[MOD] When the World Stopped Making Sense - A Migrational Era Mod for CK3 - 476-700 AD

[LT-Rascek]

Quick Minor Update on 0.1.4

• I don't anticipate W&W causing many problems unlike ToTo
• We've patched the 0.1.3 code to Vanilla 1.9.2.1 and it mostly runs without errors
• We're in the middle of bringing in features for 0.1.4. By now, the map is done, as are most culture, history changes
• We're going to scale down the minorities implementation for 0.1.4 and use the Steam version [1] to start with, as it would add time to fully port in our modified version. Minorities will still be in, but without the changes we were working on.
• We've decided to push external religious conversion to 0.1.5 or later as it needs much more testing.
• Tributaries will be part of 0.1.4 in their fully integrated form, as we judge that to be the most important sub-feature to add
• We've made a big change to Eras and techs for 0.1.4; there's no more "Migration Era"; the eras are now "Tribal", "Classical Antiquity", "Late Antiquity", "Early Medieval", and the rest of Vanilla (which are unmodified). The net effect is should be an easier to understand innovation set up that is more familiar to Vanilla players and also more cleanly blends the transition from the Antique period to the Medieval period.
  
  This allows us to have a more natural progression of technology (11-12 in each era like in Vanilla), more meaningful innovations (a full 10% effect all at once instead of three 3% innovations over 400 years), and building progressions that make more sense. Combined with our building rework and some additional innovations for certain cultures, and PDX's Vanilla changes to holdings, players will be able to more readily build up their domain as a Bureaucratic, Rajamandala, or Eranshar domain.

Attached are a few screenshots of the current status of the 0.1.4

Current political map, sans Tributaries, which need to be re-added, along with our dynamic title coloring system​

Culture Map. Probably looks familiar.

Current Religion Map

And proof we're not fooling ya, Augustulus' Regent is Orestes.

Bookmarks have been ported, but 1.9.2.1's changes to emotions means we still have work to do

We've also had a chance to review some GUI layout stuff and make it cleaner and crisper

A view into the new Era setup, with a few custom illustrations for certain innovations...​

[1] - See the Mod's steam workshop page for more details about Minorities.

 

[overthetop_G]

Hello, I like your mod very much, especially the religious changes. However, I have noticed that whenever I play using it I crash within a few minutes. Is this a result of the Tours and Tournaments update, or was the mod not playable before that? I have also noticed that several icons are missing, such as the book-mark illustrations.
I also have some questions to ask:

Will I ever be able to play on the vanilla start dates(like 1066) with the mod?
I noticed a mention of chariot races in a tradition in an earlier dev diary for this mod. Will chariot races be an activity?
Will cultures with roman heritage utilize the adoption mechanic just as they did In real life? (Cesar and Augustus).

 

[loup99]

Hello, I like your mod very much, especially the religious changes. However, I have noticed that whenever I play using it I crash within a few minutes. Is this a result of the Tours and Tournaments update, or was the mod not playable before that? I have also noticed that several icons are missing, such as the book-mark illustrations.

As the download indicates, you need to roll back your game to version 1.8.1 to play the mod.

Will I ever be able to play on the vanilla start dates(like 1066) with the mod?

No, no point in using the mod if you want to play vanilla.

I noticed a mention of chariot races in a tradition in an earlier dev diary for this mod. Will chariot races be an activity?

Down the line we will integrate the chariot races we had from CK2 into the new mechanics enabled by CK3.

Will cultures with roman heritage utilize the adoption mechanic just as they did In real life? (Cesar and Augustus).

Maybe we will consider mechanics relating to adoption at some point but keep in mind that Caesar is 500 years before the game start, so adoption habits were different by 476. if we ever do anything around adoption it will be different from Caesar's period.

 

[Wixelt]

What religion is the Sassanid ruler at the start?

 

[DSL31]

Do you have a release date for the next version? The current version no longer seems compatible with the game

 

[Avald]

Do you have a release date for the next version? The current version no longer seems compatible with the game

Going by the discord, there doesn't seem to be one, but, and I quote: "Work's mostly done for getting things to 1.10.* We're reviewing and bugfixing now." - @LT-Rascek on the 2nd of September. So just be patient, it's sometime soon.

 

[DSL31]

Going by the discord, there doesn't seem to be one, but, and I quote: "Work's mostly done for getting things to 1.10.* We're reviewing and bugfixing now." - @LT-Rascek on the 2nd of September. So just be patient, it's sometime soon.

thanks you!

 

[overthetop_G]

Going by the discord, there doesn't seem to be one, but, and I quote: "Work's mostly done for getting things to 1.10.* We're reviewing and bugfixing now." - @LT-Rascek on the 2nd of September. So just be patient, it's sometime soon.

Do you have a link to the discord?

 

[Avald]

Do you have a link to the discord?

Discord

As copied from the very first post of this thread .

 

[loup99]

Alpha 0.1.4

Important: This remains an alpha build which is in development. We have made the choice of sharing it with you to get a maximum of feedback while advancing towards a stable beta.

