I figure we will see a specific implementation of Paths of Enlightenment with the V5 Sabbat book.
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That looks awesome!
I've had an idea.
If you're a hunter, and you're dying (the modifier with warning.), and you don't have true faith or zealous traits, AND you have a vampire prisoner.
You should be able to take a decision/interaction to go to them and be all, If you embrace me, turn me, I'll let you go.
Then some chance for them to just kill you.
But if you become a vampire, you get a new cadet dynasty of their vampire dynasty which uses the CoA of your former vamp hunter dynasty
so you can have a vampire version of it
would be cool and a good narrative to play out.
I've had an idea.
If you're a hunter, and you're dying (the modifier with warning.), and you don't have true faith or zealous traits, AND you have a vampire prisoner.
You should be able to take a decision/interaction to go to them and be all, If you embrace me, turn me, I'll let you go.
Then some chance for them to just kill you.
But if you become a vampire, you get a new cadet dynasty of their vampire dynasty which uses the CoA of your former vamp hunter dynasty
so you can have a vampire version of it
would be cool and a good narrative to play out.
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Is there any example of this happening in the lore? Only thing I remember reading about are a hunter who drank the blood of his victims, ghouling himself, and were such a badass that the Camarilla warned everyone to just stay away from him, hoping he would die of old age.
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While the narrative is nice, it would probably mess with a lot of things (we try hard to avoid vampires having vassals inquisitors for example, and you would have inquisitors "kids" most likely too). So it's doable, but it would require the event to sort of wipe out your domain too.
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So you're doing a Kuei-jin expansion next? I admittedly always forget they exist.
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Not exactly. Some of our Chinese fans are trying their hands at making content for them, we are reviewing it and integrating it as they go. There is no expectation of an "expansion" for them (they are not experienced CK3 modders yet) but the KJ are likely to end up with some new stuff for them once the next update hits still.
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I was assuming it'd start a race to kill/turn all your hunter vassals before they do you in?
Yeah I guess it is more complicated than I was imagining
Is there any way to remove somebody from your herd (all I've found is killing them, which is problematic for Conscience)? I herded a mortal that I eventually decided to embrace, and that character is still taking a slot in my herd.
Oddly, they have 2 hunger effects of different intensities; not sure if this is related.
Is there a herd limit for the use of Lingering Kiss?
Oddly, they have 2 hunger effects of different intensities; not sure if this is related.
Is there a herd limit for the use of Lingering Kiss?
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The ability to remove from herd has just been added to the dev build, so not available on Steam yet.
I think Lingering Kiss adds to the limit of herd numbers, but I'm not entirely sure right now.
I think Lingering Kiss adds to the limit of herd numbers, but I'm not entirely sure right now.
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I've been playing your mod the past 2 weeks and I've been enjoying it thoroughly. I've done a Tzimisce game and now playing with Helena of Troy. I was reading an earlier discussion on this forum with that Red XIII fella. I must say the patience and understanding you showed was commending. If Red XIII tone wasn't the most diplomatic, he made a few fair points and one in particular:
I do agree with him that you guys should sort out what you have before you add extra systems. However, if he meant balance, I, on the other hand, mean flavor.
The amount of changes and the content that is right now in the mod is pretty incredible. This is quite an achievement ! Sure it's unbalanced, sure the AI, already lacking in vanilla, doesn't really get it but none of that matters because it's FUN. I did feel I was playing a vampire of enormous powers, I did feel stuck in a millenia long struggle and I did feel that most those characters are half mad, half sociopath. Congratulations because I'm not a guy who plays mods usually, I'm very vanilla in every game I play but this one caught me.
To give some context maybe regarding my comments, I never played Vampire DA or Masquerade, I read both rulebooks and some extensions, I decided Dark Ages seemed more fun and wrote a campaign that I never managed to master because I travel all the time with my job. One day, I hope. What I'm saying is that I'm familiar with the World of Darkness but I'm not a specialist, I don't know every bits and pieces of lore. Which means I don't have particular expectations regarding this or that character, or this or that narrative ark. As a matter of fact, the campaign I wrote was based in Jerusalem and when I read the official Jerusalem book I ditched it because it seemed a bit dumb and I started from scratch. I love the setting of VDA, I like the lore, I like how they designed vampires, but I read a few campaigns and to be honest, I don't like them so much. It's very... American. Comic Books style. Full of cliché, lacks subtlety and it's too black and white for Vampires. But I digress. What I want to say about that is that I don't feel compelled that this mod should strictly follow the canon.
