Technology and Advances FAQ

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Introduction

The technology or “Advances” in CK are just one component of a wonderfully integrated engine that drives the whole game. While technology and advances will require little of the player’s attention, it is my belief that understanding the full impact (and versatility) of the advances can give a player something of an edge over his opponents.

This FAQ covers the basics of Advances, as well as addressing more detailed subjects such as how to script and modify the relevant files which will be of interest to the scenario and mods community.

I hope you find this FAQ of value.

The Basics

The first thing that long-time Paradox games fans will find quite different is the way that technology is treated in the game, and there are a few very important concepts that newbies and long-time gamers will need to grasp in order to fully understand how the engine works and not be confused when something you were expecting doesn’t happen (or visa versa).

1. CK treats advances as being the possession of a province rather than a realm.
2. CK treats research towards new advances as being conducted only in a realm’s capital province.
3. Research is not the “predictable” sort of methodical progress as has been the case in earlier games. It is a more haphazard thing that mimics that era’s less formalized approach to trial & error and out-of-the-blue discovery.
4. New advances may be acquired by a province either via research (if a capital) or via the spread for technology.

These may seem a little innocuous, yet are very important and powerful concepts.

There are two ways to get new technology: one is to research it yourself, and the other is to have a neighbour who has the technology and then wait for it to “spread” to you – as all technology will eventually do. New advances are always the “property” of a province, not its overlord, and its benefits are enjoyed only by the province(s) that have it. This means that if you’ve just gained some fancy new plate mail for your nobles to wear, only the nobles in the province that gained the advance will have the swanky new suits. The rest of the regiments in your demesne will still be outfitted in the old stuff until the “secrets” of this new technology spread to neighbouring provinces.

If you are impatient (or want a leg up on your opponents) then there’s no question that conducting your own research into something specific will result in you achieving that advance much sooner. This research only happens in your capital province and will therefore first appear there and will be usable only in that province until the advance has spread. For our purposes at the moment it will be sufficient to say that throughout the game you will be conducting simultaneous research in the three principal categories of advances: Warfare, Production and Culture. Each of these categories is subdivided into “Groups” (30 of them in total) and each of the groups contains five separate “Levels” that may be achieved. (More details on this to follow in the sections below).

Once you gain an advance it will begin to spread (relatively quickly) throughout your demesne. It will also be relayed somewhat more slowly to your vassals and/or liege - and their advances will do likewise, spreading from their provinces to your – and then the advance will move even further beyond your borders and eventually spread throughout the known world. This spread of technology is integral to CK and, while you may not like the idea of giving anyone your hard-earned technology, keep in mind that you will be benefiting from theirs as it spreads to you as well…which is good because it is impossible to research all 150 advances during the brief 400-year time span of the game. In fact by game’s end it is highly unlikely that all of the many advances will be known to you so you will have to make the occasional decision as to where to place your focus.

Unlike previous Paradox games where you could monitor the exact status of your research, Crusader Kings’ research uses more of a “directed fluke” approach (for lack of a better term). There is no cost for research, nor is there a direct advantage for having a large number of provinces in your demesne…but there is also only very limited predictability as to how long it will take to gain an advance beyond a few general rules of thumb. This is something that veterans from EU2, HoI and Vicky may find somewhat disconcerting at first, but is far more in keeping with the development of technology in this era (with some admitted exceptions). From a game design standpoint, it also makes things less predictable (and therefore the game becomes more replayable) and the actual coding of it requires significantly fewer computer resources to run in the background while all sorts of other nifty stuff is going on (war…babies…the plague…etc…). I will come back to this subject later, in the detailed research section.

Another unusual effect of this combined research and spread system is that technological progress isn’t always linear in your nation. By this I mean that it is possible that you will gain a high level advance from a neighbour that you can begin to use even though you haven’t researched any/all of the lower levels. Believe it or not, this is WAD (working as designed)! There may be the odd instance where this will make absolutely no sense (i.e. you might gain advanced road networks without having the prerequisite advances necessary to research that technology yourself) but the majority of such instances are actually more in keeping with the CK era than you might think. Cause and effect, logic, rigorous methodology and such were really foreign concepts throughout much of the period and advances tended to be much more of a happy accident than a product of reason and experiment. Yes, I’m aware that this is a rather sweeping generalization, but it can certainly make for some interesting and unusual games at times. Also something that may be counterintuitive at first is that in an instance such as this, it then becomes possible through research to gain not only the missing lower advances, but it is also possible to gain an even higher one. Again this is WAD and, if you think about it, does make sense in light of the era.

