[Windows 10] Issues with defines.lua in file-edited game after purchasing Charlemagne expansion

[Fylkir Thorongil]

Greetings,

To give some prior context, for the past few weeks I've been running a file-edited vanilla CK2 game as the Emperor of Scandinavia starting in the year 867 using The Old Gods expansion where I've tweaked the save and other files for experimentation using the program Notepad++. This includes things such as editing vassal limits, editing values in game, 100 stat man, triggering events via console, et cetera but this does not include any mods besides a single small mod to remove great works if needed. The other expansions that I have running at this time besides Charlemagne and The Old Gods are Holy Fury, Horse Lords, Way of Life, The Republic, Legacy of Rome, and The Sword of Islam.

Last night, I purchased the Charlemagne expansion for CK2 as it was on sale and downloaded it to my current CK2 game files. Upon launching the game and entering into my aforementioned edited game, I noticed that my vassal limit appeared to have been reset. It was originally at 142/145 last time I opened this file, however it now displayed this as 142/85 as you can see here:

It appeared to me, therefore, that my defines.lua file must have been reset when I downloaded the new expansion, as I had the Emperor Rank base multiplier at 90 to grant myself more vassals, and therefore by reopening and editing this file that I should be able to reset it. However, when I opened this file I discovered that my previous settings for this multiplier and other edits had not been changed. Furthermore, upon attempts to edit any of the multipliers in this file, then close and restart CK2 this did not change any values inputted into the game. Nor did anything change when I turned off the Charlemagne expansion and restarted the game.

I then attempted to create a mod file as per the Defines section on the CK2 wiki to override the existing defines.lua to be able to continue to edit, however this solution did not appear to work.

As I am at a lost as to what may have caused this, I am therefore creating this thread to ask if anyone might have a solution or know if by chance some other file is overriding the defines.lua file.

 

[Whizzer]

Did you unpause the game and let it run for a while? That may be all the game needs to recalculate your vassal limit.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

,,,, but this does not include any mods besides a single small mod to remove great works if needed. ,

First rule, you should always create a mod.
Second, when testing the mod, you should not run other mods.

Apart from that, if the mentioned mod is the one i think it is, then it has a defines.lua included.
There you go.

Regarding expansions, only Conclave can have an effect on this.

 

[Fylkir Thorongil]

Did you unpause the game and let it run for a while? That may be all the game needs to recalculate your vassal limit.

As you suggested I ran the game for another 3-4 months, as you can see by the date in the image below compared to my original post, however this did not result in the values realigning with those in the defines.lua

 

[Fylkir Thorongil]

First rule, you should always create a mod.
Second, when testing the mod, you should not run other mods.

Apart from that, if the mentioned mod is the one i think it is, then it has a defines.lua included.
There you go.

Regarding expansions, only Conclave can have an effect on this.

The mod I have been using is called Destroy Wonders (see here as apparently using a certain website is deemed spam? /workshop/filedetails/?id=1755408585) which only came as a small .zip file and a .mod file. If you unzip the .zip file it only has a .txt file for including the decision to remove the wonder, a common folder which includes a game_rules folder with another .txt file for the cost of destroying the wonder, and a .jpg image of an explosion from the mod page on the workshop. It does not come with a defines.lua to my knowledge and looking into it again I have not found anything.

That being said, I've had this mod installed with my CK2 game files since sometime between August and October of last year and I have never had it cause any complications. This effect of the vassal limit change came immediately after downloading the Charlemagne expansion and then launching my game with it installed.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

The mod I have been using is called Destroy Wonders

Different mod then.

(see here as apparently using a certain website is deemed spam? /workshop/filedetails/?id=1755408585)

Just because you have not enough posts or the account being too young.

..This effect of the vassal limit change came immediately after downloading the Charlemagne expansion and then launching my game with it installed.

Charlemagne DLC itself has no effect on that.

100 stat man

Errr..while not sure what you refer to, can it be that your character simply had far more diplomacy at the time you recall to having the 142/145 limit, than in the save file you loaded and took the pictures of ?

 

[Fylkir Thorongil]

Errr..while not sure what you refer to, can it be that your character simply had far more diplomacy at the time you recall to having the 142/145 limit, than in the save file you loaded and took the pictures of ?

100 stat man refers to when you take a character's 5 base traits and change them to 100 which makes them OP as hell. For instance, this is the current ruler in my game:

Spoiler: Ruler

However, to also check to see if this was the case in at a previous point in time I opened the autosave from the year prior, which showed the same issue remained. It also shows that the diplomacy bonus from my character is one point smaller indicating there was little to no change within that period.

And finally, this is the defines.lua that should be affecting the game saves however it is not. Note that I've highlighted the section indicating that the emperor vassal base limit modifier is at 90 whereas all the screenshots show it to be 30

Spoiler: defines.lua

 

[Fylkir Thorongil]

I am unsure as to how, but it seems the game has corrected itself in some manner. The affect for the emperor vassal base limit is not being properly represented, and for some reason the diplomacy bonus is much larger than before. I would like to say that it was due to a restart, however I tried this the other day and did not succeed. My only guess would have to be after multiple re-launches of the game the file began to behave properly.

 

[Karl Franz]

What defines.lua did you edit?
There's one in the program files and this is restored every time you update the game, that seems your case, couse the game updates when you buy a dlc. You should create a little personal mod or edit another mod you use in the documents folder route to avoid it changes files when the game updates.
Maybe that's the problem. If no Idk.

 

[Fylkir Thorongil]

I discovered what happened. I keep all of my games on a portable SSD drive. By chance on the night that I bought and downloaded the Charlemagne expansion, I also had a second USB drive plugged into my machine. Today I went to look into this USB and discovered that it had created a new file for CK2 and included a brand new defines.lua which was overriding the one from my SSD drive. The other day when it was working correctly was when I also had removed this USB drive.

Lesson of the story is to be wary of where your downloads are ending up so it seems.