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The humans (except the Inquisitors) know nothing about vampires. Most think they don't exist. Vampire keep it that way (it's what they call the Masquerade).

Think of the realm map and the vampire world as a Mafia underworld. Chicago is still a city, it still has a mayor, but there are mob families going around trying to control this underworld. Sometimes, some humans try to fight the Mafia (like the Inquisitors try to fight the vampires) but most just don't care or don't think they even exist/are threatening.

So the humans have no clue of what is happening in the realm map of the mod.
 
How are people finding this mod with COW2 running alongside it?
Non-metropolis holdings are shit. In particular, the metropolis that exist at start have much better garrison and fort levels, most castles start at 100 and 2 respectively, and require an expensive holding upgrade to get more. If your capital is in one, and the enemy capital is not, you have massive advantage in early game capital races. And it can be miserable to get your first if you do not start with one. Even without siege weapons, castles under siege fall like they are built out of cardboard in this mod. Of course, only duchy capitals and holdings with good special buildings are worth owning in the mod anyway.

If you use mods that permit enough buildings to get all the metropolis stuff, the AI has room in its shit holdings to build all the useless, or worse buildings. I am pretty sure I saw that metropolis buildings were available before I conquered too many, as I forgot to set the game rule properly last time I tried this mod combination. Though lately, I feel like the metropolis buildings are a mistake in general.
 
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The humans (except the Inquisitors) know nothing about vampires. Most think they don't exist. Vampire keep it that way (it's what they call the Masquerade).

Think of the realm map and the vampire world as a Mafia underworld. Chicago is still a city, it still has a mayor, but there are mob families going around trying to control this underworld. Sometimes, some humans try to fight the Mafia (like the Inquisitors try to fight the vampires) but most just don't care or don't think they even exist/are threatening.

So the humans have no clue of what is happening in the realm map of the mod.
While this is basically true, in the time period of the mod the masquerade was generally weaker and people did think vampires existed even if they didn't know much of anything about them and what they thought they knew where wrong (except the inquisition or local equivalent which knew correct things like you mentioned)

(Partly this is for in-game reasons about the Silence of the Blood being much less enforced than the proper Masquerade which only really became the ironclad rule it is in the modern setting because of how much damage the inquisition ended up doing to vampire society, and partly for the meta-reason that real life people in the middle ages did believe in vampires or equivalent in large parts of the map).
 
Vegeta : You are completely right. I was over simplifying things for the sake of a newcomer to the universe.

Andy man : Malkavians are a tough start, they don't control impressive kingdoms and such. I really wouldn't recommend them to a complete newcomer. If you are dead set on them though... perhaps Seren of Gloucester, who starts and is a loyal vassal of Mithras, a stable realm. She is young and high generation, so plenty of growth to be had. Besides her, Louhi (northern Finland), Roque (Navarra) Tryphosa (Benevento) and Elimelech (Talmahera, India) are the most prominent Malkavian landholders, but all in an harder position in my opinion.
 
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so these realms on the map , they are not known to the humans?
or are the borders known to the humans, but humans call them something else?
The entire idea of the Masquerade is that Vampire society is completely hidden from mortals, yes. No one is perfect, though, and sometimes a breach of the Masquerade happens. Any humans who find out the truth are to be dealt with in an appropriate manner. Failure to contain breaches of the masquerade could invite a visit from Hunters

Vampires are stronger than humans but humans are many and they are typically awake during the time that vampires are sleeping. This makes humans potentially dangerous when they know what they're looking for.
 
so these realms on the map , they are not known to the humans?
or are the borders known to the humans, but humans call them something else?

In lore, its real history. So just, ask yourself, do you know. cos everything you know about vampires in the shadows in your city, is what people in VtM does, if a mortal knows they have a vampire lord, they get killed its a masquerade breach.
But maybe, they know there's a criminal gang who controls this territory and will pay for stuff, maybe they know there's a rich family who you have to obey even though they're not officially anything. They just don't know those are vampires or are the fronts of vampires.

Like the history humans today in VtM write about the middle ages is the ones we write. But the books Vampires write about it, reveal how all those events were driven by vampire conflicts behind the scenes and junk?
Like if its hard to imagine what a fictional person in a fictional world would know, just ask what you do in a real world? idk if this helps
 
alright i am starting to get it . one thing tho: where are the actual rulers of the "human kingdoms" , would be good to have some sort of limited interaction with those guys, or even their subjects/lesser rulers

The same as in our world. You can see it in the mod with the great persons events, which allows you to turn into vampires some historical characters at the date of their recorded death.
 
The discussion of how territory reflects what people know makes me curious - are then plans to change the de jure map to be more Masquerade specific in the future, like taking away all de jure empires and making vampire specific titular ones, and custom kingdoms etc? I am not sure how the lore treats real world borders.
 
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The discussion of how territory reflects what people know makes me curious - are then plans to change the de jure map to be more Masquerade specific in the future, like taking away all de jure empires and making vampire specific titular ones, and custom kingdoms etc? I am not sure how the lore treats real world borders.
Many clans start with titular empires and kingdoms, and there are others that can be created. And they can be recreated if lost. I have yet to see a de-jure empire, though I might have missed some if a secondary was created.
 
There are plenty of titular titles in the mod, representing specific vampire political constructs.