Download:

STEAM WORKSHOP

PARADOX MODS

MANUAL (see attached file)

Compatibility: CK3 Vanilla 1.10.2
Checksum: 5599

Changelog:
0.1.4

Spoiler: Changelog

General:
- Updated the mod for 1.10.2
- Added New "Rise of the White Huns" bookmark to 476 group

Mechanics:
- Improved CCU model:
- Languages:
- Introduced notion of dialect continua to provide more granularity to languages
- A language can have multiple continua, helping provide a better model for languages at the lowest levels
- Introduce notion of creoles to allow genetically unrelated languages to have some degree of relation to each other
- Heritages:
- Allowed heritages to have multiple heritage groups and families, in line with the generally fuzzy notion of what a heritage is
- Added "Kulturbund" concept to capture the relative heritage closeness of some heritages that are still distinct
- Example: Altaic Kulturbund for Turkic and Mongolic heritage, Scythian Kulturbund for Sarmatian and Scythian heritages
- Implemented heritage and language drift events to model the evolution of culture and language during the period
- Implemented for Latin heritage and languages
- Implemented for Indo-Aryan languages
- Integrated Nezaros' Minority system and adapted it to WtWSMS
- Added new minority map modes to be able to see distribution of minorities on the map
- Integrated with council tasks
- "Promote Culture" and "Convert County" tasks increase minority level by one (none -> small minority -> large minority -> majority)
- By default, the tasks will continue until the majority of the county is changed
- Integrated with Migrations
- Instead of county modifiers, migrations (major and minor) will spawn minorities based on development and migration type
- Integrated Typical's Tributary system and adapted it to WtWSMS
- Disabled tributary income at the moment, as the tributary income system is broken
- General Changes:
- Tributaries can call their suzerain to war if being attacked by an external power via decision
- Suzerain can always call tributaries to war via decision
- Made it possible to refuse a suzerain call to arms, breaking the tribute contract and making tributaries target-able with punitive CBs (reinforce Tribute and depose the punished ruler)
- Made it possible to refuse a tributary's call to arms, breaking the tribute contract
- New Tributary Types:
- Foederatus Tributary
- A permanent tributary, but (ai) will never refuse a call to arms, either as a foederatus or a suzerain
- Has some additional modifiers for this tribute type
- Created "Right to Rule" interaction for Roman Emperors with federates
- Enables foederatus to conquer former Roman lands as if Roman Successor
- Costs 1000 prestige for the Emperor but grants a 100 year truce (preventing raiding, among other things)

Causus Belli:
- Minor Migrations
- Overhauled code for minor Migrations
- The player's capital now gets a small minority of the player's faith and culture if successful
- Removed some of the old modifiers that blocked conversion for a limited time
- An event now fires a few days after winning a war, allowing players to choose keeping their old government or adopting new ones
- Major migrations
- Counties still have a chance to flip to the migrator's culture & faith
- If not, there's a chance to spawn large or small minorities
- The probability of these minorities spawning is inversely related to the county's development
- Removed some of the old modifiers that allowed rapid conversion for a limited time
- An event now fires a few days after winning a war, allowing players to choose keeping their old government or adopting new ones
- Extended Sub-Roman reconquest CB to Federates with "Right to Rule" character modifier
- An event now fires a few days after winning a war, allowing players with "Right to Rule" modifier to choose keeping their old government or adopting new ones

Culture Pillars:
- Added new heritages: Common Slavic, Peristani, Sakan, Sarmatian
- Moved Old Slavic to Common Slavic heritage
- Broke up East Iranian heritage into several different heritages
- Sarmatian Heritage: Sarmatian, Alan, Iazyges
- Sakan Heritage: Sakan, Dahi Scythian, Indo-Scythian
- Peristani Heritage: Nuristani
- Tocharian Heritage (Now Serindian): Sogdian
- Iranian Heritage: Afghan, Khwarezmian, Bactrian, Mazanderani (Amardian)
- Overhauled languages in line with with the improved CCU model

Traditions:
- Added concept of Greco-Roman Social Traditions, raising baseline acceptance between Greek and Roman cultures _but_ preventing their hybridization
- Added increased baseline acceptance between cultures sharing a Heritage Tradition
- Caucasian Wolves is tied back to Georgian instead of Colchiscan
- "Right to Rule"-type changes:
- Strong Kinship unlocks the ability to adopt clan government (if neither your culture nor your religion supports your current government type)
- Persian Traditions unlocks the ability to adopt Eranshar government (if neither your culture nor your religion supports your current government type)

Culture:
- Added a number of custom culture creation names from CK2 WtWSMS
- Added customized culture histories that provide players with additional information regarding cultures and design decisions
- Added New Cultures:
- Arabic Heritage:
- Qatarye: Christian coastal Arabs with significant commercial influence before Islam
- Baltic Heritage:
- Sudovian: Models the ancient people who were attested as early as Herodotus and Ptolemy
- East Galindian: Baltic people listed in Slavic records, likely separate from the (Western) Galindians
- Kolochin: Balto-Slavic Archaeological Complex between the Vth and VIIth Centuries
- Dneiper Baltic: Baltic Subgroup in the Dnieper river basin, extant until (possibly) as late as the XIIIth Century
- Caucasian Heritage:
- Awaral: Migration Era (Caucasian) Avars
- Svan: Ancient highland tribal Kartvelian culture
- Indo-Aryan:
- Mathil: Models one of the major Gangetic cultures/languages
- Gandhari: Early important culture in the transmission of Buddhism to Central Asia
- Peristani:
- Burusho: Models the non-Indo-European-speaking people in the Yaisn valley
- Pamiri: Models the East Iranian-speaking people of the Pamir region (Credit: cyberxkhan's RICE)
- Central Germanic:
- Suavi: Tribal Suebi that didn't migrate to Galacia (see Hunimund PLRE Vol 2)
- Sarmatian:
- Romano-Alan: Models the Romanized Alans near Orleans in the Vth Century
- Alano-Vandals: Models the Vandalized Alans in the African Vandal Kingdom
- Serindian:
- Khotanese: Models the Sakanized Tocharian basin culture in Khotan
- Southeast Asian (Burman):
- Tripuri: Ancient Tibeto-Burman people in Tripuria (Credit: Rajas of Asia)
- Khasi: Austroasiatic people settled in Meghalaya (Credit: Rajas of Asia)
- Tibetan:
- Balti: Tibetan people noted by Ptolemy
- Changed Cultures:
- Przeworsk moved to East Germanic heritage
- Brahui moved to Iranian heritage
- Reudignian moved to North Germanic heritage
- Nuristani moved to Peristani heritage
- Removed Cultures:
- Aeolian (Byzantine heritage)
- Gruzinim (Israelite heritage)