Anyways, enough of context!
Just a few quick tweaks that would be nice before going to the core of the topic:
It would be practical to allow replenishment of summoned and spawned army. I know that for the sake of balance it's a tough call, but the simple reason is that it makes army management tedious when you have 10 regiments of 1-3 gouls, 5-6 regiments of 1-3 mass embraced vampires etc... Maybe there are other ways this could be balance. Yearly cost of blood? Monthly masquerade exposure risk?
Herd management would deserve it's own menu at some point in the future.
Fixing the ages of vampire would be cool as well. But maybe you have a hard coded cap you can't break. Like Helena of Troy should be way older than 1170ish years old.
Polish what you have is what I mostly want to say. Don't waste time on trying to balance things out yet because, it's a Paradox Game, it's never balanced and doesn't have to be, you want a challenge? Pick that count surrounded by three kings with each a claim on you. You want to lay back? start in Ireland. People choose their balance within the game, but the game is not balanced if you see what I mean and doesn't have to be. So I wouldn't spend too much time on that unless something is utterly broken, like the Zmei
I think Disciplines could be a nice focus, at the moment, some of them don't exist (like the Fae thing and I think Obtenebration) some are really nice (Vicissitude) and some are mostly flat bonuses (Obfuscate) which is ok, the bonuses make sense, but it lacks gameplay and flavor. Why is Vicissitude so much fun? Because you interact a lot with it, I enjoyed fleshcrafting my ghouls, I enjoyed summoning nightmarish creatures. I felt my character was an adept of vicissitude, it felt like a lifestyle, like Rurik Rustovich end of the night routine : "alright, finished my night at the office, gonna kiss my wife and fleshcraft my latest ghoul while sipping a glass of blood before going to bed" hahahahaha. Obfuscate on the other hand, I never feel I have it, I never feel my vampire is this night stalker "shadow amongst the shadows" beast eavesdropping in every corner of the city.
Your mod will never be balanced and doesn't have to be, your mod is a RPG development of a semi RPG platform, what makes your mod so great is the RPG aspect, not painting the map with your color. So my advice is: go full on RPG. Take your time, develop the disciplines so they feel like a lifestyle, change the flavor texts of some scheme or decisions ("Call for Hunt" comes to mind, "Hunt Mortal" flavor text based on predator type could be nice), keep adding events and quests. Those are the kind of changes I would enjoy, I don't care playing the Inquisition or having a new starting date, or invading america with Baba Yaga. I want this immersion in the Vampire Dark Age world to go even deeper. I want every discipline to feel like they are an actual part of my character (like Vicissitude), I want quests, I want custom flavor text, I want fucked up events where some crazy Antediluvian or even Methuselah arise and start messing up with the world. And I do not care if it's canon or not. Though I would understand it would be shocking for the hardcore fans.
So yeah, those are my thoughts on your mod at the moment. It's a great mod, thank you for making it, and moreover, thank you for all this fun I had the past two weeks!
Golf India
I do agree with him that you guys should sort out what you have before you add extra systems. However, if he meant balance, I, on the other hand, mean flavor.
The amount of changes and the content that is right now in the mod is pretty incredible. This is quite an achievement ! Sure it's unbalanced, sure the AI, already lacking in vanilla, doesn't really get it but none of that matters because it's FUN. I did feel I was playing a vampire of enormous powers, I did feel stuck in a millenia long struggle and I did feel that most those characters are half mad, half sociopath. Congratulations because I'm not a guy who plays mods usually, I'm very vanilla in every game I play but this one caught me.
