[MOD] Arkopack Armoiries & Interface

[Meneth]

Dark ages were a bright period

Even just slightly reducing saturation does a lot to make it not stand out so much:

I reduced overall saturation in the entire image to the right by 25. Obviously one would only apply it to the colored bits, but it works well as an example.

 

[Meneth]

@Arko: Have you had any luck making Pagan Empire CoAs look any good? I'm getting a black border around the CoA itself within its frame on the map due to the CoA itself being round while the frame is not.
Edit: Nevermind, it was NBRT+'s fault.

 

[Meneth]

can you provide a screenshot please (i don't have ToG and not seen pagan empire yet )
i remember having a similar problem but on all titles for christians if i turn them to always use random coa.

It was due to NBRT+ still having the old frames for Pagan titles, so I wasn't getting the proper round frame.
It now looks stellar:

 

[Meneth]

@Arko: Something you might want to consider for the Pagan CoAs.
As you've probably noticed, they've got this ugly black border on the map. This is essentially due to inconsistent sizing on Paradox part, and I've reported it as a bug.
However, it can be mostly fixed by editing the plain_pagan.tga file. I've attached my version of this file.
In the screenshot below you can see the effect this has; the political map-mode parts of the screenshot show the effect of the edited plain_pagan.tga file.

Feel free to use the attached file in ARKO.

 

[Meneth]

Though still needed if you're playing PB+SWMH.

 

[Meneth]

A rather strange bug I've spotted in ARKO:
Empire-tier Muslims will end up with Christian CoAs.
For an example, see the Persian Empire in PB or PB+SWMH with ARKO enabled.

 

[Meneth]

A rather strange bug I've spotted in ARKO:
Empire-tier Muslims will end up with Christian CoAs.
For an example, see the Persian Empire in PB or PB+SWMH with ARKO enabled.

Correction: It seems to be an issue specifically with the Seljuks, and not anything to do with their tier.
It appears to be caused by the line forced_coa_religiongroup = pagan_group in their dynasty definition.

 

[Meneth]

for all other similar entries the religion is written between ""
should it causes the issue ?
(shouldn't they be muslim in fact ?)

It could be the cause, I don't know.
And yeah, they should of course have a Muslim CoA, not a Pagan one.

 

[Meneth]

here is a testing^^

I don't quite like how his age looks like a button. Anything else round with the exception of traits are clickable.

 

[Meneth]

Is the current version compatible with 1.101 patch and the latest PB?

I use it with the latest PB without any problems.

 

[Meneth]

almost forgot... here is the full coa pattern^^

Can't say I'm entirely fond of that wave-thingy; I don't feel like it looks that fitting for Norse Pagans. Most of the rest of the Norse Pagan ones look brilliant, making the waves stand out.
The stars and circles and such don't seem very fitting either.

 

[Meneth]

Here's a screenshot of four CoAs I don't think are fitting for the Norse:

Especially the two to the left, but the two to the right aren't great either.
I could see the top-right one being used for West African Pagans or some such though.

 

[Meneth]

well, not everyone has to like everything in the mod. I'm pleased with most of my results (that is the main criteria) so I won't change everything, especillay since some of the feedback I have is very positive.

I love your mod. That's why I'm being so critical

Here I've marked with a black circle the CoAs I really love. And in pink I've marked those I feel have no business being used for Norse Pagans.
The rest I'm ambivalent about, but many of them seem better suited for the other Pagans rather than the Norse.

 

[Meneth]

yes, but I clearly didn't want to throw in only very epic stuff as I feel it doesn't have to be this way. western european heraldry is based on 1/3 animals, 1/3 pure geometry, 1/3 quite random stuff, so I've tried to keep a bit this spirit, and I actually like simple and geometrical stuff (that are not less noble than other, despite what a lot of people might think).

Pagan CoAs generally seems to have stayed away from geometrical stuff though; at least when I think "Pagans" I don't think of simple geometry.

(what ? Fenrir and Odin's eight-legged-horse are not norse enough ?)

The ones not marked I couldn't necessarily recognize, as I'm not an expert on Norse mythology. But Fenrir and Sleipnir are of course very fitting.
My biggest issue is really just with the last 21 CoAs, and to some extent the two wave-CoAs. And I'm not 100% sure how fitting that hog or whatever near the middle is

 

[Meneth]

easy to tweak. in coa.txt put 39 instead of 60 for nOOf value for concerned pattern^^

I know, I've done so already

BTW, here's a suggestion for an addition rather than subtraction: Raven banner:

You'll need to resize it to properly fit obviously, but beyond that it should be ready to use.
I made it based on this one.

A few in-game examples of it:

 

[Meneth]

raven banner is already IG for a few defined Coa (Lodbrok and others) so I've let it aside.

It'd work well for random CoAs as well though.

 

[Meneth]

Should this mod be working with the new patch 1.102?

Seems to be working, though it might overwrite some new dynasties and such I suppose.

 

[Meneth]

Thanks. Added the compatibility instructions to OP^^

With the next version of PB, deleting anything won't be necessary any more.
I've set ARKO as a dependency, so those two files are overwritten automatically. Hopefully that'll reduce the number of bug reports we both get.

Not quite sure yet when I'll release that patch though. Probably soon after I get back home to Trondheim on the 3rd. Laptops aren't particularly conducive for modding.

 

[Meneth]

Note that some gfx are not done/finished, some misalignements, religion icon will be removed as it doesn't triggers correctly with the actual religion of the province sadly, i'll probably add some lines in the parchment part as in vanilla. Parchment texture will be back to (instead of plain unicolor).

Any suggestion is welcome.

Not too fond of the province name font, but the rest looks good.
The province religion icon is an especially nice touch.

Bit much empty space in the middle there around the culture, religion, and so on?
Can't think of anything else really.

 

[Meneth]

Meneth or Ziji would confirm this but i'd say :
-download HIP
-uncompress it
-drop arkopack's files in the arkopack folders inside "modules" subfolder
-run HIP installer

Yep, that should work. Pretty much the same method used to install the PB beta.
To be on the safe side, delete the ARKO folders in the modules folder first.