Innovations and Eras:
- Reduced number of eras by one and renamed: Tribal, Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity are the new eras
- Redistributed Vanilla Tribal innovations effects across the new Tribal, Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity eras
- Overhauled innovations for a cleaner, more natural progression; every era of the above has 10-12 innovations now

Religion Doctrines/Tenets:
- Added Liturgical Rite Christian flavor Doctrines
- Moved Christian Ecumenism to be a Christian Doctrine instead of main group doctrine
- Added "Right to Rule" doctrines from Rajas of Asia, detailing the ability to change government depending on faith and culture
- Added Buddhist Canon doctrines to Buddhist faiths, courtesy of RICE
- Moved Hindu Sampradaya doctrines to the main group (as there is only 1 doctrine specific to Hindus)
- Tweaked nudity doctrine so new Jain faiths can more freely adopt naked priests
- Added new "Ritual Doctrines" category for Vegetarianism and moved Pilgrimages to the Ritual Doctrine category
- Zunism uses Zoroastrian Syncretism instead of Ritual Hospitality (under the Zurvan-hypothesis; the links of Zhun to Shiva is handled elsewhere)
- Donyipoloism uses Communal Identity instead of Ethnic Religion
- Gnostic Tenets/Doctrines consider each other Astray, not Righteous
- Doctrine Changes:
- Zoroastrian Asvan faiths that share a Head of Faith convert counties to their Head of Faith's faith instead of their own
- Iranian Pagans consider and are considered by Zoroastrians to be hostile instead of evil
- Tenet Changes:
- Gnosticism is unavailable to Christians; they use the "Gnosis" Christian doctrine now
- Reincarnation is available to Christians with Gnosis Doctrine or Jews with Gnosticism Tenet

Religion:
- Removed Eastern Pagan family; the relations between the Eastern Faiths and Eastern pagans is now handled by a doctrine
- Improved Vanilla compatibility and removed some unnecessary religion overwrites
- Moved Priscilianism to Christianity (formerly Dualism)
- Reviewed Clergy in all faiths:
- Jainism and Buddhism use Lay Clergy
- Modified some Dualist Theocracy stances; the proto-Christian faiths now use Theocracy instead of Lay Clergy
- Scythian Paganism made a faith in the Steppe Religion
- New religions:
- Indian Tribal Religion for Munda and Gondi Paganism
- Added Dezawism covering the religious traditions of the Peristani people
- Added Austroasiatic religion covering the religious traditions of the Khasi people
- Added Iranian Religion covering the proto-Zoroastrian beliefs of the Highland peoples that influenced later Yazidism and Yarsanism
- New Faiths:
- Maronite Church added for the Chalcedon Creed accepting, West Syriac Liturgy Christians that retained their communion with Rome

Buildings:
- Overhauled buildings in light of innovation rework
- Level 1 unlocked in the Tribal Era
- Level 2 unlocked in the Classical Antiquity Era
- Level 3 unlocked in the Late Antiquity era
- Level 4-5 in Early Medieval Era, 6-7 in the High Medieval Era, 8-9 in the Late Medieval Era

Governments:
- Removed contract option to change non-Gubernatorial governments to Gubernatorial (temporarily, under review)

Council Tasks:
- Establish Title Task:
- Update Establish Title task; progress is saved in the capital and thus stays through a ruler and his councilor's deaths
- Moving or loosing the capital county eliminates all progress
- Establish Title base speed reduced to 5/3× that of title drift, down from 5/2× title drift speed in light of progress being more readily saved

Decision/Activities:
- Removed Chariot Races (Temporarily)
- Added Government Conversion decisions from Rajas of Asia (with permission) and extended to WtWSMS governments
- Added decisions relating to adopting/abandoning vegetarianism
- Removed "Proclaim Gothic Empire" decision

