[MOD] Imperial Revamp

[warlordJake]

Summary
This mod includes several changes to the mechanics of kingdoms and empires with the Imperial Administration law. These changes are indented to make realms run by a bureaucracy feel noticeably different from feudal or tribal realms. Generally, the imperial ruler has more power over his/her vassals, but faces some new threats. The mod is designed to work with (and be balanced for) the features of the DLC, notably retinues and viceroyalties. Therefore, I don't recommend using this mod without owning Legacy of Rome and Charlemagne.

Features
Imperial rulers gain a number of new powers, compared to their feudal peers. These include:

• A significantly increased retinue limit, representing a professional army
• A bonus to vassal tax to pay for your army
• Free revokation of all titles in your De Jure kingdom/empire, representing (along with the viceroys introduced in Charlemagne) governors rather than hereditary vassals ruling lands

However, to compensate for these benefits, Imperial rulers must deal with

• Ambitious rebel generals, which can raise armies to challenge you, and, if charismatic, can rally your governors against you as well
• Reduced vassal levies
• Court plots to sieze power, potentially leading to civil war (not fully implemented)

The goal isn't to make Imperial realms more or less powerful than feudal realms, but instead to give them a unique set of advantages and disadvantages. With free vassal revocation and the use of viceroys, Imperial realms have much less trouble dealing with vassals. However, unless you are willing to use unskilled generals (which have more significant penalties associated with them than in vanilla), Imperial realms will instead have to deal with ambitious generals and jelous courtiers attempting to seize power.

Rebel Generals

Compared to vanilla, military success is a much greater factor in gaining prestige than holding land. This means that even an unlanded courtier can gain great prestige by leading your troops and defeating your enemies. Sometimes, a particularly skilled or lucky general will develop a reputation for martial prowess.



These successful generals hold the love of their troops, and can thus be dangerous. You must deal with them carefully - either gain their loyalty or destroy them.



If ambition, greed, or hate motivates him, a general may seek to supplant his liege. Upon doing so, soldiers will rally to his banner...



...and perhaps vassals too.



And should you fail to contain these generals, you may find yourself supplanted.



Caveats
This mod is for beta patch 2.2.0.1.

I am still fairly new to modding, and so I'm afraid this mod is likely to have both bugs and unbalanced features at present. If you spot a bug, please let me know. If possible, include your save game so I can duplicate (and hopefully fix) it. I also am hoping to add to the potential for court intrigue, improve the localization, and rebalance the powers of Imperial rulers. Any suggestions or help in that would be appreciated. I am in school, so development may be slow and sporadic. If anyone wants to improve upon anything in the mod or use it elsewhere, please feel free.

Download
View attachment ImperialRevamp_v1.3.zip

 

[darthfanta]

Great work!

 

[DeltaCortis]

Very nice. Will be testing this out shortly

 

[Calantyr]

Very elegant.

 

[Elcaspar]

Looks cool im going to try this, BTW keep up the good work

 

[theStormWeaver]

Portions of your mod may work for Daiodachi Kings.
I'll be keeping an eye on this.

 

[jordarkelf]

VERY nice. This is exactly how emperors often gained power in the Eastern Roman Empire historically.

---

Several issues:

Your on_actions file is missing all the Charlemagne stuff from vanilla. Did you remove these for a reason?

decisions\demesne_laws.txt is broken: missing the = sign for multiple if statements in the tribal_organization laws

You're using common\traits\01_traits.txt but have that file is used for base game traits, which are thusly removed by using your mod.

You run the same risk with your other files in future patches or other mod conflics since you use 01_whatever for everything -- I suggest you use a new filename instead.

Don't use filenames like 01_plots.txt -- use something like IMP_plots.txt or something similar unique to your mod.

 

[JFeatherston]

I love the mod! Just one caution, troops the rebels get appear to be a bit OP. Like in the range of 50k

 

[warlordJake]

VERY nice. This is exactly how emperors often gained power in the Eastern Roman Empire historically.

Thanks! I'm far from an expert on Roman/Byzantine history, but reading a couple of books on the period (inspired by CK2, in fact) is actually what gave me the idea for the mod.

Your on_actions file is missing all the Charlemagne stuff from vanilla. Did you remove these for a reason?

