SP Native [WB] RoaK - Rise of a King

Would you like less factions, but more characterised?

  • Yes, like 3-4 factions with deeply different nobility systems..!

    Votes: 34 52.3%
  • Maybe you can remove a faction and add some pecularities to the others..

    Votes: 3 4.6%
  • Nah, leave it like this, Warband gotta have 6 factions

    Votes: 8 12.3%
  • I actually want one more, even if it means a longer development time

    Votes: 11 16.9%
  • More factions! I don't care if the they all look the same, I want more!

    Votes: 9 13.8%

  • Total voters
    65

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Rise of a King
a Native flavoured Mod


This is the mod I have been waiting for (unsuccessfully) since I started playing M&B.

It is already playable (it's the one I play when I have time) but I'm not releasing it for testing as it is going to break savegame compatibility at each new release for a long time, I fear. I might give alpha version access to selected people for testing purposes or in exchange for some help :smile: but let's see how it goes.

Anyway, without further ado, let me tell you what Rise of a King is about.



General Idea

This mod is a Native expansion and rethinking. The factions, lords, centers and landscape are the same, mostly, but I have added several other open source mods that I personally enjoyed, plus I have been tweaking, fixing and adding stuff little by little until it became something that could be appreciated by other people.

What I really missed in M&B was not more action, more factions, more objects, better graphics. What I really, really missed was a proper nobility system and a decent kingdom management.

Rise of a King is built around the idea that Calradia is classist and elitist, and that moving up the ladder is difficult and bloody, most often. Most of the "small improvements" are just mods I liked and integrated, but the actual core of this mod is about the process of "going up", from a lower rank to the highest.

In this regard, the character creation becomes also a way to set the initial difficulty: if you start noble, you'll have a much easier life than if you start peasant or outlaw. More on this later.



Features in short


Modified character creation with three “social classes”, noble/commoner/scumbag, each one with three starting paths, with a decent equipment and path-specific starting attributes, skills, position, relation with lords/centers, starting party etc.

New rank & title system, organised in this way: FirstTitle Name, Duke/Count/Baron of Fief. The “FirstTitle” depends on culture, on gender and on nobility rank. Generally, Dukes hold a town, Counts a castle and Barons a village

Reworked recruitment system, with a greater emphasis on finding supporting parties of mercenary captains and masterless knights instead of increasing your own army, especially at the beginning. I'm oriented for a lance-style recruitment system, similar to 1257 AD, for the fief-based levy.

Nobility system that leads to a decent territorial division (each Duke, even though is a vassal of the king, has total power over a town and all the villages bound, and only him can decide to enfeof a Baron with some of them, not the King)

Knight Quest of adequate difficulty to become a Knight and join the "real nobility" by prowess instead that by subtle means

More improvements, and villages can have garrisons



Maybe-features


Removing Vaegirs and Khergits

[size=12pt]..and make the other four factions follow historically accurate nobility system, while giving them all decent cultural "rank titles":

- Swadia: old France or Germany, with strict, complex hierarchy (maybe more ranks than the one so far cited)
- Rhodoks: old Italy, without a proper king, faction decisions taken using Dukes' personalities and interests and a Marshall elected among them
- Nords: old Scandinavia, with a flat hierarchy and powerful, independent chieftains, with a King but without a Marshall, therefore no "faction war" unless it happens naturally, ie chieftains go follow other chieftains to get a bigger loot
- Sultanate: number of wives depending on rank (Sayid, Sheikh, Emir, Sultan), but I must find more information on the actual nobility system of ancient arabs



List of included Mods


- Diplomacy 4.3
- Floris Bank and landowners
- JRider title system (heavily modified)
- Formations and FormationAI + campaignAI (motomataru)
- Caba`drin’s Bodyguards
- Duel Kit
- dunde’s improvements kit (modified)
- laszers recruit from towns (modified)
- Cinematic Compilation 3.0 (disabled some parts, I had graphical issues)
- Tavern animation pack
- 15th Century Weapons
- Improved Buildings
- Towers, Walls and Ladders
- Caba`drin Village raids and Siege tweaks
- Foraging skill


Thank you all for your amazing efforts in trying to make this game better.
 
Nobility in Calradia


An assumption within this mod is that everyone knows Calradia was once under the control of a single Emperor, with a centralised administration but different, local cultures. This fact is even more explicit as the world is still divided into Kingdoms, Duchies, Counties and Baronies: Swadian and Sarranids, Khergits and Vaegirs, they all have their Kings, Dukes, etc, but they have different ways of addressing them: the first title. This is essentially a "trick" I use to not be obliged to use "culture ranks": I tried, and it was way too messy.

