Ptolemaic Thinking, an "After the End" flavour mod

[Hatefig]

I fixed the submod. You forgot to put After The End Fan Fork in quotation marks in the dependencies, Jamie, or something about the download removed them. It's a common problem of submods; if the main mod is downloaded via Steam Workshop it will require the dependant submods to list it in quotation marks.

For those wanting to play before he updates it: Find the .mod file you dropped in the directory when you installed, right click it, press "edit with (text editing program, downloading Notepad++ usually works best, but you can do it in normal notepad or similar)", then you will be presented with the basic codes controlling the mod. Three or four lines down it should say "dependencies", and under there you will find the name of the main mod. Put ENGLISH quotation marks around it. It should look like the quotation marks we use here on the forums " ", not << >> as some keyboards write. Once you've done this, go to File, press Save (IMPORTANT, text editors don't save automatically), and close the file. You will now be able to launch the submod normally via the CK2 launcher. It is not compatible with checksum-editing mods, so no Mighty Fortress or Wild Wasteland, but it works with music and graphics mods, e.g. Canticle for Leibowitz.

 

[Jamie Roberts]

I fixed the submod. You forgot to put After The End Fan Fork in quotation marks in the dependencies, Jamie, or something about the download removed them. It's a common problem of submods; if the main mod is downloaded via Steam Workshop it will require the dependant submods to list it in quotation marks.

Oh Gods, thank you! I went back to my archived V0.2, and sure enough the quotation marks weren't there! They are present in the V0.3, although I can't remember when I fixed that. (Maybe way back when I was desperately bug hunting for the cause of the crash-on-startup that was plaguing me early in V0.3? Eventually turned out that the game was throwing a tantrum about the Jewish God names list.)

You have no idea how good it feels to get that niggling stress off my back!

Some news regarding the next update, because you've all been so patient and also because @Hatefig is great. The Change Log has some forty-five new entries, and here's just a few:

• The Kingdom of Hampshire title is working now!
  
• Fixed bug which prevented rulers of Xhúuyee K'iigaang, Midewiwin, Tres Potencias, or Trailblazer religions from receiving appropriate positive modifiers if they selected "Autonomous Leadership" upon reformation.
• Unreformed Xhúuyee K'iigaang rulers now have access to the coastal-county-conquest cb, and can keep it if they don't select the Raven's Nest doctrine upon reformation.
• The addition of a new unique wonder to Fort Sill, coupled with a significant nerf to the Nakona bloodline, in an attempt to more evenly balance the Comanche. Still non-final, but I'm much happier with the way Comancheria works following this alteration.
• Beginning implementation of a new trait specific to Jewish characters, following significant discussion with my Jewish sensitivity advisors, "Pious Skepticism." TLDR, Judaism has a rather different relationship with its texts and doctrines than other monotheistic religions, and isn't fully served by the Zealous and Cynical traits. So, I'm adding a new one. Implementation is going to be a long process, as there are countless places in the code which reference the Zealous and Cynical traits, which will often need a Pious Skepticism equivalent, but the improvements to realism in the gameplay experience will be worth it.

I can't give a concrete ETA for V0.3, as I'm in the process of running some changes past one of my sensitivity advisors and they're classified as an essential worker at the moment so they're low on free time. But, once I can be assured that there isn't anything offensive in the current version, I promise that it'll be made available ASAP.

 

[Hatefig]

Oh Gods, thank you! I went back to my archived V0.2, and sure enough the quotation marks weren't there! They are present in the V0.3, although I can't remember when I fixed that. (Maybe way back when I was desperately bug hunting for the cause of the crash-on-startup that was plaguing me early in V0.3? Eventually turned out that the game was throwing a tantrum about the Jewish God names list.)

You have no idea how good it feels to get that niggling stress off my back!

Always happy to help out somebody with such a good taste in flags. I can't say I'm much of a coder, I mostly write localisation for HoI4 mods like (upcoming) The New Order, but I've fiddled with buggy paradox launcher problems often enough that I guessed something like this was behind the submod bugging out.

