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atdoan

First Lieutenant
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Jun 2, 2008
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Hi! New modder here, and I've been developing a little original fantasy scenario called Sonendar!

Sonendar v.1.06.2.5
Requires:CK2 v.2.1.6
Highly-Recommended: The Old Gods, The Republic, Sunset Invasion, Mongol Face Pack, African Face Pack


What it does is that it totally converts CK2 to a custom map with its own unique histories, characters, and more! Sonendar isn't based on any existing media franchise or fictional setting, it's all completely made-up by me.

Here's a few things that it covers, but a full list of everything that is changed would take me quite a while to write!

New Laws and Systems

The Pawxatuck Confederacy

The Independent States of the Pawxatuck Confederacy are a loose band of various advanced tribes living in the northwestern corner of Sonendar. They grouped together to form the Confederacy in order to defend their culture and independence from the encroach of other peoples, such as the Nords who invaded from the North and the Green Country people, who are expanding rapidly thanks to the fertile lands of their country.

Independence and freedom weigh highly in Ockchaw culture. Thus, Ockchaws are by default True Cognatic and cannot switch out of Feudal Elective. Furthermore, by Ockchaw tradition, the chief among them all, the Great Gaffer, is periodically chosen from among one of the ten Gafferdoms of the Confederacy. After their term is over, the reigning Gaffer must abdicate the seat to the candidate with the highest votes.

Thus, instead of Investiture laws, they have a set of laws governing the term limits of their Gaffers. Longer term limits mean that you will stay in power longer, but carries a heavy penalty among your vassals, who prefer shorter terms. The shortest term limit, 4 years, confers a +30 bonus opinion among your vassals, basically negating the effects of "short reign".

Thanks to their culture of independence Ockchaws may not raise Crown Authority above Low, except during War time, during which it may be raised to Medium. To compensate for this, vassals will raise relatively more troops under Minimal authority. The Pawxatuck Confederacy also has special Militia Laws, which are essentially the same as Feudal Levy Laws, with the difference being that vassals retain relatively fewer troops under the lowest settings. However, the lowest Militia laws also mean that the troops that vassals do contribute will have much higher Morale.

All of these factors mean that as Great Gaffer, you will spend a lot of time trying to maintain good relations among your vassals. Under effective leadership, the Pawxatuck Confederacy will be able to punch above its weight -- for defensive purposes-- as compared to a realm of equal size and similar centralization level.



The Yuan Empire

Almost as polar opposite to the Pawxatuck Confederacy, the Yuan Empire (or rather, the two warring kingdoms into which the Yuan Empire has split), benefits most from highest centralization, thanks to their special Imperial Authority laws. Thanks to their unique culture, the state thrives under high Imperial Authority, conferring a massive boost to technological spread and reducing revolt risk across the country. Contrarily, under lowest Imperial Authority, the empire suffers massive increases in revolt risk, and a reduction of the speed of technological advancement -- but your vassals will be pleased.

The Imperial Army Laws affect the balance of military forces in the Empire. At the lowest settings, vassals contribute the least to the cause of the Empire, so to compensate, the College of Bureaucrats conscripts far more peasants from the Emperor's personal desmesne into the Imperial Retinue, increasing retinue sizes. At the highest settings, vassals contribute the most to the cause of the empire. In order to ensure orderliness in the ranks, the College of Bureaucrats must spread out its political controls among the ranks of the Emperor's bannermen, and can spare fewer commanders for the Imperial Retinues, decreasing total retinue size.

The State Burden laws affect the balance between bureaucracy and nobility. Setting the State Burden laws on their lowest setting will offend the clergy -- the bureaucrats-- by decreasing their opinion on you and putting higher taxes on clergy. Essentially, it is a tax on the scholars and middle-class officials who do most of the work of administering the Empire. On the other hand, setting State Burden Laws to their highest setting will force the Feudal Vassals to pay their fair share of the burden of administering the empire, upsetting them, but the Bureaucrats will be thrilled.

