[Mod] Emblem Kings

[Balk_J]

Emblem Kings - work in progress

What is this?
Emblem Kings is a total conversion mod for Crusader Kings II set in the world of Fire Emblem.
It started out as a personal project for learning how to mod, but I think it's far enough along to put up here for anyone who's interested to play with or offer feedback.

What's done so far?

• An updated map, featuring the continents of Elibe (from the Fire Emblem GBA games) and Jugdral (from Japan-only SNES games).
• Characters, title histories, and bookmarks based on the events of those games.
• New religions, decisions, and events from Fire Emblem lore.
• Classes: characters will be assigned a trait corresponding to a unit class (knight, mage, archer, etc.). These classes affect tactics and provide combat bonuses. A few unlock special events and decisions. Characters can promote to an advanced clan by gaining experience through leading armies in battle.
• Weapons: characters can obtain legendary weapons (and regular ones) as artifacts.
• Magic: Most mages just use their magic to fight, but especially skilled ones can unlock the secret of immortality or creating morphs.
• Bloodlines: dragon characters can pass on their longevity and manakete status to their children. Descendants of Jugdral's crusaders can also pass on their holy blood.
• Special troops: wyverns, pegasi, and magic-users. (Unfortunate my lack of graphic design skill means they use vanilla graphics.)

What features are you planning to add?

• Hordes. Nomads from east of Sacae? An army of Dragons coming back through the gate? A neo-Loptyrian cultist uprising? Pirates? Vallites?
• Societies. The Loptyrians need one at the very least. I also need to add support for secret religious societies.
• More events, decisions, and plots from the lore.
• More continents: tentatively. I have spots on the map reserved for Archanea, Valentia, Magvel, and Tellius, and a timeline worked up for when the events of games on those continents happen in relation to each other. Once I get a continent "done" (bookmarks for all the games on it, events for the story and unique mechanics, etc.) I'll probably move onto the next one.
• If you're looking for something with all the continents, you may want to check out the Fire Emblem Chronicles mod.

Spoiler: Screenshots

Era screen:

Jugdral Terrain:

New Traits:

Weapons:

Binding Blade story event:

Downloads
http://www.mediafire.com/file/cch7mvunxvc3zcm/emblem-kings-0.16.2.zip/file

This is still a beta version, and there are probably bugs and other weirdness like characters showing up in strange places that I haven't fixed yet.

Bug reports and feedback in general would be greatly appreciated.

Special thanks to Nukumnehtar, Okawoa, and tsf4 for their contributions!
Also thanks to the AGOT team for their duel engine, which I have shamelessly stolen.

 

[sagimine1]

This look freaking awesome; let me give it a whirl!

 

[SkyGaiman]

Anime portrait mod and dueling system like AGOT has would make this my dream Fire Emblem mod.

 

[DeathLawlie]

I will unify Elibe under the rule of Bern, Zephiel did nothing wrong

 

[LKA]

starwarsfan541 is already working on a FE mod, maybe you can team up? That would be pretty cool

 

[Balk_J]

That might be in the cards eventually. I've seen what starwars fan is working on and it looks good. He's a bit more ambitious than I am with the scope of the mod, though.
I'm probably going to keep working on this one for a while, though, mainly to learn more about modding.

Anyway, I've been working on some event chains this week... mostly regalia events, and a couple about the Fire Emblem itself.

Spoiler: Fire Emblem

Whoever holds the Emblem gets a special trait and a monthly prestige bonus.

The Emblem is also important to the succession of the kingdom of Bern. The heir of the kingdom can be the target of a special plot to disinherit him by having the Emblem stolen.

If you succeed, the Emblem gets stolen by a thief who flees the country.

...I should probably add a plot for someone to steal it back, and/or a decision to demand its return.

When Bern's heir reaches adulthood, the coming-of-age ceremony event fires. If the Emblem is in the country, it goes off without a hitch and he gets some prestige. If the Emblem is gone, the King has the option to disinherit him.

Spoiler: Regalia

There's a new ambition to get a regalia/legendary weapon, which opens up some new events. The eight divine weapons can be found by going to the location where they're hidden and completing an event chain.

Regalia weapons provide a personal combat and monthly prestige bonus.

Only Durandal and Armads have those events at the moment. I'm working on the rest.

The other S-rank weapons have been added as regalia, and can be acquired through random events. One will happen if you wander around the desert.

New version is here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/7t3tk1joxe1lecz/emblem-kings-0.2.rar
Feedback and ideas are welcome!

 

[Lord Lucifer]

......is this still being worked on?