 

[Hatefig]

Hey, Jamie, I was fiddling about with your files again to see if I could figure out what it'd be compatible with when I noticed the Lakotah ruling dynasty doesn't appear to have the bloodline you created for them. Just thought I'd let you know if you hadn't noticed yet.

Also, I noticed you're working on some historical kings of Platte, that were Trailwalker. May I suggest framing the conversion to Catholicism as a split between the Catholic dynasty (Greysnow, I think? Or Bees?) and the Trailwalkers under Hiramson? As of the moment there are no Trailwalker bloodlines besides the one you can form out of Thunderland, while another Catholic bloodline would encourage people to play more in the Heartland; the Comanche are very Western-focused. Currently the Trailwalkers exist mostly to be steamrolled by the Lakotah, Cree and Crow, but Hiramson's Kickatus is tucked safely away from that and more usually seems to be caught up in holy wars with the Catholics in Platte. You could maybe frame it as Hiramson being a rogue Marshal who took his followers out west to the Great Plains in protest of the kings attempting mass conversion to Catholicism, a nice reference to the annoying feature you cut.

 

[Jamie Roberts]

Hey, Jamie, I was fiddling about with your files again to see if I could figure out what it'd be compatible with when I noticed the Lakotah ruling dynasty doesn't appear to have the bloodline you created for them. Just thought I'd let you know if you hadn't noticed yet.

Thanks for letting me know, although I am aware of that. After initially coding that bloodline I got into contact with a member of the Oglala tribe (One of the seven sub-tribes within the Lakota) and I've been talking with them about how best to represent the Lakota in-game. Among other things, I've learned that the Lakota do not have a concept of monarchy, and the term "Sioux" is actually an exonym and is considered somewhat insulting (so I've switched the culture's name to "Lakota," at least for now). Right now its looking like I might end up switching them over to Nomadic government instead of Feudal, but that's a big enough undertaking that it'd need to wait till I have less on my plate.

So anyway, I'll end up recycling that bloodline sooner or later, right now it just doesn't really have a place.

Also, I noticed you're working on some historical kings of Platte, that were Trailwalker. May I suggest framing the conversion to Catholicism as a split between the Catholic dynasty (Greysnow, I think? Or Bees?) and the Trailwalkers under Hiramson? As of the moment there are no Trailwalker bloodlines besides the one you can form out of Thunderland, while another Catholic bloodline would encourage people to play more in the Heartland; the Comanche are very Western-focused. Currently the Trailwalkers exist mostly to be steamrolled by the Lakotah, Cree and Crow, but Hiramson's Kickatus is tucked safely away from that and more usually seems to be caught up in holy wars with the Catholics in Platte. You could maybe frame it as Hiramson being a rogue Marshal who took his followers out west to the Great Plains in protest of the kings attempting mass conversion to Catholicism, a nice reference to the annoying feature you cut.

That's a neat idea! Yeah, I like that quite a lot.

Additionally, I'm super on board with adding new bloodlines to the mod, so if you've got any more ideas for those I'd love to hear them.

Oh, and if you're digging through my code, first I'd like to apologize for the mess. Secondly, if you can figure out why the title history I coded for the Kingdom of New Mexico doesn't show up, that would be a massive help. Whatever I did wrong with that is also messing me up on some holy orders I'm trying to add and it is driving me nuts.

 

[Hatefig]

Thanks for letting me know, although I am aware of that. After initially coding that bloodline I got into contact with a member of the Oglala tribe (One of the seven sub-tribes within the Lakota) and I've been talking with them about how best to represent the Lakota in-game. Among other things, I've learned that the Lakota do not have a concept of monarchy, and the term "Sioux" is actually an exonym and is considered somewhat insulting (so I've switched the culture's name to "Lakota," at least for now). Right now its looking like I might end up switching them over to Nomadic government instead of Feudal, but that's a big enough undertaking that it'd need to wait till I have less on my plate.

So anyway, I'll end up recycling that bloodline sooner or later, right now it just doesn't really have a place.



