[MOD] Princes of Darkness (Vampires, Werewolves, etc...)

flintsparc · Jun 28, 2015

Sorry folks. I got frustrated with all old characters giving up their titles within a few months of being made into vampires with age. Its a recently added vanilla feature that is probably related to a faction plot or an abdication decision, but I couldn't find it. Pretty much wrecks the vampire dynamic. What happens is the elder vampire lord embraces a childe, who is their heir, then quickly the heir takes the title and the elder becomes some courtier probably with a position on the council. Unless this gets resolved, it doesn't really play right.

I also here there is another expansion, which will break what, I'm not sure.

Real Life has also intervened. I may have some time to look at this again soon, but any advice on how I can disable the old characters giving up their titles, I'd appreciate it.

ngppgn · Jun 28, 2015

Could you update the github, or post the urrent WIP version, so that we could take a look? It's pretty strange, what you describe. Does also happen to the playable character? Does it happens to all the elders, or only some? Have you tried marking the characters that are to "abdicate" or whatever as interesting characters? That way you should probably get a notification when they loose the title, which could perhaps provide any information.

Other than that, some random ideas that come to mind:
-just disable all factions
-make sure the event that gives incapable from old age is disabled for vampires
-disable the decision and events to let you councillor distribute titles. I could see that malfunctioning, specially if the characters affected are above demesne limit.
-make sure the culprit is not the decision of entering into torpor

As for the new dlc, I suspect you will just need to adapt the new governments (which are an awesome oportunity to give more differentiation to clans, or to sects/covenants, but the way). and winmerge files for changes (defines, etc).

By the way, did you manage to solve the problem with the bloodlines/dynasties bug?

flintsparc · Jun 30, 2015

I'll have some time this weekend, so I'll update the github then.
Disabling factions didn't work.
Playing through it happens within days of embracing a mortal. Without any decision, faction warning or anything... the childe is designated heir and then immediately inherits, you start playing the heir that just inherited, while the elder vampire is now titleless. I'm going to look into the embrace mechanic.

MorgannaZio · Jun 30, 2015

flintsparc said:
I'll have some time this weekend, so I'll update the github then.
Disabling factions didn't work.
Playing through it happens within days of embracing a mortal. Without any decision, faction warning or anything... the childe is designated heir and then immediately inherits, you start playing the heir that just inherited, while the elder vampire is now titleless. I'm going to look into the embrace mechanic.

Looking forward to it 100%. I've been spamming Lux Invicta and modding my own thing, but I have the Red Thirst.

N_P_O · Jun 30, 2015

Maybe looking at the Warhammer mod (Geheimnisnacht), which has immortal vampires that can create more vampires, could be of help. I haven't played Prince of Darkness, so I have no idea if the vampire mechanics are in any way similar, but the problem described doesn't happen in Gehaimnisnacht.

--Edit: Also, this very looks promising. I would love to try playing it some time in the future!

MorgannaZio · Jul 1, 2015

flintsparc said:
I'll have some time this weekend, so I'll update the github then.
Disabling factions didn't work.
Playing through it happens within days of embracing a mortal. Without any decision, faction warning or anything... the childe is designated heir and then immediately inherits, you start playing the heir that just inherited, while the elder vampire is now titleless. I'm going to look into the embrace mechanic.

If you could give me the version you're currently working on, I'll take a look. Fresh eyes, maybe? I'm currently looking through 1.7.2

*Edit* All I can guess off the top of my head is that the dynasty isn't being set correctly or is being reinitialized. Without seeing the code I can't be more exact.

flintsparc · Jul 2, 2015

Stupid mistake on my part. I was making newly created vampire childer to inherit = PREV

Oops!

We're back in business, children of the night!

While my Auspex V didn't spot the bug till now I hear hoofbeats in the distance. I'll release something playable after incorporating changes needed for Horse Lords. There will probably be a change to defines.lua and some directory structures are changing.

