[Submod] Norse Heritage Overhaul - and other tweaks for HIP (Updated for Frosty3)

[Gatonegro]

I just started a quick Denmark game and as it seems the combination of NHO and HIP more cultural names submod causes far more issues than we thought. Most of the duchies-counties touched by NHO are duplicated.
For example: Duchy of Holstein has duplicate Rendsburg counties.

Spoiler

Also, how come HIP includes Danish/Norse, Swedish job titles and NHO has none for them?

Can confirm the conflict with More Cultural Names. In Scandinavia, kingdoms have duplicate duchies, duchies have duplicate counties, counties have duplicate baronies...

Spoiler

 

[Erilaz]

I just started a quick Denmark game and as it seems the combination of NHO and HIP more cultural names submod causes far more issues than we thought. Most of the duchies-counties touched by NHO are duplicated.
For example: Duchy of Holstein has duplicate Rendsburg counties.

That's odd. More Cultural Names works on its own?

@Gatonegro On another note, why are the counties called "Jarlsland" in your game?

Also, how come HIP includes Danish/Norse, Swedish job titles and NHO has none for them?

Really? I don't see any localised job titles in HIP. It must have been years since we had that as far as I can recall.

 

[G.Strategos]

That's odd. More Cultural Names works on its own?

Υeah, it works normally on its own.
Any ideas? I was under the impression that they worked fine together.

Really? I don't see any localised job titles in HIP. It must have been years since we had that as far as I can recall.

It has 3 out of 5 job titles for the Scandinavias, as far as I can see in the file.

 

[Gatonegro]

@Gatonegro On another note, why are the counties called "Jarlsland" in your game?

It's a leftover localization file for Norse titles from an old mod, that I decided to keep around for no particular reason. Most of the time I even forget I have it, and I'm not even sure how accurate it is, now that I think about it.

Anyway, here's the same thing without any of this "Jarlsland" business.

Spoiler

EDIT: I've been doing some tests, especially since I found the same issue of duplicated titles with a color overrides file I made, and my conclusion is that this is a pain in the ass. But I did find some interesting stuff: the conflict seems to happen due to the titles being nested.

For example, this nested structure results in the empire of Scandinavia having a duplicated entry for the kingdom of Sweden, and the kingdom having a duplicated duchy of Sweden:

e_scandinavia = {
    k_sweden = {
        norse = "Svíþjóð"
        d_uppland = {
            norse = "Svíþjóð"
        }
    }
}

Meanwhile, this results in the names being properly applied, without any duplicates:

k_sweden = {
    norse = "Svíþjóð"
}
d_uppland = {
    norse = "Svíþjóð"
}

Right now, both NHO and More Cultural Names use the nested structure, and no duplicates appear when only one of the two mods is active. The moment both are activated, duplication happens. For some reason, having a single mod editing landed titles with a nested structure works fine, but if two or more mods do it, the duplicated entries start appearing.

After digging around for a while, I couldn't find an answer as to why this happens, since the engine's loading/overwriting/merging behavior seems to be a bit of a mystery. The easiest thing for me right now is to just pick one of the mods and ditch the other, since fixing this bizarre conflict is probably going to take a fair amount of time and work.

Hopefully this information will be useful, though.

 

[Erilaz]

It has 3 out of 5 job titles for the Scandinavias, as far as I can see in the file.

Hmm. I'll look into the job titles at some point.


@Gatonegro Those are some very interesting finds! If this means that the "nested" landed_titles structure isn't needed for the added localisation, perhaps that might help us find solutions to all the hard times landed_titles editing has given me and other modders.

It is indeed sometimes a great mystery, even to someone that has modded this damned game for years. For example I have no explanation why most of my mod-specific landed_titles overwrites/additions stop working when I reach some arbitrary limit, which has forced me to retain large parts of my edited swmh_landed_titles file, which was what I went through all the trouble for to begin with (not having to overwrite and use that file, and thus bypass a ton of patching work every update)... Frustrating beyond words...

