[MOD] EMF: Extended Mechanics & Flavor

[IoannesBarbarus]

Terrific!

Proper AI strategy to avoid players being able to rush-assault an enemy capital in a war and instant, anticlimactic 100% warscore.

Thought this was unmoddable?

 

[zijistark]

Terrific!

We certainly like to think so. :ninja:

Thought this was unmoddable?

Nope. A lot of stuff is unmoddable, but we can control whether warleaders are likely to be captured in a siege (and make the right strategic choice of trying to run so as to not lose the whole damn war in the blink of an eye).

 

[IoannesBarbarus]

Nope. A lot of stuff is unmoddable, but we can control whether warleaders are likely to be captured in a siege (and make the right strategic choice of trying to run so as to not lose the whole damn war in the blink of an eye).

This just concerns whether the enemy ruler sits in his capital or not, right? Or is it actually affecting levy deployment?

 

[zijistark]

This just concerns whether the enemy ruler sits in his capital or not, right? Or is it actually affecting levy deployment?

That's correct. You can still capture a warleader in battle (which we can control too but also think is a reasonable battle outcome). You can still capture them in sieges in Anax's new siege module, for that matter, because they still need to escape the siege if they were at their capital (or wherever else they were that's under siege), but they will no longer be generally just plain stupid about choosing to stay and fight. There'll actually be a degree of strategy involved in siege defense, as escape chances vary for different types of characters under different circumstances.

But I will let Anax go over any further teasing upon the upcoming siege module. It's 100% his doing, so he deserves to be the one to unveil it.

 

[Kleptomayn]

It will be released AFTER the upcoming Paradox patch, right?

 

[Ganegrei]

Generals earning claims will be more common in realms with high regard for military leadership such as the Byzantine Empire.
Finally, in combination with the succession war module, we'll come closer to modeling such dynamics as the rise of Alexios Komnenos.

This is just great! As is, I usually make sure that Komnenos has both the ambitious and lucky traits and he still usually spends his life in obscurity.

 

[theKing1988]

Hey, mates. I thought that I'd touch base with everyone and offer a glimpse at some of the new, Extended Mechanics & Flavor coming your way:

• A completely brand spankin' new siege module that greatly outclasses our old siege events from PB, thanks entirely to the diligence, perseverance (the engine fought us hard on this one), and creativity of AnaxXiphos.
  • Much, much more flavor-- most importantly, coherent flavor that covers many different types of scenarios and much less of the annoyingly repetitive kind.
  • Much more realistic captures upon successful siege (understands the difference between looting a settlement and consequences of organized siege/assault during a real war, finely-tuned individual character escape chances, and so much more)
  • Proper AI strategy to avoid players being able to rush-assault an enemy capital in a war and instant, anticlimactic 100% warscore.
  • Much more that Anax will show you next week.
• Succession wars [Initial working version complete but on hold regarding further iteration at the moment]
  • Upon succession, face a chance of a claimant to your primary title rising against you with their supporters among your vassals. Like most real succession wars, the action against you will be swift and deliberate will take mere weeks before pretenders' armies begin organizing to move against you.
  • If a pretender of your dynasty prevails against you, the previous ruler abdicates all of his/her titles to the pretender, and your new character becomes the once-pretender. Even if he is an ambitious, envious, or arbitrary (but certainly no craven) member of a dynastic cadet branch of the true royal family, at least you know that enough of your vassals think he's the Real Deal.
• Crown law / crown authority overhaul
  • EMF already completely rewrote PB's demesne laws, giving them mathematical properties that allow for maximal and yet still accessible strategic choices. Now it's time for the crown.
  • Long-needed reform of the PB crown law system to feature the advantages of a vanilla-style crown authority slider (myriad strategic and technical reasons) along with the traditional advantages of PB-style laws, which allow you to individually choose/configure the specific laws (or lack thereof) of each of your crown titles.
  • Crown authority, rather than specific laws, will again matter to your vassals in a model that rewards maximal centralization of power with the monarch, however you should choose to exercise it, far more than previously and manages to do so while still being simpler to understand overall (something that is also of great benefit to AI performance).
  • Crown Authority can be thought of as the "constitution" or "precedent of power" while laws like King's Peace (Internal/Complete), Protected Inheritance, and Title Revocation (Limited/Infidels) are the configurable implementation of that precedent of authority.
  • The Autonomy Faction will be disbanded as a result of this work and replaced with a realm-wide, purpose-based conspiratorial faction to reduce crown authority.
  • The new crown authority faction, unlike the AF, will actually pose a consistent threat to you and more correctly model the continued struggle between nobles and monarchs over the authority of the crown. Yet, the advantages of striving for high crown authority will be too great to forego.
  • Succession law requirements will be revised as part of this work.
  • Crown/succession laws will generally be more strategic rather than the relative sandbox that they are now.
  [*]Command veteran mechanics
  
