PTF: provincial titles’ fix for SSHIP 0.9.2 (included in 097+)

[Jurand of Cracow]

PTF: provincial titles’ fix for SSHIP 0.9.2
Please note that the version 2 of this submod is included in the SSHIP 0.9.6. In particular, the further changes (67 provinces fixed) are not compatible with 092, only with the new version. Obviously, it's better to play the recent versions.

There's also a new thread on PT's in 0.96, 0.97, 0.98 here.

As many players noticed, the provincial titles’ in the SSHIP need revamping. I’v played the game a bit and I can tell 7 types of errors in the current version:

• For some settlements the titles do not exist at all (eg. Goroden title doesn't exist since the SS6.4 title is given now to Volodymyr – it means new title (with the relevant file and the entries) is needed).
• The titles of some provinces cannot be acquired because the SSHIP changed the names of the settlements (eg. “Duke of Vilnius” requires a general to be in Vilnius, but in the game there’s Kernave, no Vilnius).
• The in-game names of the titles are not historical for many factions (“Duke of …” for the Polish provinces).
• The descriptions of the benefits are misleading, telling different benefits of the titles that they’re in-game (eg. description of the Kraków says {Tax Collection +5%, increased loyalty, inspiration to his troops, increased authority} whereas in reality it gives {5%Tax, 5%Trade, 1Loyalty, 1Authority, 1popularity}).
• The descriptions are not related to history, they don’t create flavor of a historical game (Entitled as Lord of Turku, a good place to establish a kingdom...)
• Sometimes there’re funny things in the descriptions (the description of Tbilisi title: it claims that the duke “seeks independence” while the title gives +1Loyalty).
• The visual depictions of the titles are not always in line with what they should be, many are ahistorical (from 16-19^th century or so), and many coat of arms are just blurry pics of something you cannot say what’s that (eg. Turku, Smolensk, Twangste etc., for blurry pics: Zara or Reval).

The problems are numerous, but not serious. You can play the game and enjoy it without paying attention to them. I play M2TW for the gameplay, and the balance between money, costs of troops, diplomacy and AI behavior is in th SSHIP the is best of any mod I'd played. But I also play for the immersion and historicity – and SSHIP is equally good, with some minor issues, as for instance the provincial titles.
Since I do optimize my playing and I would like to know if a title gives 10% Tax or 1 Law in the (in-game) reality, the titles are even more important. Therefore I’ve started to solve these problems on my own for my own – this is what this submod is about: fix of the titles’ issues. Given that I've played Poland, I’ve looked through the files and revamped the Polish titles, and also Lithuanian, Ruthenian and Hungarian ones. I came out with a set of principles for the provincial benefits. I would like to share it with you, they may be useful in future – it’s below in the next entry.

On the basis of those principles, I made many changes to the two relevant files, and created new pics where it was needed.

To be specific, I’ve made changes made concerning:

• the benefits in EDA (export_desc_ancillaries.txt)
• the descriptions of the titles/settlements/provinces in EA (export_ancillaries.txt)
• the related descriptions of the benefits in EA (export_ancillaries.txt)

for the following 30 settlements: Lubeck, Stettin, Wroclaw, Poznań, Gdańsk, Krakow, Plock, Twangste, Vilnius, Riga, Kolyvan, Turku, Polock, Pskov, Novgorod, Volodymyr, Halych, Turow, Kiev, Pereyaslav, Chernigov, Smolensk, Suzdal, Turov, Esztergom, Szekesfehervar, Varad, Gyulafehervar, Zagreb, Zara.
I’ve also created a title for Goroden (through modification the existing entry for non-existing Kaunas).

I’ve changed pictures (in the directory data/ui/ancillaries)

• Erroneous or bad quality pictures replacement for: Vilnius-Kernave (well, I don’t think the CoA of Kernave existed in 12^th century), Twangste (with 14^th c. CoA of Konigsberg), Kolyvan-Reval (three lions appeared in the 13c. and they’re traditional), Turku, Novgorod, Smolensk (well, replacement is for sure not perfect, since it’s a gun, so even if it’s traditional, it’s a later tradition, I'd like to change it in future), Suzdal, Pereyaslav, Esztergom, Varad, Szekesfehervar, Rostov.
• Slightly better quality pics for Volodymyr, Lubeck, Turov.
• good pictures for cities replaced with the pictures right for whole provinces: Wroclaw and Poznan.

Smaller fixes:

• changed the names of the titles in EA for the six Polish provinces (Stettin, Wroclaw, Poznań, Gdańsk, Krakow, Plock) into “Comes …” – see entry below.
• removed unused descriptions of Konigsberg from EA.
• changed names in EA to adjust it to the map: Volodimir into Volodymyr, and Rustov into Rostov.
• Put right reference in EDA in the triggers for acquiring the Kernave title (), change of the name of the title in EA accordingly.

Version 2 changes:

• simplified descriptions for Law and Popularity
• fixed issues with descriptions for Comes Masoviae, Polonia Maior, Castellanus Cracoviensis, Novgorod
• new names for the Hungarian, Balticum and Ruthenian titles according to the description in this post;
• new pics: Smolensk (bear instead of a gun), Goroden and Halych (better quality),
• not related to the provincial titles, but I use them so I share them: new pics for some ancillaries: Architect, Crown of Poland, Intrepid Explorer, Mercenary Captain, Librarian, Master Smith, Mathematician, Book of 1001 Nights, Shield Bearer, Tax Farmer, Master of Horse, Tutor, Warrior Berseker.

Keep in mind that there're agents "priests" (bishops, cardinals), so ecclesiastical titles (Archbishop of something" cannot be used even if in many cases they'd be pertinent (like Archbishop of Estergom or Archbishop of Trier).

Technical notes:
* in EDA I haven’t changed anything related to the ancillary type, transferability.
* in future the list is likely to get longer the more changes I make and new versions of files I attach.
* I modified different files than ZoombieZleeping in his submod Authentic Faction Names & Character Titles 0.12 so there’s no conflict between the two.

How to use it?
* un-pack the zip files.
* put the files into relevant folders: EDA into /data directory, EA into /data/text, images into data/ui/ancillaries (afaik, in this directory you should delete the related txt.strings.bin file before playing)
* it think it’s save-compatible, at least it is how I’m using it.

Current state of affairs (ie fixed provinces)
[IMG][/IMG]
ptf ver 2 files.zipptf ver 2 pics.zip