That's a neat idea! Yeah, I like that quite a lot.

Additionally, I'm super on board with adding new bloodlines to the mod, so if you've got any more ideas for those I'd love to hear them.

Oh, and if you're digging through my code, first I'd like to apologize for the mess. Secondly, if you can figure out why the title history I coded for the Kingdom of New Mexico doesn't show up, that would be a massive help. Whatever I did wrong with that is also messing me up on some holy orders I'm trying to add and it is driving me nuts.

I don't know about the history code much, but I notice you put the "0" holder on a different line compared to the other history files, having both the { }s and the numerical code on the same line. This deviates from how you did it in the other history files. Could that be it?

As for the Lakotah, eh, I'd rather make them tribal than nomadic, historically they were only semi-nomadic, turning nomad when they exhausted the buffalo in a region, and they have spent many centuries on their reservations, building the area out quite extensively. It makes sense the Comanche are feudal due to influence from the Catholics and many of their holdings being former military bases, but I can definitely see the Lakotah being more tribal like the Norse and Canadian First Nations, not going full nomad like the Crow because their lands are more extensively agriculturalized by the Event. In terms of their government you are correct, they were technically ruled by councils of chiefs of individual tribes, with the War Chief being a special leader elected among the chiefs during nation-wide conflicts, e.g. Crazy Horse was elected war chief by most of the tribes who rejected the reservation system. Given the near permanent state of conflict in After The End I think you can get away with making them an elective monarchy with an empowered council, like the HCC is. One thing I would like to see for them as a formable empire is the Oceti Sakowin, AKA the Great Sioux Nation, the tribal union of the Lakota and Dakota, much like reforming the Haudenosaunee should be a goal for Hiawatha Onondaga and the Iroqouis.

In terms of bloodlines, I'd really like to see some for the kings of Deseret and Deitscherei (also the ability for the latter to be declared Kaiser rather than Emperor), as well as for the heirs of that collapsed kingdom where Lincoln is now. You can find them around south of Lincoln. Apparently they tried to create a mix of Cetic and native faiths until it collapsed on them. I'd also like to see some for the Americanist kings (currently only Clinton has a bloodline), and the Crockones in Tenesi, ideally some bloodlines centered around how they have interplayed with their religions. For the memes, it would be funny to have the Disney World houses in Florida have some bloodlines revealing the Orientalists are descended from the children at the park while the Mouse descends from the park employees, when the Event happened. The various rides being turned into warring fortresses until the followers of the Mouse drove out the Orientalists and sent them fleeing to Tampa, from whence they plot their revenge jihad. Some more bloodlines for the Californian kings giving some backstory to the rise of the Empire would be nice. The Americanists in Airmen and Gitmo could probably use some bloodlines about their descent from the base commanders, protecting the surrounding civilians in the chaos of the Event and aggressively plotting to "liberate" their respective regions in the name of Jefferson (I feel they would be Jeffersonians considering he is known as the Expander of America and is all about all past American soldiers having godly powers, which would of course include the ancestors of the military kings).

 

[Jamie Roberts]

Name is in reference to a series of gameplay tweaks revolving around Pagan, Afro-Syncretic, American Native, Mesoamerican, Pelagic, and Hindu rulers and what kind of wars the can declare against each other, when. TLDR, If you've got an Afro-Syncretic empire bordering/sort-near a Mesoamerican empire, I want them to interact more like Byzantium and the HRE, and not like Byzantium and the Abbasids.

On that note, here are the new features:

• Pagan, Afro-Syncretic, American Native, Mesoamerican, Pelagic, and Hindu rulers may no longer declare Holy Wars against each other. Note that Pelagics cannot declare holy wars.
• Followers of the Mesoamerican Gods now have access to the county-conquest cb.
• Members of the religions Brethren, Pelagic, Consumerist, and Monetarist will no longer auto-convert a county to their culture and religion upon winning a prepared invasion.
• The Pagan Subjugation CB has been expanded in function to cover a more reasonable spread of religions. Basically, I wanted Occultist Boston to be able to use it against Pelagic Nantucket, and now they can so long as the Pelagics have Tribal government.
• Mesoamericans, Pagans, American Natives, Pelagics, and Tres Potencias can no-longer use the County Conquest CB on each other unless the attacker's government is Nomadic or Tribal.
• Rulers of unreformed religions are now more likely to use the Pagan Subjugation CB on coreligionists.