MorgannaZio · Jul 2, 2015

Excellent news. I'm looking forward to hearing all about it. So amped for this mod to be re-released.

ngppgn · Jul 2, 2015

Great! By the way, what happened with the bug you has a while back which created problema with vampiric dynasties?

Also, do you have any plan regarding governments?

And, as shown in the last DD change log for nodding, now you can change the costs of specific retinues. That might prove very useful to model retainers!

flintsparc · Jul 3, 2015

For now, I have NPCs creating new characters as childer through an event. But players still pick their childer through minor title. I'm speculating that maybe things get confused when you have a heir as "first born" then you embrace a childe with an older age as "second born" and when there is a recalc succession at year end the game crashes. Or maybe not. Anyway, the current fix is working.

Stuff from Horse Lords:

Governments: I'll probably try to use nomadic government for: Predator Kings, Fire-Touched, Red Talons, nomadic Sabbat packs, Anda Gangrel, other Gangrel, nomadic anarch packs, Anarch revolt in general, the Dark Carnival, maybe even The Black Hand Seraphs and Justicars. Maybe also use it for hunters... the Malleus Malificarium as one big roving horde of witch hunters in central Europe... oh yeah! Iqta: Ashirra, Assamites, Banu Shaitan. I may make different Camarilla clans favor different types, Ventrue: Fuedal, Brujah: Republic/Tribal, Gangrel: Nomadic/Tribal, Toreador: Republic/Feudal, Sabbat: Republic/Nomadic, Tzimisce: Feudal/Tribal, Lasombra: Feudal/Iqta, Glasswalkers/Bonegnawers: Republic, Silver Fangs/Storm Lords: Feudal, Shadowlords: Tribal, Silent Striders: Nomadic, Hunters in Darkness/Bone Shadows: Iqta, Black Furies: Tribal, Blood Talons/Get of Fenris: Tribal, Fianna: Tribal, Black Spiral Dancers: Tribal, Invictus: Feudal, Lancea Sanctum: Feudal, Carthians: Republic, Ordo Dracul: Republic, Unaligned: Nomadic, Circle of the Crone: Tribal, Belial's Brood: Nomadic? . Anyway, thats just off the top of my head. Others feel free to make suggestions or argue for changes, particularly once we actually know how these different government mechanics work.

Mercenaries: I'll definitely be letting all Vampires and Werewolves send off heir heirs as mercenary adventurers. It's good thematically and saves me a lot of trouble in that I won't have to create a lot of supernatural mercenary bands.

Tributaries: I'll definitely use that. For the bookmarks that have a lot of named characters... like War of Princes, etc... I might make a lot of feudal relationships into tributary ones. Tributary relationships seem like a better fit for a lot of the isolation between different realms.

Population/Manpower stats: These may well replace gold as an economic mechanism for Vampires; or atleast de-emphaize gold. I also should be able to use it well for chance of frenzy... the more population, the less chance of a feeding frenzy or a bad hunting event. Maybe also allow # of ghouls, or regiments of supernaturals to be based on that. And, have it work the opposite for most werewolves--the higher population in an area, the more trouble werewolves have.

Forts: Some sort of war party temporary haven during jyhad seems like a nice addition. Need a good name for it. Maybe also make use of it for Werewolf attunement with an area, or so magey thing that is short of a chantry.

Silk Road: Gallows Post in new World of Darkness maybe.

