Caralampio's Odds and Ends for SS 6.1 "Downdate"
CARALAMPIO’S ODDS & ENDS FOR STAINLESS STEEL v 6.1 "Downdate"
This add-on is a collection of all my minimods and modifies a number of traits and ancillaries for SS 6.1, fixes a couple of bugs and makes a few other tweaks. Little things, really, but things that make the game more enjoyable. As you may notice, my interests are along the roleplaying line; popes, titles, families, traits, ancillaries… I call it the "downdate" because it is a return to earlier times and versions after having worked with CO&E for SS 6.2+RR/RC. I found some stuff still hanging around but much I hade to remake from scratch. It contains stuff that has already been fixed in the more advanced versions of the mod, meant for those of us who for any reason are sticking with SS 6.1.
What’s in this add-on:
Real Death: Reactivates (and tweaks) the Beyond Battle and Senile traits which existed (buried in the files) since vanilla 1.0 but did not have triggers. Characters can die anytime between 56 and 89, with an average (“life expectancy”) of about 65, instead of almost all characters dying shortly after reaching 60.
Beyond Battle: Beginning at 62, generals may acquire the "Beyond Battle" trait which makes them weaker in battle. Robust generals are likely to get it later in their life, while sickly ones tend to get it earlier.
Senile: Beyond 64, generals may gain senility traits (the increasing levels are: Somewhat Senile, Senile, and Totally Senile), which tend to make them bad in battle and as governors. The chances are not very high, no need to worry (too much)…
Royal Women: This mod causes "of xxx blood" traits (“of French blood” for instance), to be transmitted to the sons and (princess) daughters of royal princesses that remain in your family tree. This way the original royal bloodline is more likely to remain in your family members.
Princesses that you marry away to other factions, or foreign princesses that come into your tree, will give "xxx relations" traits (“Polish relations” for example). However, in this mod these relations traits give some useful effects, instead of just "that sense of entitlement". The new princesses for the crusader factions have been integrated. “Relations” traits can still be passed on to progeny but only from male to male.
Merchant’s Mod: In SS merchants do not gain finance over time like they used to in vanilla. The only practical way to gain finance is to hunt other merchants, but that is quite difficult given the low % of success. Here, merchants have a small chance per turn of gaining monopolist and good merchant traits. This is just for being alive; it is assumed that wherever he is, he is doing something mercantile. There is an additional small chance of gaining finance if he is actually on top of a resource.
Typically, in a lifetime a merchant will gain 5-6 finance, but a lucky one can reach higher especially if he gains other useful traits, while an unlucky one might gain just one or two, or even none. This works nicely with the age mod because a merchant reaching advanced age might become a financial monster.
This also allows you to train inexperienced merchants. You can send them to some backwater, a low profile resource in a faraway corner where it is unlikely that he will attract the attentions of enemy merchants. On that resource he can gain experience and move on when he is powerful enough.
Courtesans: The chances of getting an adultress because a building of the brothel line exists in the city are reduced. The chance per turn of getting an adultress with this mod are:
Brothel- 0%
Inn- 1%
Tavern- 2%
Coaching House- 3%
Pleasure Palace- 5%
The chances used to be 8% per turn with any building from brothel up, which practically guaranteed getting it in a few turns.
In addition to high chivalry or a charming wife, now a high piety can also make a general immune to adultery (makes sense, no?). Having a high piety also makes a general immune to getting a foreign adultress (and the overall chance of gaining this ancillary has been slightly reduced). For generals with different (ahem) inclinations, a level 2 ‘arse’ trait is now required to have any chance of gaining a lover that can grow a beard. That is, he has to be beyond just ‘uninhibited’.
Miscellaneous tweaks: For example, it is more unusual for priests to be secretly female, and diplomats are less likely to be religiously intolerant. Polish princesses no longer get -1 charm, which was so unfair. It is now less probable for all agents to get bad traits after failing a mission (like "bad denouncer" for a priest after failing to burn a heretic).