So…what do these advances do? In some cases you will see a direct benefit immediately – particularly in the warfare categories where your regiments will begin to fight with greater strength and become better able to defend themselves. In other cases a new advance will give you the ability to build a new province improvement that enhances your income, improves your leader’s piety, makes your citizens happier, or that can even speed the rate of future research and/or its spread. There are still other advances that appear to have no direct benefit but may have “hidden” attributes – for instance there are certain random game events that you may become more (or less) susceptible to after gaining certain advances – or advances may simply be stepping stones along the way to some new capabilities.

It is critical to remember, however, that these advances are always treated on a provincial basis. If you’ve just gained the advance that allows you to build a huge castle then remember that you can build one only in the province that has gained it…or that the greatswords your armouries now make for your knights in Province X can only be wielded by that province’s regiment and not by your entire army. In both cases you will have to wait for technology to spread…and depending on the advance, it might take a while.

Hopefully this gives you a fairly good overview of the basic concept and underlying ideas of the system. Now it’s time to take a more detailed look at how it works.



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Notice:

This FAQ was written by MrT and may be used and distributed freely and without permission provided that proper accreditation is given and that any distribution is without commercial gain.

Last revised to update it for Version 1.01

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Researching Advances and the Advance Interface

As mentioned above, you will have research ongoing in your capital throughout the game. In fact you simultaneously conduct three different types of research – one in the Warfare category, one in the Production category, and one in the Culture category. Here’s how:

First, you will need to access the Advances portion of the Laws and Advances panel. This is done by clicking on your shield in the top right corner of the main screen or, if you currently have one of your own provinces selected, you can click on your shield near the top left instead (I find it a matter of habit to use the top right shield because it is always there).

The left portion of your screen will shift to the Laws and Advances interface. To access the Advances portion, click on the “Advances” tab (by default the “Laws” tab is selected). You should see something like this appear on the left side of your screen (without the comments and arrows of course):

The basic layout is broken up into several areas. From top to bottom they are: the scrollable Group listing, the colour-coded advance level boxes, the information area which will be blank when you first open the panel) and the Audaces Foruna
Iuvat button (otherwise referred to as the “Big Red Seal”).

You will notice, if you scroll down the list, that it is subdivided into the three sections – or Categories – mentioned earlier, each with a number of Advance Groups listed. They are Warfare (12 groups), Production (10 groups) and Culture (8 groups). The picture above shows the bottom few groups of the warfare portion and the first few groups of the production section.

Each of the groups represents five Levels of advance, the names of which will appear if you hover your mouse over a group name – for instance, if you hover over the very first of the warfare groups (bows) you will see that it contains the advances short bow, long bow, composite bow, reinforced longbow, and marksman longbow. Throughout the rest of this FAQ I will refer to these as L1, L2, L3, L4, and L5 for convenience.

You will see a small red dot beside three of the group names in the list – one in the warfare category, one in the production category, and one in the culture category. The red dot is a small representation of the Big Red Seal and indicates that this is the group to which your researchers are currently devoting their attention. You may only conduct research in one group per category at a time, but may change your focus any time you like (see below) without penalty.

If you click on any of the group names (whether it is your focus or not), you will see several things happen: the group name will become highlighted (white text); the colour-coded boxes below the list will change to have one of them highlighted (a white box around it) and some or all of them will have a red line through them; text will appear below the area to list the name of the advance that corresponds to the advance that is the level of the box selected in the group selected and a brief description of the direct effects of this advance; and the map will change to show each province either in white or with one of the colours from the boxes. White means that the province has not yet achieved an advance of any type in this group. Otherwise the province’s colour will be the highest level of achievement in that group that the province has gained.

In the example immediately above, the Level 1 advance of the “Castles” group is selected – the Hill Fort. The text indicates that this advance “Allows: Hill Fort” – meaning that the player can build a hill fort in a province that has this advance. If you click on the L2 box, the description will change to “Small Castle”, on the L3 box it would change to “Medium Castle”, etc. The main map is now displaying the highest level of castle advance that each province in the known world has achieved so far, with the map colours corresponding to the colours in the five level boxes. As you can see at a glance, Ireland and some of Wales have brown province colours, indicating that they possess only L1 advances (i.e. you could only build hill forts there). There are a couple of green provinces in north-eastern Spain that have achieved L2 advances, the bulk of western Europe and northern Spain have reached the third level of advance, and southern Spain has achieved L4.

