• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Is there a function that can change someone's name via event/decision (i.e. Temujin -> Genghis Khan or ascension events)? If not, then there should be one.

EDIT: Answered.
 
Last edited:
These have probably been said before, but I did not see them on the front page.


1. An additional tier for culture_families above culture_groups, so instead of:

Code:
north_germanic = { ...
        norse = { ...
        swedish = { ...
}

you have:

Code:
germanic_family {=
        north_germanic_group { = ...
                  norse = { ...
                  swedish = { ...
                  ...
        }
        west_germanic_group { =
                   anglosaxon = 
                   ...
        }
        ...
}

Would be helpful for modding non-Earth worlds and could add further layers of nuance to existing scenarios and historical mods.


2. An further tier above culture_family called SPECIES that affects things like lifespans, childbearing age, fertility threshold, male-to-female sex birth ratio, and what other SPECIES it is possible to intermarry with. Admittedly not useful for historic games which feature only humans, unless someone made a Stone Age mod with neanderthals, but very helpful for fantasy world mods that have elves, dwarves, orcs, trolls, etc. like Lord of the Rings, Elder Kings, or your own Runemaster game world.


3. It is hard to support fan-unfriendly file formats like TGA and particularly DDS, especially when we are talking about a 2D strategy game. If the aim is to impress media and casual gamers who only look at moving pictures, I would rather you waste time on useless 3D CGI cut-scenes instead of making it impossible for ordinary people with ordinary computers and ordinary computer skills but with a great passion for your game to just not mod your game because it has been made too difficult to even try.
 
3. It is hard to support fan-unfriendly file formats like TGA and particularly DDS, especially when we are talking about a 2D strategy game. If the aim is to impress media and casual gamers who only look at moving pictures, I would rather you waste time on useless 3D CGI cut-scenes instead of making it impossible for ordinary people with ordinary computers and ordinary computer skills but with a great passion for your game to just not mod your game because it has been made too difficult to even try.
Err, TGA and DDS are more or less industry standard file formats, and GIMP is free, fairly user-friendly, and can run on ANY ordinary computer. Heck, you can even officially download Photoshop for free now. So what exactly are you expecting, pray tell? JPG is a compressed mess with no alpha, BMP is an uncompressed mess with no alpha, and PNG does not support alpha channel. You don't hear modders with graphics skills whine about scripts and events being too difficult for them because the codes weren't designed for ordinary people with ordinary computer skills.
 
Or, better, to make them moddable if one would represent a Norse Gran Mayor differently from a Duke... if this is "hardcoded" too... well I have no words :rofl:

Er... of course it's hardcoded? Everything about republic graphics is hardcoded. The only way to make republics moddable is if you disable The Republic, which, frankly, is ridiculous.

And while I'm listing things that are obnoxiously hardcoded - dynasty names of the form "of [Title]"! These are a blight and must be eliminated from my mod completely. I don't want a single one to show up. All randomly generated dynasties MUST be drawn from the list in 00_dynasties.txt. No exceptions. Unfortunately, the game takes the opposite attitude - it loves these terrible fake dynasty names and will always use them no matter what I do! Some option to sidestep that issue would be amazing, even if it's only a "dynasty = random_real_dynasty" command (and an "is_real_dynasty" condition to go with it)
 
Err, TGA and DDS are more or less industry standard file formats, and GIMP is free, fairly user-friendly, and can run on ANY ordinary computer. Heck, you can even officially download Photoshop for free now. So what exactly are you expecting, pray tell? JPG is a compressed mess with no alpha, BMP is an uncompressed mess with no alpha, and PNG does not support alpha channel. You don't hear modders with graphics skills whine about scripts and events being too difficult for them because the codes weren't designed for ordinary people with ordinary computer skills.

I am sure you are correct and meant your reply it in a friendly way, but for someone like me with no graphics training whatsoever, apart from what I have picked up over the years working on websites and like positions, I find these unfamiliar file formats difficult to use and a barrier to entry, a discouraging factor. I wouldn't call it "whining" really, especially if the aim of Paradox Studios is to make their games accessible to a wider audience, and why shouldn't it be? Everyone should be playing these games, they are infinitely superior to all the other strategy games out there.