 

[Balk_J]

It sure is!

I've just been, uh, procrastinating a bit since the Heinlein patch for Stellaris came out. Sorry, can't resist.
I'm definitely going to get back to this, though. Before Heinlein dropped I was working on the class system and the dragon bloodline traits. Here are some more details and screenshots:

Spoiler: Class Selection

When a child turns 12, their liege/guardian/whoever will get an event to pick their class.
I've grouped the classes from the GBA games into sets of two, and kids can be assigned any class from one of their parents' sets. For example, Kent is a cavalier, so any of his kids could be a cavalier or knight.

If none of the parents are in a class (or if you just don't care), you can send the kid to train with the army. That will put them in the soldier class. Although I'd also like there to be a small chance of winding up in a random culture-dependent class instead. If you're Bernese, they could wind up a wyvern rider, if you're Sacaean, they could wind up a nomad or myrmidon, etc.
I think there should be a way to rulers who weren't trained as kids to get a class later, but I'm not quite sure how that should work yet.

As for what the classes actually DO... that's kind of up in the air as well.
At a minimum, I'd like it to provide a combat bonus or unlock special tactics. If you're a pegasus knight, you get a + pegasus knight damage bonus or something. Which leads into the next thing I was messing around with - cultural retinues and new special troops.

My complete lack of graphic design skills means they'll have to use vanilla models for the foreseeable future, though.

 

[Balk_J]

I've done a bit more work on the class system:

Spoiler: Classes

I've given the class traits some small combat bonuses. I'll probably have to mess with these a bit - I don't want them to be overpowered, but I also don't want them so small they're meaningless.

Class traits affect tactics now. Most of the cultural tactics from vanilla are now based on class rather than culture. For example, if a commander is an archer or sniper, their flank can use the massive longbow volley. If they're a healer, they might screw up and use one of the bad tactics.

Manaketes also get their own special tactics that are (intended to be) very strong, to befit their status as the secret weapon that ran over most of the continent. Although things will go poorly for them if they run into an enemy commander carrying a divine weapon...

As you might expect, characters who are in a class also have a level. They have a chance to level up if they're a commander and their side wins a battle.

Diligent, ambitious, and brave characters will levels up faster. I'll be adding an ambition you can take to speed it up further. When you hit level 20, you can promote via a decision. Assuming your class allows it, of course. Dancers/manaketes/etc. don't promote.

Each class that can promote has two options. The advanced classes get larger bonuses than the basic ones.

The link to the latest version is in the first post.
As always, feedback and suggestions are welcome.

 

[Metal Crusader]

If you can, you need to make this compatible with the Anime portraits mod. It'll help with immersion quite a bit.

 

[Lord Lucifer]

cool! Time to start building my bern empire.

 

[Balk_J]

If you can, you need to make this compatible with the Anime portraits mod. It'll help with immersion quite a bit.

Do you mean this one? http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=756755380
If so, it seems to be compatible:

Spoiler: Era Screen

Most of the characters just have random portraits at the moment, but I can keep that mod in mind when I get to filling out portraits in the history. Shouldn't be any more work than trying to get them to look right with the vanilla faces.

 

[Lord Lucifer]

I think there's something wrong with the promote ambition, there are characters with stats like martial 70 or learning 80, also as a player i can spam the promote ambition for free prestige and stats.

 

[Balk_J]

I'll finish coding that stuff later, I said. Nothing bad could possibly happen, I said. Oops.
Thanks for catching that! The download link in the OP has been updated to point at a version without that little bug.

 

[Lord Lucifer]

Glad to be of service.

 

[Balk_J]

More work on the class events. There are a couple event chains that will give rulers without a class a chance to get one. And another that will let Soldiers switch to something else.

Spoiler: Class event screenshots

I threw in a few minor titles like Mage General too.

My focus now is on story events. I added a way for Hausen to resolve the Lyn/Caelin conflict peacefully if he manages to take over while it's still going on. Lyn has the option of taking a county in his realm, or going back to Sacae to reclaim her father's land from bandits.

I also added an event chain where the current owner of the Shrine of Seals can make a new friend with someone who's been hiding there for a long time.

I'm currently working on some Black Fang events. They'll function a lot like the Assassins from vanilla, targeting rulers and courtiers with traits they don't appreciate (cruel, impaler, etc.). I'd like to have them be active for a while, then get less principled about who they target. That would allow the player to hire them to take out people they're plotting to kill.