Thus, in the Yuan Empire, the trick will be to balance between the Feudal Lords and the Bureaucracy. As the bureaucracy is innately tied into the Faith of the empire itself -- the Yuan Empire's faith is "Imperial Bureaucracy", you would do well to manage these two factions wisely.



Kingdoms of the Reichsmarch

The Reichsmarch used to form an empire that dominated most of West-Central Sonendar, in the lands surrounding Lake Sonendar. In former times, the Reichsmarch was an empire whose power rivaled that of the Yuan Empire in the East. It comprised primarily of four kingdoms: the Nordmark, the Easterreich, the Westerreich, Zührenheim, and had for a brief time even forced the Merchant King of Rozha to bow the knee as a vassal.

After the Nord invasions and the economic disruptions caused by the First Great Age of Piracy, the Reichsmarch suffered a succession crisis and broke up into the four original kingdoms from which it had emerged. The areas worst affected was the Nordmark, which simply ceased to exist and broke up into a chaotic realm squabbled over by petty Nord chieftains.

As a king of the Reichsmarch, you may have ambitions to reconquer the land and rebuild the former Empire. If you have Nord, Westermarker, or Eastermarker culture, you will be able to take a special ambition: Unite the Reichsmarch. As long as you have the ambition, you will gain the ability to wage a war of subjugation over all de jure members of the Empire of the Reichsmarch.



I've also fleshed out the dynasties of most of the Western Sonendar kings, so that they will be a bit less prone to dissolution and succession crises. The exception to this is the Kingdom of Bregnac, whose rulers I've purposefully designed to be in an unstable and contentious state.



I'm really new to modding, so Sonendar may not be fully balanced, and bits and pieces will seem a bit unfinished. I'll definitely be slowly updating and working on it as time goes on, so expect it to improve a lot as I work on it. However, all of the states on the map are playable and unique in some way, so please enjoy it and report any bugs to me and feel free to make suggestions! I'm also really open to anyone who wants to help me!
 
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This looks interesting. Just a note (assuming it's because your still fleshing the mod out) You cant build a lot of the custom buildings atm because they are requiring the post office (iirc) to be build, which you can't, because it requires "nobuilding" to be built.

And a suggestion....it seems all the provinces already have max settlement built. You might wanna change that to allow for growth. I also notice in an area on the south coast, a lot of provinces have 7 settlements, which strikes me as a very high population density for medieval societies. That's like 7 or so Constantinoples crammed into an area a 5th the size of the Balkans.

In any case, this looks like a great start, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the parts of the map you have yet to fill.

Cheers

Bruce
 
Thanks for the heads-up, Bruce! I'd forgotten to change that! It'll be included in the next update.

Yeah, most of the provinces have all the settlements built already. I've done a lot of copy-pasting to all the province histories just to make sure that there's stuff there. I'll definitely start to comment out a few of the settlements in the histories so that there'll be more variation. However, the area in the south coast, the Kingdom of Rozha, is actually meant to be absurdly wealthy and densely-populated in comparison to the other kingdoms.
 
This looks great. I appreciate a well-made fantasy world that I don't have to read five-thousand pages worth of novels to understand. Also, this one seems to come with several pretty unique twists. Awesome - I'll definitely play this.
 
Hey guys! Here's another small preview of some new things I'm putting in for the next update.

The Grand Principality of Rozha

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Did any of you ever play as the Morganites in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri? Those guys whose specialty was to just sort of sit back and be rich as fuck and even had a special victory condition where they could use their wealth to take over the world? Well that's who the Rozhans are.

For the price of 15,000 gold, this decision will launch a 20-year event chain where you can spend a lot of money to basically seize power. At the end, you will be given a titular title -- Merchant King and gain a ton of prestige and piety. It'll also send out an event to all the one-province counts and dukes in the world where they can choose to either swear fealty to you, or lose 500-1000 gold, which for most people will probably send them into bankruptcy.