Bigger Map: the Werewolves and vampires travelling in the Altaic/Mongol areas probably didn't need the boost... but they'll get it.

flintsparc · Jul 4, 2015

For the version 0.2 release after modification for Horse Lords, I'll be offering three shattered world scenarios:
1250 CE: Vampire: the Requiem/Werewolf: the Forsaken. Set after the Final Council of the Invictus Empire
1355 CE: Dark Ages Vampire/Dark Ages Werewolf. Set after the Black Death in Europe. Reign of the High Clans is challenged by the Low Clans and the beginnings of the Anarch Revolt.
1506 CE: Vampire: the Masquerade/Werewolf: the Apocalypse. Set after the Convention of Thorns. Camarilla vs. Sabbat

unshattered world will take more time as they involve lots of tedious editing of history files: characters and titles. Its also something that doesn't require much knowledge of modding to help with. I hope that some of you will be able to contribute to that--particularly those folks who want strict canon for the Dark Ages Vampire setting and novels.

ngppgn · Jul 4, 2015

But the history work that has already made need nor be rewritten, yes? What about the unshattered scenario that was already in place?

Edit: although I would rather help with mechanics (like implemwnting some targetted decisions for embracing, ghouling and disciplines, I could try and help with some history.

By the way, random suggestion. Given that the dynasty mapmode shows clan dominance and the religious mapmode show sects/covenants, could the governments be used to model/show roads/ways/paths (as in, heaven/humanity/beast/kings etc.). That way, the nomad mechanics can be given to the road of the beast, piety loss on warring correligionaries and so on.

Also, I has this wicked idea of using cultures to represent the kine faction a supernatural supports. Think e.g. Of welfs and guibelines in italy. This way, cultural differences turn into differences of your favourite mortal infrastructure, and actions (e.g. Plots) could be taken for a mortal faction to attack a City of your rival (e.g. The italian lasombra plotting so that the cities rebel against the hre, to weaken the germanicist ventrues.).

flintsparc · Jul 4, 2015

ngppgn said:
But the history work that has already made need nor be rewritten, yes?

The history/character files are probably salvageable with proper attention given to the characterIDs so they don't overlap with vanilla. Its the history/titles files that will need the work. Say you are creating the Fiefs of the Black Cross, you'll have to edit the title files for each county, duchy and kingdom to get them under Hardestadt's control. I had done that, so I know how much time is involved. I can't use that earlier version because I used the Kingdoms Abound tool to wipe the existing title histories. and Kingdoms Abound didn't work by Charlemagne changes.

ngppgn said:
What about the unshattered scenario that was already in place?

I batch edited history/province files on that, taking out the vanilla religions but leaving the cultures. I could probably still use the work I did there, but the current script is relatively fast and much less effort on my part when adding a bookmark and changing between VtM , VtR or other future supernaturals.

ngppgn said:
Edit: although I would rather help with mechanics (like implemwnting some targetted decisions for embracing, ghouling and disciplines,

Always welcome, just keep some tabbing and line breaks in there

ngppgn said:
I could try and help with some history.

I'll get a version out soon so you can take a wack at it. 1230 bookmark can still be your childer.

ngppgn said:
By the way, random suggestion. Given that the dynasty mapmode shows clan dominance and the religious mapmode show sects/covenants, could the governments be used to model/show roads/ways/paths (as in, heaven/humanity/beast/kings etc.). That way, the nomad mechanics can be given to the road of the beast, piety loss on warring correligionaries and so on.

Depends how much about Government types is moddable. For now it looks like there are 4, which is insufficient for Roads; but if we can rename them, that'd help. And if we can arrange what government type has what effect, that could be something. We could even link it to flavor events, like Sabbat not carrying about the Masquerade, etc...

ngppgn said:
Also, I has this wicked idea of using cultures to represent the kine faction a supernatural supports. Think e.g. Of welfs and guibelines in italy. This way, cultural differences turn into differences of your favourite mortal infrastructure, and actions (e.g. Plots) could be taken for a mortal faction to attack a City of your rival (e.g. The italian lasombra plotting so that the cities rebel against the hre, to weaken the germanicist ventrues.).