Map/History:
- Characters:
- Added Theodorus, satrap of Sophanene in 502
- Orestes is an extremely entrenched diarch, making playing Romulus Augustulus harder
- Because of game mechanic issues, the associated event fires one day after game starts
- Updated history of various characters related to Attila, Tanukhids, Langobards, Goths, and Bosporans
- Various other minor character history tweaks and improvements
- Countries:
- Thaton and Ostrogoths made Tribal in 476 in line with history information
- Map overhauled
- Added new cultures, religions to the map and adjusted them throughout in line with minority mechanics
- Overhauled history, especially in Britain, Gaul, Hispania, North Africa
- Specific Region Notes (includes major cultural/religion changes):
- Africa (Northwest):
- Added Byzacena duchy to k_africa
- Granted Byzacena to Theodoric, son of Gaisaric as per attestation (PLRE Vol 2)
- Removed Aeolian and replaced with Greek
- Adjusted placement of Montanism, Hypsistarianism to match historical records better
- Arabia:
- Adjusted some county borders to better represent
- Fixed Zarqa Jadi being alive in 476 and replaced with Monophysite Hanzalah tribe in Yamama
- Added Hanwazinid's as a subordinate tribe to Hajr-Amr
- Fixed Tamim, Taghlebi, and Al-Qays locations
- Removed Lebbaeus presence in Arabia, as Mesan did not extend that far south
- Added Christian Qatarye provinces for settled Arabic provinces in the Sassanid Empire
- Britannia:
- Added additional historic holders to various parts of British territory
- Added Jute presence on the Isle of Wight
- Added additional Pictish principalities with improved granularity
- Moved Pelagian counties to those under Germanic domination, in line with early references to Pelagianism being a problem for the Church in the Urban east
- Improved locations of Angles, Jutes, Saxons in the east of Britannia
- Caucasus:
- Abaza made a vassal of Lazica (in line with notional control)
- Added fictional Svan vassal of Svaneti to match the historic quasi-independence of the region
- Sarir moved to a more accurate location centered on Kumukh, as per best sources for its location
- Added fictional Durdzuk ruler under Sarir so Sarir is connected (tenuously) to the ERE
- Added independent Adyghes ruler in Cabardinia
- Adjusted Corduenian culture to better match history
- Added Awaral to match historic distribution
- Extended Adyghes counties to match historic distribution
- Dacia & Moesia:
- Added Tuldila's (PLRE Vol 2) descendents in Moesia, as records of Hunnic raiding extend to the Vth Century
- Added Hormidak (PLRE Vol 2) as a vassal of the Gepids as he was active during the period
- Gaul and Italia:
- Corrected the placement of Frankish tribes
- Expanded Frankish presence in Gaul
- Improved Romano-Raetian distribution
- Added new holders for Romano-Alan regions in Gaul
- Handled the division of Burgundians between the children of Gunderic (whereas they were previously unlanded)
- Adjusted the Roman-Germanic border along the Danube to more accurately represent the chaos of the period
- Gave St. Severinus a holding in Sankt Polten under Rugi dominion, to model the complexity of the period
- India
- Western Satraps moved to a more accurate location
- Persia
- Zurvanism remains the court religion of the Sassanids, but has no on-map presence
- Indo-Parthian used to cover the extent of future Balochi cultures
- Brahui brought more in line with historic presence
- Tarim Basin and Central Asia
- Fixed the horrific Bactrian/Sogdian border (the old version was to fix some CTD; no longer CTDs)
- Sakan replaces Sogdian in the Syr Daya basin
- Thrace and Hellas:
- Gave the Thracian Goths a Hunnic vassal in c_vratsa based on historic attestation of Hunnic settlement & activity into the Vth Century
- Tsakonian reduced to historical Tsakonia
- Balto-Slavia:
- Very much in progress; may be extensively changed in future versions
- Adjusted position of Antes and Sklaveni to closer match early Archaeological complexes
- Removed ahistorical Slavic tribes (Lutogostians, Berimirians) to have more accurate Balto-Slavic tribes instead
- Added additional East Baltic tribes in Aesti territory
- Adjusted general disposition of Balts and Slavs in e_russia, e_finland, e_baltic_empire
- Germania Magna:
- Adjusted borders of many tribal powers to better match historical records, include Saxony, Thuringia, Alamannia, Lombards, Venedi
- Added Suavi vassal in the eastern part of the Alamannian Confederation, per Jordanes
- Chatti moved to a more accurate region for Vth Century
- Cheruscii removed as they were likely no longer extant
- Pontic-Caspian Steppe:
- Improved the position of the Bolghar tribes
- Improved the division of Crimea between the Bosporan Kingdom, the (Crimean) Goths, and Byzantium
- Tibetan Plateau:
- Balti replaces Zhangzhung in the Kashmir area
- Kalash and Burusho made independent, as has more-or-less been the case in that region
- Turks:
- Turuk/Gokturk culture removed for 476

Localization:
- Increased number of dynasty names in Old Kamarupan culture
- Renamed "Gupta" government to "Rajamandala" government
- Culture Pillars:
- Renamed West Iranian heritage to Iranian heritage
- Renamed Tocharian heritage to Serindian heritage
- Cultures:
- Added extensive custom culture history localizations to provide players with increased information about various proto-cultures
- Renamed Macronian to Lazic
- Renamed Galician to Gallaecian to avoid Vanilla collision
- Renamed Amardian to Mazanderani
- Religion Doctrines:
- Renamed "Gnostic" Soteriology Doctrine to "Gnosis"

Bugfixes:
- Fixed vassals to the Roman Empires having access to the Sub-Roman Reconquest CB
- Fixed bug in Fall of Rome event firing incorrectly (hopefully)
- Nepos properly hates Romulus and Orestes now

Installation:
Steam Workshop
1. Go to the WtWSMS workshop page: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2858562094
2. Click "Subscribe"
3. Launch CK3
4. Wait for mod download to complete in Steam client
5. Select the mod "WtWSMS" in the Mod tab
6. Play!

Paradox Mods
1. Go to the WtWSMS Paradox Mods page: https://mods.paradoxplaza.com/mods/49737/
2. Click "Add" and select the appropriate playset
3. Launch CK3
4. Wait for mod download to complete in the launcher
5. Select the mod "WtWSMS" in the Mod tab
6. Play!

Manual
1. Remove any WTWSMS mod folders and .mod files inside Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings III\mod
2. Clear your gfx cache, by deleting the folder Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings III\IWTWSMS\gfx
3. Extract the downloaded archive
4. Enter in the first folder of the extracted file and transfer it's content to Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings III\mod
5. Launch CK3
6. Select the mod "WtWSMS" in the Mod tab
7. Play!

Credits: This release was brought to you by the WtWSMS team. Others contributed too, and we want to thank all of those that tried to help us in any way! Full credits can be found in the second post.

