicker and in the end I was painting mountain ranges and forests in a second. Do not ever give up!

Well, there is one technic I can suggest... use a lot of layers! And never flatten, leave them as layers! Adjustment layers especially... there are probably 50+ of those in my Photoshop file (one single PSD file that contains all the map data... provinces, terrain, colormap, elevation, rivers... just not trees because it's a different resolution).

For example... if I want to "raise" a certain area a little bit, I just select the area in the greyscale elevation map, feather it a bit, and then add a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer. This way I can just dial in some modifiers, check the results in game, and if they do not work just change the values and try again. All the modifiers are there, and no destructive editing is ever done. I hope you know what I mean, if you're not familiar with Photoshop you probably have no idea what I'm talking about!

If you like to talk about this, PM me!

L.

 

[Luca0312]

I've got two questions for the expert modders!

1) Is it possible to add a custom combat terrain modifier to a province (or more precisely to a 'border')? Like rivers, that give bonus to defenders. I'd like to make Hadrian's Wall more than a line on the map! I'd like to make it work as rivers do in Vanilla, even more effective (rivers modifiers in this mod have been lowered because there's a river basically between every province, they are many times more common than in vanilla).

2) In scripting, how can I quickly count the number of provinces "held" by each religion? And maybe compare these values? The game engine does this continuosly as you can see in the ledger (religion page). Those numbers are stored somewhere and must have a variable name or something! Does anybody know? That would make my scripting of religion-related events sooooo much easier.

Thank you!!!

L.

 

[Arko]

I've got two questions for the expert modders!

1) Is it possible to add a custom combat terrain modifier to a province (or more precisely to a 'border')? Like rivers, that give bonus to defenders. I'd like to make Hadrian's Wall more than a line on the map! I'd like to make it work as rivers do in Vanilla, even more effective (rivers modifiers in this mod have been lowered because there's a river basically between every province, they are many times more common than in vanilla).
L.

1) not sure, but it can be a way to explore.
If you have an unused terrain type you can reverve it for this purpose. no need to paint it on the map, only force it through province history (I don't remember the code sorry but it is something similar to terrain = mountain). then define the combat modifiers for it.
second solution could be a province modifier but I think you can't be so precise in the combat specific parameters.

 

[Luca0312]

1) not sure, but it can be a way to explore.
If you have an unused terrain type you can reverve it for this purpose. no need to paint it on the map, only force it through province history (I don't remember the code sorry but it is something similar to terrain = mountain). then define the combat modifiers for it.
second solution could be a province modifier but I think you can't be so precise in the combat specific parameters.

Thanks Arko! The first one sounds like a good idea and I will explore it. But I'm afraid I'll get into the same problem I'd have with a province modifier: the defensive bonus would be there even when you attack from the SOUTH, where there is no Hadrian's Wall. It has to be a "border" thing, valid only between a specific province and another specific province. Like rivers or impassable mountains.

But if the GOT team didn't find a solution for their Wall, then I'm not optimistic about it (and their wall, by the way, would deserve a much larger defensive bonus than mine)!

L.

 

[Arko]

Thanks Arko! The first one sounds like a good idea and I will explore it. But I'm afraid I'll get into the same problem I'd have with a province modifier: the defensive bonus would be there even when you attack from the SOUTH, where there is no Hadrian's Wall. It has to be a "border" thing, valid only between a specific province and another specific province. Like rivers or impassable mountains.

But if the GOT team didn't find a solution for their Wall, then I'm not optimistic about it (and their wall, by the way, would deserve a much larger defensive bonus than mine)!

L.

no ideal situation. the way game work on defensive bonus is OK but aI will not stop on a specific province just to benefit the bonus. nor, in case of victory it will stand there AFAIK.

 

[Joel M Bridge]

Well that sounds good and ambitious, but the map ends a few miles southeast of Paris, so the eastern Emperor family really would not fit! It would be nice if we could add "external" characters and titles, people that exist and have titles, but are just not in the map area. That would allow me to have a Pope! Right now I can't have one, because he needs a capital... he has to be on the map, and that would not work. So instead I've got headless religions (it's probably more realistic anyway, in 5th century there was very little contact between british christians and the roman church, and the church did not have the "power structure" of 1066 at all).

