There are some basic definitions that concern this mod that need to be placed here.

1) Stats are defined between GOOD, AVERAGE AND BAD.

GOOD stats come in 4 levels: At 12, at 15, at 18 and at 21
AVERAGE stats stand between 8 and 12.
BAD stats come in 4 levels: Below 8, below 6, below 4 and below 2.

2) Realm stats are defined between GOOD, AVERAGE and BAD.

GOOD realm stats come in 3 levels: At 35, 40 and at 45
AVERAGE realm stats come between 30 and 35
BAD realm stats come in 3 levels: Less than 30, less than 25 and less than 20

3) Provinces can have 5 levels of Stability: Rebellious, Restless, Normal (no modifier), Peaceful and Serene

The stability of each demesne province fluctuates between the levels with increments and decrements of a single level each time. There is one notable exception where the Stability returns to Normal when a special mission there is met with excellent results.

This variation is applied dependent on the Realm Diplomacy.

Character personality traits will influence the variation of Stability in the provinces with events specifically designed for each trait. The traits considered in the ruler are: Cruel, Arbitrary, Wroth, Greedy, Kind, Charitable, Diligent, Just, Deceitful, Gregarious, Brave, Paranoid, Honest and Proud.

Being at War gives the possibility of a Stability hit in the demesne provinces.

A province may become Volatile which means an increased natural chance of decreasing Stability and no chance of increasing it through normal event. Such condition can be solved naturally and better yet, by assigning the crown focus to the province. Also, the Demesne Overseer has a chance of removing the Volatility from a province, with better stewardship increasing his/her chances. His traits Diligent, Ambitious and the positive opinion he has of the player character will also provide bonuses increasing the frequency of the event.

Once every few years (depending on the Realm Stewardship) a player can increase automatically the Stability of a province subject to crown focus by one level.

A player can also decide to appoint a character with the title Demesne Overseer that helps to reduce the instability of the demesne provinces. Such action success depends on the Overseer Stewardship score and on the relation between the Overseer and his Liege (the player). The rational for that is that his/her effort to please the Liege in a continual effort increases with the relation score.

The Demesne Overseer is selected by a Decision - "Appoint Demesne Overseer" - and picked from three courtiers chosen by the council and presented to the player. The player can refuse all if he thinks they lack the competence necessary to perform the job but can only pick from another three in five years.

The Demesne Overseer is a post for life but the player can fire him/her at any time. In this last case, one can be recruited five years after the last one was recruited.

The Demesne Overseer can remove the Volatility of a province. Such action success depends on the Overseer Stewardship score and on the relation between the Overseer and his Liege (the player). The rational for that is that his/her effort to please the Liege in a continual effort increases with the relation score.

The Demesne Overseer can also perform missions that range from military, to diplomatic, to subterfuge to cultural/religious. These missions, performed only on Restless or Rebellious provinces, can also increase the level of Stability by one step if successful or returning the province to normal if totally successful.

The chance to perform missions is given by the stewardship of the Demesne Overseer, his competence (diligent/slothful) and his/her ambition (ambitious/content). If his/her profession matches the type of mission it will also gives a bonus to pick a mission of the same type and being Midas Touched (the top level of education in stewardship) also provides a bonus.

How efficient the Demesne Overseer is in performing the specific missions depend more on the specific stats associated with the mission (martial if it is a military mission, for instance) and excellence in the education trait in the area of expertise (for instance, being a Brilliant Strategist in a military mission provides a bonus). Also, competence (diligent/slothful) and to a lesser extent ambitiousness (ambitious/content) provide nice bonuses/penalties to the final result of a mission.

Missions can also have the harshest consequences. It doesn’t hurt the least the Demesne Overseer if he/she has good combat rating and if he/she is a duelist. Those are good skills/traits for survival.

Every five years, if the player has good Stewardship (12) and there are provinces with negative Stability, he can ask the Demesne Overseer - through a decision - to formulate a plan to increase Stability in a Restless or Rebellious province.

Changing subject, regarding the impact of Marshals on the stability of the provinces and with a window of time depending on the realm martial, the Marshal can improve the Stability of a province if he is performing the Suppress Rebels job and is assigned to a Rebellious Province. This is ordered by a decision - "Contest Rebels". Once picked, the time it takes for the decision to be available for picking again depends on the Realm Martial.

As a final note, I'd like to point out the Stability system is not balanced if the player abuses the game and starts accruing a very, very big demesne. If the player is into abusing the game rules - playing in "NK mode" is an extreme example of that - I suggest the player applies the specific Dark Ages game rule to make the stability events three times rarer.

Piracy is a new decision that can be enacted as long as the player owns a coastal province in his/her demesne, is not of Nordic or Maghreb Arabic cultures, is not Just, is not Kind and has a Stewardship of at least 8. There is an upfront investment associated with this system that represents the value spent at organizing and building the pirate fleet.

Piracy will give yearly revenue that can range from hefty profits to worrying losses. This yearly revenue already includes normal maintenance of the fleet.

There are several instances where the Realm scores of the character will play a role in what is experienced in this system. Also important are personal stats for some events. The tooltip in the events explain what is influencing the flow of the game.

Players may at any time elect to quit the pirate activity through a decision.

With luck and continual support for piracy players might be offered the chance to become a Pirate Lord, a new lifestyle trait that represents the mastermind behind the common pirate captains that organize everything.

Migrants can now appear in the demesne of a character and he/she must decide what to do about the situation. Migrants can prove to be a hindrance to the demesne management but can also provide good help in certain circumstances. All in all, migrants will serve as new content to be dealt with from time to time – they are a rare occurrence as they happen on average once every 200 years.

