The Wedding Dance (Beta Download v.92)

What should I do first?
The Marriage Quest explained.

          You have the option in this mod to marry a person of the minor nobility of either sex. Doing so gains you access to many fun quests and an invaluable future member of your party who is immortal and  can be trained in any way you’d like to contribute to your party’s combat effectiveness, or even perhaps its mercantile skills.  (Players of either sex are able to marry princes/princesses of either sex .)

  Please do not request sex scenes or similar silliness. The mod description clearly stated it was for adults, not adolescents, and this is because of nudity and semi-nudity, not teenage fantasies.

      The marriage quest is somewhat time consuming, it takes a while for the person to get to know you, trust you and for you to overcome several challenges to determine your worthiness. The apple of your eye is one of the ladies in waiting or a prince in any of the major cities. Faction lords are not available as spouses. Because of the possibility of war cutting you off from a city, the marriage quest line is best done as quickly as possible. It may be possible to do this quest in a city of a faction for which you are a mercenary or vassal to keep access to the city open at all times, but be aware you’re going to make at least one lady or lord an enemy by doing the quest, and an allied lord might not be the best chosen enemy.

  Talk to the person you’re interested in.  He/she will have some minor “get to know you” tasks for you to perform. Talk to him/her after completion of these quests to see if they wish you to do anything else. If not, it doesn’t mean the quest is broken it just means they want some time to think, come back every week or so and eventually they’ll have another task for you.
     
      Eventually you’ll have a quest to duel a faction lord who had “besmirched the honor“(if you have a male character) or who is “relentlessly pursuing” (if you have a female character) of your chosen one. After you defeat this lord/lady, they’re going to have a bad opinion of you. Your intended spouse can help you with this, and it is smart game play to take advantage of his/her aid because in the future you’re going to be at a disadvantage if you have too many enemies. Use his/her aid to repair your relation with this lord/lady by giving small gifts, do this every time you talk to him/her and eventually the relation with the lord is no longer negative. You might need him/her in the future, especially if they’re of the honorable type.

    Finally, when your relation is high enough with your beloved, they’ll ask you to “defend my token”. They’ll ask if you have a significant other (you’re not two-timing are you, you scoundrel?  If so, you must choose your true love.  You’d best tell your beloved the truth, too!). Carry the given token in your inventory. (It will appear there when your intended gives it to you.) A series of young knights will follow you and challenge you to single combat. They’re the little blue icon following you like a shadow on the overland map. You’ll have to defeat all of them in turn either in mounted combat with the lance, or in a choice of weapons.  The challengers will not arrive simultaneously; there’ll be some time between each challenger. Go about your business and don’t fret about the quest line being broken. With each victory your relation with your intended increases. It takes between 10-12 challengers and victories to get your relation up to 100. Now, all you have to do is wait, not too many days will pass and you’ll get an on screen message that “so-and-so wants to talk to you”. Now’s the time to pop the question. (Whether male or female, Player must be the one to propose.)  Make the marriage preparations, get hitched in the neat ceremony and take your spouse with you in your war party. He/she will have a lot of level up points to use.  Give some thought as to how you want to develop this character. They have the potential to be extremely valuable, extra medic skills are always useful, as are trainer and trading. Don’t neglect their combat skills either; they’re going to be a permanent member of your party if you have any sense.

You should try to get married as early in the game as possible - be sure you marry before Steise does.

Where is…? Special locations.
    There are several locations unique to this mod that are either quest related or part of the main story line, such as the Imperial palace. These places have their names given as purple text. They’re not particularly difficult to find, normal exploration of the map will reveal them. All except the Imperial Palace are only accessible when you receive the relevant quest to enter them, usually given by a faction lord. The Imperial Palace is only accessible when you declare the Empire.

I still can’t find ----. Scouts and their function.
      You can hire scouts in taverns, there are a limited number of them in the game at any one time and you can only have a limited number of them in your party. While they are in your party, its speed on the overland map is significantly increased. Their best use though, is to deploy them out of your party to increase party spotting and tracking. They must be upgraded to guide or better to enable this. Because of their relative fragility and scarcity you should try to keep them out of danger as much as you can until they’re upgraded. Pick your fights to keep them alive before you deploy them. To deploy, once they reach the guide or better rank, talk to them through the party window. Now they will range around the party, greatly increasing your spotting and tracking skills, and are much safer because of their speed. If you’d like them to return to your party, for increased overland travel speed, simply contact them and tell them to rejoin. You must have enough space in your party for them to rejoin. It is generally much better to leave them out of your party because of their fragility in combat and to use their skills to their best advantage. They will greatly extend visibility around you and give you an advantage in choosing your fights and finding those hidden locations. Generally, except for the Imperial Palace, the unique locations will be in the wilderness areas of the map.  As a last resort, if you truly cannot find a location, the Native cheat “cntrl+t” will allow you to find the location.


