[MOD] Sonendar: An Original Fantasy Total Conversion Mod

[StLeibowitz]

Lore question: What's Duke Emund's story? I picked him without looking too hard - he seemed like the biggest bear in the Claws - but it turns out he's wrong culture/wrong religion, Continental Nord/Sword'n'Plow, and so's his poor old blinded daddy over in Old Unpronounceable. Some kind of reverse migration from Sonendar proper?

Also, perhaps the Unite the Reichsmarch decision should be limited to those who live within the Reichsmarch. Emund can take that ambition, but it says he wants to become Reichsmarschall of " --- ", I assume because the northern continent doesn't have an Empire-tier title for it to work with.

EDIT: Wow, Emund is Duke of the Claws and yet does not actually own any land in the claws. This was an interesting choice for a character...

And then a localisation issue: female jarl consorts seem to be titled "countess".

And then is the strait between Gerskeklif and Arpherthorp intentional? Seems sort of odd, but maybe it's just because I'm eying it paranoidly

And then another localisation bug: the religion group for Haqoob, Lord of Storms appears in-game as "Muslim".

 

[atdoan]

I actually don't know what Edmund's story is, I just thought it'd be interesting to make him a bit of an outsider. It probably is some sort of reverse migration from the continent.

Good catch with the ambition, I must've messed up the ALLOWS={. The idea was to allow the Sonendar Nords, like the Jarl of Dutland and all those other little fellows on the continent to aspire to become Reichsmarschall too.

Oh also yeah the strait crossing is intentional. It takes a bit of work to make strait crossings so they're always intentional!

 

[fargoniac]

The Present Debutante decision adds a male character rather than a female one.

 

[StLeibowitz]

I can confirm the Present Debutante giving a male courtier. I could see that making sense maybe for the Zakrum-Marza, though, if the other invite decisions (the ones that give males) were also flipped - which could maybe also work for a realm with enatic succession.


EDIT: More bug reports coming.

Followers of Haqoob, Lord of Storms, can become Faqih, formally schooled in Islamic jurisprudence. I imagine this is a very easy-to-achieve status in Sonendar, as "Islam" would just be a nonsense word and the faqih could make stuff up at will to seem well versed.

What is the "Extermination" casus belli, by the way? I'm not sure it's actually called that in the files, but it's the war name. I assumed it was pirate extermination at first, since Bregnac used it to crush one of the corsair tribes, but now a Zakrum-Marza duchess is using it to stage an invasion of mainland Bregnac. EDIT 2: Probably not a bug. Hostility may have been from them both being at war with a third pirate party, but I'm not sure.

The terrain type of Hatzirnfeld reads as "arctic", as does Ossen-Kassel's. Is this a bug, or are those two provinces just particularly cold?

 

[StLeibowitz]

Double-post to rescue this from falling off the front page.

A glitch occurs where two broken events fire at the same time - "A pretty young wench is throwing herself at you" and something about imagining the scariest situation and reacting to it. The character portrait slot is filled with a black square. I can select options and pass through the events just fine, but neither give any effect. Not sure why that's happening, but it's not gamebreaking.

 

[atdoan]

Double-post to rescue this from falling off the front page.

A glitch occurs where two broken events fire at the same time - "A pretty young wench is throwing herself at you" and something about imagining the scariest situation and reacting to it. The character portrait slot is filled with a black square. I can select options and pass through the events just fine, but neither give any effect. Not sure why that's happening, but it's not gamebreaking.

Hm. I'm not sure why that's broken, because I didn't mess with it at all. I'll have to take a look at that!

Thanks for the other bug reports!

"Extermination" CB is a war of pirate extermination, a war to root out and destroy the pirate enclaves. I included it because all too often I saw crazy things like the pirate republics invading and taking over half of Western Sonendar.

 

[StLeibowitz]

It seems to be working well, then. The Corsairs are pretty well pinned down, with Bregnac and Tale' squabbling over central Jezrah. For a while it looked like Jenassa might restore the great age of piracy and bring the squidheads in Kyte along for the ride, but once king Edouard personally killed Jenassa in battle the brief resurgence collapsed, and the southern pirates are now led by the feared and terrible dread pirate Gary. The Icereaper pirates are too powerful to think of sullying their peg legs raiding Sonendar and have instead taking to sacking viking villages in Nordhalla.