Migrants will cause several conflicts with the original dwellers of the province where they appear. The player is invited to deal with these consequences through event choices and policy definitions towards the migrant group.

Migrants can also provide help in technology or even troops in case of war. Again, this depends on choices taken and policies adopted.

The migrant size will decrease over time and the rate of decrease depends on the relevant stat of the ruler indexed to the policy being chosen. There are policies that are inherently faster to decrease the size of the migrant group.

The ruler has the choice, through decision, to review the policy adopted as long as he has not taken the path of extermination. In this case he will need to wait for the results of the policy, before adopting a new policy again.

When the player frames a character - by using the RMB on the portrait of the target and picking the option - he will be immediately given the chance of picking a strategy to go on with the framing. He can be aggressive or discreet. If he is aggressive he will have a better chance of engaging with different groups of people and making his/her case to frame the target. On the other hand, an aggressive stance might signal to the target who is behind the framing, thus leading to failure and possible reprisal.

When framing a target, your diplomacy and intrigue, your target having as many of the seven sins as possible, you being a Genius, being Shrewd, being Quick, being Arbitrary, being Socializer, being Gregarious, being Silver Tongue, being a Schemer, being Deceitful and having taken opportunities to speak bad of your target recently with success, all contribute to the success of the framing.

Conversely, your opponent’s diplomacy, intrigue, having as many as the seven virtues traits as possible, being a Genius, being Shrewd, being Quick and you being Dull, all contribute to the failure of the attempt.

While the framing is taking progress – it can take between 3 and 6 months to be decided – you may be presented with opportunities to speak badly of your target, thus increasing your chances of success. You can approach generals, diplomats, secret agents and religious entities to smear and frame your target. The governing stat deciding if you are successful or not is the one related to the profession of your audience. Also the traits related to the audience profession play a role. You can find details of this in the tooltip, when these events happen.

The more opportunities you have of approaching these groups of people, the better your chances of success are. If you decide on an aggressive strategy to frame your target, you’ll have more chances on average of meeting these groups, thus indirectly raising your chances of success for the framing.

Players can now personally murder victims, using a complex system that translates very simply at game level. To murder a character, use the character menu (right click on a character) and pick the option "Commit Murder".

After deciding to commit a murder, what does this comprise? It means a random setting is created, the target will have opportunity to get suspicious about the assassin, or even alerted, that in turn conditions the action of murdering the target... which in itself can be “clean” (meaning it was absolutely successful) or “dirty” (meaning the assassination was successful but the target got aware of the assassin doing the deed and raised the alarm). Finally, if the victim survives and is aware of the attempt – there is also the chance that the unsuccessful attempt goes undetected by the victim – an immediate attempt on the murderer’s life can be done, depending on the traits of the victim.

So, what stats, traits and focus give you a nice bonus to go unnoticed in your attempt? Basically, the stakes are favouring you from the start. You plan the occasion of the murder, so you make sure the victim is not aware of the murder attempt. But if the victim is Trustful or she/he has low or very low levels of Intrigue (less than 8, 6, 4 and 2) you’ll get a bonus.

Now, what influences the probability the victim getting suspicious? In the positives, if the victim is an Assassin (a new lifestyle trait partially based on the successful attempts you did with this targeted decision), a Master Schemer, if the victim is focusing on Intrigue, if the victim is Paranoid, if the victim is Cynical, if the victim is Wary, if he/she has an Intrigue Education Trait, if she/he is a Genius, Quick, Shrewd, if he/she has high levels in Intrigue, Diplomacy, Martial and Learning – from the mod rules, remember that high level in Dark Ages means a score of 12 – if he has very high levels – 15, 18 and 21 – in Intrigue and if the murderer is Honest. On the other hand, what reduces the chances of the victim getting suspicious is for the murderer to have the Deceitful trait.

And what influences the probability the victim getting alerted (a higher state than being suspicious and as suspicious, also influential later on)? It’s not very different from the suspicious level of alertness but let’s enumerate the positives in the knowledge this alert state has the lowest base probabilities of happening (5%): Victim being Genius, Quick, Shrewd, Assassin, Master Schemer, focus in Intrigue, Paranoid, Cynical, Wary, Elusive Shadow, high levels of Intrigue, Learning, Martial and Diplomacy, very high levels of Intrigue, the murderer being Honest. If the murderer is Deceitful the chances of the victim getting alerted are reduced.

What I am not going to write are the different weights are attributed to different variables. As an example and for the safety of the victim, it’s much more important being Paranoid or Genius than being Cynical, for instance.

At this point, we know if the victim is unaware, suspicious or alerted. The last two of these conditions will impose a penalty on the actual murder attempt.

So, what influences the success of the murder? For a successful murder, being an Assassin, a Master Schemer, Cruel, Elusive Shadow and high and very high levels of intrigue all play a role. If the victim is Dull the assassin also gets an advantage.

And what influences the failure of the murder? The assassin being known as a murderer or a failed murderer is a great liability – ah, the inconveniences of fame! – low values of Intrigue for the murderer, the victim suspecting or alerted to the act, the victim being Shrewd, Elusive Shadow, having Intrigue focus, having high and very high levels of Intrigue and high and very high levels of Realm Intrigue ( at scores 30, 35, 40 and 45).


Now that the algorithm knows if the murder was successful or not, the only part that remains to be calculated is if the assassination was clean or dirty, dirty meaning the character was discovered even if successful. I am not going to post here what influences but it’s not much different from the variables considered earlier.