Companions
        Wedding Dance has many new companions, hired in the usual way from taverns. A few of them will require a lot of cash to enlist, others will join freely. If conflicts arise, you can choose the option “We’ll settle this with a duel” when they complain about another party member. They’ll fight two duels and if there is only one companion they object to, they’ll usually be contented after this, if not enthusiastic, unless you, the leader are also conducting yourself in a way they find objectionable. Be aware that each companion – as in Native – likes one other companion and strongly dislikes two others.
If your party includes one companion they dislike, and the one they like, they will probably stay with you.  If you have a companion they dislike but not the one they like, or two companions they dislike, with or without the one they like, they will eventually leave you.  Keeping morale high and letting them fight duels will postpone departures.
One workaround for this is to ascertain which ones like and dislike one another and after you have made some of them lords, recruit another batch which gets along.  You can also
stash some of the more contentious ones in the Imperial Palace to be trained as lords and that will keep your party happy.

Some companions have a high sense of honor, and will be unhappy if you raid villages, pillage caravans or sell slaves to Ramun. Others will object to retreating, running out of food, or not being paid on time.

      One of the best uses for your companions from mid game on is to make them Lords of the Empire. You will probably have been successful in recruiting only a very few enemy lords in the early stages of the Empire and you’ll be in great need of lords to defend the castles and fiefs you’ve seized. This will also release a companion from your party that may be a cause of friction with other companions.

(For story purposes, Sir John should be one of your early recruits, explained later in this FAQ. )  You will find the companion list at the end of this FAQ, in a spoiler section.

What to do until level 16
      Do not join a faction as a vassal, no matter how many times it’s offered to you. Do not do the claimant quest. (As with Native, it is buggy and you will likely be unable to finish the game.  In the case of Wedding Dance, the claimant quest will directly conflict with the story line, since you have to conquer all the kings to establish Steise as Empress anyhow.  The claimant quest is a problem both in Native and in many other mods.)  You can be a mercenary for a faction with the usual 3 months contract, renewable monthly after that if you wish. It’s probably smarter to freelance and build up your finances, renown, and relations with lords, towns and villages by doing quests. War can prevent you from accessing your intended spouse if he/she is in a faction that becomes hostile.

Level 16 and the appearance of Sir Vincent
      A small blue rider icon will appear on the overland map following your party shortly after you reach level 16. Stop, talk to him and pay attention, the main quest of uniting Calradia under the banner of the Empire progresses from here. Sir Vincent was an old, trusted retainer of your family. He will fill you in on the back-story and give you advice. It’s a good idea to take him into your party also, he’s high-level and a great fighter. Immediately after, talk to Steise and she will have advice and options for you. By the way, you should talk to her occasionally afterwards to see if she has anything new to say.

For story purposes, it is better to keep Sir Vincent in your party rather than making him a lord.  You may also stash him in the Imperial Palace when you gain access to it, but you should keep him where you can find him easily.

Declaring the Empire
    When you talk to Steise immediately after meeting Sir Vincent, one of the options she gives you is “building our name”, ie making friends. You are perfectly free to declare the Empire if you wish and start conquering, but it will be significantly harder without enough lords from other factions joining you to help protect your gains. Your companions can be made into lords, but most of them probably aren’t ready or skilled enough yet. They need high leadership and charisma skills to field decent sized armies. Up to this point in the game you should have been trying to do as many lords’ quests as you could handle so you built positive relations with them or at least became known to them. You’re going to need allies, and lots of them. Sir Vincent explains to you when you talk to him that many lords would be sympathetic to your cause if they got to know you. Steise also urges you to wait to declare kingdom until you have lots of renown and friends amongst the lords.

Beggar quest…level 20
      At around level 20 a small blue icon, similar to Sir Vincent’s, will be following you on the overland map. Talk to him to get more information on the treachery involved in your back-story and do his quest if you wish. Doing his quest and treating him decently will gain you an item that gives a 10% bonus to party morale as long as you keep it in inventory, definitely welcome. In previous versions it was recommended not to talk to him until you had declared the Empire, but in the latest version this has been fixed to keep from stopping the main quest line.