Since there isn’t currently an Emperor, the Kings are the strongest entities in the world. They do own their Kingdoms and can virtually decide on anything within it, but in fact they need other people to give them money and military power, and to manage the land. In fact, to survive in this competitive place the Kings must delegate. Over time, the process of giving land to vassals and receive goods, money and/or services in exchange, has become a social system: nobility.

At the time the mod starts, nobility is mainly inherited. This means that "if you are born peasant, you die peasant". There will be ways (like the "Rolf way") to actually join nobility after the start of the game, involving quests, but for now let's focus on the "noble class".

Social class and rank are different things. Among nobles there is a hierarchy of ranks, and the player starts from the lowest (of course).

Before going into details of ranks and their place in Calradia, it is important to highlight how, in RoaK, vassallage is quite different from Native.

In Native, you swear homage to the king and become part of a faction. That's it. You can only be a King's vassal.

In RoaK, if you are a noble you can swear homage to any higher lord. If they have land, they can enfeoff it to you in exchange for different kinds of services (mainly military, clearly). Swearing a oath of homage to a Lord makes you join the faction automatically. Your Lord is the one you answer to, therefore if he betrayes the King and defect, you must follow him or ask the King to formally break your oath, a thing that will cause a massive loss of relation with the Lord, his family and allies and also a loss of honor and some relation with the more "traditionalists" of the other Lords.

Ranks, honors and duties

This are the nobility ranks:
  • Lower nobility
  • Knights
  • Barons
  • Counts
  • Dukes
  • Kings
Kings rule Kingdoms, which are divided into Duchies. Each Duchy is centered on a Town and includes the villages linked to that town. Only Dukes can be Marshalls, and they tend to be VERY loyal to the King, and very powerful and rich. A King is essentially a uber-Duke.

Counties are centered on a castle and include the linked village, and the Counts answer, most often, directly to the king (but sometimes they might be vassal of a Duke). The role of a Count is that of protecting the borders and vital points of the kingdom, thus they must have a good army and when the Kingdom is at war, they tend to patrol their County and surrounding areas. If the Marshall can't compone a decent army, he can request the presence of the Counts.

Each village constitutes a Barony, which may or may not have a Baron leading it (Dukes and Counts may decide to keep the land for themselves, but probably they won't). Barons must protect their villages, as they are their own homes and only source of income. They must also provide military service to their Lord, which they can either assolve themselves or by "lending" their Knights/Mercenaries to the Lord.

Lower nobles can't do much, except trying to enter service of a Lord. The best/simplest way to go up the ladder is to become a Knight. For that, you need to find a Lord who is willing to give you a "Knight Quest", a series of trials you must complete in order to be formally knighted.

After you enter the "real nobility" as a Knight, you are addressed with the cultural equivalent of "Sir" and you can start serving a Lord, even though you won't be given land. Enter service of a Lord as a Knight allows you to join a faction, entering castles, courting ladies and be given missions. Your duties will be to follow the Lord in battle when needed, otherwise to protect his lands. You may be given a fief in administration in periods of peace, and be allowed to keep a part of the taxes. You will probably not be able to keep a good army in this period, but you will gain honor and renown as rewards from serving a Lord.

With the appropriate renown, honor and relation you may, eventually, be accepted as a vassal, which implies land. This is more easily obtained if you are a Knight, but you may have served Lords in other ways and still reach the same goal.

To "skip" a rank is very difficult but not impossible, for example if you join a faction very late in the game where you are practically a war machine, you may be given a Castle and thus become a Count, skipping Knighthood and Baronies.

Titles

The display name of each "important troop" is as follows:

PreTitle Name, [RankTitle of Fief]

where "pretitle" is taken from this table according to both rank and culture:

Faction        Knights  Higher Lords  Ladies
SwadiaSieurMonsieurMadame
RhodoksSerDonDama
NordsHeerLandheerHerrin
SarranidSayidEmirSayeda
KhergitsBeyNoyanHatun
VaegirsSudarBoyarBarynia
Player'sSirLordLady

The "rank title", as said before, is the same for all the factions and is directly linked to the type of fief you have been given. All the ladies have the same pretitle, but they have the same "rank title" as their husband, for example Countess or Duchess.

Each titles comes with a "ruling center" which is displayed after the rank title. Example:

Monsieur Klargus, Duke of Suno.