To give some context maybe regarding my comments, I never played Vampire DA or Masquerade, I read both rulebooks and some extensions, I decided Dark Ages seemed more fun and wrote a campaign that I never managed to master because I travel all the time with my job. One day, I hope. What I'm saying is that I'm familiar with the World of Darkness but I'm not a specialist, I don't know every bits and pieces of lore. Which means I don't have particular expectations regarding this or that character, or this or that narrative ark. As a matter of fact, the campaign I wrote was based in Jerusalem and when I read the official Jerusalem book I ditched it because it seemed a bit dumb and I started from scratch. I love the setting of VDA, I like the lore, I like how they designed vampires, but I read a few campaigns and to be honest, I don't like them so much. It's very... American. Comic Books style. Full of cliché, lacks subtlety and it's too black and white for Vampires. But I digress. What I want to say about that is that I don't feel compelled that this mod should strictly follow the canon.
Anyways, enough of context!
Just a few quick tweaks that would be nice before going to the core of the topic:
It would be practical to allow replenishment of summoned and spawned army. I know that for the sake of balance it's a tough call, but the simple reason is that it makes army management tedious when you have 10 regiments of 1-3 gouls, 5-6 regiments of 1-3 mass embraced vampires etc... Maybe there are other ways this could be balance. Yearly cost of blood? Monthly masquerade exposure risk?
Herd management would deserve it's own menu at some point in the future.
Fixing the ages of vampire would be cool as well. But maybe you have a hard coded cap you can't break. Like Helena of Troy should be way older than 1170ish years old.
Polish what you have is what I mostly want to say. Don't waste time on trying to balance things out yet because, it's a Paradox Game, it's never balanced and doesn't have to be, you want a challenge? Pick that count surrounded by three kings with each a claim on you. You want to lay back? start in Ireland. People choose their balance within the game, but the game is not balanced if you see what I mean and doesn't have to be. So I wouldn't spend too much time on that unless something is utterly broken, like the Zmei
I think Disciplines could be a nice focus, at the moment, some of them don't exist (like the Fae thing and I think Obtenebration) some are really nice (Vicissitude) and some are mostly flat bonuses (Obfuscate) which is ok, the bonuses make sense, but it lacks gameplay and flavor. Why is Vicissitude so much fun? Because you interact a lot with it, I enjoyed fleshcrafting my ghouls, I enjoyed summoning nightmarish creatures. I felt my character was an adept of vicissitude, it felt like a lifestyle, like Rurik Rustovich end of the night routine : "alright, finished my night at the office, gonna kiss my wife and fleshcraft my latest ghoul while sipping a glass of blood before going to bed" hahahahaha. Obfuscate on the other hand, I never feel I have it, I never feel my vampire is this night stalker "shadow amongst the shadows" beast eavesdropping in every corner of the city.
Your mod will never be balanced and doesn't have to be, your mod is a RPG development of a semi RPG platform, what makes your mod so great is the RPG aspect, not painting the map with your color. So my advice is: go full on RPG. Take your time, develop the disciplines so they feel like a lifestyle, change the flavor texts of some scheme or decisions ("Call for Hunt" comes to mind, "Hunt Mortal" flavor text based on predator type could be nice), keep adding events and quests. Those are the kind of changes I would enjoy, I don't care playing the Inquisition or having a new starting date, or invading america with Baba Yaga. I want this immersion in the Vampire Dark Age world to go even deeper. I want every discipline to feel like they are an actual part of my character (like Vicissitude), I want quests, I want custom flavor text, I want fucked up events where some crazy Antediluvian or even Methuselah arise and start messing up with the world. And I do not care if it's canon or not. Though I would understand it would be shocking for the hardcore fans.
So yeah, those are my thoughts on your mod at the moment. It's a great mod, thank you for making it, and moreover, thank you for all this fun I had the past two weeks!
Golf India
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Adjusting character ages would require changing the 0-point of calendar in game and birthdate of every character. Why negative birth dates do not work is a design flaw only Paradox could answer.
Furthermore, some characters' birth date is the date they were sired, not when their former mortal life began because 1. the birth date is unknown for many characters 2. they may have sired mortals who were born without them, but CK3 is hardcoded to prevent children from being older than their parents, which would break the vampire dynasties. You may even run into this issue in the early game if you start as a young vampire yourself, some prospective childes are simply too old.