 

[Erilaz]

Thanks for the update Erilaz! Quick question/suggestion, if you don't mind. NHO Main Part makes tanistry succession available to Norse cultures, which was quite useful for tribals that would've been stuck with gavelkind otherwise. Now, HIP introduced dynastic elective succession a couple of versions ago, which is essentially a mix of tanistry and feudal elective for non-Celtic realms. Do you think dynastic elective (maybe with some adjustments to make it available a bit earlier) would fit better for Norse tribals than actual tanistry?

Sorry, I actually miseed this post of yours.

I think the main issue with Dynastic Elective is that it's too strong. Tanistry itself is too strong, but it gives you an element of randomness and inconsistent "lines" (making it hard to get longstanding alliances etc.) which makes up for that somewhat. Perhaps, just like I did with Tanistry, the Dynastic Elective could be tied to Tribal Organisation/Crown Authority. I'll have to actually see how it works in-game before I can make a decision. In general though, I think the most genuine Scandinavian inheritance law is Elective Gavelkind.

 

[Gatonegro]

Hmm. I'll look into the job titles at some point.


@Gatonegro Those are some very interesting finds! If this means that the "nested" landed_titles structure isn't needed for the added localisation, perhaps that might help us find solutions to all the hard times landed_titles editing has given me and other modders.

It is indeed sometimes a great mystery, even to someone that has modded this damned game for years. For example I have no explanation why most of my mod-specific landed_titles overwrites/additions stop working when I reach some arbitrary limit, which has forced me to retain large parts of my edited swmh_landed_titles file, which was what I went through all the trouble for to begin with (not having to overwrite and use that file, and thus bypass a ton of patching work every update)... Frustrating beyond words...

Yeah, I haven't modded CK2 extensively but I do have a my own collection of small tweaks, and have run into some bizarre issues. The way the engine handles overwrites and additions seems particularly obscure. For example, I tried changing colors and some cultural names for a title, but only the colors would be applied. Through testing I found that, in alphanumeric order, the engine uses localisations from the "first" file, but colors from the "last". So I had to put my localisation stuff in 00_Filename.txt, and the color changes in zz_Filename.txt. Why? I don't have a damned clue. That's just how it works.

For testing purposes, I took all the NHO localisations for k_sweden (since that one seems to have given you trouble, according to the comments you left) and unnested all the entries. They worked just fine, without any duplicates, and without having to modify swmh_landed_titles.txt. Can't say this will solve all the issues, but it does look rather promising.

Sorry, I actually miseed this post of yours.

I think the main issue with Dynastic Elective is that it's too strong. Tanistry itself is too strong, but it gives you an element of randomness and inconsistent "lines" (making it hard to get longstanding alliances etc.) which makes up for that somewhat. Perhaps, just like I did with Tanistry, the Dynastic Elective could be tied to Tribal Organisation/Crown Authority. I'll have to actually see how it works in-game before I can make a decision. In general though, I think the most genuine Scandinavian inheritance law is Elective Gavelkind.

I haven't really played much with Dynastic Elective, so I'm not sure how it differs from Tanistry or how it's stronger than it. I made a small tweak to make DE available with Medium CA/TO, like you did to Tanistry, just to give it a look in-game as well.

 

[G.Strategos]

Hmm. I'll look into the job titles at some point.

Thanks,mate

Very interesting findings @Gatonegro, thank you!
So what if we just merge the NHO's localizations with More Cultural names and tidy up the file, so to avoid any possible conflicts?

 

[Gatonegro]

Very interesting findings @Gatonegro, thank you!
So what if we just merge the NHO's localizations with More Cultural names and tidy up the file, so to avoid any possible conflicts?

I guess that would be an option, but NHO has 13 localization files and More Cultural Names has over 62,000 lines to sift through, so at this point I'm pretty OK with just leaving MCN deactivated for a while.

Perhaps my findings will be useful to Erilaz, TheDovahkiin97, or someone else, but I think the best course of action right now is to let the authors decide if, how, and when they want to address these issues.