• Twelve New Bloodlines.
• Kingdom of Hampshire title is working now.
  • In playtesting, I found that Nogad was forming Hampshire irritatingly frequently. In response, I set it so that Vermont, Hampshire, and Maine can only be created if you actually control the State in question instead of just the de jure capital. I'm thinking about partially relaxing that for Maine, but I want to actually get V0.3 posted already.
• Fixed bug which prevented rulers of Xhúuyee K'iigaang, Midewiwin, Tres Potencias, or Trailblazer religions from receiving appropriate positive modifiers if they selected "Autonomous Leadership" upon reformation.
• Unreformed Xhúuyee K'iigaang rulers now have access to the coastal-county-conquest cb, and can keep it if they don't select the Raven's Nest doctrine upon reformation.
• The addition of a new unique wonder to Fort Sill, coupled with a significant nerf to the Nakona bloodline, in an attempt to more evenly balance the Comanche. Still non-final, but I'm much happier with the way Comancheria works following this alteration.
• Beginning implementation of a new trait specific to Jewish characters, following significant discussion with my Jewish sensitivity advisors, "Pious Skepticism." TLDR, Judaism has a rather different relationship with its texts and doctrines than other monotheistic religions, and isn't fully served by the Zealous and Cynical traits. So, I'm adding a new one. Implementation is going to be a long process, as there are countless places in the code which reference the Zealous and Cynical traits, which will often need a Pious Skepticism equivalent, but the improvements to realism in the gameplay experience will be worth it.
  • trait fx not complete, and the trait has not begun integration into the full list of events and decisions, so don't get too excited yet. I wanted to release V0.3 already.
• Name list improvements. Mostly just telling the game that "Louis" and "Lewis" are the same name. Only a few cultures done so far, so stay tuned I guess.
• On recommendation from my indigenous sensitivity advisor, references to the "Sioux" culture have been changed to "Lakota."
• The Meshichist religion is being disabled and replaced with Hasidic Judaism and Conservative Judaism as part of a planned overhaul of in-game Judaism.
• Minor improvements to flavor for the Reformed Norse religion.
• Begun Implementation of a system to make Indigenous Peoples less likely to convert culture in childhood.
• Begun Implementation of a system to prevent counties with a Jewish culture from having a Gentile religion.
• Extensively enhanced the way the AI decides how to raise their children. Will be subject to reballancing as I get a sense for the exact consequences of that.
• Forbid the use of the Force Vassalization CB by the HCC. They're a bit less stupid-expansionist now, so I'm happy.
• Non-independent nomads can pillage at will.
• Temporarily forbid AI nomads from settling ANYWHERE, as a placeholder for a future system that only allows nomads to settle if they aren't on the open plains. This system would also, ideally, prevent settled people from expanding into the steppe. Yes, this would leave a grey area of grasslands and farmlands for them to war over.
• Revamped the way the AI decided which Nature to pick upon Reformation: going through the code, it became clear that the old system was inexplicably assuming that the character making the choices was a christian. This explains so much.
• Forbid Tribal characters from pillaging settlements. I will reinstate this ability exclusively for use on the open plains once I've set Nomads to do the same.
• Gave Green Mountains, Rutland, and Nantucket tanistry succession, like the rest of the Yankees.
  • Gave Boston Tanistry succession like all the other Yankees and made a change to the rules for Pagan Subjugation wars so that Paul Miskaton would still be able to launch them.
• Added lore/content to the island of Hispaniola. Slightly shuffled de-facto lords, a bunch of characters now have children, some claims floating around.
• All Matrilineal Bloodlines have been switched to Patrilineal because, well, because even if you're Gaian Matrilineal Bloodlines are just a worse version of Patrilineal Bloodlines.
• Trailwalkers may nolonger intermarry with American Natives, Amero-Syncretics, Mesoamericans, or Pelagics. This is due to lore which has recently come to my attention which uses the word "Homesteading."
• Eastern Woodlands cultures now have access to the Tanistry succession law.
• Pelagics are now Hard to Convert.
• Independant Pelagics must be at least Kingdom rank in order to adopt Feudalism. Requirements for adoption of merchant republic government are unchanged.
• Added a new Holy Order to the Occultists and the Rust Cult each.
• Court Tutor is now a high priority minor title.
• Title Revocation Allowed law now requires "Legalism II" instead of "Legalism I." Religious Control Mandate law now requires "Legalism IV" instead of "Legalism II."