Ouch! I started the mod a little bit before Charlemagne was released. I redid defines and demesne_laws but I forgot to look at on_actions again.

decisions\demesne_laws.txt is broken: missing the = sign for multiple if statements in the tribal_organization laws

Hmm, that's odd. I didn't think I changed anything there. I'll add that in.

You're using common\traits\01_traits.txt but have that file is used for base game traits, which are thusly removed by using your mod.

You run the same risk with your other files in future patches or other mod conflics since you use 01_whatever for everything -- I suggest you use a new filename instead.

Don't use filenames like 01_plots.txt -- use something like IMP_plots.txt or something similar unique to your mod.

Excellent point. I hadn't really thought about that. Thank you for your advice. Like I said, I'm fairly new to modding, so I'm still making plenty of mistakes. I won't have a chance to reupload the mod for a few hours, but I appreciate the advice and will take it soon!

---

I love the mod! Just one caution, troops the rebels get appear to be a bit OP. Like in the range of 50k

Thanks for the feedback! That does seem a bit much. I'll probably have to tone the numbers down a bit. Is this for Byzantium at/near the start? How many vassals joined the rebellion?

Since (as far as I know) there is no way to transfer ownership of retinues, I have to give rebel generals more troops than I otherwise would want to. The balnce I am aiming for is that, with no vassals joining them, rebellious generals would be a dangerous distraction but beatable (unless you are already in trouble). Vassals joining the rebel would give a small but noticeable boost to troop numbers. If the majority of your vassals join the rebel, the war should become very difficult to win, and you may have to give in and try to retake your throne later.

 

[warlordJake]

I've edited the original post with an updated version. The new version has fixed the on_action and demesne_law issues that jordarkelf pointed out, decreased the extra troops generated by each vassal by a bit, and decreased the likelihood of rebellious generals during the reign of a ruler that has already crushed prior rebels.

 

[unworthypilot]

im really impressed with this. I am about to try it out. Idk if it this is implemented or not, but if an emperor is supplanted, then there could be vassals of the supplanted emperor that may not agree with the usurper and choose to become independent. It would an interesting way to counter some of the blobbing empires as they change hands

 

[richvh]

on_siege_won_leader section in 00_on_actions.txt has an extra closing bracket.

on_fail section of general_claim_on_liege CB: liege = FROM is invalid code; use set_defacto_liege = FROM. Same problem in on_reverse_demand section.

plot_sieze_imperial_throne_decision: The effect section scopes immediately to FROM, but there is no FROM in a plot_decision. I think you need to use plot_target_char there.

In event IMP.24, set_de_facto_liege should be set_defacto_liege

In event IMP.16, you use NOT = { is_now_emperor } in the trigger. is_now_emperor seems to be a character flag from later code, and the way to test a character flag is has_character_flag = <flag name>, so this should be NOT = { has_character_flag = is_now_emperor }

In event IMP.10, you have

			random_realm_province = {
				gain_title = ROOT

but a province isn't a title. This should be:

			random_realm_province = {
				county = {
					gain_title = ROOT
				}

In event IMP.2, you use is_marshal = yes, this should be has_job_title = job_marshal.

Also in IMP.2, you try to scope to a province's top_liege:

		location = {
			top_liege = {

Provinces don't have lieges, their owners do:

		location = {
			owner = {
				top_liege = {

In plot_sieze_imperial_throne, you try to use min_age = 16, but min_age is only useable in events, outside any sub_blocks, as a fast event trigger, not inside any trigger, limit, potential or allow blocks. Use age = 16 or is_adult = yes.

In the same plot, the allow clause tries to use reverse_has_truce, but truce detection is handled in code and is not accessible to modders as far as I know. You can use an opinion modifier as a character to character timer. (opinion_tried_to_usurp_me or some such)

There's other stuff Validator picked out, some minor, some important.

Event IMP.4 has an endless loop (tooltip = { FROM = { character_event = IMP.4 } }), you probably wanted to call some other event for the general. After that is a PREV where there is no previous scope to load.

Also the revoke interaction event uses FROM, and it isn't documented that FROM is valid for any diplomatic interaction.

IMP.16 isn't called from anywhere.