Despite the bugs, this is still my favorite fantasy mod by far. Thanks for continuing to update it!

 

[das]

This is very nice! Do you plan on adding more content for the Barrier, or at least writing up something about its history?

I have to admit, all those ancestorless dynasties look a bit weird, but the 0 years old child king of the Barrier with no parents is the weirdest situation by far. Still, I suppose it worked out alright for me. I suppose you intend to update other noble titles for them other than male dukes to High Watchers at some point?

 

[atdoan]

Ah yes, of course! I've been neglecting them, but I should add a few events to make them a bit more interesting. Currently, however, my priority is fixing bugs and issues and expanding the map.

The backstory to them is basically that they are an "Incan empire" of sorts. Sonendar originally belonged to the Pachas and the Ockchaws, but as invaders from other lands gradually pushed them to the margins, their area of rule retreated. Having originally made their homeland in the mountains, the Pachas held out in their ancestral mountain strongholds in the Great Barrier. Their cities are natural fortifications, and they will get extra buildings that will give bonuses to fort level and garrison size.

They are also the original tenders of the flame of the Eye of Sonendar, a sacred island in the middle of the lake, and the center of their native Sonendis religion, which worships the Goddess Sonendis as the mother of all creation, the spiritual embodiment of the land itself. I need to fix the event chain, but followers of Sonendis who have "Celestial Observatories" in their demesnes, can search the heavens for a sign from Sonendis. Once the stars align, they will be tasked with the mission of securing all the lands surrounding Lake Sonendar. Having secured it, they will be able to activate the Beacon of Sonendar -- essentially reconstructing the ancient temple at the Eye and lighting the flame at the top of the tower -- which will turn every other religion into a heresy of Sonendis and enable the Pachas to make holy war upon all who do not submit.

 

[das]

I spotted that in the events. So it doesn't work at the moment? Pity.

It's a bit troublesome too, because it seems you need to have celestial observatories in specific provinces, and it seems like it would be difficult to gently nudge your vassals into building them. But I guess the payoff should be worth the trouble of taking over all those lands.

There is plenty of flavour to add for the Incans. At a thought, they could have something like the runestone events, based on their burial chambers. I also remember reading a snippet about how the actual Incans combated cannibalism throughout their territory, but at the same time had a special form of punishment in which members of a peripheral cannibal tribe, kept at the court for this specific purpose, would devour people alive. Might be a bit over the top though. Human sacrifice and concubinage would both make sense for them too.

 

[atdoan]

In the upcoming Sonendar patch:

Revamped Rozhan tech tree

In addition to expanding to the southern continent, I'll be adding some fixes to the Rozhans. The Rozhans are essentially "Feudal Lords who style themselves merchants", rather than "Merchants who style themselves lords". They rule by regular feudal succession, and aren't patricians, but they nevertheless have a greedy, commercial bent to them that drives them to boost their economy to levels rivaling that of Merchant republics. How do they do this without trade posts? Well, essentially, as a Rozhan, you will be concentrating on building and upgrading your holdings -- The Rozhans come from a somewhat more technologically advanced culture (at least in terms of commerce and infrastructure), and they are well aware that the wealth of a nobleman comes not from engaging in crude transactions, but by building up the prosperity of your realm and then taxing the wealth of your subjects.

I'll be making their tech tree more straightforward. Essentially, there are two main routes: Marketplaces and Government Offices. Each level of marketplace upgrade will add a flat bonus tax income, while each level of government offices will add a tax multiplier. However, each level of the upgrades will cost significantly more than the previous one. This rising build cost can be ameliorated by constructing Survey Offices and upgrading them. Hence, you will need to balance reinvestment of your wealth into basic upgrades for your marketplaces, improving the cash flow through increasing infrastructure and administration, and building construction and survey offices to reduce costs.

A caveat: the increasing wealth and prosperity that you attract to your castle cities will make your population progressively more indolent and averse to war. This is reflected in that each level of marketplace and infrastructure upgrades will actually reduce morale or fort level. Rozhans can become truly prosperous even with a small demesne, but beware of the military costs!

 

[fargoniac]

When should we expect the update?

 

[atdoan]

I don't know. I don't set a timetable for releases, because this is a simple hobby project and not a professional release, or even a professional mod!
I can tell you however that it'll be released when this is done:

Right now I just have provinces drawn, the real work will be to add localizations, titles, histories and so on.