By clicking on the various group names you can fairly quickly review the state of advancement that you and your neighbours have achieved – and this is the only way of assessing your potential enemies’ technological prowess (other than looking at the appropriate section of the save game file).

If you look back up at the “close up” of the advances panel picture above, you will also notice that many of the groups have little “tick marks” to the left of them. This is a fast glance at the highest advance level in the group that your capital province has achieved. Each “tick” indicates 1 level so you can easily see that in this example four of the groups have reached L3 technology, a number of others are at L2, and that the “Offensive Tactics” group has achieved a heady L4 advance. The absence of a tick mark beside two of the groups (Handicraft and Architecture) indicates that no advances have been achieved yet in those groups, and if you were to click on one of those groups then the colour coding on the map would show your capital as a white province and all five level boxes would have a red cross through them.

As mentioned earlier, the small red dot beside three of the groups indicates that these are the three groups currently being research by the “scientists” in your demesne’s capital. In general, research is conducted on a linear basis – meaning that you must research the L1 advance in a group before you may research L2, and must have L2 to research L3, etc. In many cases this follows a logical pattern (i.e. the castles gradually grow from little hill forts to become huge in size) but in a few groups the advances may not seem all that logically dependent upon one another but are grouped together because of their general relationships (and for game mechanics convenience). Note that there is also a significant exception to this rule which I will discuss later, in the “spread” section of the FAQ.

The L1 advance in each group is usually a fairly basic technology - or at least it is treated as one for game purposes – and the “difficulty” of each advance increases as the level within the group increases. As the level increases so does the difficulty of achieving it, but nowhere will you find an indication of how long it will take you to research that advance – and this is something that players of EU, EU2, HoI and Vicky will find very odd and perhaps a bit unsettling at first. This is due to the way that Crusader Kings approaches technology, mimicking the aforementioned “directed fluke” or “haphazard” nature of the times.

In very general terms, the thought process of medieval period was vastly different to today’s scientific, logical, cause & effect philosophy (at least from the Christian European perspective that is the basis of the game). Many of the inventions of the era happened by pure happenstance (blind luck!) as opposed to being the result of methodical experimentation. Still more were actually “imports” from other parts of the world that spread into Europe along with the increasing traffic along the trade routes to exotic locales.

To mimic this, CK uses a revolutionary design game concept that is utterly different to Paradox’s previous games. Each and every advance is treated as a game “Event” which will only “activate” when certain preset conditions are met, and will then “fire” within a certain random period of time after that. This randomness is assigned a value for each event, expressed as the “mean time to happen” (or MTTH), and can be modified by quite a few different conditions which, again, are assigned on an advance-by-advance basis.

These modifiers can be quite varied, and their importance can range from a minor reduction in the expected average research time to a very significant reduction. There are several province improvements that almost universally benefit you: road networks, advanced road networks, civilian harbours, grand shipyards, schools, universities, and usually libraries. In addition most advances also have modifiers that are linked to an appropriate monarch statistic – for instance virtually all warfare advances will take less time to gain if your kingdom martial stat is high (monarch’s martial stat + marshal’s martial stat + any traits) and most production advances will benefit from high stewardship stats.

Because this system is based on probability, the actual time that will elapse before you gain the advance is unpredictable and will vary. If you are extremely “lucky” you might get it in a matter of months (or even days!). If you are extremely unlucky it could take decades or, for high levels of technology, even longer. L1 advances are usually fairly easy to get relatively quickly, while at the opposite end of the spectrum an L5 advance might easily take a couple decades since it represents the pinnacle of medieval achievement during the game period. Further, it is assumed that you will have quite a few of the positive modifiers by the time you get around to researching L4 and L5 advances so the “starting point” times are set considerably higher than is the case with the lower level advances.

Time Taken to Gain Most Advances

• Level 1 – approx. 5-10 years
• Level 2 – approx. 8-15 years
• Level 3 – approx. 15-25 years
• Level 4 – approx. 25-50 years
• Level 5 – approx. 50+ years

Remember: the above values are only approximate average times and that the actual times can be considerably longer or significantly shorter depending on the luck of the digital dice. Whatever the eventual outcome turns out to be, once you have completed research you will get a confirmation that you have discovered a new advance…

…so now you can take advantage of it in your capital province and hope that it begins to spread – which is the topic of the next section of this FAQ.