Is it the end? No it is not. After all, you may end up in the receiving end of a murder attempt... and, to make things interesting and tickling your paranoia, it may be a fake murder attempt, a normal situation that has the same description as the first event of a murder attempt on you. Contrary to the AI, the player has always the chance to call the guards at the onset of the assassination. Calling the guards has a great effect: it nullifies the murder attempt! However, not knowing if the attempt was a real or a fake one, the player never knows what to expect...and if the character is humiliated for nothing, consequences to the player character will be significant (Paranoid trait, Craven Trait, significant loss of prestige, opinion hit with the person wrongly accused of attempted murder, etc...).

When you read the text of a murder attempt your decision to call the guards should be considered using your stats and traits as a victim, as well as studying the personality of the (possible) murderer to understand if the personality fits a murderer. You will also get to know if you are alerted or suspicious of the attempt to help in your decision as being alerted or suspicious will increase your chances of surviving.

It must be stressed that a lot of variables play a significant role in the decision to murder other character.
First, incapacitated, prisoners, children and characters with the Resting trait cannot murder anyone as the option to murder will not even be available.
Furthermore, only AI characters that are Assassin, Possessed, Paranoid, Lunatic, Envious, Cruel, Wroth, the victim has the Unfaithful Husband or Unfaithful Wife opinion modifiers, or having less than -25 opinion of the target can plan murders. Of these, Envious, Cruel and Wroth characters can only murder other characters with whom they have less than 50 opinion (thus, only characters with mental issues - Possessed, Lunatic or Paranoid - have the Assassin lifestyle trait or were betrayed as a spouse will be able to murder victims they have very high opinion of).
Detailing things a bit more, traits of the would be murderer - if AI - such as Kind, Just, Honest and Content reduce - or in some cases, nullify - the chances of such character murdering someone.
Finally and as the player may always elect to attempt to murder someone independently of traits, player characters that go against their good personality traits - Kind, Just or Honest - and attempt to murder someone will suffer an extremely high Piety penalty, will have these traits removed and will also have a chance of getting the traits Envious, Cruel and Arbitrary.

A player might enact a decision or be presented with an event to debate with another member of the council. There are five areas of discussion (Diplomatic, Military, Management, Intrigue and Religion), each one with different stats and traits influencing the outcome of the discussion. There is also a stance, where the player picks what his/her strategy will be for the debate. This will interact with the traits the player and the opponent have, to give a final chance of success.
Notice the debate can end up as a draw. If both opponents are Content, for instance, the chance for a draw increases dramatically.

In the end, the player has to decide what strategy to pursue, two of them are more suited to win or lose the debate while a third one is more suited to draw it. Draw can be important if one feels the other two options favour the opponent more, based on his/her traits.

The game will check for vassals that have not payed homage around once per year. If it finds one, it will fire an event to give homage to the liege.

- Right now it's dependant on having holy fury and the ruler being crowned. We will remove that later, maybe.

- It's a 1 time thing for vassals. If he pays homage, loses his land and comes back, he doesn't have to pay homage anymore. Homage was a binding contract between vassal and ruler. Ruler confirmed vassal's right to his lands and his own personal rights as well as obligations that were typical for vassals. It was something that was above the king itself, it was some kind of feudal right. Once a king confirmed a vassal's right, it remained permanent until his death no matter how many ruler changes there were (unless special circumstances, like treason).

- To avoid spamming, King can't, in average, get more than 1 homage request or denial per year. At the start of every game, since no vassal payed homage, if you start as a King or above of a big realm, you can get quite a bit fast.. but then it will slow down and and you will get homages once in a while only.

- Kings that are in command can't give homage. Neither incapable vassals.

- King has to be christian (we will work on vassal-king ceremonies for muslims and zoroastrians in the future). Vassals of any religion can give homage, but, since there is no historical info about any vassal ever giving homage of wrong religion, there is a huge penalty for vassals of wrong religion.. they will probably deny it. If they still accept to give homage, liege gets 100% a chance to try to force convert him or just let it be. Of course, as always, if you fail to force convert him, he will be pretty upset. So you have to chose between a big chance of bad opinion modifier or just let it go, keep having an infidel or heretic vassal, and try to improve opinions via the standard homage ceremony (which can still go wrong, but it's less riskier).

- Just for clarification, all player mechanics and events are also AI, so everything you can do AI can do it, being a vassal or a King. This is not just player experience.

- There are few things that are permanent, like some traits or some diplomacy gain or lose. Most modifiers (opinion or whatever modifiers) are temporary. This is to try to avoid unbalancing the game. (well, death is permanent..it would be funny if you can trigger that chain of events, there are like 12 different).

Lunatic, Possessed and Paranoid traits are now considered mental conditions and have different event pools assigned to flesh out the experience of playing with mentally unstable characters .

Regarding the Possessed trait, when a character has this trait now a pool of events might happen to her/him. These events are not nice and reflect the unstable mental condition of the character. Nevertheless, the events of the possessed event pool tend to be lighter than those from the Lunatic and Paranoid event pool.

Concerning the Lunatic trait, lunacy now means a mental condition with effects given along gameplay. The player can suffer from mild or serious mental conditions that modify the effects created and their frequency. A player will have phases of better judgement (only the Lunatic trait will apply) and phases of total insanity (where a new trait, more severe, will make its debut). During the phases of total insanity many new events might happen. This can have lasting and even... definite consequences, both for the lunatic's acquaintances and for himself.