 

[Erilaz]

@Harald Fairhair What do you reckon should be done with Olaf Tryggvason in the 993 bookmark?

 

[Harald Fairhair]

@Harald Fairhair What do you reckon should be done with Olaf Tryggvason in the 993 bookmark?

Summary of Olafr's journey from 968 to 995 when he ascends kingsship over Norway:

Olafr was born 968 and the year after in 969 he and his mother fled from the sons of Eirikr to Sweden (It is mention Eirikr Seiersæl was king at this moment) after they have murdered his father Tryggvi the year before.

Olaf is in Sweden 2 years 969-971 when they desided to travel to Holmgard but were captured by Estonians and was a slave for 6 years before ending up in service to Vladimir the Great.
The part about enslavment is likely a fabrication, but Vladimir did end up in Sweden 977 the same year Snorri says he enters Vladimirs service.

He stays with Vladimir 9 years 977-986 before venturing out as a Viking. He ends up in Vendland with Burislav and marries Geira his daughter (this however is unlikely since Burislav was just 19 years old at the time, but she could have been his sister, since Theitmar mention Svein Tjugeskjegg was married with a sister of Burislav which the sagas refers also as Burislavs daughter Gunhild, it is possible that Geira and Astrid who married Sigvald Jarl were sisters rather than daughters of Burislav).

He stays in Vendland 3 years 986-989 (it's mention he was with the Jomsvikings in one source), before becoming a raider again and plunders the HRE and England untill 994. During his raid on England (990-994) he cooperated with Svein Tjugeskjegg the king of Denmark to 993 when he swiched sides with Æthelred.

994 he leaves for Dublin and marries Gyda the sister of Olafr Kvåran (unlikely since Olafrs father Siggtrygg was dead 927 wich would make Gyda minimum 67 years old if Siggtrygg was her father also, more likely she was Olafr's daughter).



Suggestion:
So in 993 he is a mercenary for Æthelred you could either have him at the head of a Host or in the court of Æthelred.

 

[Erilaz]

Thanks a lot! Yeah, I have been thinking about putting him as the head of a host, but it's always good with a second opinion.

Hopefully I'll manage to do something for the next update, which I intend to release soon - focusing on improving the 993 bookmark, but containing lots of other fixes.

 

[Harald Fairhair]

It's a leftover localization file for Norse titles from an old mod, that I decided to keep around for no particular reason. Most of the time I even forget I have it, and I'm not even sure how accurate it is, now that I think about it.

Anyway, here's the same thing without any of this "Jarlsland" business.

Jarlsland seems unhistorical as the counties in Norway were called "Fylki/Land/Riki" though each had it's own Jarl, The danes, swedes and geats just called their counties "Land" far as I know.

 

[Erilaz]

Now I'm looking at it, Olav's history is kind of murky. The question is also when he became Christian. In the files he's born a Christian and so was his father Tryggve, but that doesn't really fit with what is written in the sagas (though Olav's stories are all very unreliable it seems). I already started looking at the whole host business, but it seems odd to put him in a host raiding England when he's Christian and I've got no idea what he will get up to. Perhaps the best approach would simply be to give him a claim and put him in some relevant court...

 

[Harald Fairhair]

Now I'm looking at it, Olav's history is kind of murky. The question is also when he became Christian. In the files he's born a Christian and so was his father Tryggve, but that doesn't really fit with what is written in the sagas (though Olav's stories are all very unreliable it seems). I already started looking at the whole host business, but it seems odd to put him in a host raiding England when he's Christian and I've got no idea what he will get up to. Perhaps the best approach would simply be to give him a claim and put him in some relevant court...

It was part of the culture, other men like St. Olafr, Svein Tjugeskjegg, Harald Hardråde, Magnus Berrføtt were raiding christian targets despite having same religion. He was with Burislav, Svein Tjugeskjegg before entering England and must have known christianity very well by 993. The sagas depict him becoming christian 994. So having him as a raider and bothering christians would not be unrealistic.