The Game of Thrones and Elder Kings mods got great PR in the gaming press, in many cases got more press than the original game itself, and they drew additional attention to the game and brought in additional fans. In particular the Game of Thrones mod is better, bar none, than any other crappy Game of Thrones title on the market. So how many people came in and said, "I want to make a Forgotten Realms or Hyborean Age Conan mod" or whatever, and gave up because it is too difficult? Age of Wonders 3 to cite a counter-example has a built in editor which while hardly perfect is at least reasonably accessible. Paradox Games are somewhat closer on the continuum to Dwarf Fortress on the level of inscrutable unusability.

TGAs don't even have previews in Windows folders, so it makes hard to see at a glance what flags are done, to cite one example. The compression options are also a mystery. And while DDS might be a game industry standard, my ancient hand-me-down copy of Photoshop won't open them, there are no plugins for this version, and I don't know anything about GIMP, I thought it was a Linux only program. I don't know why a tiny pixilated button has to be a DDS file not a PNG.

This barrier to entry is most obvious when trying to create a new map. There are no official tutorials, lots of difficult file formats, one pixel wrong, the game crashes, etc. That might be great for a few people on the forum who have the skills to understand the tools, but in terms of the long-term success and health of Paradox games, it is not helpful. It will always be in danger of making CKII modding a lost art and an esoteric skill controlled by a few priests, instead of translated into the language of the masses and available for all.

So call me a CKII Protestant. :)
 
Er... of course it's hardcoded? Everything about republic graphics is hardcoded. The only way to make republics moddable is if you disable The Republic, which, frankly, is ridiculous.

Yes to have historical Republic with right clothes you should do fake monarchies :rofl::rofl::rofl:

And while I'm listing things that are obnoxiously hardcoded - dynasty names of the form "of [Title]"! These are a blight and must be eliminated from my mod completely. I don't want a single one to show up. All randomly generated dynasties MUST be drawn from the list in 00_dynasties.txt. No exceptions. Unfortunately, the game takes the opposite attitude - it loves these terrible fake dynasty names and will always use them no matter what I do! Some option to sidestep that issue would be amazing, even if it's only a "dynasty = random_real_dynasty" command (and an "is_real_dynasty" condition to go with it)

Yes I've seen monstrously as "of of xxx" or worst "of de" when he tries to use Italian dynasty failing... all this to write a totally unfunny "of de Barcelona"... what phantasy :eek:

Admittedly this game is a lot moddable and maybe it is for this we are so demanding, but in the end these limitations have no sense...
 
I am sure you are correct and meant your reply it in a friendly way, but for someone like me with no graphics training whatsoever, apart from what I have picked up over the years working on websites and like positions, I find these unfamiliar file formats difficult to use and a barrier to entry, a discouraging factor. I wouldn't call it "whining" really, especially if the aim of Paradox Studios is to make their games accessible to a wider audience, and why shouldn't it be? Everyone should be playing these games, they are infinitely superior to all the other strategy games out there.

The Game of Thrones and Elder Kings mods got great PR in the gaming press, in many cases got more press than the original game itself, and they drew additional attention to the game and brought in additional fans. In particular the Game of Thrones mod is better, bar none, than any other crappy Game of Thrones title on the market. So how many people came in and said, "I want to make a Forgotten Realms or Hyborean Age Conan mod" or whatever, and gave up because it is too difficult? Age of Wonders 3 to cite a counter-example has a built in editor which while hardly perfect is at least reasonably accessible. Paradox Games are somewhat closer on the continuum to Dwarf Fortress on the level of inscrutable unusability.

TGAs don't even have previews in Windows folders, so it makes hard to see at a glance what flags are done, to cite one example. The compression options are also a mystery. And while DDS might be a game industry standard, my ancient hand-me-down copy of Photoshop won't open them, there are no plugins for this version, and I don't know anything about GIMP, I thought it was a Linux only program. I don't know why a tiny pixilated button has to be a DDS file not a PNG.

This barrier to entry is most obvious when trying to create a new map. There are no official tutorials, lots of difficult file formats, one pixel wrong, the game crashes, etc. That might be great for a few people on the forum who have the skills to understand the tools, but in terms of the long-term success and health of Paradox games, it is not helpful. It will always be in danger of making CKII modding a lost art and an esoteric skill controlled by a few priests, instead of translated into the language of the masses and available for all.

So call me a CKII Protestant. :)

Gimp is multi-platform, but requires a plugin to handle .dds. Paint.net is a Windows graphics program that handles .dds and .tga natively.