 

[overthetop_G]

Good job! Wonderful that the mod is up to date. Looking forward to the stable beta.

 

[Wixelt]

Gruzinim

What was this?

 

[loup99]

What was this?

Georgian Jews in the Caucasus, but the name wasn't adequate.

 

[LT-Rascek]

Dev Diary 16: What Romulus Begat

It's been a while, so it's about time for another dev diary. This one will talk more about a new mechanic for WtWSMS: the Roman Senates.

Standard Warning: As always, everything featured here can be completely changed or even removed before release.

We'll focus on the Western Senate, but the mechanics are identical, except the city in question in Constantinople instead of Rome, and the core region for the Senate is centered around Constantinople instead of Italy.

I also want to thank the Wrench, one of the lead devs of "The Fallen Eagle", who helped hand-hold me through making custom guis, which was critical to making all this work.

A Little Bit of History

By AD 476, the Roman Senate was all but a shadow of its former self, having lost all its de facto powers (and almost all of its de jure powers as well). It was composed of elite families. The historian Peter Heather describes it as "gatherings of rich, interrelated and politically powerful landowners". Yet the Senate would outlive Odoacer and Theodoric, and even the Gothic Wars. Thus, maintaining the fiction of the Senate and army making the emperors, we thought it important to represent its prestige, even though it had little actual power. The same applies for the Constantinopolitan Senate, much more recent, but not deprived of prestigious families, some originally members of the Roman Senate.

The Senates
One of the more frustrating mechanics in WtWSMS 0.1.4 was the Senate. Because of how titles work, unlanding the Senate would produce very unwanted behaviors, so we had to block that. This was very unsatisfactory for players, many of whom wanted their capital in the (presumably refurbished) Rome, not sharing it with some senex in togae. Furthermore, the Western Senate existed somewhat parallel to the government in Italy, continuing to exist even after the Western Roman Empire fell to Odovacer, until the Fire Nation Lombards attacked.

With that in mind, we've worked to overhaul the Senate into an Institution with which one may interact, instead of a simple title, and thus far we're pretty happy with the results.

The new Senates GUI; it's so beautiful ​

As you can see in the image, the Senate has a few features; the Emperor is listed, the top liege of Rome, the consul and consul-designate, a list of Senators "in Rome" and "away from Rome" (more on that later), and dynasties, with a pair of interactions at the bottom. The Emperor is self-explanatory, so we'll discuss each of these in more detail after discussing the Senate in more detail.

Becoming a Senator
A senator is any character with the "Western/Eastern Senator" trait, like shown below:

It's a prestigious institution, so it provides some prestige. If your culture has the traditions "Roman Traditions", "Byzantine Traditions", or "Latin Traditions" (all reflecting the legal traditions of the Roman Empires), you gain additional prestige, prestige gain multiplier, and scheme power (as the Senate is an institution "... long wise in the ways of deceit".)

To become a Senator, you must be 25 years old and either the Consul or the Roma Top Liege must nominate you; this is a character interaction that costs a variable amount of prestige; the lower rank the character's dynasty and being a barbarian increases the cost of the interaction. Likewise, the Senate's opinion of your meddling gets worse the less deserving the character is. Regardless, the Senate dislikes the top liege's meddling in its affairs, no matter how deserving someone is of membership.

Compare the opinions and cost of nominating lowly barbarian Odovacer versus Glorious Orestes​

Alternatively, if your family is part of the Senate, you automatically become a Senator once you turn 25. Naturally, Roman Emperors are always Senate members (even as children; see Arcadius in AD 377), and the Rome Top Liege holder becomes one at adulthood (i.e., 16).

Which brings us to...

Senatorial Families
The Senate, ultimately, is a dynastic institution and a number of families are a part of it. So, being a member of such a distinguished family brings a number of benefits, in the form of a dynasty modifier. Such illustrious families are long wise in the ways of trickery, so all members gain a small prestige buff, intrigue and diplomacy buff, and an increase in hostile scheme power (which stacks with being a Senator from a Roman culture).

One's dynasty having this modifier is what leads to automatically enrolling in the Senate at age 25, and it is a decision that the top liege or consul may employ; it is much more expensive than nominating a single senator, as it permanently allows a whole family to be in the Senate. Costs and opinions scale in the same manner as nominating a Senator.

The Glorious Caecina Dynasty is cheap to elevate compared to the barbarian Thorcilings...​

Let's now discuss some mechanics...

The Top Liege
The top liege of the Roma barony holder is the primary character that interacts with the Senate; it is he who can designate new consuls and is the character (besides the consul, if the two are separate) who can add members to the Senate and elevate dynasties to the Senate.

Unfortunately, for him to interfere is much more expensive than the lowly consul, even if he is the consul (no freebies for electing to occupy the slot, I'm afraid; we all know you're just pulling the strings, so you have to pony up). It is only the Top Liege who can nominate the next consul, which leads us to:

The Consuls

By AD 476, the consulate had been reduced; no longer did they possess imperium, command armies, or have veto powers. The costly and powerful office was instead a symbol of the Republican past, having been transformed by the Tetrarchy and Constantine's reforms. It was, however, a prestigious symbol, one that required considerable expenditure, and as all CK3 players now, prestige is a valuable currency.

As the top liege of Rome, you may nominate the next consul. Cost and opinion scale like nominating a Senator or elevating a dynasty.

Doing so ensures the character will be the next consul if the current one dies or when the current consul's term ends next January. If no consul is nominated, the Senate will choose from among their members, but never the top liege of Rome.