  • Military commanders, through major victories in combat/tactics, will distinguish themselves from the crowd with 4 tiers of command veteran traits.
  • Generals at the highest tiers, also through major victories, will occasionally prove themselves the champion of the realm and earn a weak or, under some circumstances, possibly even a strong claim upon their top liege's title.
  • Generals earning claims will be more common in realms with high regard for military leadership such as the Byzantine Empire.
  • Finally, in combination with the succession war module, we'll come closer to modeling such dynamics as the rise of Alexios Komnenos.
• Achievement traits
  • When a character achieves something that's unusual and interesting (although it may not always be by choice!), they'll be rewarded one of a growing list of possible character "achievement" traits.
  • Though they should be relatively rare to find (as they underscore something exceptional), an interesting part of such a character's life will be told in the backstory of these traits.

While we've got more on our minds, that's sufficient glimpse for now. This developer needs to get back to coding.

Love that bit. The ERE enthusiast in me is almost squealing with delight

 

[zijistark]

It will be released AFTER the upcoming Paradox patch, right?

These are a) just some of the things we're doing (I figured that since we hadn't come out with many new shiny things lately, it was time to give a glimpse!), and b) of highly-varying levels of completion (e.g., the new siege module could be probably be released immediately were it not for our devotion to QA, the crown law overhaul is well underway but quite a task overall (which'll also need a compatibility event to upgrade the laws of old saves to the new ones), and the achievement traits are mostly just an idea of what we'll be doing right now (and it's likely that we'll add most of the achievement traits iteratively down the road). Conclusion: There will likely be a release containing at least some of this for the upcoming weekend of play, but we're not planning around any patches (we'll just deal with compatibility as needed at the time if Paradox actually patches something).

Exactly what patch is it to which you're referring, BTW? I was not aware of an imminent patch. What are they patching? Fixing WoL? We've already done a bit of that.

EDIT: Derp, noticed the thread about the patch just now. Yeah, we'll just have to see how much it slows us down. It should be minimal impact, so I doubt that it will.

 

[Cardinal Sin]

This sounds awesome! Great to hear about that

The special mechanics for the ERE actually reminded me of the Muslim mechanics we had been talking about at some stage ages ago Here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...amp-Flavor&p=18003863&viewfull=1#post18003863 Are there any plans to put those into reality soon?

 

[elvain]

As Cardinal Sin linked to the post/discussion about improvement of muslim factions, I very much approve this:

This piqued our interest. We did some further research, and it looks like a mechanic we might add (someday not far in the future). This is how I envision it going down (totally concept):