While there is a lack of good tutorials for map making, the information is available if you look hard enough, but please? "Lots of difficult file formats"? The files for maps are .bmp and text files. Nothing particularly difficult. The biggest barrier of making mods with original maps is the shear tedium of map and history creation.
 
Since it usually gets buried by follow-up posts, and I can't remember/don't have time to dig at this second; here's suggestions:

  • Fix the christian_portraits = yes to actually be for Christians, or make it moddable for other sets.
  • Unlock hardcoded "layers" for portraits to allow custom layers to be added by modders.
  • Create a "mix_clothes = no" (or its equivalent) in the cultures file to prevent certain cultures from using other clothing sets, or preventing certain ethnicities from wearing certain cultures clothing (the more moddable, the better).
  • Remove the "headgear_that_hides_hair" restriction from applying at the ethnic level and port over to the cultural level.
  • Add a "Headgear_that_hides_beard" option to the .gfx files.
  • Unlock hardcoded merchant portraits and allow it to be tied to religion, culture, or both.
  • Introduce targeted date switches into the cultures file for portraits, along with _early or _late tags. (To allow things like Seljuk clothing turning to Ottoman/beylik clothing at a certain date. This must not be global in defines since it would break portrait switching for custom timelines and misrepresent cultures that switch aesthetically at different times).
  • Add a difference between vertical and horizontal scale for the map border for custom-sized maps, instead of the two currently in the game (1:1 and 2:3 ratio, I believe?)
  • Beg, borrow, violate contracts, etc. to come up with a converter for .xac files (Definitely not going to happen, but having custom 3d assets where they could jsut convert to .xac would be great)
  • If conversion of .xac files is not possible, create flat counters, HOI style, with large-enough area and moddability to let custom artwork assets be placed on them in lieu of 3d models. That would lower visual memory load and make the game run better, especially for people with crappy PCs.
 
Sorry about it taking me this long to get the OP updated.
Anyway, I've now updated it with everything from the 15th of May (the last day Gars added to his log) and later I'm sorry if I've missed anything.
Added suggestions:
  • Let the .mod file define necessary DLC, giving the user a warning if they try to enable the mod without the indicated DLC
  • Add a toggle to make cultural naming dependent on the province owner rather than top liege
  • Allow defining groups of unit types for combat tactics and other modifiers (E.G., technology)
  • Export the weighting for fertility when it comes to accepting marriage proposals
  • Export a toggle to have count-tier realms use dynastic names, not just duchies and above
  • Add a can_use_title_gui section for CBs so that conditions based on the title itself can also be displayed
  • Allow non-republican realms to use the merchant republic mechanics
  • Add an on_startup on_action
  • Add an on_save_loaded on_action
  • Add a has_minor_river condition
  • Make it possible to denote that specific cultures are not to use patrician clothing (E.G., patrician_clothing = no)
  • Allow overriding event localisation dynamically (E.G., "if = { limit = { culture = norwegian } text = EVT1000.norwegian })
  • Allow localising building names and descriptions based on culture/religion
  • Allow inserting arbitrary numbers into custom tooltips (E.G., having [GetCustomTooltipValue] be replaced by a value parameter (value = 100, or value = variable))
  • Allow non-patrician buildings to boost stats
  • Add a change_gender = male/female command
  • ​Add a can_be_destroyed section for titles. If the conditions aren't met, the title cannot be destroyed
  • Make founder-named dynasties probabilistic instead of binary. (E.G., founder_named_dynasty = 0.5 giving a 50% chance of dynasties of that culture being founder-named)
  • Add a set_dna command
  • Allow defining multiple capitals for titles. If the first capital isn't within the realm, the second will be used and so on
  • Add a dynastic_naming flag for titles, making the title always use a dynastic name
  • Add a destroy_holding command
  • Add a ai_incest_chance parameter for religions that allow incestuous marriage, affecting how likely the AI is to accept/offer an incestuous marriage
  • Export the assignment of education traits to an event called by on_adulthood. It is currently hardcoded
  • Export a toggle for whether merchant republics benefit from legalism's bonus to demesne size. Currently they don't
  • Add FEUDAL_GOLD_TO_MONTHLY_PRESTIGE
  • Allow localising nicknames based on culture/religion/gender
  • Make the calendar scriptable (many fantasy worlds to not use the Gregorian calendar). Custom number of months, and custom number of days for each individual month
  • Add an optional ai_delay section for decisions, making the AI wait an arbitrary number of days before taking a decision, further modifiable with multipliers (similar to ai_will_do)
  • Allow making arbitrary cultures related. E.G., Frisian being related to both English and Dutch, thus only receiving the penalties associated with being in the same group. Preferably allowing several levels of relation
  • Everything in Crackd's last post
I would really like a gfx_clothes_culture for console and savegame and mods .