Being the consul is a powerful tool which provides much prestige and renown, as well as letting the character access the various Senate character interactions. You cannot nominate the current consul for the position though.

Once your term is over, you receive the "Former Consul" trait, which continues providing passive prestige, as well as more prestige and renown if your culture as the appropriate traditions.

Poor Marcianus, he knew too much...​

This, naturally, means Emperors will regularly make themselves consuls, which happened historically. As such, the Senate is not that surprised when the top liege makes himself the next consul; they'll keep their grumblings (and the prestige cost) to a minimum.

For 0.1.5, there will always be a consul so long as there is a Senate. In the future, we want to make having a consul sine collega (as in, only one consul across both Senates; we're not representing suffect consuls) and post consulatum like historically, but that's out of scope for 0.1.5.

Other Senate Interactions
The Senate is not a completely passive institution; Senators really want one thing, and it's disgusting it's land. Particularly in the form of non-capital baronies. Every Senate dynasty expects to have a certain number of estates, which is one more than its level of splendor. If the family has fewer holdings than that and you are the top liege of Rome, the familial dynast will eventually bother you for a non-capital barony somewhere in your realm.

For gameplay purposes, they won't ask for holdings in the Rome top liege's capital county or, if the Rome top liege is human, his capital duchy. Otherwise, they will seek and continue to seek holdings periodically until they reach their desired number of holdings. Giving into their demands gains you a minor opinion boost with the Senator.

So, why would you turn it down? Well, granting baronies from under other landed characters irritates them; the prefects, governors, and vicars where that estate reside get annoyed with you, and it costs you some prestige. Furthermore, revoking a Senators land holdings without just cause (e.g., Treason) annoys every Senator. So, repeated revocation of Senatorial holdings in Histria will create a large block of irritated characters who tend to be good at stabbing schemes, so tread carefully when revoking Senatorial holdings.

The Power of the Senate
So, why not just abolish the Senate and be done with it? First, no True Roman would ever disband the Senate (although treating it like a beast of burden is just fine; Incitatus says hi), so firstly, if you are a Romance/Hellenic character or use Roman Governments, you can't disband the Senate! Secondly, the Senate has a useful power, especially for usurpers; if you choose to seek the Senate's recognition, they will grant it and you get the "Approved by the Senate" modifier. It gives almost nothing in prestige (like in WtWSMS-CK2; the Senate is fairly powerless, after all), but it negates short reign duration opinion penalties and grants a small passive opinion boost with Senators (those people with, you know, chronic back-stabbing disorder).

After all, the decisions of an institution established by Romulus himself carries quite a bit a weight. The cost of seeking Senate approval can be steep, however; the cost scales with the number of Senators "in Rome", but caps at your total prestige, with a minimum cost of 250. So, if the Senate has turned into quite a body (e.g., a sprawling mega-Roman empire), you'll pay rather steeply for it.

What if, however, I really want to show those fools in togae a thing or two? Well, you can always elect to tell the Senate off, which gives you prestige relative to the size of the Senate. It also gives a passive opinion malus to the Senators; you know, those characters who tend to have a noticeable buff to hostile schemes. So, if you go that route, I'd listen to your wife's dreams from time to time...

I'll note both of these decisions give/take prestige from each Senator individually as well; you are, in effect, giving up prestige to the Senate or taking prestige from it with these actions.

When a character becomes the Rome liege the first time, an event will fire in a few days, reminding them that the Senate traditionally approves rulers in Rome and asking for you to "request" their recognition. You can right then and there seek approval or explicitly reject it, or take the third option and stall the Senate for a nominal prestige cost. Stalling will lead to every new consul bugging you about it, a slow but steady drain on prestige.

We might tweak stalling the Senate to being a far cheaper near clone of explicitly rejecting the Senate, but with the option to later grovel ask the Senate for recognition, instead than have an event periodically bothering players. But that's not the design at the moment.

Ending the Senate
Historically, the Senates eventually ended. In the West, it occurred after the Gothic Wars, with the Ostrogoths imprisoning and executing many Senators, and the final death blow was the arrival of the Lombards. To model this, the Senate will collapse when there are no characters "in Rome" (i.e., either in the Rome Top Liege's domain in some form or in Italy proper and being both capable and not in prison) or when the Rome Top Liege chooses to disband the Senate.

While Sub-Roman and Romance characters won't disband the Senate, certain governments can't interact with the Senate either; because the Iranian and Indian systems had very different concepts of universality, they can't interact with the Senate and will normally just disband it.

If the Senate disbands, the associated traits and modifiers with it will disappear; no more characters will be Senators, and if you were some feudal character approved by the Senate who did it, you'll loose your Senatorial approval (shockingly!).

To help try to prevent passive disbanding, if the Senate has fewer than 5 families or 15 Senators in Rome, the cost of elevating dynasties and nominating Senators becomes cheaper, and AI characters will be much more likely to do those actions.

That still doesn't save the Senate if, say, the Arsacids get a hold of Rome/Constantinople​

Conclusion
This is a design I've had for a while, and I've enjoyed bringing it to fruition; the Senate functioned both as a part of government and an institution parallel to government (especially in the West), so it's been enjoyable trying to capture some of those dynamics in game. With these changes, the Senate as a title will cease, making it easier for players to land themselves in Rome without the game blocking you.

Well, that's it for now; there's other fun things in the pipeline for 0.1.5, but that will wait for next time!

 

[DreadGrunt]

Hey gang, been a while since I've checked in on WTWSMS. I'm giving it a run as Romulus right now and I'm having a lot of fun, and the Senate stuff shown off above looks incredible, though I do have a few suggestions.