As for his father Tryggvi it is unknown if he was and there are no accounts that says he converted and but he must have been a pagan at birth. First we hear of conversions in Viken i 975 when Harald Bluetooth sent missionaries there, but Tryggvi was dead by then.

 

[Erilaz]

It was part of the culture, other men like St. Olafr, Svein Tjugeskjegg, Harald Hardråde, Magnus Berrføtt were raiding christian targets despite having same religion. He was with Burislav, Svein Tjugeskjegg before entering England and must have known christianity very well by 993. The sagas depict him becoming christian 994. So having him as a raider and bothering christians would not be unrealistic.

As for his father Tryggvi it is unknown if he was and there are no accounts that says he converted and but he must have been a pagan at birth. First we hear of conversions in Viken i 975 when Harald Bluetooth sent missionaries there, but Tryggvi was dead by then.

Yeah. That all makes sense.

Instead of starting him with a host, I decided to give him the prerequisite traits for him to decide to become an adventurer if he wants to (ambitious, brave, wroth, skilled tactician - and also gave him zealous since he started his career of converting by the sword already in the Orkneys in 995 according to the sagas) and gave him claims (Norway, as well as Trøndelag and Østlandet - unfortunately the game now only gives claims on titles that are already held, so in practise he only gets Trøndelag in 993, which is the title held by Håkon jarl, but it makes sense since he was the de facto ruler of Norway). I placed him in the court of Dublin since that's where he went after raiding England. It seems to work pretty well. Most of the times I've tested he does indeed create a host, but he seldom attacks and I've never seen him succeed - mostly because the holder of his claim(s) is usually too strong or tributary of Denmark. But at least he has the agency to do something in case the opportunity arises.

EDIT: I actually did see him succeed once now (though he lost it again soon after), and he even visited me in a game I played in Ireland:

Spoiler

 

[Erilaz]

Here's the update.

CHANGELOG:
25-01-20
Main Part:
- The Gotlandic and North Frisian Republics extended back to a few years before the 993 bookmark.
- Dynasty "af Stainkirchiu" is called "af Stainstufu" before conversion to Christianity.
- The son in law of Liccair, Botair af Acubek, who was the first to build a church on Gotland, has his own dynasty in the early years.
- Áki son of Palnatóki now holds Funen in the 993 bookmark (debatable, but more flavourful than having Þorgils sprakalegg hold it, and the family clearly was in high standings marrying into other major dynasties).
- Þoræd son of Gunnar now has the dynasty name "af Gunnari" instead of "Mac Eadwine" (for some reason a former Scottish dynasty was used causing the issue when I made it "Scots" in NHO).
- Óláfr Tryggvason has now been equiped with suitable traits and claims to promote his adventure to take the Norwegian throne in 995.
- Norse-Gaelic setup in Ireland revisited with lots of tweaks to title holders as well as new characters for Limerick.
- Several balance tweaks for the Kingdom of the Isles (e.g. slightly more pagan starting provinces, for gameplay purposes rather than historical, to prevent immediate game over with religious reconquests).
- The Duchy of Sutherland is now de jure part of the Kingdom of the Isles until 1021 when it becomes de jure Norwegian (alongside Orkney, Shetland, and the Faeroe Islands).
- Óláfr Guðrøðsson given claims on the Northumbrian duchies in 936, and the titles given to Æþelstan in order for them to actually be given to him by the game.
- Other minor changes and corrections.
Icelandic Republic:
- The Icelandic and Faeroese modifiers have been rebalanced (even fewer taxes for the poor buggers).
- The second Faeroese holding is now tribal in 993 which is much more balanced (it can be converted to another type if the main holding is feudalised).
- The Faeroese characters are now present in the correct courts in 993.
The Articles of the Barons:
- This now works again! (It was out of order since EMF changed the name of a file that I modified for some reason).



NHO Compilation (25-01-20)

Includes all NHO parts and all tweaks except Call to Arms, No Early Bascinets or Great Helms, and Proper Ruler Designer.

For HIP Frosty1 (EMF and SWMH required) NOTE: Unfortunately doesn't support MiniSWMH anymore.