Sir John and Steise’s romance and marriage.
      Soon after Sir John joins your party, he expresses an interest in courting Steise and she welcomes this. Much later in the game, after you’ve declared the Empire and conquered most of the map, he will tell you he wants to marry her and asks your blessing. One of your answers questions his suitability; he then explains his parentage and back-story. Talk to Steise immediately after, and she will accept and ask to go to the Palace for the wedding. Note:  Sir John doesn’t necessarily even have to be in your party at that time (but he should have been in it earlier) to ask the question of marriage, he will seek you out if the game has progressed enough. You could seek him out yourself to speak to him if you think you’re far enough along in the game, but it will be late game, not early. Go to the palace after all these conversations, the ceremony will progress and a new quest will open for you and your spouse. You must talk to Steise first though to get her assent to the marriage for it to take place when you enter the palace. At the wedding pay particular attention to what Sir Vincent has to say to you.  (Be sure that you are married yourself BEFORE Steise and Sir John marry! Otherwise you will miss a very entertaining quest.)

Building your Empire
      You need a solid base at first to garrison extra troops and build a base. Steise will direct you as Marshall, but you choose how to parcel out all the fiefs and conquests. Be careful, you can make enemies easily if you’re not fair, and you need all the allies you can get in the early game, especially if several factions are at war with you. The Prid faction will turn into the Black Cathedral faction and instantly be at war with you. You’ll probably want the first conquest for yourself, if you can handle it, a city is ideal because of its income and the number of villages attached to it. If you have not recruited any other factions’ lords to join your cause yet, Steise and Rogan are the first two that should receive villages or other fiefs, you’ll get a relation drop with both of them if they both don’t get a share with no other lords in line. If you are short of lords for your early conquests you have the option to make any of your companions a lord and award them a holding. They’ll immediately leave the party and field an army, size depending on their leadership, charisma and renown. Good early candidates amongst your companions for lordship are Sir Aulus, General Maximus and Fawzia because of their high levels and leadership skills, although they will be missed because of the great addition they make to your party in combat. Alternatively, you can make a source of party friction an early lord, although they won’t be as effective as the high level companions. Rogan is a good early lord candidate, he has his own (later on) place in the story and it’s best he’s out of the party as soon as possible.
        You should have made some friends among other factions’ lords if you’ve done some quests for them, alternatively, even if they’ve never met you, you’ll have a reputation amongst them for good or bad. If you achieve high honor, some of the lords will automatically befriend you.  If you’ve been conducting yourself honorably and nobly as they see it, those types of lords may join your cause without too much trouble. Others are going to laugh in your face. One way to gain in relation with lords is to release them after capture instead of imprisoning or ransoming them. Also, keep doing quests for lords in factions you’re not at war with to gain positive relations. A few of them will be hopeless jerks, after a few times of catch and release with them, lock ‘em up and throw away the key or ransom or do as you wish with them.  (As in Native, however, you will not truly control a faction until all of its lords are dealt with – if you still have one inyour dungeon, ransom him or put him in your prisoner party and let him escape.  This may also include chasing down one last lord hiding in some obscure location, or tracking down that last, elusive faction caravan.  If you have a king in your dungeon, but control his faction, get rid of him.)
      Distributing fiefs to your lords should be as fair as you are able, otherwise you’re going to have some lords deserting you and probably lowering relations with most of the others. Go by first, the number of holdings they have, and then in order of their renown and you’ll keep most of them happy. Lords with no holdings get first fiefs. They rarely complain when you award yourself holdings, but really, how many castles do you need? They’re money pits and useful only for quick reinforcements to your army. Villages and cities help a lot more with your finances.
    A few of your lords are going to go to the dark side and turn traitor on you in the early game, no matter how much they like you or how happy they are. That is part of the story line, deal with it as you can, another reason why you should have been making as many friends as possible to help offset this.
      One of the conversation options with Steise is the option to have all your lords either field Imperial troops or troops from their original faction. Choose either as you like. Companions will field only Imperial troops.
      Another conversation option deals with the 5 medals found in a chest in the palace. You can award these to your lords as you see fit, they get a very nice set of armor and a warhorse, along with a very high relation gain with them. It is best to give them out carefully, to lords that do something extra deserving or courageous. There will be lords that seemingly never leave their castle, others that will help you every time they can and fight constantly. Better they get the goodies than the drones sitting in their castles holding banquets.