A Knight who has not joined any faction is a Wandering Knight:

Sir Koteko, Wandering Knight.
 
Character Creation


There are three selectable social classes which, in a certain sense, also determine the game difficulty. These are Noble, Commoner and Scumbag. The third allows greater interaction with the outlaws, but in turn makes your life harder especially with the nobles, but also with other commoners. It has a relatively low priority so you won't see it in the beta, most probably. I want to focus especially on nobility, as you can imagine from the Mod's name :smile:

In addition to the class, you can also choose one of three paths:

Noble
        Squire: fight oriented, good equip, best to quickly become a Knight
        Courtier: leadership/persuasion, a few bodyguards, good to enter a Lord's service without too much fighting
        Magister: engineering/medicine, also able to enter Lord's service for fief improvements and war support (siege etc)

Commoner
        Guard: fight oriented, decent equip
        Merchant: good money, two horses, starting goods
        Engineer: good money, intelligence/engineering

Scumbag
        Brigand: fight oriented, negative honor, best to interact with outlaws
        Thief: persuasion and some fight, can be a spy/assassin for a lord
        Smuggler: "scumbag merchant", decent money, not-negative honor, the easiest scumbag to start with

Without specifying all the starting equipment and characteristics (which are subject to change from time to time), this little description should help you get an idea.

The main point here is that the "path" is nothing really important, if you choose the wrong it may take a bit of playing to catch up but nothing serious.

The social class however IS important. It's like a mark on your skin, unless you find a way to change it permanently ("Rolf way").

I will try to implement some of idea I have for commoners and scumbags as I go, but remember that most of my efforts will be for the nobles. Probably the first playable alpha and beta won't have much content for the lower classes.
 
Author Disclaimer


I am a "one man army", as they say. A good part of the "skeleton" of what has been mentioned in the posts before has already been implemented, but the content writing and some feature implementation will take time.

It may take a few weeks, or a few months, before I feel comfortable enough to give you guys something to play/test with.

In the meanwhile, I'd appreciate some feedback: feel free to comment positively or negatively on what you've read, give your suggestions, propose to help (unlikely, isn't it? :razz:) or whatever. Every modder likes to see his work is not only appreciated by himself! ^^

In particular, if any artist (for some 2D images, signatures, initial logo..) wants to contribute occasionally I'll cry of joy. Or maybe not, but you get the idea.
 
I like it. How long did you wait for this mod to be made before learning the module system yourself  :wink:

If you can't find a book you like, write one - some person
 
clant said:
I like it. How long did you wait for this mod to be made before learning the module system yourself  :wink:

If you can't find a book you like, write one - some person

I tried every possible mod, also asked on the forums, and in a couple of months I had made up my mind :wink: RoaK actually started as a branch of Diplomacy, since I was trying to extend it, to implement things they had regarded as "TODO" (the wife quests, for example).

It's been one year now, but I've stopped for a few months while I was graduating and then looking for a job. Now I'm settled and, incredibly, have "more time" than before getting a job!
 
If you want it to be as historical as possible, try asking Adorno from the BrytenWalda team to give you the whore script, and make them spawn in one place in each city, called "Whore House".
Good luck by the way. :smile:
 
lyth99 said:
Really great i dont want to be annoying but any plans on an alpha

I don't like making plans as they either turn out too optimistic or too pessimistic. I'll make however a schedule of the functionalities needed to release an alpha, so you will see a progression instead of just waiting :smile:
 
dunde said:
Interesting idea about the titles. I might adopt it too for my mods.

One question. How if a duke lost his town? We need to remove his duke title?

There are various possibilities of course, with different complexities. The simplest is to remove his title, but it is quite crude. A better way is to keep the status of the Duke, at least for a while, and give him priority when new towns are conquered, or the possibility to "buy back" his town, etc. There is little limit to the complexity you want to put into the "territoriality", for example certain lords may even join the conquering faction to be able to rule again over their fief.
 
David Stark said:
If you want it to be as historical as possible, try asking Adorno from the BrytenWalda team to give you the whore script, and make them spawn in one place in each city, called "Whore House".
Good luck by the way. :smile:

ahah, yes that was a funny script :smile: Brytenwalda is OSP now so I might get it from there.
 
You look promising, unlike many of the other fresh recruits people that attempt to make mods. So please, don't double- or triple-post. Use the "Modify" button or the small arrow-and-page beside your posts to edit them if need be.
And don't you dare remove the Vaegirs. Trash the Sarranids instead, nobody likes them anyway. :razz:
 
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