Probably the biggest one is how Roman subcultures shift their language and heritages; this is a super cool idea and it works really well but it just happens way too fast in my opinion. I'm barely 30 years into the game and several of them have already had their language and heritages shift. Imho there should probably be a century or so buffer before that starts to happen and it should be prevented if they have a top level Roman liege, because if the player is trying to do something like rebuild the Western Empire and set up vassals of the various Roman subcultures it sucks for them to no longer have Latin heritage or language even if you reach their lands pretty quickly. Also, shouldn't Romano-Alan have Latin heritage and language at game start? Their name list seems to imply they're heavily Romanized.

 

[LT-Rascek]

Hey gang, been a while since I've checked in on WTWSMS. I'm giving it a run as Romulus right now and I'm having a lot of fun, and the Senate stuff shown off above looks incredible, though I do have a few suggestions.

Probably the biggest one is how Roman subcultures shift their language and heritages; this is a super cool idea and it works really well but it just happens way too fast in my opinion. I'm barely 30 years into the game and several of them have already had their language and heritages shift. Imho there should probably be a century or so buffer before that starts to happen and it should be prevented if they have a top level Roman liege, because if the player is trying to do something like rebuild the Western Empire and set up vassals of the various Roman subcultures it sucks for them to no longer have Latin heritage or language even if you reach their lands pretty quickly. Also, shouldn't Romano-Alan have Latin heritage and language at game start? Their name list seems to imply they're heavily Romanized.

Glad you are enjoying it.

Culture shift time frame: I identified an arithmetic error that is causing the culture shifts to fire much earlier than designed. These fixes have been packaged in for 0.1.5.

Romano-Alans: I'm looking for a better name, but functionally, the Alans around Orleans weren't necessarily culturally different than those in the Vandal Empire or the Pontic-Caspian steppe. For better or worse, CK3 ties technology to culture, so to prevent technology transmission across the map, we broke up the cultures. From what I've read, they were still very much Alanic at the time.

 

[DreadGrunt]

Glad you are enjoying it.

Culture shift time frame: I identified an arithmetic error that is causing the culture shifts to fire much earlier than designed. These fixes have been packaged in for 0.1.5.

That's good to hear. Are they always going to happen or only under certain circumstances? I love the system and definitely have some ideas for runs now that I know it exists, but it does feel a bit strange for my Romans to no longer be speaking Latin even though they rebuilt the empire in the west and a lot of the conditions that caused the shifts irl were thusly avoided.

 

[loup99]

For better or worse, CK3 ties technology to culture, so to prevent technology transmission across the map, we broke up the cultures.

To add to this, if you modify the game, there is a point where the amount of hardcoded content largely ends up restricting what you can do. This applies for cultures and technologies, for titular titles and for religious autocephaly. The game simply doesn't allow for an accurate portrayal, so we end up sacrificing exactitude to compromise with game mechanics. That is why you have for example two Suebi cultures, two Alan cultures, a "Gallic church" and a landed Senate. It can sometimes be fixed through workarounds, which sometimes end up being overall beneficial, like for the new Senate mechanic which is a great improvement, but in other cases we are stuck with a dysfunctional system. The most annoying part is all the content that was functional in CK2 which we lost in CK3. Sure, those features were redesigned in vanilla, but why not give the choice to modders of making use of titular titles, proper autocephaly or technology that spreads differently?

That's good to hear. Are they always going to happen or only under certain circumstances? I love the system and definitely have some ideas for runs now that I know it exists, but it does feel a bit strange for my Romans to no longer be speaking Latin even though they rebuilt the empire in the west and a lot of the conditions that caused the shifts irl were thusly avoided.

We discussed this to restrict the shifts for all of those who have the Royal Court DLC beyond the aforementioned bug, both with regards to preventing it altogether in cases where it simply doesn't make sense and slowing it down so that it is a matter of centuries rather than decades. That way everyone can experience a more realistic culture divergence mechanic. The current situation of those having the DLC experiencing ahistorical quick shifts and all others having nothing at all is unsatisfying. A distinction will remain with or without DLC but at least those who activate should have a less immersion-breaking experience. Naturally this is all subject to discussion and change, and by no means guaranteed to be included in the next release, but it is certainly something we had in mind.

 

[LT-Rascek]

Dev Diary 16.1: Cultures

It's been a while a short bit, so it's about time for another dev diary. This is a short one, and is rather narrowly focused on some additional changes to 0.1.5 (tentatively named "Julius Nepos", so it should give you some idea of its theme/scope).

Standard Warning: As always, everything featured here can be completely changed or even removed before release.

Additional Note: Hybrid and divergent culture mechanics requires the Royal Court DLC, as per Vanilla.

Bug Fixes
- As was mentioned earlier, we identified an arithmetic bug causing heritage and language shifts to occur faster than desired. This has been patched for 0.1.5.

Cultural Acceptance and Game Rules
In 0.1.5, we've taken a careful look at hybridization and divergence. In particular, the rates themselves seem too high, so we've taken care to reduce the rates at which cultural acceptance accumulates. These are, unfortunately, hardcoded values, so we can't make them changeable with a game rule.

If some people really hate those changes, I'll look into adding a rule to boost the "Promote Cultural Acceptance" task to compensate for those players, but as these are hardcoded, there's a limit to how flexible I can make them.

We've also, changed the default cool down period for hybridization and divergence, which is driven by a game rule.

These should lead to a slower, more natural acceptance gain leading to the evolution of child Romance cultures by around the 600s or so.