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Notice:

This FAQ was written by MrT and may be used and distributed freely and without permission provided that proper accreditation is given and that any distribution is without commercial gain.

Last revised to update it for Version 1.01

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Advances and Spread

I’ve stated on several occasions above that technology “spreads”. What exactly does this mean?

Historically, significant advances in technology would begin as highly isolated, local advances – for instance the famed Damascus technique of manufacturing steel blades. In truth, very few of the Damascus blades were actually manufactured in Damascus. Rather, smiths who had apprenticed in Damascus for a time would subsequently leave for other parts of Europe and set up shop, taking this technology with them. Techniques used in agriculture, farming, production, etc. followed a similar track, dispersing to neighbouring counties and also throughout the world along the major trading and communication routes.

Crusader Kings uses the concept of “spread” to mimic this behaviour, employing a similar method as is used for the research of advances. On a periodic basis, the game checks the technologies present in adjacent provinces and, if one province possesses an advance that the other does not, there is a chance that it will spread. This chance is again calculated as a probability, and each advance has its own special “Spread Event” that defines how long it should take it to spread (on average) and any modifiers that might apply to its spread.

In many cases these modifiers are very similar to the ones used in the research events (communication and education improvements in the “target” province decrease the time it will take to spread into the province) but there are also additional bonuses that are applied as a result of comparing the two provinces. If they share the same rule, the same realm, the same culture, the same religion, etc. then in many cases these modifiers are set to be quite significant and should promote the fairly rapid spread of a new advance throughout your realm - “fairly rapid” meaning, in this case, something along the lines of a decade or so for many of the advances, and rarely more than a quarter-century for the higher level advances. Also as per research, the higher the level of the advance, the longer it will take to spread.

Besides the adjacent provinces being checked, there are also a series of preset “pseudo-neighbours” or “spreadneighbours” that have been included in the game to assist and promote spread to “jump” along somewhat traditional trading routes. Other a-historical ones have been included to allow some of the more remote areas to enjoy some hope of succeeding in the game, or to help balance play. These spreadneighbours are checked on a periodic basis just as though they were adjacent to one another, so you may notice technology moving in rather interesting ways at times.

Of course it would also be worth while pointing out at this point that there are other things that “spread” in exactly the same way in the game. No, not your armies…they must walk or take passage on vessels in order to go anywhere. But there are other things…

Nevertheless, spread can have some very beneficial effects. First of all, it is quite likely that half – or more! – of your advances will come via this route, rather than as a result of your own research. Also, you only gain advances in your capital province so spread is absolutely essential to distribute the latest technology and ensure the overall long-term strength and prosperity of your realm.

Spread does not respect national borders – although such borders generally slow it down quite noticeably. Similarly, cultural and religious differences tend to have a detrimental affect on spread. Nevertheless, it is entirely possible that in a matter of a few generations you could gain a technology imported from quite some distance away.

There is another interesting highlight: any technology can spread between provinces and this is not placed under the same restrictions as are imposed upon research. This opens up the possibility for you to gain a relatively high level advance at some point without having researched (or received by earlier spread) the technologies that lead up to it. This is WAD! It was not at all uncommon for this sort of thing to happen in the middle ages, and from a game standpoint adds additional balance and a rather interesting series of possibilities.

It also creates a rather strange situation if it happens in your capital and then you subsequently decide to do some research in that group. This is because your province will actually be checked twice to see if you receive an advance in that group – once for the low level advance that you need, and once more to see if you can build upon this high level advance and actually reach even higher. While unlikely, it’s possible that you could end up gaining a higher level advance before you gain the lower one (if the odds happen to work out that way). Keep in mind that this might still not help you as much as you might think, depending on the advance in question (e.g. gaining the L5 castle advance would be worthless because to actually build the huge castle you must already have a large castle in the province).



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Notice:

This FAQ was written by MrT and may be used and distributed freely and without permission provided that proper accreditation is given and that any distribution is without commercial gain.

Last revised to update it for Version 1.01

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Tables and Charts

This section contains tables that describe the effects of the 150 advances in Crusader Kings.