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug that would cause native rulers to convert to local non-native cultures as normal if playing without Rajas of India.
• Lots of miscellaneous stuff.

 

[Hatefig]

Temporarily forbid AI nomads from settling ANYWHERE, as a placeholder for a future system that only allows nomads to settle if they aren't on the open plains. This system would also, ideally, prevent settled people from expanding into the steppe.

Wait, does this apply to the player too? I'd be really annoyed playing Comanche or Platte if I couldn't slowly settle the lower plains region. Or do you just mean that a feudal country can't suddenly have a new feudal vassal in control of a large section of plain because a vassal inherited a nomad realm?

Also, I think you should restore pillaging cities for the Norse and Haida at least, if there's a way you can hook it on to religion or culture rather than government form. Especially as I think the Norse religious society has pillaging a specific city or castle as a mission.

 

[Jamie Roberts]

Wait, does this apply to the player too?

No no, the player can still settle where they want. Its just there because the AI is shit at deciding where and when to stop being nomadic so for the short term its better to just not let them do so at all. Like I said, I'm working on a system to allow them to settle anywhere off the plains and encourage them to pillage any settlements on the plains, but its slow going. I literally have to code it one county at a time.

I'd be really annoyed playing Comanche or Platte if I couldn't slowly settle the lower plains region. Or do you just mean that a feudal country can't suddenly have a new feudal vassal in control of a large section of plain because a vassal inherited a nomad realm?

Ah, neither. I'm sorry for whatever I said that's confusing. This particular change does not affect Platte proper or the Comanche at all as they are both feudal and the change is strictly about how the AI used nomadic mechanics.

Also, I think you should restore pillaging cities for the Norse and Haida at least, if there's a way you can hook it on to religion or culture rather than government form. Especially as I think the Norse religious society has pillaging a specific city or castle as a mission.

Took me a second, but I figured out what part of this was confusing you. I've been working in the code for months where the difference between these two mechanics is stark and I'd half forgotten how the localization will refer to them almost interchangeably.

For clarity:

• Raiding: the mechanic for sending out portions of your army to other people's territory to loot the place and steel stuff, usually as a supplement to your ordinary form of cash flow. As a member of a warrior society you will sometimes be asked to do this against specific locations, which they will confusingly refer to as "pillaging." I did not change how this works.
• Pillaging: the mechanic for destroying holdings you control, removing buildings from the holding at a rate of two every six months until the holding runs out and is destroyed, replaced with an empty slot. Destroy all the holdings in a county and it will flip to your religion and culture and become a nomadic county. Which is great for the nomads who usually use the mechanic, less great for Tribals who have to act fast to stop the county from meeting the requirements to declare independence as a new nomadic horde upon ruler death.

As I discovered in the code, while the player is allowed to use the pillage mechanic as a Tribal ruler, the AI actually isn't. Now, one of the major guiding principles in how I decide what to mod is that I want to make the game more difficult by letting the AI in on the sorts of tricks players use to get a leg up.

So, after some experimenting with what it looks like when AI Tribals can pillage holdings*, I eventually reached the conclusion that it was better to just lock it off for Tribals entirely until I've got coding for the Great Plains ready for that.

*Random one-county Nomadic Hordes in places like Arizona and the Appalachian periphery, coupled with ultra-mega-supercharged Norse. Just crazy unstoppable.