Optional quests
    There are two given out in villages, in addition to the normal quests. One is to escort a mule train of furs. A high agility and skill with bow and stave is very useful here. The other is to escort of shipment of goods down river on a raft. The higher your skill in archery, the better for this quest, and the reward is the best bow in the game. Both these quests are repeatable in case of failure, and other villages also offer them. It might be smartest to do these quests in the Prid villages, that faction is going to be at war with you quickly no matter what. If you do them in other factions’ villages, there is a chance of irritating the lord of that village that resents outside interference in his/her fief. You may need them as an ally, not enemy.
    There are new quests in the towns also, in addition to the normal quests. One series of three quests (also repeatable if you don’t succeed the first time) will gain you a chariot, to either use yourself or give to a companion lord , through the conversation screen.  Just as you need higher riding skill for warhorses or Armored Arabians, you or the companion need higher level charioteer skills to drive the chariot. Helena and General Maximus are good candidates among your companions for chariots, although you should train Helena’s leadership skill up a bit first before you make her a lord and send her out on her own.

Talk to the fortune teller in the large cities to get a chance for a consumable item that will give bonuses to certain skills as long as it’s in your inventory.

Your spouse will also give you quests when you talk to her/him in the Imperial Palace.

Imperial Palace Features
  Taxation: Talk to the Empire clerk in the throne room, he gives you the option to set taxes of all Imperial lands at any rate you desire. The lower the rate, the more positive your relations you’ll have with all your lords and fiefs. The very lowest rate will net you a positive relation gain with all fief holding lords every month, and gives you more than enough money to equip your army well.

Trainer: Speak to the trainer in the palace, you can train one companion at a time in one of several skills. This takes quite a bit of time. Its usefulness is training up those you intend to make lords later in the weak parts of their skill sets. Helena and Lady Caroline, for example, have a leadership skill of 7. Train them up to 10 and they can field much larger armies later on if you decide to make them lords.

Imperial Scholar: She needs a small amount of cash periodically to research chariots and catapults, you’ll get a message when she’s done and then you can deploy these items if you wish.

Imperial spy: [Don’t know, haven’t used him, in my game it was bugged and froze the game when I tried speaking with him]

Other conversation options with Steise: War and peace. You can declare war any time through conversation. [Haven’t tried the negotiated surrender option]

SPOILER: COMPANIONS
   
Alienor, good medic, does not like Madame Perrine and Zechin of the Han. She and Rogan are infatuated, but it doesn’t go anywhere nor is there a quest.

Bardok doesn’t like Doctor Nostradamus or General Maximus, likes Fawzia.

Campion dislikes Helena and General Maximus, likes Rickard.

Doctor Nostradamus dislikes Bardok and Sir John, likes Rodolfo.

Fawzia dislikes Fiorentino and Sir Simon. Don’t try to take her gear either, can’t be done.
Fawzia likes Bardok.

Fiorentino dislikes Sir Camden and Fawzia, likes General Maximus.

General Maximus dislikes Bardok and Campion, likes Fiorentino. He is highly skilled in chariot driving.

Helena dislikes Rogan and Campion, likes Lady Caroline. Train her leadership skill up a bit via the trainer in the Palace before making her a lord, she’ll have a larger army then.

Lady Caroline dislikes Sir Aulus and Sir Simon, likes Helena. Train her leadership skill up a bit before making her a lord so she’ll be able to field a larger army.

Madame Perrine dislikes Alienor and Sir Marcus, likes Sir Simon. She’s a good candidate for horse archery with a bit of training.

Rickard dislikes Rogan and Sir Marcus, likes Campion.

Rodolfo dislikes Steise and Sir Aulus, likes Dr. Nostradamus.

Sir Camden dislikes Sir John and Fiorentino, likes Zechin.  He’s a good trainer.

Rogan dislikes Helena and Rickard, and likes Alienor

Sir Aulus dislikes Lady Caroline and Rodolfo, likes Sir Simon.  Great in combat, especially the throne room battles, high sense of morality and honor, so don’t raid
villages or caravans very much or he’ll leave.

Sir John dislikes Doctor Nostradamus and Sir Camden, loves Steise.

Steise dislikes Zechin of the Han and Rodolfo and loves Sir John.

Sir Simon dislikes Fawzia and Lady Caroline, likes Sir Aulus.