• Separate faction, probably called the Dissolution Faction (kinda want to stay away from using a Spanish word for a Muslim mechanic), entirely unique to Muslims (and possibly Pagans).
  • It does not disable the normal independence faction but encourages independence faction members to join the Dissolution Faction instead based upon opinion of the liege.
  • It is much more rowdy during regencies and whenever levies have been raised for long (if allowed for Pagans, levies being raised too long won't affect unreformed religions).
  • It doesn't care about de jure vassal status.
  • If a Caliph is the liege, it's less rowdy, as long as religious authority is high and vassal religions match the Caliph.
  • Distance to liege capital is a very important factor.
  • Total realm size of the liege is an important factor.
  • If a vassal borders a Dissolution Faction member, they are more likely to join it as well.
  • Dynasty members are likely to stick together, for better and worse for the liege.
  • Sheikhs are just as likely to join as Emirs.
  • Whenever the liege wins a war, the Dissolution Faction becomes a bit less popular for a time (a sign of authority).
  • Whenever the liege loses a war, a countervailing effect is added, unless the war was against infidels.
  • It only fires an ultimatum at relatively high faction power, unlike most factions, to ensure almost total cooperation and that the faction isn't annoyingly difficult with which to deal (total dissolution should be rare).
• An associated faction CB. On success:
  • All non-Caliphate titles higher than duke tier as well as duke titles that aren't de jure liege to the capital of the liege are destroyed, and all direct vassals become independent, whether they were part of the faction are not, probably excluding de jure count vassals of the one duchy left for the liege (unless they were faction participants too).
  • All those who broke away as well as the liege are marked (in a way that is inherited) for a temporary period of "rapid reunification conquest" (25-40 years, depending upon how it looks when tuning).
• A reunification CB(s):
  • With a short truce length and no cooldown (so long as it's not war between different religions)
  • Any of those characters marked for "rapid conquest" may use it against each other so long as the modifier remains valid [timer doesn't expire] (Quirk: If this happens to neighboring large realms at the same time, it might become one big zone of rapid conquest)
  • Allows at least rampant county conquest with no restrictions but those above (and quite possibly allows de-jure-duchy subjugation, as in you may take all the territory of a qualifying enemy in any bordering de jure duchy, which may net you either a bunch of count vassals or a mixture of that and some genuine spoils, if they were held by rulers with other holdings outside the de jure duchy)
  • May the big fish eat the small fish

I think that especially the first one is really great!

 

[Urzhail64]

I...am...excited.....beyond....measure. Purely platonic, of course.

 

[kaltruhe]

Hey, mates. I thought that I'd touch base with everyone and offer a glimpse at some of the new, Extended Mechanics & Flavor coming your way:

• A completely brand spankin' new siege module that greatly outclasses our old siege events from PB, thanks entirely to the diligence, perseverance (the engine fought us hard on this one), and creativity of AnaxXiphos.
  • Much, much more flavor-- most importantly, coherent flavor that covers many different types of scenarios and much less of the annoyingly repetitive kind.
  • Much more realistic captures upon successful siege (understands the difference between looting a settlement and consequences of organized siege/assault during a real war, finely-tuned individual character escape chances, and so much more)
  • Proper AI strategy to avoid players being able to rush-assault an enemy capital in a war and instant, anticlimactic 100% warscore.
  • Much more that Anax will show you next week.
• Succession wars [Initial working version complete but on hold regarding further iteration at the moment]
  • Upon succession, face a chance of a claimant to your primary title rising against you with their supporters among your vassals. Like most real succession wars, the action against you will be swift and deliberate will take mere weeks before pretenders' armies begin organizing to move against you.
  • If a pretender of your dynasty prevails against you, the previous ruler abdicates all of his/her titles to the pretender, and your new character becomes the once-pretender. Even if he is an ambitious, envious, or arbitrary (but certainly no craven) member of a dynastic cadet branch of the true royal family, at least you know that enough of your vassals think he's the Real Deal.
• Crown law / crown authority overhaul
  • EMF already completely rewrote PB's demesne laws, giving them mathematical properties that allow for maximal and yet still accessible strategic choices. Now it's time for the crown.
  • Long-needed reform of the PB crown law system to feature the advantages of a vanilla-style crown authority slider (myriad strategic and technical reasons) along with the traditional advantages of PB-style laws, which allow you to individually choose/configure the specific laws (or lack thereof) of each of your crown titles.
  • Crown authority, rather than specific laws, will again matter to your vassals in a model that rewards maximal centralization of power with the monarch, however you should choose to exercise it, far more than previously and manages to do so while still being simpler to understand overall (something that is also of great benefit to AI performance).
  • Crown Authority can be thought of as the "constitution" or "precedent of power" while laws like King's Peace (Internal/Complete), Protected Inheritance, and Title Revocation (Limited/Infidels) are the configurable implementation of that precedent of authority.
  • The Autonomy Faction will be disbanded as a result of this work and replaced with a realm-wide, purpose-based conspiratorial faction to reduce crown authority.
  • The new crown authority faction, unlike the AF, will actually pose a consistent threat to you and more correctly model the continued struggle between nobles and monarchs over the authority of the crown. Yet, the advantages of striving for high crown authority will be too great to forego.
  • Succession law requirements will be revised as part of this work.
  • Crown/succession laws will generally be more strategic rather than the relative sandbox that they are now.
• Command veteran mechanics
  • Military commanders, through major victories in combat/tactics, will distinguish themselves from the crowd with 4 tiers of command veteran traits.
  • Generals at the highest tiers, also through major victories, will occasionally prove themselves the champion of the realm and earn a weak or, under some circumstances, possibly even a strong claim upon their top liege's title.
  • Generals earning claims will be more common in realms with high regard for military leadership such as the Byzantine Empire.
  • Finally, in combination with the succession war module, we'll come closer to modeling such dynamics as the rise of Alexios Komnenos.
• Achievement traits
  • When a character achieves something that's unusual and interesting (although it may not always be by choice!), they'll be rewarded one of a growing list of possible character "achievement" traits.
  • Though they should be relatively rare to find (as they underscore something exceptional), an interesting part of such a character's life will be told in the backstory of these traits.