 

[Hatefig]

No no, the player can still settle where they want. Its just there because the AI is shit at deciding where and when to stop being nomadic so for the short term its better to just not let them do so at all. Like I said, I'm working on a system to allow them to settle anywhere off the plains and encourage them to pillage any settlements on the plains, but its slow going. I literally have to code it one county at a time.



Ah, neither. I'm sorry for whatever I said that's confusing. This particular change does not affect Platte proper or the Comanche at all as they are both feudal and the change is strictly about how the AI used nomadic mechanics.



Took me a second, but I figured out what part of this was confusing you. I've been working in the code for months where the difference between these two mechanics is stark and I'd half forgotten how the localization will refer to them almost interchangeably.

For clarity:

• Raiding: the mechanic for sending out portions of your army to other people's territory to loot the place and steel stuff, usually as a supplement to your ordinary form of cash flow. As a member of a warrior society you will sometimes be asked to do this against specific locations, which they will confusingly refer to as "pillaging." I did not change how this works.
• Pillaging: the mechanic for destroying holdings you control, removing buildings from the holding at a rate of two every six months until the holding runs out and is destroyed, replaced with an empty slot. Destroy all the holdings in a county and it will flip to your religion and culture and become a nomadic county. Which is great for the nomads who usually use the mechanic, less great for Tribals who have to act fast to stop the county from meeting the requirements to declare independence as a new nomadic horde upon ruler death.

As I discovered in the code, while the player is allowed to use the pillage mechanic as a Tribal ruler, the AI actually isn't. Now, one of the major guiding principles in how I decide what to mod is that I want to make the game more difficult by letting the AI in on the sorts of tricks players use to get a leg up.

So, after some experimenting with what it looks like when AI Tribals can pillage holdings*, I eventually reached the conclusion that it was better to just lock it off for Tribals entirely until I've got coding for the Great Plains ready for that.

*Random one-county Nomadic Hordes in places like Arizona and the Appalachian periphery, coupled with ultra-mega-supercharged Norse. Just crazy unstoppable.

Ah, I see, thanks. Keep up the good work.

 

[WaxHat714]

Will this be updated to AteFF Patch v1.1d?

 

[Jamie Roberts]

Will this be updated to AteFF Patch v1.1d?

It will. Update is in progress. There's still a good deal work to be done, but as of this week its become playable again. I'd say I'm 87% there.



My favorite bug in the current build: after a great deal of consideration, weighing lore as well as gameplay elements like Sagrado Corazon having the Reconquista mechanic, I redesignated the Mictlantecs from being an Aggressive Religion to a Defensive religion. Here's the thing about that. Going all the way back to vanilla, the Defensive religion bonuses are, over all, a bit better than the Aggressive religion bonuses. What I'm saying is that, by changing the Mictlantecs from Agressive to Defensive, they have now become quite successfully expansionist in nearly every game.

This isn't quite as funny as that v0.2 bug where the game kept trying to launch the Louisiana Liberation before Louisiana had even actually been conquered by anyone, but its close.

I'll keep fiddling around with that. I'm trying for the Mesoamericans to be competitive with the Cult of Saints, either side winning consistently is not that.



A few of the new features I've got working:

• I've altered the requirements to be able to grant a number of the minor titles, such as "Venerable Elder" or "Master of the Blade," to spread some content over to a few religions that had rather sparse minor title lists. Good news for non-Rastafari Afro-Syncretics, American Natives, Mesoamericans, Amero-Syncretic, Nauticals, and even a new minor title for Cult of Saints rulers.
• The AI now chooses Tanistry succession over Primogeniture and Eldership over Tanistry when the option is available. Figured I'd let them in on the secret us players already knew.
• The AI is now more likely to reform their religion when they already control three holy sites and have enough piety.

The AI is now somewhat less stupid sometimes, is what I'm saying.

 

[Higakoryu]

Uhm, may I ask for permission to use the bloodlines in this mod for my own mod?

 

[lucasNake]

Hope this gets updated