Traits And Ancillaries Text Revision: CO&E includes a thorough revision of the text associated with traits and ancillaries; fixing grammatical errors, rephrasing some statements and also making it more consistent from a gaming and historical point of view. The third person style has been almost entirely dropped (like in: “This man is very loyal to you, sire…”) in favor of straight descriptions. Titles have been revised to be more accurate to the region and the language spoken there. Examples…
Dublin- Prince of Leinster
Stockholm- Hertig av Sodermanland
Islamic Toledo- Amir of Tulaytulah
Characteristics description has been modified to accommodate vanilla convention, with numbers always to the left (“-4 from personal security (increases the chances of falling victim to assassination)” instead of “Security -4”, for instance).
A few bugs (missing text) found in these files have been fixed.
Note: This revision has nothing to do, and does not interfere, with the Text Overhaul mod included in the RR 1.3/RC 1.8+ bundle.
One Man, One Title: A multiplicity of titles does not a great governor make, in real life, but that’s the case in the game. With this submod nobiliary titles will trigger for a character ending his turn in a settlement, but only if he does not already hold a title. It is still possible for a character to accumulate multiple titles, but only by transfer.
This helps players to manage their nobility as it is easier to see which titles are unclaimed and send untitled characters to get them. It also prevents too many titles accumulating on a single man, which frequently happens to campaigning generals. For instance, a given general will normally be just the Duke of York, period. (I know I know, nobles could and did hold multiple titles. I recommend you check emperor Charles V’s curriculum in Wikipedia! It’s mostly for gaming reasons).
You will usually find that the number of titles in use by your faction equals the number of generals you have, so choose them wisely.
One way of getting more titles for a single man is by transfer. A good idea is having your king bestow any title he holds to another general, then go pick an unclaimed title, bestow it, claim another one, etc. Why does it have to be the king? Because he won’t suffer any bad traits from being stripped of a title. Other generals will become disloyal if they have to give it away. This gives a new role to the king, and makes you work for extra titles if you want them. However, I suggest letting the one man, one title system work as it is.
This mod also fixes most of the titles that give loyalty -2 or -3, which are a headache, reducing the loyalty loss to a manageable -1 (-2 is kept only for a couple of locations). A player should not have to make his generals avoid a city because the title of that place is horrible.
Numberless Popes: Removes the numeral from Pope (and other Papal States character) names. While the Roman numeral might arguably give a “papal” taste to the name, it gives rise to situations like Gregorius X being succeeded by Gregorius X (or even worse, by Gregorius IX!). Also, having diplomats and spies named Clemens V or Julius II is ridiculous. Finally, if we follow the same logic kings should also have numerals (Henry IV, Alfonso VI, etc.) but they don’t. The names and ages of the Popes for the different campaigns have been modified to approximate historical data. Incidentally, the Pope who appears initially in 1080 (Gregorius IX) is wrong; he should be Gregorius VII.
Using this mod, when I’m in the roleplaying mood I actually write down the names of Popes that appear in my games and check them against a historical list of Popes, then I assign them the number that corresponds (in my list only, of course, no way to do it in the game!) For instance, if a second Gregorius appears, he is Gregorius VIII. If an Innocentius gets elected, he would be Innocentius II, etc. This would be much better with a 2tpy mod, though, because having Popes living more than a century sort of takes the fun out of it.
Cairo Bug Fix: Fixes the bug causing almost every crusade to be called against Cairo; Jerusalem becomes the target of choice. The first crusade is usually Jerusalem, but crusades are still regularly called to other targets. Also removes Palermo as a jihad target, preventing Muslim armies from getting stuck forever in Tunis.
Catholic Councils Fix: Orthodox priests no longer get invited to those “heretical” Roman Catholic Church councils.
The Family Album: Changes the family tree portraits for wives and children of all cultures with new, nicer portraits.