Anyway, proclamation by troops and the creation of a Senate are good suggestions... they could be events/decisions for romano-gallic rulers and could easily be implemented. However, keep in mind that the mod focuses on Britain. If you play as a ruler in Europe, you'll literally be on the edge of the map... it's a wide spacious and nice region (Gaul), but the weird feeling of being on the edge of map is there. The "meat" of the mod is definitely in Britain!

L.

Simple plan is for Britain, briton roman take one old roman capitols, he would choice to use roman military of old take on his celitc roots and as try to become high king. Or fully accept the roman part of his, and rebulid the capitol into the new roma. From there asking troops if he would make worth emperor, if the agree they would raise him on there shields and proclaim him.

 

[masternr]

Looks really cool!

 

[Astanna]

Woah... that map looks lovely!
How many provinces are those kingdoms averaging? 25? 45? 15?

 

[Luca0312]

Woah... that map looks lovely!
How many provinces are those kingdoms averaging? 25? 45? 15?

Less. Largest kindgdom at game start has 19 provinces, the second 17, the smallest... 2 (but it's an irish petty kingdom and the two provinces belong 'de jure' to another larger realm). Keep in mind there are quite a high number of independent kingdoms, so the average number of provinces for each one is not high, probably around 6-12. Also don't forget we're in 5th century, there were historical entities called "kingdoms" that were no larger than 40 x 20 miles. The kingdoms of this age in this part of the world are actually a lot more similar to the vanilla CKII duchies, they're very different from 12th-13th century european kingdoms! The roman empire just fell, leaving behind a total mess of small local powers...

The mod was meant to work this way from the beginning. I plan to add more provinces before release, especially in Ireland... but I guess the whole map will not have more than 200 provinces in the end. To me it feels enough for a first release... but if you all think they're too few please let me know!

And thanks for your comments!

L.

 

[sir Eyeball]

I would advise you to take a look at the swmh map and see what has been done to Wales. Most of the work is taken from the Welsh mods but there is some very nice additions mad by Aasmul himself.

 

[Lordrac]

Less. Largest kindgdom at game start has 19 provinces, the second 17, the smallest... 2 (but it's an irish petty kingdom and the two provinces belong 'de jure' to another larger realm). Keep in mind there are quite a high number of independent kingdoms, so the average number of provinces for each one is not high, probably around 6-12. Also don't forget we're in 5th century, there were historical entities called "kingdoms" that were no larger than 40 x 20 miles. The kingdoms of this age in this part of the world are actually a lot more similar to the vanilla CKII duchies, they're very different from 12th-13th century european kingdoms! The roman empire just fell, leaving behind a total mess of small local powers...

The mod was meant to work this way from the beginning. I plan to add more provinces before release, especially in Ireland... but I guess the whole map will not have more than 200 provinces in the end. To me it feels enough for a first release... but if you all think they're too few please let me know!

And thanks for your comments!

L.

It's not too few i think, but just right for a map this size. We will see anyway :O.
Are you going to add Brythonic names for kingdoms which are normally given latin names? (like dumnonia/dyfneint, pennines/pennioroches{?})
I want Gododdin & Ystrad Clud (and ofc, Rheged), they are the most interesting kingdoms , not forgetting Caer Wenddoleu & Din Eityn & Pennines ofc =), you had better not leave out ANY kingdoms of any sizes or i will be very disappointed ;P

 

[Luca0312]

It's not too few i think, but just right for a map this size. We will see anyway :O.
Are you going to add Brythonic names for kingdoms which are normally given latin names? (like dumnonia/dyfneint, pennines/pennioroches{?})
I want Gododdin & Ystrad Clud (and ofc, Rheged), they are the most interesting kingdoms , not forgetting Caer Wenddoleu & Din Eityn & Pennines ofc =), you had better not leave out ANY kingdoms of any sizes or i will be very disappointed ;P

A little premise: I'm sticking to the books first, and where the books stop I start looking for historical data.