A bug fixed version:View attachment ImperialRevampdebugged.zip

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

Very nice idea! Very well implemented too. I especially like the successful general feature, but is there a need to make all his supporters the general's vassals? I mean, doesn't the factions feature do it in this case? Generals could create their own factions when they're successful and ambitious, treacherous or decievers...

Also, the game has a tendency to consider that "factions" are "people on the brink of rebellion", when they should actually be much more policy-opinion based and permanent.

 

[richvh]

Wiz pioneered "factions as political parties" rather than "conspiracies to rebel" in CK2+, back before Paradox hired him. I assume the current CK2+ team has kept that concept, but I haven't played it since a couple years ago.

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Portions of your mod may work for Daiodachi Kings.
I'll be keeping an eye on this.

Indeed, the rebel generals mechanic looks rather attractive. I think Lux has a similar system for tribal states.

 

[Imperator1993]

Very interesting mod, I'll give it a try and see if how its works .

 

[loup99]

Wiz pioneered "factions as political parties" rather than "conspiracies to rebel" in CK2+, back before Paradox hired him. I assume the current CK2+ team has kept that concept, but I haven't played it since a couple years ago.

It is kept (atleast in the 2.1.6 version that I played).

 

[Apollo1784]

I absolutely adore this

 

[laevinus]

How will this affect the AI? Will they know not to piss off their powerful generals?

Edit: this successful general event seems to pop a little too often...

 

[warlordJake]

The top post has been updated with a new version. Mostly, it just contains bug-fixes and some rebalancing.

---

im really impressed with this. I am about to try it out. Idk if it this is implemented or not, but if an emperor is supplanted, then there could be vassals of the supplanted emperor that may not agree with the usurper and choose to become independent. It would an interesting way to counter some of the blobbing empires as they change hands

Hmm, interesting idea. Currently, a general that seizes power gets an opinion malus with his new vassals, especially with those that supported the old emperor. I haven't had a chance to test the mod all that much yet (and most of it has been bug-fixing, rather than balancing), but in the couple of observer games I've let run, I have noticed more independence revolts after generals take power. That said, this mod only affects titles with the Imperial Administration law, so it wouldn't really fix the Abbasid's blobbing, for example.

snip

Thanks for the help! Looks like I am missing a lot of errors. I haven't been using the validator, since I was under the impression it wasn't working fully with Charlemagne, but it looks like I would probably do better with it regardless.

Regarding the infinite loop - since the command is in tooltip, it won't actually execute, right? That was what I gleaned from the wiki, anyway. I just wanted to make it easy to see who the event is referring to. But on further reflection, events have the portrait of the character the event was sent from at the top anyway, if I remember right. So I suppose it is unnecessary.

Very nice idea! Very well implemented too. I especially like the successful general feature, but is there a need to make all his supporters the general's vassals? I mean, doesn't the factions feature do it in this case? Generals could create their own factions when they're successful and ambitious, treacherous or decievers...

Also, the game has a tendency to consider that "factions" are "people on the brink of rebellion", when they should actually be much more policy-opinion based and permanent.

Thanks! I had mostly been thinking of vassals as the most obvious form of support for a rebel general, but I am certainly open to other ideas for supporters as well. I could allow councilors to join as well. I tend to think of courtiers as being fairly powerless, so I don't know if I'd want the general to gain an advantage by wooing them. Or perhaps the provinces themselves should have a chance of joining, based on culture, religion, and the like?

How will this affect the AI? Will they know not to piss off their powerful generals?

Edit: this successful general event seems to pop a little too often...

I haven't done anything with the AI, so they won't really know not to piss of generals. If the AI seems to be really unable to handle it (i.e. they get overthrown all the time; I'm fine with the dynasty changing every few generations, as that is fairly historically accurate), I will probably put in some extra events for the AI to help them a bit. For example, events to give generals money, which a human can handle with gifts.

Thanks for the feedback on the frequency. I think you are right. I've raised the requirements some and reduced the (rare) event of a mediocre generals getting the successful general trait. I expect that, if you are regularly winning major wars, you will have a handful (maybe 2 to 6) of successful generals at a time (though most won't rebel unless you antagonize them). Though I am open to changing their frequency more.