Probably not going to go with that one. First, it would be a lot of work to do a study on political factions for every city/province/duchy/kingdom/empire for the current map. Second, mortal politics change faster than those of the undead. Third, I'm using culture as the value I check against for determining vampire clan and covenant in a shattered world. Here, let me show you what I'm doing:

Code:

#1355 After the Black Death (DAV/VTM/CWOD) Shattered World
province_event = {
    id = storyteller.7   
    picture = "GFX_evt_comet"
    hide_window = yes   
   
    trigger = {
        has_global_flag = bookmark1355 
        has_global_flag = shattered_realm
        ROOT = {
                        NOT = {
                            religion_group = vampire_high_clans_group
                            religion_group = vampire_low_clans_group
                            religion_group = ashirra_vampire_group
                            religion_group = baali_group
                            religion_group = masquerade_camarilla_group
                            religion_group = sabbat_group
                            religion_group = inconnu_group
                            religion_group = masquerade_independent_group
                            religion_group = garou_group
                            religion_group = wyrm_group
                            religion = laibon
                            }
                }
    }
       
    mean_time_to_happen = {
        days = 1
        modifier = {
        factor = 10
        }       
    }

    immediate = {
            owner = {
            ROOT = {

                if = { limit = { OR = { 
                                        culture = english
                                        culture = old_saxon
                                        culture = saxon } }
                        random_list = {                                                                                                       
                        30 = { religion = vampire_high_clans }
                        40 = { religion = vampire_low_clans }
                        10 = { religion = black_spiral_dancers }
                        10 = { religion = fianna }
                        10 = { religion = silver_fangs }
                        }

Code:

#1506 CE Weak Sects (VTM/CWOD) Shattered World

                if = { limit = { OR = { 
                                        culture = english
                                        culture = old_saxon
                                        culture = saxon } }
                        random_list = {                                                                                                       
                        10 = { religion = toreadorcamarilla }
                        10 = { religion = sabbat }                                                                                       
                        10 = { religion = anarchs }
                        10 = { religion = brujahcamarilla }
                        25 = { religion = nosferatucamarilla }
                        25 = { religion = malkaviancamarilla }
                        10 = { religion = ventruecamarilla }
                        10 = { religion = silver_fangs }
                        }
                    }

Code:

#1250 CE Last Council of the Invictus Empire (VTR/WTF/WOD) Shattered World

                if = { limit = { OR = { 
                                        culture = english
                                        culture = old_saxon
                                        culture = saxon } }
                        random_list = {               
                        15 = { religion = lancea_sanctum }
                        15 = { religion = invictus }
                        39 = { religion = weihan_cynn } 
                        5 = { religion = knights_of_saint_george }
                        1 = { religion = die_nachteulen }                                                                                           
                        5 = { religion = unaligned }
                        5 = { religion = blood_talons }
                        5 = { religion = bale_hounds }
                        5 = { religion = nameless }           
                        }
                    }

ngppgn · Jul 4, 2015

Re: governments: Governments will be moddable, as in you can create as much custom governments as you want (grouped into feudal, merchant and theocracy groups, but the features are intechangeable, like a feudal government with patricians and trade posts). The lists if features that can be linked to government seem to be similar to that of religions (i.e. you can define can_cold_temples, allow_loot etc. by government). and you can reference governments in events and decisions just like you can refer to custom religions or cultures.

Re: cultures: you might want to look at the upcoming region system. With that you can define cus tom regions and use them in events without needing to rely on cultures or dejure structure or whatever. I can reserve that idea for a submod

-P) but anyway, it wouldn't require that much research. culture is defined only for provinces and for characters, so it could be just work much like country tags in Europa Universalis, just more simplified. (e.g. instead of having one "tag" for each possibly independent french vassal, having one tag (culture) for the trench government and other for the french nobility/separatism and be done with it. So, say, The county of Toulouse could start dominated by the occitan nobles, but the Matriarch of the COurt of Love in Paris could plot for the french royals to attack the province, changing it's culture to "french (royalist)" -or whatever- and giving the corresponding static malus to Esclarmonde the Black. But well, nevermind it if you don't find it attractive.