Regarding the Paranoid trait, in Dark Ages it is not a personality trait anymore. It is now a mental condition. The trait that is the opposite of Trusting is the new Wary trait. As the game gives the Paranoid trait in plenty of instances and to make the situation of having Paranoid characters rarer, with a given exception explained below that regards characters with the Wary trait, in any situation the Paranoid trait is gained for the first time in the character's life, he/she will have a 75% chance the trait is soon removed, instead receiving the Wary trait, as the said paranoia was just a rumour without real meaning. For characters that receive along their life the Paranoid trait twice or characters already with the Wary trait, they will directly become Paranoid. Finally for characters that are Trusting and then receive the Paranoid trait, they will soon lose both. In this way, their behaviour does not make them Trusting anymore, but they are nor Paranoid in a single change, going from one extreme to the other. So, in a way, being Trusting protects a character from becoming Paranoid.

Besides this effect, paranoia leads to a set of progressively worse modifiers that depict the degradation of the character mental condition. This progressive degradation might be the consequence of a poor choice or bad luck in different events or the natural consequence of the character who keeps its troubles to himself/herself, thus increasing the mental pressure he is subjected, which leads to future troubles. On top of that, said events, more frequent as the mental condition progressively degrades, can carry lasting consequences in the experience of playing with a Paranoid character.

Finally and concerning childhood and growing up, the Wary trait can be gained by any teenager character that has the Conscientious trait.

Once a player gets the Stressed trait, he can chose to retire to the countryside and rest. After some random time he will return without the Stressed trait.

While the player is resting he will suffer -5 at all his/her scores and will be incapacitated. A Regent will be appointed.

While resting, some personal traits modify the amount of rest needed to get rid of the Stressed trait. The country being at war is the worst that can happen as the ruler can’t escape the stress. Being Diligent, Envious, Lustful, Wroth or Duelist is bad, being Slothful, Patient, Hunter, Falconer, Poet or Mystic, is better. But nothing beats being a Gardener or being naturally Content! Some of these traits stack, others are taken as a group.

A player may elect to stop resting at any time. In that case he will re assume the leadership of the country still Stressed.

Christians now can celebrate Easter and gain interesting bonus along the way: more opinion with the clergy, particularly touching a powerful noble or improving the mood of the lesser vassals.

There is a new lifestyle trait that is the Tutor.

This trait enables an event where the player (or an NPC) may offer to teach the liege a subject of his/her interest. The student needs to have at least 5 in learning to be able to improve his/her stats. The Student can’t be Slow, Imbecile, Incapable, Slothful or Drunk. The Tutor needs to have at least 10 Learning to teach the Liege and needs to avoid the same traits mentioned before for the student. The realm must be at peace.

While Learning the stats of the character are reduced by 2 and in the end there is no certainty that the player increased his/her stat in the field picked. It all depends on luck and on the learning of the character.

The player can also teach himself by picking his/her subjects of interest. He/she needs to have Learning 15 to do so.

Having a scholarship focus, theology focus, having the scholar or tutor trait, and the learning stat all influence the success of the endeavour.

Finally, a character with the Tutor trait may increase the stats of his/her wards. The Stat affected in this case is preferentially the stat related to the education of the Tutor. A savvy player will try to find a tutor of the same education level he wants to choose for his child when the kid is 6yo, that is the earliest occasion when the tutors start to make an impact.

Finally the chance of the tutor to impart knowledge on the ward depends on his Learning skill, which means all things being equal, a Tutor with a high level of Learning will improve his ward more times.

Three new personality traits are available in Dark Ages with events to flesh them out. They are the Wary, Cheerful and Dour personality traits and might appear either randomly or through a proper education: Conscientious characters might become Wary, Playful characters might become Cheerful and Brooding characters might become Dour.

Regarding the Wary trait and its interaction with Paranoid, please refer to the chapter IX - Mental Condition Traits of the manual and check the section detailing the Paranoid trait.

Fleets are at the mercy of storms at sea. Leaders embarked there run the risk of drowning. Men embarked can suffer as little as 6% casualties up to being entirely wiped out. The months of December, January and February pose the most serious risks of storms. Also it is advisable to be near the coast while navigating around the world.

Dark Ages Mod delays genetic traits on new born children. Instead of knowing at 0 age when a child is a genius, or tall, or pretty much any genetic trait, Dark Ages delays the showing of most traits.

Each trait follows a specific time to appear, depending on the trait itself. A dwarf character will be revealed much, much sooner than a genius. For some traits, some thorough investigation was done by the Dark Ages Team in order to properly identify when some traits realistically show up on children and make the whole thing realistic.

Father, Mother and Educators will receive notification events about their children gaining traits... all this with some flavour added depending on the traits in question!

Rulers with less than 4 in any stat will suffer heavy penalties related to the area where they are seriously lacking.

The idea here is to split the stat scores in two clearly defined areas and provide the player with yet another strategy to employ the focus of his character. Will he improve a better stat to make it shine or will he instead prefers to avoid the hefty penalties that comes with a very low score by assigning his focus to this less performant area?

The choice is the player's...

Notice that in relation with focus assignment, Dark Ages already offers a much larger specter of options as at scores 2,4,6,8 - for bad stats - and 12,15,18 and 21 - for good stats - a very large number of instances already gives different probabilities/results to actions and events. Please refer to section "I - General Considerations" of the Guide.

In Dark Ages, Republics work a bit different than they do in vanilla. Most of the changes were made to turn the gameplay more challenging to the player.

First and foremost, the obscene level of wealth generated by Merchant Republics was addressed by the inclusion of events that make the Doge in first place but also the patricians to spend funds to help the Republic further its goals.

Refusal in financially helping the Republic means an hit in Prestige, both for the Doge as well as for the head of the Patrician families and for the successor of the Doge. In this way we strive to create a dilemma for the player between saving gold for his/her own ends and suffer a punishment for the future chances of getting elected - less prestige, less chances of getting elected - or expending gold in order to stay competitive in future elections.