Thanks for the kind words ! Some answers :
- Spawned Men at Arms are being reworked right now. Spawning armies are annoying, but were the only way we found to get around the strict way MaA can be modded. We have found another and are working on it, so your issue will be taken care of.
- Disciplines are also constantly being worked on to be at the level of quality we expect (which is mostly Vici and Blood Sorcery in the steam build). Obtenetration, for example, is already available in the dev build.
- R3 answered for the core of the age issue, below 0 stuff doesn't exist in PDX games. We are trying a workaround in the dev build though .(masking the age of very old characters).
- Flavor and quests are mostly my area and I'm always trying to add more. We have the Great Persons, investigations, regional events, custom content for bookmarked characters, the big narrative events (Cama/Sabbat formation)... The antediluvian quests are the current focus, Absimilliard is in the Steam build, new ones are available in the dev build.
- Spawned Men at Arms are being reworked right now. Spawning armies are annoying, but were the only way we found to get around the strict way MaA can be modded. We have found another and are working on it, so your issue will be taken care of.
- Disciplines are also constantly being worked on to be at the level of quality we expect (which is mostly Vici and Blood Sorcery in the steam build). Obtenetration, for example, is already available in the dev build.
- R3 answered for the core of the age issue, below 0 stuff doesn't exist in PDX games. We are trying a workaround in the dev build though .(masking the age of very old characters).
- Flavor and quests are mostly my area and I'm always trying to add more. We have the Great Persons, investigations, regional events, custom content for bookmarked characters, the big narrative events (Cama/Sabbat formation)... The antediluvian quests are the current focus, Absimilliard is in the Steam build, new ones are available in the dev build.
3, there are a few examples of characters having lived an indeterminate amount of time as a ghoul before their embrace (Mary the black comes to mind) so age is kinda meh in this mod. What matters is generation.
Thank you all for your answers.
I am very excited to see the direction the mod is taking and looking forward next updates. If I can donwload it, I'm currently in a country where Internet is meh and I have to play with steam offline mode.
Few thoughts on the fly:
Why not, at some point when you have time, hard caping a limit of 1 domain per character and changing the corresponding "increase domain limit" perks to something else (I don't know, max men at arms limit? Bonus in lifestyle xp? Flat tax bonus?) and making the buildings more powerful ? I believe in the lore it is extremely rare for a Vampire to personally run more than one city. I don't know, maybe this change would be too extreme on how it would impact the structural balance of CK3. Maybe it would require too long to test it and balance it out.
Also it would be cool and quite lore friendly to be able to take control of a county without actually conquering it through war. Via a special super hard scheme and subsequent events. Again, might be hard to balance properly.
I am very excited to see the direction the mod is taking and looking forward next updates. If I can donwload it, I'm currently in a country where Internet is meh and I have to play with steam offline mode.
Few thoughts on the fly:
Why not, at some point when you have time, hard caping a limit of 1 domain per character and changing the corresponding "increase domain limit" perks to something else (I don't know, max men at arms limit? Bonus in lifestyle xp? Flat tax bonus?) and making the buildings more powerful ? I believe in the lore it is extremely rare for a Vampire to personally run more than one city. I don't know, maybe this change would be too extreme on how it would impact the structural balance of CK3. Maybe it would require too long to test it and balance it out.
Also it would be cool and quite lore friendly to be able to take control of a county without actually conquering it through war. Via a special super hard scheme and subsequent events. Again, might be hard to balance properly.
Dahndl : Men at Arms can only be scripted from cultures (irrelevant for vampires) or dynasty legacies. Legacies are also problematic. Let's say that Tzimisce legacies unlock Vozhd, that would mean that every Tzimisce, including those that don't have high level of vicissitude, are able to use them.
In the dev build, we have made a big effort to rework all the dynasty legacies, and add one custom for each clan. After discussion, we still choose to tie the MaA to those new legacies despite the issue mentioned above. It's a lesser evil compared to the annoyance that are spawned armies that don't replenish. Hence, in the dev build, Gangrel legacies unlock animal MaA, Setites unlock snakes, Tremere unlock Gargoyles... that kind of stuff.