Drop me a word when you have put up a version to work on. And yes, I promise I've got better at my formatting code XD.

flintsparc · Jul 5, 2015

Sure. If you want to submod, feel free. If anyone wants to take all or some of my work, go ahead.

Though from the limited scope of what you want to do, I'd imagine that traits would work just as well as rewriting how culture is used. Unless you absolutely need to depict those relationships on a province level on the map.

Regions being used that way had occurred to me, but... we don't have those changes yet, so culture is the best fit. I hope to use "is_island" for populating Inconnu provinces. I also used culture to designate culural dynasties/bloodlines. So that a 1000 Toreador aren't all in the same dynasty. Been doing that since early in v.01* tree.

Goverments might be very helpful for depicting Camarilla vs. Sabbat. Right now, its hard to see the unified Camarilla as the current covenant structure emphasizes clan conflict on the map.

flintsparc · Jul 8, 2015

Fixed issue with vampire training for disciplines. The format for decisions got more particular. Removed the modifiers for AI for now. I may have NPCs use an event method rather than a decision method so their learning slope is more gradual over time rather than concentrated on the landed with lots of wars.

I'll need to fix Werewolf gifts accordingly.

ngppgn · Jul 8, 2015

It's great to keep hearing from progress!

Wise decision on handling the AI. Though, have you removed the "training time" between taking the decision and getting the new discipline? The tool tip on the screenshot seems to imply so.

flintsparc · Jul 8, 2015

ngppgn said:
It's great to keep hearing from progress!

Wise decision on handling the AI. Though, have you removed the "training time" between taking the decision and getting the new discipline? The tool tip on the screenshot seems to imply so.

For now. And your training menu. They should both be put back eventually. I simplified it till I resolved the bug.

flintsparc · Jul 15, 2015

Good news, the fixes for the Horse Lords patch are mostly complete. Mod is much more stable now. Seems I was missing the earlier transition from vassal_decisions to targeted_decisions.

I experimented a bit with governments. It worked well enough for creating Vampire/Werewolf/Hunter covenant-specific governments for Feudal, Iqta and Tribal. However, creating a nomadic government for the Pure tended to slow the game down to a halt. What I would like to do is have most of the Camarilla to have Traditions, Garou to have the Litany, Sabbat to have the Code of Milan, etc...

I'm intrigued by some of the options like using piety or prestige to change laws or build.

Its a pity that Patrician succession is limited to Agnatic. Its a pity that nomad succession is limited to Agnatic.

ngppgn, when it comes to Roads, I think I'll just use traits for now.

MorgannaZio · Jul 15, 2015

flintsparc said:
Good news, the fixes for the Horse Lords patch are mostly complete. Mod is much more stable now. Seems I was missing the earlier transition from vassal_decisions to targeted_decisions.

I experimented a bit with governments. It worked well enough for creating Vampire/Werewolf/Hunter covenant-specific governments for Feudal, Iqta and Tribal. However, creating a nomadic government for the Pure tended to slow the game down to a halt. What I would like to do is have most of the Camarilla to have Traditions, Garou to have the Litany, Sabbat to have the Code of Milan, etc...

I'm intrigued by some of the options like using piety or prestige to change laws or build.

Its a pity that Patrician succession is limited to Agnatic. Its a pity that nomad succession is limited to Agnatic.

ngppgn, when it comes to Roads, I think I'll just use traits for now.

Outstanding news. Any thoughts on a timeline for a release? I have a Jyhad to win.

[MOD] Princes of Darkness (Vampires, Werewolves, etc...)

Colonel

Field Marshal

Colonel

Second Lieutenant

Corporal

Second Lieutenant

Colonel

Second Lieutenant

Field Marshal

Colonel

Colonel

Field Marshal

Colonel

Field Marshal

Colonel

Colonel

Field Marshal

Colonel

Colonel

Second Lieutenant