We won't change the de jure map for two reasons : 1/ We want to have other splats in the future, having vampire de jure would make no sense for them. Vanilla de jure works well enough for every supernatural. 2/ Changing de jure is actually far from an easy task in CK3, and would need to revisit all the history files in the mod. So that would be very very long for little positive.
 
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alright i am starting to get it . one thing tho: where are the actual rulers of the "human kingdoms" , would be good to have some sort of limited interaction with those guys, or even their subjects/lesser rulers
Ordinary humans in WoD are like bugs. You might use them for food or an agenda, You might even be fond of one the same way that one might be fond of a pet. They're not people whom you interact with as equals, because plainly speaking, they're not equal to you. They're an inferior form of life that mostly isn't worth noticing outside of Masquerade concerns.

PoD for CK2 did have events simulating a bit of what you're looking for. Events where a mortal gains your notice and you have options on how to deal with them. PoD for CK3 had to be rebuilt from scratch and a lot of stuff left behind in the older mod isn't going to return for some time.

If Elder Kings ever gets ported to CK3, you could play a vampire among mortals in that mod.
 
PoD for CK2 did have events simulating a bit of what you're looking for. Events where a mortal gains your notice and you have options on how to deal with them. PoD for CK3 had to be rebuilt from scratch and a lot of stuff left behind in the older mod isn't going to return for some time.

If you are talking about Mortal Influence events in CK2, we weren't very happy about them anyway, so they are unlikely to make a comeback in the same form.
If you are talking about Great Persons events, they are already there (more so than CK2).

We also have plans for a "lone vampire in a world of mortals" playthrough, as it's an often requested thing. In a similar but also different fashion, Inquisitors are in the work (mortals battling the supernatural)
 
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If you are talking about Mortal Influence events in CK2, we weren't very happy about them anyway, so they are unlikely to make a comeback in the same form.
If you are talking about Great Persons events, they are already there (more so than CK2).

We also have plans for a "lone vampire in a world of mortals" playthrough, as it's an often requested thing. In a similar but also different fashion, Inquisitors are in the work (mortals battling the supernatural)
Most of these 'Great' Persons are very shit compared to potential childes you can just use character finder for though. Filtering for 'all characters', 'inside diplomatic range', 'mortal' and 'genius' is a good starting point. Maybe Fibonacci makes for a nice court physician, shame a ruler cannot do that unlike CK2. As the regent of Lasombra himself, I have some impressive vassals.
 
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People play for different reasons.

If you want to game the system, you will always be able to, whether in CK3 base or in a mod. Obviously, no ruler ever had a "character finder" telling them that Bob from a land they never heard of is actually a genius and should work for them. Players that are more in a tabletop rpg mindset will find more leverage from these Great People, since they are regional based, and make more in game sense.

Obviously, there is no wrong way to play, but different kind of players will find different kind of enjoyment from the various systems. Be they vanilla or modded.
 
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People play for different reasons.

If you want to game the system, you will always be able to, whether in CK3 base or in a mod. Obviously, no ruler ever had a "character finder" telling them that Bob from a land they never heard of is actually a genius and should work for them. Players that are more in a tabletop rpg mindset will find more leverage from these Great People, since they are regional based, and make more in game sense.

Obviously, there is no wrong way to play, but different kind of players will find different kind of enjoyment from the various systems. Be they vanilla or modded.

I think the Great People are underpowered as potential Childer, to be honest. If they are to be worth a significant expenditure of resources, they need to provide a commiserate benefit. This was a sometimes problem in CK2, but it's become a rule in CK3.

I think this flows from a general problem, which is that Canon vampires should have a significantly higher median sum of skills than randomly generated mortals. (Or at ensure that the vast majority of canon vampires are over the median.) I think you guys might have this as a design choice already, but I think it can be strengthened. I do think you should look to reward players who breed themselves a line of revenants while they search for the ultimate scion - not every great person or Canon vamp should be perfect. But right now, it's usually better to sire a random genius and die, than to sire many historical super geniuses, or to play as a canon vamp wily enough to make it to the modern nights.

So, don't be afraid of liberally applying quick to great people, even if they're uneducated. Apply traits like shrewd (or better!) to characters like Adana di Sforza. I know this is a low-priority issue, but I think you should consider it an open one. I know I'd eventually compile suggestions for the disc, if you're interested.
 
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I agree on your overall point and some (but not all) of your proposed solutions.

Randomly generated characters should be way less powerful than they are, that's a given. We already worked on that actually (mortals from hunt mortals are now really bad, peasant leaders are not all Alexander reborn like in vanilla). But obviously, CK3 generates a hell of a lot of characters in so many events and such that it's hard to have a catch all "nerf random characters".

I agree about generally buffing Great Persons, these are truly exceptional figures indeed.

I disagree about an overall buff to vampires. We had a serious issues of stat bloats in PoD CK2 (40+ in every stat for every vampire) that we want to avoid, since that made stats utterly meaningless (PoD CK3 system is far from perfect, but you actually care about your char stats now). Also "setting wise", being a vampire makes you stronger, quicker and tougher than the average human (well represented by the numerous prowess boost they have) but it doesn't make you a tactical genius, a perfect administrator or a genius diplomat.
Most vampires are actually very much set in what they were as a mortal (if somewhat twisted) and don't learn anything.

Though that's a general point, and I'm happy to argue or hear suggestions about specific vampires needing a boost or a specific trait. Just keep in mind that most starting stats in CK3 are random, so I perhaps just not gotten around fixing them for the specific character you are thinking about yet.
 
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