 

[StLeibowitz]

I might have to try a Rozhan game after the next patch. Looks fun! Of course, if the Barrier gets more expansionist after their buff, Rozhan military maluses might make for a short game...in my current Nordmark playthrough, the Pacha have conquered and colonized the northern bits of Rozha, and that's without their own cities being fortified citadels.

Another pair of issues for patching:

The Yao Martial Arts trait icon appears to be missing, along with the Wu Martial Arts one.

The Zakrum-Marza have, as of 4304, undergone a societal flip, with most duchies and counties ruled by men under Agnatic Ultimogeniture. Not entirely certain this is intended behavior; maybe they should be locked into enatic succession?

EDIT: And that new continent looks like it'll be fun to play on. What program is that, by the way?

 

[atdoan]

The Yao Martial Arts trait icon appears to be missing, along with the Wu Martial Arts one.

Whoa, okay. Thanks for telling me!

The Zakrum-Marza have, as of 4304, undergone a societal flip, with most duchies and counties ruled by men under Agnatic Ultimogeniture. Not entirely certain this is intended behavior; maybe they should be locked into enatic succession?

EDIT: And that new continent looks like it'll be fun to play on. What program is that, by the way?

Totally NOT intended. I don't really understand, but on succession, they seem to flip to Agnatic for some reason? Weird, because all other gender successions are disabled for them!! I inserted an event which should force them to be Enatic whenever this happens, but it's a bit of a kludge.

The program is just Photoshop CS6!

 

[atdoan]

By the way, if anyone wants to help out, I need someone who is willing and able to do something quite tedious.

Essentially, I need someone to do definition.txt. Of course, I'd be able to do it myself, but it's just very repetitive, tedious work. All you need to do is get the RGB color value for the province from provinces.bmp, and put it in its proper formatting in defines.txt. It takes no modding skill at all, just some program like paint where you can sample the colors and then get an RGB value from them, and a text editor.

Anyone up for it? Just send me a pm and I'll get you the bmp file and definition.txt.

 

[fargoniac]

Hopefully it's released soon.

 

[Anonymous01]

I spent a few hours playing the Rozhan last night. It was a great game. And the game moves so quickly -- a great change of pace from CK2 vanilla and most other mods. It was a struggle to keep a Grand Prince alive long enough to complete the gold-cornering event, but it was worth it.

Will the Rozhan remain African after your update? You have a European grand prince in your pictures above.

Also, can I console switch to a culture that allows me to grant titles to women, and if so which one? The Rozhan gender restriction was difficult, especially given the shorter lifespans and fertility rates in-game.

EDIT: Are the gold market crash events limited to the Rozhan, or does every ruler get them?

 

[atdoan]

I spent a few hours playing the Rozhan last night. It was a great game. And the game moves so quickly -- a great change of pace from CK2 vanilla and most other mods. It was a struggle to keep a Grand Prince alive long enough to complete the gold-cornering event, but it was worth it.

Will the Rozhan remain African after your update? You have a European grand prince in your pictures above.

Also, can I console switch to a culture that allows me to grant titles to women, and if so which one? The Rozhan gender restriction was difficult, especially given the shorter lifespans and fertility rates in-game.

You can switch to Greenman culture, it goes under "green_country" to get access to True Cognatic.

The Western-style kid portraits IS an issue, I'll ask the modding questions thread about it, but basically I modded the gfx files in the latest update so that Rozhans would wear Western-style clothing. For some reason, it makes the kids look Western too! But adults still have African portraits, so don't worry! This is just to give them a little flavor and help distinguish them from their estranged cousins on Dai-Orrozhai, who will wear Muslim and African-style clothing.

I'm so glad that you're enjoying the mod, even if it's a little buggy!!

EDIT: Rozhan gold crash events only happen (or at least only supposed to happen) to Rozhans who are trying to corner the global gold market. If anyone else is getting them, please report it to me!

EDIT2: Hey, how did the cornering of the gold market work out for you? Did it work properly? Could you take some screenshots? Last time I tested this, I ended up master of a million tiny little counties and duchies all across the world, and it was pretty dramatic.

 

[atdoan]

TSF4 has joined the project to help out with adding RGB values to definition.txt! Thanks TSF4!

Also, dude, your inbox is full, so I'll leave this message here: -- please demarcate with # marks whenever you reach the end of a Kingdom, so I can more easily see where they begin and end.