Tougher Walls: Gates have x5 hp (except in palisades) and walls have x2 hp, for more interesting siege battles.
Faster Characters: Land generals and agents now move 33% faster; ships move 50% faster.
Vanilla Skies: This not really a modification, it is returning the skies to how they were in vanilla. The skies as appearing in the original game were wonderful, the weather on the ground was coordinated with the weather in the sky. The ones in SS although sometimes interesting are not adequately coordinated, you can get a misty ground and misty mountains which then interface sharply with a crystal-clear sky, with an unrealistic effect.
Templario: A beautiful icon you can use to add flavor to your Medieval shortcut.
Embi and Fes titles: Fixes the nobiliary titles for Embi and Fes not triggering.
This bundle also includes:
Darker Nights (with torches fix) by Ziher.
Burning Men by Santiago de Pola.
Warhorns by Wolfslayer.
Bloodmod by ?... Unfortunately I've lost track of who made this wonderful blood mod. If someone recognizes the mod please tell me. Blood is very discreet and appears in a pattern like if the warrior had been sprayed by his bleeding victim, as would be in real combat; not in unrealistic splotches.
Installation (for the full tamale):
Save (or rename) your original files first!
1. Remove data/globallighting folder with all contents from your SS folder. Remove data/overlaytextures with all contents from your SS folder.
2. Extract the contents of this submod to somewhere convenient (say, the desktop). Copy all the contents and paste it inside the Stainless Steel folder; say “yes to all” when prompted to overwrite.
3. Delete events.idx and sfx.idx from data/sounds.
4. delete names.txt.strings, export_ancillaries.txt.strings, and export_vnvs.txt.strings from the data/text folder. Also delete map.rwm from the data/world/map/base folder. The next game will take some time to load as these files are being recreated.
Not savegame compatible. No claim is made as to compatibility with other submods. The rule of thumb is, if those submods alter any of the same files as this one, they are not compatible.
You Can Never Please Them All...
Inevitably, some players might ask if they can't have CO&E without this or that. Here are instructions for CO&E with different flavors:
Real Death, Royal Women, Merchants mod, Courtesans, Trais and Ancillaries Text Revision, One Man One Title, cannot be removed from the submod.
If you don't want...
...Vanilla Skies, don't remove the globallighting folder in step 1 above.
...Numberless Popes (which is the part most likely to cause problems with other submods due to altering descr_strat) cut out from CO&E before pasting it into SS: descr_names.txt, descr_names_lookup.txt, text/names.txt, and world/maps/campaign/imperial campaign/descr.strat.txt. You no longer need to delete names.txt.strings in step 4 above.
...the Cairo bug fix, cut out from CO&E before pasting it into SS: world/maps/base/descr.regions.txt. You no longer have to delete map.rwm in step 4 above.
...the Catholic Councils fix, cut out from CO&E before pasting it into SS: world/maps/campaign/imperial campaign/campaign_script.txt.
...the Family Album, cut out from CO&E before pasting it into SS: The four region folders (middle eastern, southern european, northern european and eastern european) contained in the ui folder. Don't delete the ancillaries folder.
...Tougher Walls, cut out from CO&E before pasting it into SS: descr_walls.txt.
...Faster Characters, cut out from CO&E before pasting it into SS: descr_character.txt.
...Darker Nights, cut out from CO&E before pasting it into SS: globallighting folder with all contents. Note: You can have Vanilla Skies with or without Darker Nights, or SS skies with or without Darker Nights, all depends on which files you take or leave.
...Burning Men, cut out from CO&E before pasting it into SS: descr_burning_men_effect.txt.
...Warhorns, cut out from CO&E before pasting it into SS: sounds folder with all contents; and avoid deleting events.idx and sfx.idx in step 3 above.
...the Blood Mod, cut out from CO&E before pasting it into SS: overlaytextures folder with all contents, and don't delete overlaytextures from your SS folder in step 1 above.
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