One reason this Steppe DLC is unbalanced: Herd is immortal. Your passive Herd change is always positive no matter how bad the steppe season is.

[Ral Rednaxela]

This DLC is cool in concept but is an unbalanced mess in it's current state. There is too much modifier stacking. Your passive Herd change is always positive no matter how bad the steppe season is, which implies your herd is immortal., and makes playing as a Nomad completely devoid of danger or tension because you can't fail. The tooltip for a Zud even says that livestock is dying but that's not reflected in your Herd total.

There isn't even a modifier to make your herd passively decrease or else I would mod it in myself.

Some helpful folks in this thread pointed out a way to mod in Herd decay. Looks like the Dark Ages mod creator is implementing it this week so if you've ever been interested in trying Dark Ages, now is the time.

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

Yep, that's pretty much it. The only way for herd to decline is if you lose soldiers in battle and replenish them with herd, if someone completes a scheme to steal herd from you, or if you lose a war with a CB (like humiliation) that specifically causes you to lose herd. Even when you're way over herd capacity, your income drops by 95% but never actually goes negative.

 

[aadf97799c]

negative herd should be a thing

but that may cause brain dead ai to be permanently under powered and ai nomad get bully around by siberian tribal ruler

 

[Ral Rednaxela]

negative herd should be a thing

but that may cause brain dead ai to be permanently under powered and ai nomad get bully around by siberian tribal ruler

Losing all your Herd wouldn't kill the characters and it wouldn't kill MAA, you would just need to wait things out for a better season or migrate, which seems reasonable.

 

[Apocal]

Zud not reducing Herd is like the Black Death not killing characters.

 

[The Shacks]

Kinda agree. Playing Temujin so far it's really not bothered me thjat I went through two White Zuds. Fertility and bad seasons need to be more impactful. I immagine if I play a small nomad that stays small it may affect me a lil bit more but still.

 

[SeiFeR]

Hmm...I'm inclined to disagree, as I think nomadic government is already the hardest to play with compared to tribes and clans.

We already lose herds during wars or certain events, and it can be costly to regenerate them, knowing that you also have to climb very high for domination. This would make nomads very difficult to play, if not frustrating.

If there's one thing to rebalance, it's the confederations...by adding a cap on the number of participants and more internal interaction, such as voting to dismiss a member and so on.

 

[viola]

It's definitely weird that you can go through terrible seasons and it will only slow down growth rather than, you know, bring growth to a total stop immediately and then start actively killing your herd.

 

[El-Tapicero]

This DLC is cool in concept but is an unbalanced mess in it's current state. There is too much modifier stacking. Your passive Herd change is always positive no matter how bad the steppe season is, which implies your herd is immortal., and makes playing as a Nomad completely devoid of danger or tension because you can't fail. The tooltip for a Zud even says that livestock is dying but that's not reflected in your Herd total.

There isn't even a modifier to make your herd passively decrease or else I would mod it in myself.

I'm going to make a sad prediction: it won't be fixed. It'll just become yet another broken and absurd mechanic.

I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Ral Rednaxela]

I'm going to make a sad prediction: it won't be fixed. It'll just become yet another broken and absurd mechanic.

I hope I'm wrong.

The bare minimum I'm asking for is to give modders a Herd decay modifier we can play around with.

 

[Apocal]

The bare minimum I'm asking for is to give modders a Herd decay modifier we can play around with.

It has been years since I modded anything (before CK3's release) but what happens if you set herd growth modifiers to negative?

 

[Ral Rednaxela]

It has been years since I modded anything (before CK3's release) but what happens if you set herd growth modifiers to negative?

As far as I know, you currently can't. There's herd_gain_mult which multiplies the hard-coded positive amount you get from County Fertility, but there isn't anything like herd_gain_add or herd_loss_add that can subtract like other currencies (for example Gold or Prestige).

Thankfully herd growth can go negative, see Silens and Torredebelem below.

 

[t.et7.8.637.77]

So, I'm currently finding it pretty difficult to get the 75k horse capital needed for the final government level! It was quite a grind to get to my current 26k, and it kept getting reduced because I was at war and lost people. I find it really exhausting to increase the number of horses, and it's actually incredibly difficult. Harder than playing tribal. How do you do it?

 

[Torredebelem]

I am already adding to my mod a negative modifier to herd growth to all Zuds plus Harsh Drought. Seems reasonable.

 

[Ral Rednaxela]

I am already adding to my mod a negative modifier to herd growth to all Zuds plus Harsh Drought. Seems reasonable.

How are you doing it? Can I get a link to your mod?

 

[Torredebelem]

How are you doing it? Can I get a link to your mod?