Spoiler

NHO Main Part

Features:

• Reworked Norse culture split, including four brand new cultures in Scandinavia and a completely overhauled language setup. See here for details.
• Overhauled Norse and Norse-derived (including melting pot) character and dynasty names as well as noble and landed title localisation.
• New or tweaked names and localisation for neighbouring cultures (Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Balto-Slavic, and Finno-Ugric), including an effort to replace all remaining "High Chiefs".
• A "Scots" melting-pot that will appear in the Scottish lowlands in the 11th century (around the time of Malcolm III whose descendants are of this anglophile culture along with the Scoto-Norman nobility).
• Revision of the Rus setup, with a new Polotsk cadet branch of the Rurikids, revised succession laws for Kiev, fixes to the Novgorod Republic, corrections to the surrounding culture setup, and a split of the Mordvin culture into Erzya and Moksha, etc.
• Changes and corrections to the title and character setup in and around the Scandinavian kingdoms.
• Tweaked Norse-Gaelic and Anglo-Danish melting-pots.
  
• Slightly lowered taxes and levies of North Sea and Baltic Merchant Republics.
• Other minor changes that enhance the experience when playing within the Norse sphere of influence (see the changelog).

Requirements:
HIP Frosty1 (EMF and SWMH required)

Download:
Direct (25-01-20)



NHO Icelandic Republic

Features:

• Iceland as a republic with all the lawspeakers, important chieftains, and major clans of the age, several saga figures, and a complete line of Bishops for both of the Icelandic dioceses.
• Important families of the Faeroe Islands around the time of conversion to Christianity and an extra holding to make the struggles for/against conversion and integration into the Norwegian Kingdom more interesting; this holding later being replaced by the diocese of the Islands.
• Unreformed pagans can use the "convert to merchant republic" decision (when all other requirements are met).
  
• Added modifiers to portray the pre-colonisation (no levies), the Landnám, and the climate (these will also further limit the amount of gold earned by the Icelandic MR government).

Requirements:
HIP Frosty1 (SWMH and EMF required), NHO Main Part

Download:
Direct (25-01-20)



The Articles of the Barons

Features:
Removes the baron-tier border gore reduction. See here for details.

Requirements:
HIP Frosty1 (EMF required)

Download:
Direct (25-01-19)

 

[Harald Fairhair]

Yeah. That all makes sense.

Instead of starting him with a host, I decided to give him the prerequisite traits for him to decide to become an adventurer if he wants to (ambitious, brave, wroth, skilled tactician - and also gave him zealous since he started his career of converting by the sword already in the Orkneys in 995 according to the sagas) and gave him claims (Norway, as well as Trøndelag and Østlandet - unfortunately the game now only gives claims on titles that are already held, so in practise he only gets Trøndelag in 993, which is the title held by Håkon jarl, but it makes sense since he was the de facto ruler of Norway). I placed him in the court of Dublin since that's where he went after raiding England. It seems to work pretty well. Most of the times I've tested he does indeed create a host, but he seldom attacks and I've never seen him succeed - mostly because the holder of his claim(s) is usually too strong or tributary of Denmark. But at least he has the agency to do something in case the opportunity arises.

You could remove Håkon Jarl as tributary of Denmark. 974 Harald Bluetooth suffered a defeat at the hands of the germans, 975 Håkon refuses to pay tribute to king Harald. Battle of Hjørungavåg in 986 does in someway comfirm Håkons defiance. This could ease the process of Olafr becoming King of Norway.

 

[Erilaz]

Here's a rather big update, again focusing a lot on the 993 bookmark, but also with an optimisation of my Call to Arms mod.