There are events designed for Doges and events designed for non Doge patricians. One side effect of this is that in wars, Republics tend to amass more troops thanks to the generosity of the different families who spend gold hiring some mercs (generated troops, not mercenaries from the list) to help in the fighting.

As the weak AI should be helped whenever possible, upon a marriage, the head of the family gains more prestige than in vanilla. This should help the AI stand competitive in the elections.

Mentioning elections, their rules have been changed.
Compared to vanilla, in Dark Ages the influence of money spent on campaign was reduced by a factor of 20% (to a weight of 4), the influence of Prestige increased by a factor of 100% (to a weight of 4 too, it is now as influent as the money spent campaigning), the age of the candidate retains its importance (it's age squared) and the random factor increased by a factor of 400% - to 2000 points - which in a very rough way of measuring it means it weights now around 33% in your strong Doge campaign - large enough to add imprevisibility to elections but small enough to be totally sidelined by a very good all round candidate.
In the end and coupled with the decrease of money available for Patricians, this will make elections less predictable and harder to be bought by throwing money at the election.

Furthermore, any province owned other than the capital will have the Republican Liability (*) modifier that curbs the money collected and the available troops in Castles and Temples. This modifier also increases significantly the cost of developing the province with buildings. The Republican Liability modifier also slightly increases the Revolt Risk of the province.
This modifier abstracts the difficulties Republics faced with territorial growth and overall management of provinces far away from their center of decision.

Finally, when a Doge or a Patrician conquer a new province, an event is presented with the options to let the council decide who among the families will get the province based on a lottery or if the conqueror refuses the "Republican Spirit" and keeps the province for himself... with some strings attached, given the fact the other families will not take such act kindly.


If they fulfill some conditions like having good Intrigue, or good Diplomacy or having the trait Master Schemer, or the trait Silver Tongue or having the focus set to Intrigue, Patricians can ask the Doge to influence the next election in their favour, turning it easier for them to win the next election. If successful, this is abstracted by the earning of a vast amount of Prestige that in turn is converted to Respect regarding the election score.

Once the Patrician decides to use the "Influence Election" decision by picking the option when using RMB over the face of the Doge, two tests are made. The first decides if the Doge accepts being corrupted, the second decides what will the Doge asks to perform the action. Depending on the player character and the Doge traits and stats, different things might be asked and different results will be reached.

Please notice if the player is not willing to pay what the Doge demands, he/she can always refuse the deal at the right time.

When the player decides to corrupt the Doge, there is a chance his/her plot is discovered by one of the other families, generating a penalty to the chances of success of the decision and giving the player a modifier as a failed intriguer. This chance is modified by the Intrigue Stat of the player character. The same modifier, even if for a smaller amount of time, is applied to the player if the Doge refuses to be corrupted.

Be it through decision or due to the good services of the Spymaster, the option to manage and run a smuggler operation is now available to be pursued. The Spymaster will be responsible for running the day to day business of the operation and his influence in terms of Realm Intrigue, his own stat or his presence is felt along the time.

As the player can expect, he/she will enjoy a certain monthly profit based on the development of the network as well as the economic conditions from abroad. The player should be prepared to see different incomes available along the time as conditions change, some of which he has no control over. On other instances these conditions might change based on the players decisions.

Besides the monthly income, the player may get asked to perform special runs, risking his/her neck for very profitable deliveries as sometimes the Spymaster is not available to run the operation on the ground. This can lead to extra earnings of large significance but can also lead to other, less palatable, consequences.

There are a host of other events that might happen, providing depth and immersion to the whole experience of running a Smuggler Operation. All in all, it is a risky but profitable business.

The cardinal stat when addressing matters related with the Smuggler Operation is Intrigue. As said before, Realm Intrigue also plays a role in certain circumstances and traits related with subterfuge are also at a premium. Expect to see extensive tooltips detailing what is influencing the results seen in the world of Dark Ages.

As it doesn't fit in the decision description, the traits that provide bonus for the successful establishment of a Smuggler Operation are: Intrigue Education, Schemer, Deceitful, Arbitrary, Greedy, Brave, Cynical, Shrewd, High Realm Intrigue and High Intrigue.

The traits that provide penalties for the establishment of a Smuggler Operation are: Honest, Just, Charitable, Craven, Trusting, Dull, Low Realm Intrigue and Low Intrigue.

Infamy in Dark Ages is gained by any character that either is discovered at murdering someone or that plans unsuccessful special raids as a pirate.

It is worth noting the Liege at present accrues 50% of each vassal's infamy (*) and when that happens under the Dark Ages implementation scope (discover murdering someone or as the consequence of the pirate raids) he is given the chance to warn the vassal under two different ways.

Of course the vassal doesn't like to be called into question but the subsequent chance of performing those two actions will be lower or much lower, depending on the type of warning the Liege gives the vassal.

The most decisive way to deal with this indirect gain of infamy for the Liege is to organize his domain having the least vassals possible, as with less vassals, the chances for indirectly accruing Infamy get lower.

There is a rule to disable gain of infamy for everyone (within Dark Ages implementation).


(*) - Next week's version (09/08/2019) will have the value of infamy gained by the liege changed from 50% of the vassal's Infamy gained to 10%. This should solve the most nagging aspects of this implementation. It was a side consequence, as when it was designed I never considered the Liege was gaining Infamy too.

Privileges represent abstract perks the independent Liege might offer its most powerful vassals to assuage their ambition, to keep the realm peace or to give a prize to an important vassal.