You modifiy file 09_mpo_modifiers file inside common/modifiers. Inside you edit the modifiers:

court_astrologer_white_zud_modifier = {
    icon = county_fertility_positive
    county_fertility_growth_mult = 0.2
    herd_gain_mult = -1.5
}

court_astrologer_cold_zud_modifier = {
    icon = county_fertility_positive
    county_fertility_growth_mult = 0.3
    herd_gain_mult = -1.5
}

court_astrologer_severe_drought_modifier = {
    icon = county_fertility_positive
    county_fertility_decline_mult = -0.3
    herd_gain_mult = -1.75
}

court_astrologer_havsarsan_zud_modifier = {
    icon = travel_speed_positive
    domicile_travel_speed = 0.33
    herd_gain_mult = -2.5
}

Of course, your values to herd_gain_mult might vary. Just make sure they are below -1

As for my mod, it is in my sig and will only be updated with this and more stuff on Friday. Beware that Dark Ages is a very comprehensive mod addressing thousands of different angles of the game, so it might not be for you.

 

[Ral Rednaxela]

You modifiy file 09_mpo_modifiers file inside common/modifiers. Inside you edit the modifiers:

court_astrologer_white_zud_modifier = {
    icon = county_fertility_positive
    county_fertility_growth_mult = 0.2
    herd_gain_mult = -1.5
}

court_astrologer_cold_zud_modifier = {
    icon = county_fertility_positive
    county_fertility_growth_mult = 0.3
    herd_gain_mult = -1.5
}

court_astrologer_severe_drought_modifier = {
    icon = county_fertility_positive
    county_fertility_decline_mult = -0.3
    herd_gain_mult = -1.75
}

court_astrologer_havsarsan_zud_modifier = {
    icon = travel_speed_positive
    domicile_travel_speed = 0.33
    herd_gain_mult = -2.5
}

Of course, your values to herd_gain_mult might vary. Just make sure they are below -1

As for my mod, it is in my sig and will only be updated with this and more stuff on Friday. Beware that Dark Ages is a very comprehensive mod addressing thousands of different angles of the game, so it might not be for you.

Oh, so herd_gain_mult < -1 actually turns it negative? If so I just raised a big stink unnecessarily :/

 

[Aart]

You modifiy file 09_mpo_modifiers file inside common/modifiers. Inside you edit the modifiers:

court_astrologer_white_zud_modifier = {
    icon = county_fertility_positive
    county_fertility_growth_mult = 0.2
    herd_gain_mult = -1.5
}

court_astrologer_cold_zud_modifier = {
    icon = county_fertility_positive
    county_fertility_growth_mult = 0.3
    herd_gain_mult = -1.5
}

court_astrologer_severe_drought_modifier = {
    icon = county_fertility_positive
    county_fertility_decline_mult = -0.3
    herd_gain_mult = -1.75
}

court_astrologer_havsarsan_zud_modifier = {
    icon = travel_speed_positive
    domicile_travel_speed = 0.33
    herd_gain_mult = -2.5
}

Of course, your values to herd_gain_mult might vary. Just make sure they are below -1

As for my mod, it is in my sig and will only be updated with this and more stuff on Friday. Beware that Dark Ages is a very comprehensive mod addressing thousands of different angles of the game, so it might not be for you.

Oh, I was long thinking about trying Dark Ages, I guess the time has come

 

[Silens]

How are you doing it? Can I get a link to your mod?

The way to go would be through the file "the_great_steppe.txt" in common/situation/situations, because the solution @Torredebelem put forward only modifies one specific task of the two the Stargazer has. If you set them to the other task, the negative modifier doesn't apply.

the_great_steppe.txt contains the seasons and their effects, and they apply to all nomads, regardless of having or not having a Stargazer, or what task they're on. That's the more elegant solution, the downside is probably that the file is a bit more convoluted and harder to navigate in.

The method is the same though, you look for season bracket (i.e. "situation_steppe_severe_drought_season = {" ), and there for the entry "situation_steppe_herd_effects = { ". That entry then has different herd effects, and you can change the negative growth:

                    nomad_rulers_capital = {
                        character_modifier = {
                            herd_conversion = 0.1
                            herd_gain_mult = -0.05
                        }
                    }

Just make sure to keep it to one such modifier per season. Each season has several different effects, and I think some lack herd effects completely. So you either add the negative growth as part of another effect, or you add the herd modifier group. Either way should work.

 

[Torredebelem]

What @Silens says!

However, I should caution that creating a modifier of -0.05 will NOT take out herd. It just places a small dent in your monthly gain. You need to place a modifier of less than -1.00