Gododdin, Rheged, Elmet and the Pennines are in (and a "Lordship of the Peak" too). If/when the anglo-saxons conquer those lands they can create Northumbria, Bernicia and Deira. I've got a problem with Ystrad Clud and Caer Wenddoleu because they all did occupy a very small region along the Antonine's Wall, but in the books it is said that's the land of King Lot of Lothian (I know, it;s probably only a legendary character). Historical data tend to be very "sketchy" and I've found lots of contradictory sources about kingdoms of 5-6th century in this area.

Also I'm trying to insert Coel Hen as a (dead) historical character and as a dynasty head of some northern (briton/cumbric) ruling families but I just can't decide how to link all these rulers between them... historical sources are again sketchy at best and I don't want to make them all allies due to dynastic ties. Creating family trees is possibly be the longest and more complex thing of CKII modding! The southern ruling families are already set up... there are some interesting historical characters (even if dead since decades) like Ambrosius Aurelianus, Vortigern or High King Cunedda...

You seem to be knowledgeable about this: if you have any map or source that you consider more reliable than others please send it this way! ;-)

Thanks!

L.

P.S. About names, they're mostly latin-based. It's again about sticking to the books and it also makes it a lot easier to internally "hear" the sound of some names when you read them (at least for me, but I guess also for the 'average international user'). Sometimes I'm a bit uncomfortable when all the names on the screen are in languages so obscure that I have no idea how those words sound. It's the neverending compromise between realism and immersion factor in all types of fiction works, movies, books, ecc. Did you see Mel Gibson's "Passion of Christ" and "Apocalypto"? That's the realistic approach: characters speaking in latin and ancient aramaic... does it make the film more immersive? Or does it just force you to read subtitles and therefore it ends up decreasing the immersion factor? Hehe sorry I love this kind of stuff, it's closely related to my job too...

Latin names anyway. But if you don't like them, changing the localisation files and renaming the whole map would take no more than 5 minutes, and it's very easy, so you can if you want to!

 

[Astanna]

Any new progress, Luca?

 

[Luca0312]

Any new progress, Luca?

Sure! I will release a first beta version in about 24 hours, as promised. It's not complete yet, but in my humble opinion there is quite a lot to enjoy already. I want to release it now because I am going to be very busy for 10-12 days starting from tomorrow, and it would be great to collect some feedback, impressions, bugs reports (hope not many of those) from the first users! I definitely plan to continue working on it in a couple of weeks...

 

[Luca0312]

First beta version released. Download links in the first page.

I hope you'll give it a try... every comment, bug report or suggestion is absolutely welcome!

Thanks,

L.

 

[Lucas Fenix]

Can't wait, just need to wait for the huge download to finish! You must have worked your socks off. Will be back with my opinions tomorrow. I just love the scale of it, you've done a great job on the map from the looks of it.

 

[cnafi]

Sounds good, I will try and find some bugs! :ninja:
I would recommend hosting such a large file on a faster host, 143kb/s makes me sad.

 

[Arthoc]

Not sure if it is just me or an actual bug but when I tried to place advisors my game kept crashing admittedly I only tried to place the Marshal to train troops and the 2nd time I tried to place the steward to increase economic tech.

 

[Luca0312]

Not sure if it is just me or an actual bug but when I tried to place advisors my game kept crashing admittedly I only tried to place the Marshal to train troops and the 2nd time I tried to place the steward to increase economic tech.

Never happened to me in endless playtesting! Do you remember what province was that? Does anyone else noticed this? Thank you! L.

 

[Lucas Fenix]

Tried a couple of times to create my own person in the ruler designer, seems to crash when I start the game so I've stuck to the suggested characters in the story. I had a couple of crashes when playing but nothing in particular seemed to be happening.

What you've done looks awesome. My first intention was to holy war the Anglians but found I couldn't. Probably best this way, it'd all be over too soon if they were steamrolled.