When granting Privileges, the Liege always lose something through a modifier while the vassal gains something too. It is important to notice that giving privileges is a very effective way of keeping peace within a realm as the opinion of the vassals increase and a truce, its duration based on the Liege's Learning stat, starts to be in effect between Liege and vassal.

For the Liege, there are two ways of giving Privileges: Either the played decides to grant a certain vassal privileges through a targeted decision or the vassal may come up to the Liege through an event requesting or demanding Privileges.

Conversely, the player may ask his independent Liege privileges using also a targeted decision, as long as he qualifies himself as one of the most powerful vassals of the Liege.

The most powerful vassals that qualify for the granting of Privileges are 2 in the case of the Liege being an independent Count or an independent Duke, 5 in the case the Liege is an independent King and 6 if the Liege is an Emperor.

If the Liege refuses Privileges to the vassal he might expect an opinion's hit and, depending on the personality of the vassal, its relation of power with the liege and whether it was a request or a demand the vassal make when asking for privileges, the Liege may face open rebellion. Notice that other vassals, depending on their traits and the opinion of the Liege might join this rebellion.

The traits that influence whether the vassal demands Privileges from the Liege are: Relative power to Liege(+ the bigger it is), Ambitious(+), Brave(+), Wroth(+), Greedy(+), Envious(+), if refused Privileges before(+).

Remarking that all things notwithstanding this is the most common interaction, the traits that influence whether the vassal asks Privileges from the Liege are: Content(+), Craven(+), Humble(+) and Kind(+).

The traits that influence whether the vassal rebels against the Liege if refused Privileges are: Relative power to Liege(+ the bigger it is), Ambitious(+), Brave(+), if refused Privileges before(+), Content(-), Craven(-). Bear in mind that the unmodified chance of declaring a Rebellion is low.

The traits that influence if other vassals join in the rebellion against the Liege are: Wroth(+), Ambitious(+), Envious(+), Greedy(+), Paranoid(+), is friend of the liege negates the chance, is rival of rebelling vassal negates the chance, Good opinion of the Liege negates the chance, friend of Rebel(+), rival of Liege(+), relative power to liege(+ the bigger it is), good opinion of rebel(+), Intrigue Stat(+-), Patient(-), Trusting(-), Craven(-), Content(-), Kind(-) and opinion of Liege (- the bigger it is, starting with slightly positive).

All in all we expect Privileges to give another tool to the crafty player Liege to manage his realm while posing him with dilemmas when vassals come knocking at his door asking, or worse, demanding Privileges.

Finally its worth noticing that giving privileges to two vassals burdens the Liege more than giving to one. The player needs to find the balance to keep its most powerful vassals happy,not too powerful while at the same time avoiding to load himself with too many negative modifiers due to the concession of privileges.

In Dark Ages, when a character that is a ruler has particularly low scores in his/her Stats, he/she will suffer additional penalties to areas related to each Stat - the "Appalling [STAT]" modifiers.

The threshold that marks the appearance of these modifiers is a score of less than 4 in a Stat.

Besides accepting his/her fate, the player may deal with these modifiers by applying the relevant focus to overcome the score of less than 4 with the Stat bonus. For instance, if a character has a Diplomacy of 1, he can overcome the "Appalling Diplomacy" modifier by picking Carousing as his/her focus. In this case the 3 Diplomacy bonus that Carousing gives will be enough to reach the score of 4 necessary to avoid the Appalling modifier.

In this way Dark Ages allows the player new strategies for picking his/her focus.

In Dark Ages the player may request gold from the Mercenary Companies he/she established. If the conditions are verified, the player just needs to press the RMB on the portrait of the relevant Mercenary Captain to be able to pick the relevant option.

To be able to be asked gold, the Mercenary Captain must have at least 100 gold in his possession. There are 4 different amounts that can be asked, if the Mercenary Captain have at least that sum in his treasury. The amounts are 100 gold, 200 gold, 350 gold and 500 gold.

Whether the Mercenary captain agrees to send funds to the player depends on a host of variables. The player character traits Charitable, Kind, Just, Patient and Honest, all provide good bonuses for the interaction. Also providing bonuses are the Mercenary Captain traits Charitable and Kind, his low Stewardship, his high opinion of the player character and whether they are friends.

On the contrary, factors adversely affecting the chances of success, are the player character traits Arbitrary, Wroth, Deceitful, Greedy and Envious. As for the mercenary Captain, the traits Greedy and Envious also play a negative role. His high Stewardship also increases his chance of a refusal of the player request. Finally his poor opinion of your player character and whether they are rivals also influences negatively the chances of success.

The player can only ask once for gold in a given amount of time. This time is defined by the Diplomacy of the player character. The higher the Diplomacy the shorter the time between possible requests. Of course, a lower time doesn't immediately translate into more gold. After all, time must pass and contracts must be resolved until the Mercenary Captain has again enough gold to be transferred to the player character.

Independently of the success of the action, the Mercenary Captain will not like to be asked his gold. As such, a negative opinion modifier with the player character will be enacted once the request is made.

In Dark Ages the player may ask any character that owes a favour to him/her to improve his/her Piety, his/her Prestige or, if the character is landed, to form an alliance with the player character.

There is no guarantee the other character will accept performing such favour with several traits influencing the final outcome. Influencing negatively the chances are the number of sinful traits the player character possess, whether he is Arbitrary, whether he is Deceitful, whether the Piety of the target character is low (if the request was for Piety), whether the Prestige of the target character is low (if the request was for Prestige) and whether the target character has a Low opinion of the player character.
Conversely, the number of Virtue traits the player character has, whether he is Honest, whether he is Just, whether the Piety of the target character is high (if the request was for Piety), whether the Prestige of the target character is high (if the request was for Prestige) and whether the target character has a High opinion of the player character, all play a positive role in the chances to be successful in the request.