Spoiler: Story event screenshots

After the Fang events, I want to put in a "Law of Sacae" decision for the nomads, based on one of the missions from FE6. If a ruler in Sacae gets attacked by someone outside of Sacae, they would get a special decision to try calling the other independent rulers within Sacae into the war. Maybe it'll help them last longer...

I'd probably do something similar for the Lycian marches, if I wind up having them all start independent instead of putting them in an elective kingdom. Although that one should have some more room for politicing. Like how Eliwood convinced everyone else not to help Lundgren fight off Lyn.

I think this also needs a "kill your son/daughter" plot, since that was a thing Desmond tried to do. The chances of that backfiring horribly would have to be pretty high, of course.

No new downloads yet - I want to do a little more testing and make sure the most recent batch of events are stable first.

 

[Balk_J]

Yep, still going. Here's what's new:

Black Fang:

They get a bunch of re-skinned Hashashin events, with a twist. Where the Assassins went after decadent rulers, the Fang will go after rulers of poor character and their courtiers.

If they target you, you can go into hiding until you drop off their hit list. Or raise your state intrigue; you'll be safe if it's high enough. Or, y'know, try losing some of those vices.

Savvy characters also have the option to hire the Fang to murder people for them. They're not cheap, but if you need someone killed clean, quiet, and quick, Brendan Reed is your man. (Results not guaranteed against legendary sorcerers, dragons, incredibly skilled fighters, or the protagonists. Fee is forfeit and contract is void in the event the Fang has been sent into a death trap.)

Spoiler: Black Fang

He'll be picky about his targets if you catch him before Nergal takes over his organization, but that's not an issue in the bookmarks I have so far.

It's also possible to plot the murder of your character's children. This option is available to the player and AIs that really hate their kids. I recommend finding a different way to get rid of that pesky heir, though...

I also added some decisions for the rightful owner of the Fire Emblem to demand its return. So if you're the King of Bern, you can have it stolen, use its absence as a pretext to disinherit said heir, then just have the thief you hired return it.

You can also take it if you manage to imprison whoever is carrying it, in case it was stolen and that wasn't part of your plan.

Spoiler: Fire Emblem

It seemed like a shame to have the Assassin class in the game without some special things to do. So if you're an assassin, and you're plotting to kill someone, you can do the obvious thing and cut out the middleman.

Spoiler: Assassinate

Depending on the intrigue of the target, you might stab 'em without a problem. If you screw up and alert them, you can flee (revealing the plot), or try your luck in a fight.

Spoiler: Botched Assassination

And there are some story events for Lyn's route, to get the gang together.

Spoiler: Lyn

I've tweaked a few other things too.
All costs associated with picking a class have been removed, and the pick-a-random-class option will select from a much larger pool. Having a wide assortment in play makes things more interesting.

Lycia has been broken up into independent duchies. I wanted there to be a way for them to elect a first-among-equals sort of marquess, but it didn't work out very well in practice. As a unified kingdom with laws to give the dukes plenty of independence, they were a lot tougher than they were supposed to be. And if the dukes start independent of the kingdom, they just get conquered or swear fealty in short order. Ah well. The main reason I wanted 'em unified was so they could all fight off Zephiel together. I'll just have to rely on them joining the inevitable holy war. Or handle it with events.

The mini-nomads are gone, and Sacae has been split between two independent clans. The Djute clan still gets wrecked in short order (they're right next to much-larger Etruria and everyone has the liberation CB on them; not sure what I can do about that). The Kutolah have done okay for themselves in a few test games, though.

One thing I've been struggling with for a while is getting a portrait that's the correct age for immortal characters. In game save data, all of them have an "immortal=<number>" line. This seems to be the age at which they became immortal, and determines their portrait. But the number used seems pretty random. Changing their birth date is the only thing I've found that affects it. The date when they're assigned a trait that gives immortality in the history files doesn't seem to matter.

I guess I could create the immortal dragons/mages/etc. on game start, and take advantage of the immortal_age parameter in the create_character command. That would be a pain, though.

New Download Link:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/xbjf94nmydv8aqz/emblem-kings-0.5.1.rar

 

[LKA]

looking very good

 

[MemeWizard]

Something strange is happening in Ilia
When I start the game, everything is fine

But after I load the game, something strange is happening with the de jure
Province belongs to the wrong character and wrong duchy, holding belongs to the wrong province.
The only way to fix it: load save - load bookmark - load save again.

 

[Balk_J]

That's weird, haven't seen that happen myself. I'll look into it. Does it happen consistently for you or has it been a one time thing? And do you have a save I can look at? That might help me figure out why those duchies are swapping provinces.