Thank You dark ages !

[Amritochates]

The original tone of this post was meant to be a lot sarcastic than it actually is, in retrospect it has been a windfall instead of the disaster it originally seemed.

To explain myself I need to give some background- the events are as follows:

Firstly, about ten days ago my family went on an tropical island getaway, I however decided not to go and instead, well play some quality DLV (Am between assignments currently.)

So to cut a long story short I started a campaign as soon as I got back from the airport. Well since then I have been maintaining a 1:1 ratio between the hours I sleep and the time I spent playing DLV. (Roughly about 7-8 hours daily).

In fact the above hours are probably an understatement, lets just say that I was just a couple of days away from peeing into the empty beer bottles that were stacking up under the computer desk. I played so much DLV that I nearly developed early onset carpal tunnel- my left elbow is still sore and my right wrist still aches from the continuous mouse clicking.

Well no more, since yesterday I am a free man and haven't played an hour of DLV. The reason for this is yesterday I hit the dark ages which I might add was a bit of a surprise to me. I had assumed that the dark ages event only was unique to the total war option when we choose gameplay styles (TW or CIV), which IMHO it should be.

Still the plagues weren't so bad, any way my family tree was becoming a bit bloated so I will miss my 6 star faction heir (was playing the HRE so the family tree dying out was not much of a problem), what pissed me off the sudden breaking of alliances that had held since the beginning of the game, or that my allies/neighbors with whom I had perfect relations suddenly went into what another forumer has aptly described as T3-rise of the machine mode.

This when my faction leader is titled the saint, when I have put in the effort to have a Trustworthy global reputation and have perfect relations with all my neighbors (I chose the CIV option didn't I), and believe it does not come easy. So when the dark ages script kicked in it killed all immersion for me- I could have just gone bat- and ignored diplomacy and role-playing for all the good it did me.

Still as they say every cloud has a silver lining, if the dark ages event hadn't happened I would be still be stuck in my house playing DLV- so yeeahhhhh !

The fact is I am still ambivalent about the entire dark ages thing.Originally I had decided to do as Cedric37 had done and delete the dark ages script before staring a new campaign but in retrospect I will now be binding it to the TOKUS_GODS_JUDGEMENT_ON_THE_WORLD event to shift it to the late campaign when things really need to be shaken up.

Still as stated above I believe that the dark ages should be unique to the TW option in the campaign styles, or should be given as a choice or best of all should be a completely random event with a low probability and a randomized date.

[Shadrach]

As much of a DLV addict as I am - if I had the option of going to a tropical getaway or playing DLV for two weeks straight I would still choose the tropics mate!

But yeah I share your opinion on the Dark Ages - I'm a "slow and peaceful" campaigner and its just annoying that decades-old allies suddenly turn on you. I understand it's there to counter the stupid campaign AI and avoid players owning all of Europe in a short time like in vanilla, but I agree it should be optional to turn it off...

[RedGuard]

it easy to repair your relations after the dark ages, i did so by buying the papal states to pefect rlationship which costs a 100,000 florins, easy to do in late campaign with hre if you took over france and itlay and then launch a crusade against moors. your rep with catholic factions will go up to good/ verygood relations and you'll easily make allies in yor war with the moors. don't worry about the "Very reliable" next to your faction in diplomacy, trust me nobody keeps that for very long unless your king is christ reborn. the good news is the darkages end and for the most part things go back to normal.

good to hear you got your life back though

[Amritochates]

As much of a DLV addict as I am - if I had the option of going to a tropical getaway or playing DLV for two weeks straight I would still choose the tropics mate!

Some clarification is required here- firstly it wasn't a true vacation, my aunt is a doctor on the aforesaid island, and my family was going to stay with her. That way we end up paying up only the airfare (Thats the only way to afford a family vacation in this recession.) and I wasn't very keen on spending several days at her place(we don't get on very well) and plus it was a vacation for me as well- as bad as it sounds one needs a vacation from the family time to to time. So by doing this winners all round

t easy to repair your relations after the dark ages, i did so by buying the papal states to perfect relationship which costs a 100,000 florins, easy to do in late campaign with hre if you took over france and itlay and then launch a crusade against moors. your rep with catholic factions will go up to good/ verygood relations and you'll easily make allies in your war with the moors. don't worry about the "Very reliable" next to your faction in diplomacy, trust me nobody keeps that for very long unless your king is christ reborn. the good news is the darkages end and for the most part things go back to normal.

See you don't get the point this was a strict RPG campaign- one objective of which was to retain a very trustworthy/trustworthy global reputation till the end, and I didn't care much for my allies turning on me because of some script. If i had wanted that sort of campaign I could have taken the TW option in campaign styles.

good to hear you got your life back though

Thanks for that - feels great (I keep replaying this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzlpTRNIAvc in my head)

[RedGuard]

good song. being in the marines this is my theme song :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31jenMJ0UOc

But the only way to keep very good/reliable reltaionship is to never fight any other faction never, ally with a trouble maker-nigh impossible unless you never ally with anybody and never get attacked. which is impossible in dlv or vanilla. pretty much impossible in any mod. the most you can hope for is mixed/ trustworthy rep which is hard in and of itself especially if you use spys/assassins. to me all that matters is economic and military might, which is all that kings in the medieval age cared about too. they didn't give two what another king thought about them as long as thier realm was stronger in some way. I think Caligula as crazy as he was said it best:

"Let them hate us as long as they fear us"

[Tokus*Maximus]

I'd like the plague to hit at random and spread slowly like treacle rather than BANG - every one has it. Or, some settlements get it, some don't. An event just prior of dark forboding things or an early indicator would be neat. I wish it didn't affect stanch allies so much. Oh well - a plague sub-mod draws nigh for some lucky scripter! Heh.

[RedGuard]

losing allies is frustratiing but i use the dark ages as a oppurtunity to expand rapidly and conquer some "unneeded" allies that you allied with early in game for a certain reason and they outlived thier usefullness.