While we've got more on our minds, that's sufficient glimpse for now. This developer needs to get back to coding.

Cool! All of those feature will be compatible with the current saves?

 

[Saintrl]

Mmmm... nice. I'll take this for now. I still want my Immersion eventually though. *runs off with cardboard cutout VIET*

 

[bontanel]

Achievement traits
When a character achieves something that's unusual and interesting (although it may not always be by choice!), they'll be rewarded one of a growing list of possible character "achievement" traits.
Though they should be relatively rare to find (as they underscore something exceptional), an interesting part of such a character's life will be told in the backstory of these traits.

I'm a bit confused. How would that work? Like lifestyle traits? Historical titles like Liberator of Jerusalem or First king of X? Could you give an example?

 

[Prof. Wubba]

Are there any plans to expand on the Finnic or Baltic religions? In their current state they're pretty barebones. Apologies in advance if this has been asked before.

 

[bontanel]

Are there any plans to expand on the Finnic or Baltic religions? In their current state they're pretty barebones. Apologies in advance if this has been asked before.

My guess is they fall under VIET which is coming soon

 

[zijistark]

Are there any plans to expand on the Finnic or Baltic religions? In their current state they're pretty barebones. Apologies in advance if this has been asked before.

Are you talking about about mechanics or flavor that might make the Baltic or Finnic states more interesting to play? No, nothing specifically, although they'll benefit just as well from all of the above. The currently defunct VImmersion (VIET Immersion, VImmerson) module tended to focus on providing very specific cultural/religious flavor. Even if that module was re-released this month (it won't be), I don't think that cybrxkhan/Ordep have any new plans for that area.

EMF tends to focus upon the mechanics & flavor that most benefit almost every kind of ruler and the general quality of the game as a whole. We'd rather learn something about the Baltics or Finnics that we could find a way to extrapolate to a greater mechanic for certain pagan types (or whatever), if possible. The only effective reason that we focus less upon very specific cultural/religious stuff (though it's never out of the question) is merely a lack of manpower. As HIP's "backbone" mod, we put a tremendous amount of effort into ensuring that our code is fully correct, everything behaves as expected, features performance on par with vanilla, and receives lots of testing. That means that our features take a lot longer to develop than for some mods, and if we can only pick a few key features to be working on at once, then we will definitely focus our efforts upon the things that will impact overall gameplay experience the most.

 

[G.Strategos]

Hey, mates. I thought that I'd touch base with everyone and offer a glimpse at some of the new, Extended Mechanics & Flavor coming your way:

Already available in the beta???

Cheers

 

[zijistark]

Already available in the beta???

Cheers

Not yet. We keep major changes in separate GitHub branches and test them there before allowing them to enter the beta.

 

[G.Strategos]

Not yet. We keep major changes in separate GitHub branches and test them there before allowing them to enter the beta.

Fair enough...