Cultural Hybridization and Divergence Event
We've taken a good, long look at the vanilla hybridization event, and found it lacking. For example, in a 867 bookmark game I played, the AI Karlings managed to worm their way into Croatia, and wouldn't you know it, there was a giant blob of Communal ethos, d'Oil-Speaking, Frankish-Heritage Franco-Croatians by 1100. The AI hybridization events seem a bit too random, so we've gone along and overhauled it.

Now, if your court culture is a different heritage than yours, the event that pops up has a slightly different workflow. The default behavior is the resulting hybrid culture adopts the heritage and language of the capital county's culture and your ethos, instead of being completely random. So, now migrating across the map, like from the Tisza basin to Lanka (hint-hint), will not necessarily result in the locals just adopting the language of a few tenant rulers a few decades hence.

Notice I said default behavior. Certain traditions can override it. Currently, this is only the "Colonizers" traditions that the Romans have, wherein instead the ruler's language and culture and the counties ethos is adopted.

We plan on (eventually) using this sort of mechanic with the Rise of Islam to allow Arabic cultures to proliferate like they did historically. That said, "Colonizers" isn't actually always applied; if you have another tradition (e.g., Culture Blending or Malleable Invaders), this will instead force you to use the default workflow (i.e., county's heritage and language and ruler's ethos).

In short, here's the new hybridization event workflow:

• If the player has Culture Blending/Malleable Invaders: Use the capital county's heritage and language and the ruler's ethos
• Else if the player has Colonizers: Use the ruler's heritage and language and the county's ethos
• Else: Use the county's heritage and language and the ruler's ethos

This will prevent some random ruler from say, imposing a completely alien language and heritage while only being a thin ruling class over a horde of foreign aliens (see Franco-Croatians above...). We think this will produce slightly more, well, logical hybrids as the AI migrates around the map and sets up barbarian kingdoms on the ashes of the Roman Empire.

Peroz awakens, in a cold sweat, relieved that its all just a dream...​

Note that we haven't impacted the GUI-driven system at all, so if you really want that Sarmatian-heritage, Scythian-Speaking hybrid culture in Lanka, you can make it! But, if you were hoping to save prestige while doing so, you are out of luck. Not even save scumming can help you now! (Evil Laughter)

I can see some wonder "Well, what about if the two cultures are very close together, so that language hybridization leading to the ruler's language or customs coming in might make sense?" I hear you, and we'll probably revisit this workflow in the future and tweak it for those cases. But, I'm happy with the current logic for 0.1.5.

Hybrid Names
Another culture feature we've revisited in hybrid names. The triggers, mostly imported from CK2, didn't quite make sense in the new CK3 system, so we overhauled them. Now, you should see French much more readily arising when the AI Franks conquer Gaul!

This is automagically-generated by the GUI when you set up historical/Easter egg hybrids, just like in Vanilla​

It also turns out there was an additional "bug" (not really, but behaves like one) where the game does not like a hybrid having the same name as a culture that already exists in the database (e.g., French as a hybrid and French as a historical culture). Thankfully, through the power of coding magic, I've found a work around, so there's very little impeding the creation of proper hybrid cultures by the AI now.

Marital Practices
A final, new culture-related thing, something I've wanted to do for a long time, was fix a little historical oddity. While many Germanic tribes adopted Christianity, they tended to retain their historical marital practices for centuries afterwards; one of the greatest examples is Charlemagne, a thorough and devout Christian who nonetheless had a number of concubines (e.g., Gersuinda, Madelgard, &c.). So, historically, the adoption of Christianity did not end the Germanic practices of concubinage (or the Irish practice of polygamy, for that matter). To that end, we've added an even that captures this sort of transition.

When the culture head with an unreformed faith converts to a reformed faith, and the marital practices of the two differ, there's a chance the culture will adopt the unreformed faith's marital practices. This event fires if:

• The culture head is converting to a reformed faith from an unreformed faith
• The culture head controls at least 50% of the culture's counties
• The culture head's old, unreformed faith is present in 50% of the culture's counties

Unfortunately, it seems the on_action fires at religion conversion and none of them (that I can find) fire right before, so I have not been able to make it so you actually keep your concubines/secondary wives on conversion to monogamous faiths. Call it a side effect of being overzealous in your conversion, until I find a way to patch it...

Regardless, the migrating Germanic tribes won't necessarily loose access to concubines now when converting to the True Faith, and instead that cultural practice can and will continue, just like historically.

Minorities
We've made some small tweaks to minorities as well:

• Whenever you convert a faith (by event/decision/interface/what have you), a large minority of your old faith appears in your capital.
• Culture creation removes parent culture minorities in counties that flip to the new hybrid.
• When promoting a hybrid culture in a county of a parent culture during the period where you have a bonus for conversion, no minority of the parent culture remains when the county culture flips.

These tweaks, although small, should help remove lingering parent minorities in you counties and prevent the sudden unexpected disappearance of unbelievers in your capital.

Conclusion
None of this is as cool or sexy as the Senate, but it covers a number of things I wanted to tweak and improve since Royal Court and I'm excited to have implemented them.

Don't know when the next one will be, but progress is happening in a positive and forward direction!

That's it for now; there's other fun things in the pipeline for 0.1.5, but that will wait for next time!

 

[LT-Rascek]

That's good to hear. Are they always going to happen or only under certain circumstances? I love the system and definitely have some ideas for runs now that I know it exists, but it does feel a bit strange for my Romans to no longer be speaking Latin even though they rebuilt the empire in the west and a lot of the conditions that caused the shifts irl were thusly avoided.

I'm working on the united polity blocking triggers; seems partly bugged, so I'll do some more digging.