During the scheme, all neighboring countries will get a free CB on you to force you to abandon the scheme, so watch your borders carefully!

After you declare yourself Merchant King, you can also get a bunch of special CBs on all your neighbors to force them to submit to you -- for a price; exact tributes of gold (as if you needed it!); or forcibly convert them into the faith of the Driftwood King, the god of merchants, traders, and the merchant marine.

To accomplish this lofty scheme, the Rozhans get tons of unique buildings designed solely for the purpose of increasing the wealth of their holdings. However, this will come at a price, as all the buildings have a small negative effect on your military, lowering their morale as your soldiers get fat and lazy, lowering their numbers, and other things. I'll invent mercenary groups so that the Rozhans can hire someone to defend themselves. Imagine their playstyle as being something like a Patrician family and a Feudal lord combined.
 
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So I commented out the requirements that were stopping the post office from being built. I can build those buildings now. It turns out, however, that buildings cannot increase character stats (e.g. stewardship).

Cheers


Bruce
 
Played through a bit, really like the idea so far, and the religion info is a nice touch. Few things I notices straight away, the Unify ambition doesn't work properly when selected it says doesn't have proper CB. Also the pirates have a much over powered Raid CB that OP, I would suggest just allowing them to raid like the Norse do in Old Gods, and also allowing a coastal conquest CB if they are powerful enough. Really good though, especially for your first time modding. I'd offer some help but I have no idea how to mod besides adding names and very minor things.
 
Played through a bit, really like the idea so far, and the religion info is a nice touch. Few things I notices straight away, the Unify ambition doesn't work properly when selected it says doesn't have proper CB. Also the pirates have a much over powered Raid CB that OP, I would suggest just allowing them to raid like the Norse do in Old Gods, and also allowing a coastal conquest CB if they are powerful enough. Really good though, especially for your first time modding. I'd offer some help but I have no idea how to mod besides adding names and very minor things.

I have no idea why the Unify CB is broken! I'm going to ask in the quick questions thread and see what I get. I basically just copied the Pagan Subjugation CB and changed the scope to target kingdoms within the de jure boundaries of the empire. I guess it doesn't work for some reason, but I'm not really sure why.

Is there any special events or decisions in game, later on to expand the mechanics a bit?
Yes! There are a bunch of special events and decisions for several cultures. I will definitely be adding more, though.
 
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I have no idea why the Unify CB is broken! I'm going to ask in the quick questions thread and see what I get. I basically just copied the Pagan Subjugation CB and changed the scope to target kingdoms within the de jure boundaries of the empire. I guess it doesn't work for some reason, but I'm not really sure why.


Yes! There are a bunch of special events and decisions for several cultures. I will definitely be adding more, though.

Could please give a little hint to what to come event wise/decisions?
 
Could please give a little hint to what to come event wise/decisions?

Sure! Here's another small preview of some new things I'm putting in for the next update.

The Grand Principality of Rozha



Did any of you ever play as the Morganites in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri? Those guys whose specialty was to just sort of sit back and be rich as fuck and even had a special victory condition where they could use their wealth to take over the world? Well that's who the Rozhans are.

For the price of 15,000 gold, this decision will launch a 20-year event chain where you can spend a lot of money to basically seize power. At the end, you will be given a titular title -- Merchant King and gain a ton of prestige and piety. It'll also send out an event to all the one-province counts and dukes in the world where they can choose to either swear fealty to you, or lose 500-1000 gold, which for most people will probably send them into bankruptcy.

During the scheme, all neighboring countries will get a free CB on you to force you to abandon the scheme, so watch your borders carefully!

After you declare yourself Merchant King, you can also get a bunch of special CBs on all your neighbors to force them to submit to you -- for a price; exact tributes of gold (as if you needed it!); or forcibly convert them into the faith of the Driftwood King, the god of merchants, traders, and the merchant marine.