Note: The charts in this post are for 1.00 and will shortly be updated to 1.01 values. Until these can be uploaded to the Paradox server, I have attached a zipped version of the 1.01 charts.

WARFARE ADVANCES

Bows and Crossbows

The bows advances are applied to the archers (and to horse archers if you have that unit type available to you) that are part of a regiment that has that advance. Note that all factors are multiplied together to determine the total effect, and that the effect is limited to be against only certain unit types. Also, I am not certain whether the special multipliers affect “to hit” or “damage” or both.

Example, archers who have the L1, L2 and L3 bow advances would be at x 6 versus heavy cavalry but would have no bonus against any other unit type. An archer cavalry unit with the same 3 advances would be at x 4.5 versus heavy infantry, pikemen and militia but would have no bonus against a heavy cavalry unit. Both types gain increases in their general attack values vs all units as their advance level increases, however.

Crushing, Slashing and Piercing Weapons

The various hand-held weapons are used by various unit types: crush weapons primarily by light cavalry; slash weapons are used by heavy and light cavalry and heavy infantry; and pierce weapons are used either by militia and pikemen, or by heavy cavalry (depending on type of weapon). Each weapon also has a specific additional bonuse(s) versus a specific unit type(s).

Armour

Armour comes in three types: the leather group that can be worn by all unit types; the chain group that can be worn by all but militia and archers; and the plate type that is worn only by heavy infantry and heavy cavalry.

Tactics

Battlefield tactics have a variety of effects. In an instance where a unit type gains more than one benefit, the factors are multiplied together to determine the total benefit.

Siege equipment and castles

Siege equipment gradually improves the effectiveness of your sieges, with each advance being more powerful. Remember, the factors are multiplied together so if you have all five advances then you will receive a total modifier of x 3.6036 - not x 2.50.

Castles advances allow the construction of heavier fortifications in your province, however to actually construct them you will require the next lowest level of fortification to have been built there first (and gold, of course).

PRODUCTION ADVANCES

The following chart shows the various advances in the production category. Many of these have the effect of increasing the province’s gold income, while others are prerequisites for certain province improvements. A few have no direct benefit but may have a “hidden” effect on other events - either by modifying their likelihood of happening, of by allowing/preventing them altogether.

CULTURAL ADVANCES

The cultural advances either effect the loyalty of certain portions of your society, are prerequisites for a few of the province improvements, or have a “hidden” effect on other events that can be deciphered if one spends some time looking at the other events files.

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Notice:

This FAQ was written by MrT and may be used and distributed freely and without permission provided that proper accreditation is given and that any distribution is without commercial gain.

Last revised to update it for Version 1.00

Zipped 1.01 revision now attached to this post - in both jpg and html format.
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Advance Discovery and Advance Spread Scripting

This section is for all those who wish to modify or tweak the advances files or who simply want to understand the nuts and bolts of the event system.

Discovery Events

The discovery events, ID #3000-3149, govern the research of new advances in the capital province and can be found in the file …\Crusader Kings\db\events\advances_discovery.txt

Let’s begin by looking at a typical example of a discovery event: the longbow advance:

###########################
#longbow discovery	  #	   
###########################
						   
province_event = {
	id = 3001

	name	= "TECH_DISCOVERY"
	tag		= longbow
	picture = event_techinvention
	trigger	= {
		condition = {
			type = not
			value = {
				type = has_advance
				value = { longbow = yes }
			}
		}
		condition = {
			type = has_advance
			value = { shortbow = yes }
		}
		condition = { type = advance_focus value = longbow }
		condition = { type = capital value = yes }
	}

	mean_time_to_happen = {
		months = 100

		modifier = {
			condition = {
				type = terrain
				value = Forest
			}
			factor = 0.95
		}
		modifier = {
			condition = {
				type = has_improvement
				value = { forestry = yes }
			}
			factor = 0.9
		}

[color=yellow]<snip to remove a number of other improvements for the sake of brevity>[/color]

		modifier = {
			condition = {
				type = ruler_martial
				value = 11
			}
			factor = 0.9
		}
		modifier = {
			condition = {
				type = ruler_martial
				value = 15
			}
			factor = 0.9
		}
	}

	immidiate = {
		effect = { 
				type = add_advance 
				value = longbow 
			}
	} 	
}

All discovery events take on the same basic format:

• Begins with the identification of the event and calls to the appropriate in-game graphics for the event.
• Sets any conditions that are required for the event to trigger (i.e for the advance to be gained). In most discovery events this makes the discovery of the previous level mandatory and makes sure that you don’t already have the advance, makes sure that you are actually researching this advance, and requires that this is your capital province. Any other valid condition could be included if desired (valid conditions are discussed below).
• Sets the MTTH value – usually in months. This is the base value that would be used to determine the statistical mean time to happen for the event and is usually a value expressed in “months”, although “days” and “years” are also valid.
• This is followed by any modifiers that will be multiplied with the MTTH value to determine the effective MTTH for the event. A modifier that is greater than 1.0 will increase the effective MTTH and indicates a malus. A modifier that is less than 1.0 will decrease the effective MTTH and represents a bonus.
• The event ends with the immediate effect of gaining the advance.

There is no limit to the number of conditions or modifiers that you place in an event, however it is worth reminding you that modifiers are all multiplied together to determine the final MTTH value. The most likely place that this would trip you up is if you want to check a stat or power setting and scale the modifier to how high (or low) that stat is. In the above example you will note that the martial stat is checked. If it is 10 or greater then a 0.9 modifier is applied. If it is 14 or greater then a 0.9 modifier is applied in addition to the 0.9 it would already have received for being 10+.

A list of all valid conditions can be found at the end of this post.


Spread Events

The spread events, ID #4000-4149, govern the spread of advances between provinces and can be found in the file …\Crusader Kings\db\events\advances_spread.txt. Remember that there are also provinces that aren’t physically adjacent to one another but are considered to be “spread neighbours”. A listing of these can be found in the file …\Crusader Kings\db\spreadneighbours.csv

The spread events are very similar to the discoveries event, with one very important distinction: you must either use a “comparison” type of condition (same_xxxxx) or you must specify whether you are “testing” the province that the tech is coming from or going to for each condition.

An example will illustrate this:

###########################
#letters_of_indulgence spread	  #	   
###########################
						   
province_x_province_event = {
	id = 4141

	name	= "TECH_SPREAD"
	tag		= letters_of_indulgence
	picture = event_techspread
	trigger	= {
		condition = {
			type = from
			condition = { 
				type = has_advance
				value = {
					letters_of_indulgence = yes
				}
			}
		}

		condition = {
			type = to
			condition = {
				type = not
				value = {
					type = has_advance
					value = {
						letters_of_indulgence = yes
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}

	mean_time_to_happen = {
		months = 3000

		modifier = {
			condition = {
				type = to
				condition = { type = advance_focus value = letters_of_indulgence }                 
			}
			factor = 0.9
                }
		modifier = {
			condition = {
				type = to
				condition = { 
					type = has_improvement
					value = { 
						monastery = yes
					}
				}
			}
			factor = 0.9
		}

[color=yellow]<snip to remove a number of other improvements for the sake of brevity>[/color]

		modifier = {
			condition = {
				type = to
				condition = { type = clergy_power value = 0.35 }                 
			}
			factor = 0.9
                }
		modifier = {
			condition = {
				type = to
				condition = { type = clergy_power value = 0.45 }                 
			}
			factor = 0.9
                }
		modifier = {
			condition = {
				type = to
				condition = {
					type = not
					value = { 
						type = clergy_power
						value = 0.25
					}
				}
			}
			factor = 1.1
                }
		modifier = {
			condition = {
				type = to
				condition = {
					type = not
					value = { 
						type = clergy_power
						value = 0.15
					}
				}
			}
			factor = 1.1
                }
		modifier = {
			condition = { 
				type = to
				condition = {
					type = ruler_stewardship
					value = 11
				}
			}
			factor = 0.9
		}
		modifier = {
			condition = { 
				type = to
				condition = {
					type = ruler_stewardship
					value = 15
				}
			}
			factor = 0.9
		}
		modifier = {
			condition = { type = same_culture }
			factor = 0.8
		}
		modifier = {
			condition = { type = same_religion }
			factor = 0.6
		}
		modifier = {
			condition = { type = same_ruler }
			factor = 0.7
		}
		modifier = {
			condition = { type = same_realm }
			factor = 0.8
		}
	}

	immidiate = {
		effect = { 
			type = to 

			effect = { 
				type = add_advance 
				value = letters_of_indulgence 
			}
		}
	} 	
}

All spread events take on the same basic format:

• Begins with the identification of the event and calls to the appropriate in-game graphics for the event.
• Sets any conditions that are required for the event to trigger (i.e for the advance to spread). You must include, in this section, a test to confirm that the “from” province has the technology in question, and that the “to” province does not have it. Other conditions could be added for user scenarios - for instance you prevent spread of tech_xxxx from being possible until a certain other advance is known in the “to” province or until the “to” province has a certain province improvement, or whatever. Any valid province condition may be used here, as long as you specify whether it’s the “to” of “from” province that the condition applies to.
• Sets the MTTH value – usually in months and, considering the normal number of neighbouring provinces that any given province has, this number should usually be fairly large or technology will tend to spread far too fast.
• This is followed by any modifiers that will be applied to the MTTH value to determine the effective MTTH for the event. As in the case of discovery events, a modifier that is greater than 1.0 will increase the effective MTTH and indicates a malus. A modifier that is less than 1.0 will decrease the effective MTTH and represents a bonus. Remember that you must always specify either “to” or “from” when testing a province condition, unless you are using a condition that is already a “same-xxxx” test.
• The event ends with the immediate effect of the advance spreading.

Otherwise, the spread events work more or less the same way that any province event works.

Conditions

The following are the valid conditions that can be included in advances events.

Does the province have a specific province improvement in it?
type = has_improvement value = { [improvement type] = [yes/no] ... }

Does the province possess a specific advance?
type = has_advance value = { [advancement type] = [yes/no] ... }

Does the province currently have a specific effect currently occurring? (Note that this would rarely be used in an advance script)
type = has_province_effect value = { [province effect type] = [yes/no] ... }

Does any neighbouring province have a specific effect currently occurring? (Note that this would rarely be used in an advance script)
type = neighbor_province_effect value = { [province effect type] = [yes/no] ... }

Does the province have a specific law enacted?
type = has_law value = { [law type] = [yes/no] ... }

Does the power/loyalty of peasants/burghers/clergy/nobles have a certain value? (Note, this returns “true” if the province value is equal to or greater than the value “V”).
type = noble_loyalty value = V
type = noble_power value = V
type = clergy_loyalty value = V
type = clergy_power value = V
type = burgher_loyalty value = V
type = burgher_power value = V
type = peasant_loyalty value = V
type = peasant_power value = V

Does the owner (title holder) of the province have a specific trait?
type = trait value = [trait type]

Is the current year a specific value (or greater)
type = year value = N

Is the realm that owns this province currently researching a specific advance?
type = advance_focus value = [advance type]

Is this a specific province?
type = province value = [province id]

Is this province in a specific area? (This will return “true” if the province being tested is in the same area as the province who’s ID you supply).
type = area value = [province id]

Is the province regiment currently active (i.e. mobilized)?
type = regiment_mobilized

Does this province have the same religion as the highest ruler? (Note: in a spread event I think that this may be overridden and compare the religions of the two provinces instead.)
type = same_religion

Does this province have the same culture as the highest ruler? (Note: in a spread event I think that this may be overridden and compare the cultures of the two provinces instead.)
type = same_culture

Is this province a certain religion?
type = religion value = [religion type]

Is this province a certain terrain type?
type = terrain value = [terrain type]

Does this province have a certain culture?
type = culture value = [culture type]

Does the ruler of this province have a certain culture?
type = ruler_culture value = [culture type]

Does the ruler of this province have a certain religion?
type = ruler_religion value = [religion type]

Does this province have the same ruler as another province? (Note: used in spread events only and tests to see if the immediate ruler is the same for both provinces.)
type = same_ruler

Is this province in the same realm as another province? (Note: used in spread events only and tests to see if the highest ranking tier is the same ruler for both provinces.)
type = same_realm

Does a certain tag exist?
type = exists value = [tag]

Does the realm that owns this province have “N” or more regiments?
type = realm_regiments value = N



***************************************

Notice:

This FAQ was written by MrT and may be used and distributed freely and without permission provided that proper accreditation is given and that any distribution is without commercial gain.

Last revised to update it for Version 1.01

.

 

[unmerged(6777)]

Note:

New charts for version 1.01 now attached to post #4 in zipped format, including an html version. The charts will be updated in the post itself once the files can be uploaded to the Paradox main server.

 

[Havard]

Attached are Excel sheets prepared by Kriegspieler with the effects as per version 1.03b.