Golf : 1 domain limit was actually a thing during one or two months post launch of the mod. Although it's indeed more loreful, it had issues. A one county ruler was sort of doomed to never have a shot at climbing the ladder, since he couldn't hold a second county (and, as such, was too weak to become duke) making such starts almost impossible. The current situation is a compromise, you still have less domain limit than vanilla (ranking up doesn't up the limit in the mod) but you start with enough to progress by county conquest.
In the dev build, we have made a big effort to rework all the dynasty legacies, and add one custom for each clan. After discussion, we still choose to tie the MaA to those new legacies despite the issue mentioned above. It's a lesser evil compared to the annoyance that are spawned armies that don't replenish. Hence, in the dev build, Gangrel legacies unlock animal MaA, Setites unlock snakes, Tremere unlock Gargoyles... that kind of stuff.
Golf : 1 domain limit was actually a thing during one or two months post launch of the mod. Although it's indeed more loreful, it had issues. A one county ruler was sort of doomed to never have a shot at climbing the ladder, since he couldn't hold a second county (and, as such, was too weak to become duke) making such starts almost impossible. The current situation is a compromise, you still have less domain limit than vanilla (ranking up doesn't up the limit in the mod) but you start with enough to progress by county conquest.
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I understand the 1 domain limit is too strong. I'm still seeing characters with 7-8 domain limit. Like Lord Japhet I think had 7 at some point in my current playthrough. Maybe I'm mistaken with another lord but I definitely saw a character or two with 7-8 domain limit.
What about "scheme conquest" of a county?
Something like:
You fabricate or you have a Claim on County Alpha.
You start a scheme "overthrowing ruler of County Alpha" that would be very difficult and would take something like 5-8 years minimum and up to 20 years. Maybe difficulty and length could be adjusted according to the tier of the county (if it's a duchy capital or kingdom capital it would be much longer and harder).
Some events during the scheme where you infiltrate the court via agents, some events where you corrupt courtiers, or blackmail them etc. Some different checks, Martial Challenges, Intrigue Challenges, Diplomacy Challenges, Discipline Challenges etc...
Upon resolution of the scheme, if you fail you would suffer strong opinion penalty, maybe some masquerade loss, why not an injury, and risk being imprisoned.
If you win the scheme, you go through a series of events where the minimum reward is the county ownership, and maximum reward is diablerie. Between those two we could have: maiming / injuring the owner, imprisoning him etc.
But even if you win the ownership of the county you would suffer strong opinion penalty toward owner's relatives, clan, county vassals and county population and start at 0 control.
I don't know, just an idea on the fly. It might be very challenging to code that actually.
What about "scheme conquest" of a county?
Something like:
You fabricate or you have a Claim on County Alpha.
You start a scheme "overthrowing ruler of County Alpha" that would be very difficult and would take something like 5-8 years minimum and up to 20 years. Maybe difficulty and length could be adjusted according to the tier of the county (if it's a duchy capital or kingdom capital it would be much longer and harder).
Some events during the scheme where you infiltrate the court via agents, some events where you corrupt courtiers, or blackmail them etc. Some different checks, Martial Challenges, Intrigue Challenges, Diplomacy Challenges, Discipline Challenges etc...
Upon resolution of the scheme, if you fail you would suffer strong opinion penalty, maybe some masquerade loss, why not an injury, and risk being imprisoned.
If you win the scheme, you go through a series of events where the minimum reward is the county ownership, and maximum reward is diablerie. Between those two we could have: maiming / injuring the owner, imprisoning him etc.
But even if you win the ownership of the county you would suffer strong opinion penalty toward owner's relatives, clan, county vassals and county population and start at 0 control.
I don't know, just an idea on the fly. It might be very challenging to code that actually.
There are still several sources of domain limit that I want to look at, most notably the cultural ones, so the max limit will probably go down as time passes.
The scheme idea is neat, but as you said, would require a ton of events and such to make it interesting. So it's a big endeavor that should be the focus of an update honestly, not just something to throw in randomly.
The scheme idea is neat, but as you said, would require a ton of events and such to make it interesting. So it's a big endeavor that should be the focus of an update honestly, not just something to throw in randomly.
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