So can make some more mixed look in a court .

And can_hold_palace , to simplify by just making a 00_palace.txt (without having to go scrib a lot stuff)
basic engine is already recognising 00_palace.txt .

Anyway to extend the republic overlay for all cultures ? Even if the last page is empty and a gold sink !
If you could clarify what you mean that'd be appreciated.
Being able to edit the hard coded born in the purple mechanics would be useful.
In what way?
I saw this in another thread but being able to create special unchanging portraits could be useful (like Muhammad's)
Can't this be done by triggering a portrait overlay on top of the portrait based on the character ID or a character flag?[/quote]

I'd also like to see the ability to mod births of specific characters into the game. Like an event that would force a woman to become pregnant with that specific child so after 9 months when they're born it'll be a character from the history files instead of a random character. This could be used to make specific important highborn characters always get birthed instead of just spawning them (like causing Cersei to always birth Joffery in GoT, or Senna to always birth Korra in Avatar LoK).
Can't you essentially do this by event by having a dummy "pregnant" trait that doesn't cause the actual pregnancy mechanic to happen, then spawning the child by event?
Deciding if a religion can send missions by court chaplain would be nice. I mostly just want reformed pagans to convert their neighbors peacefully instead of the sword.
You can already mod the requirements for sending your court chaplain, and all the other councilors, on missions.
move dynamic localisation outside of landed_titles
Already on the list:
  • Ability to change title/ruler localisation based on culture/religion from outside the landed_titles file, so that mod compatibility is easier to maintain. E.G., by putting it in localisation instead: "d_lancaster_welsh;Rheged;Rheged;Rheged;;Rheged;;;;;;;;;x"
Separate the feature whereby a dynasty using auto-generated coat of arms uses it own coat of arms as the coat of arms of it's main title from the dynasty name feature.

Bleh what a mouthful.

Basically I want to make it so - if you have auto-generated coats of arms above baronies, you get to use your own dynasty coat of arms (like most Muslims and Indians currently do) without having to have dynasty names.
Please elaborate; that sounds like it could potentially just be a bug of some sort.
 
add a command to spawn a trade post by event

add the ability to localise holding names based on culture on religion (along with buildings, which is already in the list).

Allow set_graphial_culture to be used inside if clauses, and inside immediate clauses (right now trying that just either have no effect or make the game crash).

add support for properly working titular baronies. (right now, if you create a titular barony by event it will get no flag, but a black sqaure without event the ability to ustomise it).
 
add a command to spawn a trade post by event
Added "Add a build_tradepost command"

add the ability to localise holding names based on culture on religion (along with buildings, which is already in the list).
You can already localise holding names, like any title, based on culture. "Ability to change title localisation based on religion" is already on the list.

Allow set_graphial_culture to be used inside if clauses, and inside immediate clauses (right now trying that just either have no effect or make the game crash).
Report it as a bug; the list is for suggestions not bug reports.

add support for properly working titular baronies. (right now, if you create a titular barony by event it will get no flag, but a black sqaure without event the ability to ustomise it).
Also sounds like a bug.
 
Didin't mean title localisation, but holding tye localisation. E.G a astle being localised "castle" for a christian but "alcalat" for muslims. (And so on for temple, city, family palace and trade post).

I want, for example make a pirate religions so that pirates call their family_palace "hideout" instead of "palace" (independently of the title)
 
Can't you essentially do this by event by having a dummy "pregnant" trait that doesn't cause the actual pregnancy mechanic to happen, then spawning the child by event?

I never even though of that. Thanks.
 
Didin't mean title localisation, but holding tye localisation. E.G a astle being localised "castle" for a christian but "alcalat" for muslims. (And so on for temple, city, family palace and trade post).

I want, for example make a pirate religions so that pirates call their family_palace "hideout" instead of "palace" (independently of the title)
Added:
  • Allow localising holding types by culture/religion
 
I looked at your list of additions and I don't see my suggestion to ad an option for friendships to become alliances and common enemies to become alliances. Did I miss it or is there a reason you decided not to include it?
Essentially on the list already:
  • Moddable alliances (ability to set non-marriage alliances, change the rules for what constitutes an alliance, etc)