To accomplish this lofty scheme, the Rozhans get tons of unique buildings designed solely for the purpose of increasing the wealth of their holdings. However, this will come at a price, as all the buildings have a small negative effect on your military, lowering their morale as your soldiers get fat and lazy, lowering their numbers, and other things. I'll invent mercenary groups so that the Rozhans can hire someone to defend themselves. Imagine their playstyle as being something like a Patrician family and a Feudal lord combined.

Some early development pictures!
 
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When I roll out with v.1.05, it'll come with an earlier starting date, set about a hundred years in the past, during the First Great Age of Piracy.

nsGWH4x.png


At this date, Dagnar Mancrusher, "The Bloodhammer" has led his reavers on a twenty-year campaign of conquest that left him in control of most of the coastline of Western Sonendar. Horrified by this development, the Kingdoms of Bregnac, Thumbrica, the Reichsmarch, and the Pawxatuck Confederation, band together to resist the apparently unstoppable Pirate rampage. They gather their armies, fifty thousand strong, to retake the crucial remaining port of Pelican Bay, in the county of Kyte. Dagnar has already landed twenty thousand bloodthirsty pirates there, sacked the capitol and taken the head of Yoren Clockwater, the Earl of Kyte. If Dagnar manages to secure every last port in Western Sonendar, the alliance will have no means of launching ships and no way of besieging the pirate capitol on the Icereaper Isles. It all rests on retaking Pelican Bay from the pirates, at the Battle of Five Kings.

(Dagnar would perish, and his empire would break apart as the pirates lost their young messiah. However, the battle was so destructive, killing the King of Thumbrica and the Reichsmarschall, and many of their sons, that it would precipitate a series of succession crises that would wind up splitting Thumbrica into Manxwall and Everdell, and the Reichsmarch into its four constituent kingdoms.)

Meanwhile, in the east the declining Yuan Empire faces an invasion of Aztecs, who have come streaming through a dimensional portal over the Eastern Ocean.
 
Sonendar v.1.04.3 Released!

Big changes:

- Added a special event chain for Rozha and lots of new buildings. Rozhans can embark on a scheme to "Corner the Global Gold Market if they have 15K gold. Finishing the 20 year event chain without dipping into bankruptcy will give them an empire level title and lots of prestige and power. All independent duke and count-level rulers will get an event where they can either swear fealty to the Merchant King of Rozha or face a bankrupting loss of 500-1000 gold due to the Rozhan control of the World Gold Market.
- Added lots of new dynasty members for almost all of the duchies and kingdoms on the map.
- Fixed Reichsmarch subjugation CB.
- Fixed "Become Reichsmarschall" ambition
- Nerfed Pirate Raid CB

Faction Highlight: The Walkers of Everdell

The Kingdom of Everdell is one of the two titular Kingdoms that broke off after the destruction of the ancient Kingdom of Thumbrica. It is small, entirely landlocked, and is surrounded by large, hungry kingdoms just waiting for a chance to take a bite out of it. To the south is Bregnac -- at the beginning rather unstable as the Betit dynasty squabbles over the crown -- and to the North is the Westerreich, whose troops greatly outnumber yours. To the northwest is Manxwall, the other former half of Thumbrica, whose ruler is currently engaged in tensions with the Pawxatuck Confederation over its de jure lands, but who looks eagerly to devour your territory and restore Thumbrica.

In the 4256 CE start, Everdell is ruled by old Agathe Walker. Playing as Agathe, you will start off unmarried and at 45 years old, well past childbearing age. Your daughter, Tabitha, a fairly mediocre leader, will already be an Earless and not likely to accept a matrilineal marriage with any of your courtiers. Your kingdom will be running True Cognatic Primogeniture, meaning Tabitha is next in line to inherit the kingdom. Your sole male descendant is Adrian, a sickly four year old boy from Tabitha's previous dalliances.

With a dynasty of two other members, a landlocked position, a small desmesne and few vassals, will you be able to preserve the Walker dynasty? Or will it fade into the mists of history, as the Kingdom of Everdell is swallowed up by its hungry neighbors?