CHANGELOG:
03-02-20
Main Part:
- Tribals are no longer barred from Agnatic-Cognatic succession.
- Tweaked the succession laws in Scandinavia and the British Isles; namely Anglo-Saxon England now mostly uses Agnatic Elective Gavelkind rather than Feudal Elective (which resulted in ahistorical non-dynastic succession more often than not), Denmark and Sweden (until Stenkilsätten) now also use Agnatic-Cognatic Elective Succession when they are tribal (otherwise it often resulted in the Norse-Gaelic descendants of Ivar the Boneless inheriting when the other lines from Ragnar died out). Exceptions being when Harthacnut and Magnus the Good made their succession deal (Denmark and Norway are both Feudal Elective for a few years after 1035, they have claims on each other, and they have a non-aggression pact).
- Denmark is now mostly feudal rather than tribal in 993, and several provinces are Catholic.
- Made an effort to balance the power of feudal Denmark compared to its heathen and tribal neighbours (as well as England) in the 993 bookmark.
- Hákon jarl is now no longer tributary to Denmark in 993. Hákon was de facto independent after the Battle of Hjörungavágr in ~986.
- Corrected a Vanilla erroneous connection between Sumarliði Óspaksson and the Orkney dynasty (it now correctly goes through Siðu-Hallr, connected to other Icelandic families).
- Revised the Norse-Gaelic dynasty names.
- Other minor changes and corrections.
Call to Arms:
- Solved an issue with independent AI refusing to use ships to transport troops situated on islands (e.g. rulers of the Western Isles). (For anyone interested, for some weird reason this was caused by enabling vassal call to arms for Theocracy government vassals).
- Direct vassals of Theocracy or (regular) Republic government types, in most cases baron tier city/church vassals, will not be called to arms, but will instead provide liege levies even when their liege is primary participant in a war. This solves the issue of them being called but unable to raise their own troops (thus rendering their support useless). Now it's only the baron tier feudal vassals that have this problem (meaning you will still want to hold your demesne castles personally).
- Cleaned up the tool tips for the laws so they actually provide the correct "tips".



NHO Compilation (03-02-20)

Includes all NHO parts and all tweaks except Call to Arms, No Early Bascinets or Great Helms, and Proper Ruler Designer.

For HIP Frosty1 (EMF and SWMH required) NOTE: Unfortunately doesn't support MiniSWMH anymore.

Spoiler

NHO Main Part

Features:

• Reworked Norse culture split, including four brand new cultures in Scandinavia and a completely overhauled language setup. See here for details.
• Overhauled Norse and Norse-derived (including melting pot) character and dynasty names as well as noble and landed title localisation.
• New or tweaked names and localisation for neighbouring cultures (Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Balto-Slavic, and Finno-Ugric), including an effort to replace all remaining "High Chiefs".
• A "Scots" melting-pot that will appear in the Scottish lowlands in the 11th century (around the time of Malcolm III whose descendants are of this anglophile culture along with the Scoto-Norman nobility).
• Revision of the Rus setup, with a new Polotsk cadet branch of the Rurikids, revised succession laws for Kiev, fixes to the Novgorod Republic, corrections to the surrounding culture setup, and a split of the Mordvin culture into Erzya and Moksha, etc.
• Changes and corrections to the title and character setup in and around the Scandinavian kingdoms.
• Tweaked Norse-Gaelic and Anglo-Danish melting-pots.
  
• Slightly lowered taxes and levies of North Sea and Baltic Merchant Republics.
• Other minor changes that enhance the experience when playing within the Norse sphere of influence (see the changelog).

Requirements:
HIP Frosty1 (EMF and SWMH required)

Download:
Direct (03-02-20)



Call to Arms

Features:
Any independent ruler, with at least one higher than baron tier vassal, that becomes primary participant in a war will have to call vassals to arms, but when at peace or a secondary participant only, the ruler will get the possibility to raise liege levies once more
NOTE:
- I've created this with inspiration, and some base code, from this mod.
- Many triggers for factions and decisions have been modified to take into account the drop in the liege's perceived power when he no longer has direct control of his vassals' levies.
- Be aware that this feature is very much experimental and will change your experience significantly.

Requirements:
HIP Frosty1 (EMF required)

Download:
Direct (03-02-20) NOTE: Not included in the compilation.

 

[G.Strategos]

Very interesting update!
Thank you very much, mate!