Zechin of the Han dislikes Steise and Alienor. Good with bow and two-hander. Good to also train in horse archery.

Possible solutions for crashes; from forum posts.

try this from Dzzoro:
To those that has this weird bug of crash to desktop. this is just temporary till we find a fix. go to module.ini
And set these values to 0
scan_module_sounds = 1
scan_module_music = 1
And it will look like this.
scan_module_sounds = 0
scan_module_music = 0
see if this temporary stops the crashes.


From Gerhart;


On the issue with codecs and the possibility that they are the culprit for the crashes with certain systems.  If anyone with this problem would install this program, PCWizard, located here http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php and tell use what audio codecs they have installed, it would be a great help.  All you have to do is take a shot like this, it's from my system.


You will notice that I have 11 codecs installed on my system.  These are the default codecs after a fresh format of my system and all the updates possible ( XP Professional SP3 ).  I have no other codec packs on my system, so if you have anything different would you please post them.  If you have this problem but still have only those codecs showing, please speak up too.  This would help us to eliminate that it is a codec issue.

It would also be helpful if you post your sound card and current driver.  One thing I thought about, as I've seen many a strange happenings with computers, is to check and see what you have as the default program to open Ogg Vorbis files.  To find out all you have to do is go into the sounds folder and look to see what Icon your Ogg files are represented by. 

I have had no crashes and my sound card is an Audigy Sound Blaster Live 24-bit.  Remember, if you have this problem but you don't have different codecs, please say so.  If you have this problem and have different codecs, please tell what you have that is different.

I would NOT suggest doing this:
Quote
I think you should get rid of msadp32.acm,It sounds like a bomb of major bull****.
Tssoft32.acm can also be gotten rid of.
Indeo Video sounds.. DODGY! I don't like dodgy ****.Maybe get rid of this too?
Apparently Fraunhofer is some kind of weird ****.You should also get rid of this.

If anything, you can disable any of these instead of removing them.  Sure you may not have any problems by deleting them but disabling them will give you the same results without the possible, "Oh ****, I shouldn't have done that!"

This doesn't mean that this is the problem but it will help to eliminate it as the source, Thank you.


From Fawzia;

Throughout this thread, Rosha and I have both said that if you import a higher-level character, you will miss quests that are keyed to your level.  Rosha even put that warning on the first page of this thread with the download link.  There are also numerous reports of crashes caused by cheating, so be warned, yet again.  If the character you imported is over level 10, you are definitely screwed.

Start from scratch, take your time leveling up the usual way and you will get all the quests.

And this;

Usual questions:
1.  Did you put Wedding Dance into the module directory of a clean install of Native with
      no other mods incorporated into Native?  (If not, do so.)
2.  Did you tinker with the item editor?  Change troop stats or equipment?
3.  Did you import a high level character or buff your character via cheating?
4.  Did you use any of Magelord's tweaks designed ONLY for Native code?
5.  Are you running any version of Native M&B other than V 1.011?

If you did any of the above, the game will likely crash, so go back and do the clean install.  Wedding Dance has been massively recoded from Native and crashes with a lot of the above because Magelord’s tweaks are call functions which tell the game to do something which Rosha has now recoded to do something else entirely different.

The other possibility (read the thread) is that your system, which is older, is having problems with either the music or sound files.  Go to M&B/Modules/Wedding Dance and check module.ini (module configuration file.)  Disable the sound first, if that does not work, disable the music too.

scan_module_textures = 1
scan_module_sounds = 1  Change the "1" to "0" first and try loading again.
scan_module_music  = 1    If the game crashes, change the  "1" to "0"

If you downloaded the mod with Explorer, we had some reports of corrupted files, so try  the search function in this thread for a link to a download of M&B 1.011 which has the correct number of files in it.  The corrupt one is several files short and the game will crash.  This is the fault of the M&B 1.011 download, not Rosha’s mod.  There are other posts on the WD Forum which detail how people with Windows 7 and Vista have resolved problems with the mod.  Before posting a question, please try the search function.

For Vista and Windows 7:  be sure to install the mod as administrator.

Anything that changes animations or conflicts with Rosha's new codes will not work, and/or cause your game to crash.  It is strongly advised that you start the game with a new, unbuffed character and play it as Rosha intended, without trying to add in other mods and your own personal tweaks.  They may work in Native but they are going to cause you a lot of trouble in Wedding Dance.