To ask a character for these special favours, the target character needs to own a favour to the player character and the player needs only to access the target character menu with the RMB and pick the option "Repay Favour".

The player can now offer loans to other landed characters using the RMB character menu.

In order to be able to offer a loan, the character must be either a Patrician (Doge or not), has the Trait Midas Touched or has at least 15 in Stewardship.

The character offering the loan will then has the chance to define the conditions of the loan regarding the amount lent and the yearly sum received (for ten years). This yearly sum received already contains an interest rate.

The larger the loan and the higher the interest rate will decrease the probability of the target character to accept the loan. Factors positively influencing the acceptance of the loan include the target character being an Administrator, having an education is Stewardship, being at War, owing less than 100 gold - the lower the value, the most needy he/she is.

Being either Dim (for those using HIP together with Dark Ages), Slow or Imbecile will cancel the penalties to acceptance regarding the loan size and the interest rate.

A borrower with a high Stewardship, a Stewardship education or the trait Administrator has a bigger chance of investing the money well, receiving positive events along the loan time. This is available to any character, even if the characters with such traits/education/stat will have higher chance of experiencing them.

In the end, such characters represent a lower risk to the lender as when a borrower goes bankrupt (treasury lower than 0) the loan is forfeited and the lender will not receive more money from the borrower.


If there is no other loan in effect, the player can now also ask for a loan from other landed character. This possible lender needs to either be a Patrician, has 15 of Stewardship or has the Midas Touched trait.

Noting the proposal might be rejected leading to a decrease in Prestige, the player may ask for loans of 100, 250, 500 or 1000 gold, depending on the lender treasury size. Notice that the bigger the sum, the lower the chances of acceptance by the lender. Also influent in the decision to go ahead with the business are the Prestige and the Yearly Income of the player (borrower) and the opinion the lender has about the player. Also a host of traits will influence the interest offered by the lender to the player. Don't expect a Greedy lender to ask for the same interest as a Charitable one, for instance.

The player will always have the option of rejecting the deal when offered an interest rate without any costs.
Also, bear in mind these loans are resolved once one of the characters has died, meaning the payment of the sum lent will happen immediately.
Yearly the player will pay an interest rate with the option of repaying the entire money borrowed. In this last case, the loan will cease to exist.

Dark Ages has its own way of inviting characters to one's own court. Contrary to vanilla, where the process only involved the picking of a character from the ledger knowing beforehand if he or she will accept, refuse or needed some more gold to be convinced to join the player court, in Dark Ages everything is different.

Now, any character within the diplomatic range of the player is a valid target to travel to the player's court. Contrary to vanilla, however, now the process has more depth, with the player having to pick what kind of rewards he will give to the character.

Concerning expenditures, the player seeking a new courtier will only pay anything at all if the target of the invitation accepts to serve him. If that is the case, at the very least 15 gold will be paid to cover the travel expenses. However, on top of that the player will have to offer other perks and as one might understand, the bigger the perk, the bigger the probability the invitee will accept the player's offer.

In reality the player will be able to offer more gold, more prestige, power or estates to the invitee. All the options pose several drawbacks for the player, but at a base level, the biggest the offer, the more probable it will be accepted.

The system considers much more than the offers from the player, however. Without writing here all the factors, the traits of both the characters, the opinion of the invitee towards the player character, the distance between both realms, the opinion of the invitee towards his/her current Liege or any special relationship between both characters also play a significant role. The tooltips in the events will explain everything to help the player better judge his/her options.

Finally, if a positive answer will take from the player the assets he is giving away while enjoying the presence of his new courtier, a negative answer from the invitee will cause a significant loss of Prestige to the player character.

The player can be the victim of an organized criminal ring and must deal with its consequences. From the event describing the situation on-wards and while the situation lasts, from time to time the treasury of the country will decrease through the use of an invisible event.

At the start, the player may choose how to deal with the situation and several events might happen depicting the actions of the criminal ring. Not everything is clear though. In fact, the very existence of the criminal ring is not assured and the player, instead of hunting a criminal mastermind, is chasing ghosts. If that is the case, sooner or later an event will signal the end of the situation.

Bear in mind that when the criminal ring appears, a character will be selected as its mastermind and thus, if that character dies, the player will be informed not long after of the finishing of the criminal ring.

All in all, the player will be tested on how to address the problem and what measures he/she can enact to diminish its consequences.

If a character lacks living sons and is at least 40 years old, he/she may decide, through a decision in the intrigue menu, to attempt to forge an heir. He will be presented with an event that will ask what type of person he is interested on - a small baby, a kid or a young adult. It is important to note that it is easier to be successful the younger your type of heir, but it is also riskier due to the frailty of toddlers or - to a lesser extent - small kids.

Success in the decision depends also on the Intrigue Stat of the player character, while his trait Deceitful plays a positive role and his trait Just applies a negative.

During the time the event pool is active, there are other events that might influence the outcome.

If successful, the event pool will lead to a very diversified series of outcomes, so, stay ready to be surprised as your hardly get your favourite type of heir!

If the parents were highly gifted or highly inept at their stats, a character can change significantly his/her own Stats during childhood.

If each of the parents have a stat above 14, there is a strong possibility the child ends up gaining a bonus per parent with the high level Stat. Between 15 and 17 the bonus can be - per parent - up to +1. If the Stat is between 18 and 20, the bonus can be up to +2. If the Stat is bigger than 20 the bonus can be - again, per parent - up to +3.
All in all, there is a chance the character gets +6 in a stat should both parents have >20 in said stat. However, this extreme result will be very rare, as it will happen on average in less that 5% of characters.

Conversely, if each of the parents have a stat below 6, there is a strong possibility the child ends up gaining a penalty per parent with the low level Stat. If the score is 4 or 5 the penalty can be - per parent - up to -1. If the Stat is 2 or 3, the penalty can be up to -2. If the Stat is lower than 2 the penalty can be - again, per parent - up to -3.
In this case, there is a chance the character gets -6 in a stat should both parents have <2 in said stat. This extreme result will be very rare, as it will happen on average in less that 5% of characters.

The change in stats manifest itself during the whole childhood of a character, even if for calculus purposes the scores the parents had at birth that will influence the child.

Immediately after the child gets the bonus or the penalty, both parents, should they be alive, will receive a notification event telling them of the change.

All in all, this system gives a new layer of strategy to marriage, as now both parties directly contribute to the Stats of their children.

Finally, for those that don't like this feature, it can be turned off in the game rules.

If a character is either Deceitful, Arbitrary, Silver Tongue, Master Schemer, has very good Intrigue (min 15), has good Realm Intrigue (min 35) or has picked Scheme as focus, he/she can attemtp to poison the relations between two characters in diplomatic range picked by himself/herself.

First, the game must be stopped. Then, using the character menu (RMB over the portrait of a character), the player can select the option to Poison Relations (Target). This step selects the target of the intrigue, the character about whom the opinion of other character will be lowered.

Next and without unpausing the game, using the character menu (RMB over the portrait of another character), the player should pick the source of the manipulation by picking from the menu the Poison Relations (Source) targeted decision. This second (source) character is the one who might have in the future a poorer opinion of the first (target) character. At this point an event will fire allowing the player to pick his/her strategy about the evil deed being performed. There are comprehensive instructions containing what affects the success and what is the penalty of the relations in the tooltips of these decision/events.

Now the player can finally unpause the game wait some weeks or months and check if the intrigue was successful.

This action is heavily centered on Intrigue and Intrigue Stats. As always, there are consequences for failure, so, be careful about the risks taken.


As an example about how useful this action is, I was unable to divorce my wife as the Pope would refuse based on his opinion of her. By poisoning the relations between my wife and the Pope, I was finally able to get a divorce!

In Dark Ages a character can attempt to establish Non Aggression Pacts and Alliances with other characters in diplomatic range.

Concerning Non Aggression Pacts, the action is defined as a targeted decision available through the RMB over the target of the proposal that reads "Offer Non Aggression Pact".
Tooltips inform what are the factors playing a role in the action but you can expect that Diplomacy Education and Diplomacy Stats play a central role in the success of the decision.

The same can be generally said about Alliances, in this case the option reads "Form Alliance" even if these ones can only be proposed if a Non Aggression Pact is in effect.

In Dark Ages there are other events that create Non Aggression Pacts and alliances and the AI makes use of all of them, so don't be surprised if you find the AI with a relevant number of diplomatic relations with other characters.

Finally, it must be said that Dark Ages NAPs and Alliances are offered together with vanilla ones, so the players and the AI can benefit from both implementations.

If your character has 12 Martial or is spending his/her time focusing on War and has no physical conditions and an age inferior to 45 years old, you can pick a decision from the Intrigue Menu to actively train for combat this character, as long as this character was never tutored in combat by the marshal before.

Hidden from the player a maximum potential is then set while the player will pick how the character will train. Intensive training will bring results faster, but also increase the risks of injuries. When the character reaches the potential the train will stop and certainly, given the modifiers that will be applied, his/her Combat Rating will improve.

Several unexpected results might happen along the train and the player can expect a new side story, always different, will be experienced along the way.

In Dark Ages, buying favours is done differently from vanilla. There is the same targeted decision, accessed from the character menu but a player can only attempt to buy a favour from someone on his court or has the same Liege as the player character.

The player then will be prompted to pick a strategy to convince the target. Based on this strategy, the favour might be beyond reach, cost a fortune or cost absolutely nothing!

In Dark Ages and if under a regency, regents have the power to effect deeply the future of the player character. Depending on their traits, good or bad consequences might happen thanks to particular incompetent or competent characters.

The player should avoid to appoint as Regents characters that have Sins, are Deceitful, are Arbitrary, have poor opinion of the player character (the Ruler) or are Hedonists. The more of these traits, the higher the risks taken.

Conversely, characters with Virtues, that are Just or are Honest should be looked as desirable Regents. Particularly useful are characters that are Diligent. The more of these traits present, the better.

Of course both types of traits can mix in a character. In this case, one can expect the prevalent side (more traits) will influence future outcomes.

Don’t expect to be bombarded by events while under a regency but rest assured one of the eight different effects might happen and influence your rule – for better or worse - once the Regent has long gone!

In Dark Ages, if your Spymaster is on a foreign province with the "Sabotage Province" order, you can pick a decision from the intrigue menu in order to try to fabricate a claim there.

The process is very different from claiming other provinces using your Chancellor as several different events might happen over the following years, giving bonuses or penalties to the final chance of success of acquiring a new claim.

Upon deciding to state a new claim on the intrigue menu, an event will ask you how your claim should be pursued. You can favour Diplomacy or Intrigue and that will have further down the road an impact on a specific event that always happen testing your Intrigue or Diplomacy that acts as a potent modifier for the final chance of success.

Besides the modifiers acquired earlier, the final event however is heavily influenced by the Learning skill of the ruler, as claiming a province tests its knowledge over ancient dynasties and rights of the feudal institution.

All in all, this feature will provide a way for the player to pick a province far from his own lands and claim it.