Crusader Kings II

Crusader Kings II

Society Tutorial
84 Comments
Loki 7 Jun, 2023 @ 2:16pm 
I will try thanks
Maal  [author] 7 Jun, 2023 @ 1:56pm 
@None
Haven't modded CK2 for years, I do not remember how to do these.

Find a mod that add bloodline (preferable that only add bloodline, so there's less clutter) and reverse engineer it. Like copy that whole mod and change the words/code one by one until you figure it out. It's the best way to learn IMO.

Societies are relatively complex which is why I made this mod initially. Bloodlines were barely more complex than traits iirc.
Loki 7 Jun, 2023 @ 1:35pm 
can you please create tutorial or custom mod like this for bloodlines please? like for specific character ingame I was trying weeks and days but its pointless
Maal  [author] 10 Mar, 2023 @ 7:33pm 
@Noxgorn
Go ahead, it's the whole point of this mod!
Loki 10 Mar, 2023 @ 1:03am 
Hi, can i use this tutorial to create my own? Society and upload it on steam workshop?
ofc i will give you credit in description :steamthis:
iwandre2001 6 Jul, 2022 @ 12:57am 
thanks,i will definitely look at it
Maal  [author] 5 Jul, 2022 @ 3:27pm 
@iwandre2001
Been a while, but you can certainly cheat the system for that.

I basically do the reverse in my chivalry societies mod (keep the title holder of each holy order the society leader of their own society). Check the on_action and event files for stuff related to events CHI.105 ad CHI.106.

You could probably also do it in a dirty way, like a power/decision only visible to the grand master which steal the religious title. AI check decision like every month iirc and do all of those he can, so it might be delayed by a few days but he'll get the title.
iwandre2001 5 Jul, 2022 @ 2:41pm 
that is amazing,thanks for making it.
Do you now if it is possible for the society's leader to be the head of faith(Pope for example) and when he dies the next in line in the society gets to become head of faith?
Maal  [author] 14 Nov, 2021 @ 5:45pm 
@Olrox17
You are welcome!
Olrox17 14 Nov, 2021 @ 3:32am 
Forgot to thank you for this gem of a tutorial. Downloaded it about a year ago, and it has taught me all I needed to know to start churning out societies for the Faerun mod. Thank you!
Maal  [author] 14 Mar, 2021 @ 12:24pm 
Glad to see that it is still useful even 3 years later. Nobody had really done society stuff beside me at that point, so spreading knowledge was needed.

And do not worry, I have seen worst as far as weird societies goes lol.
Fluff Bunny 14 Mar, 2021 @ 12:18pm 
Truly utterly brilliant. This is a great helper to get started!

I opened all the files, renamed a few things, loaded it up to test... The first time trying out the shell of the society it worked brilliantly!

There is "Penis Fight Club" on my list of known societies and a list of the members from the lowly initiate "Skanks and Wankers" all the way up to the "Big Daddy" at the top of the society! Soon the men and women of the middle ages will be penis fighting and scissor fighting all across Europe!

I'm going to have fun setting up events for this one and uh... fleshing it out.! ;)

Sorry to use the gift you have granted us on something so puerile and ridiculous!
Maal  [author] 29 Feb, 2020 @ 5:11pm 
Sorry, never touched them at all. :\

The Elder King mod add a few. You could try asking them.
Cappuccino James 29 Feb, 2020 @ 7:44am 
@Maal Have any advice for Off Maps? I fell like their societies 2.0 in terms of modding difficulty
Maal  [author] 24 Jan, 2020 @ 5:53pm 
@Pawkkie
In coding, the errors are always stupid stuff!

Great to see things sorted out, for now...!
Pawkkie 24 Jan, 2020 @ 5:10pm 
It was exactly as stupid as my ".gfx" code file in my interface folder being a .txt instead, which is what I have .gfx set to save as by default. It was automatic once I fixed that. Thanks for the second set of "eyes", and again, hugely appreciative for you sharing your template in the first place :D
Maal  [author] 23 Jan, 2020 @ 10:56pm 
Thanks you! Glad it helped.
Been a longwhile since I did serious CK2 modding, let's see... I think it should be automatic if the spriteTypes are named properly. Is the ".gfx" code file in the your_mod/interface folder? And is the pathing to the gfx picture in texturefile correct?

Let's look at this line:

spriteType = { #the background of the society menu
name = "GFX_society_main_background_tutorial_society"
texturefile = "gfx\\interface\\societies\\society_bg_tutorial_society.dds"
}

In the "name =" section:
GFX_ mean it is a gfx
society_main_background_ mean it is used for a society's main background
tutorial_society is the name of the society

If that didn't work, we could find a way to send me over the WIP mod, easier to check than guessing.
Pawkkie 23 Jan, 2020 @ 9:11pm 
Hey Maal, huge fan of your stuff, and this society tutorial (and a lot of futzing around with modding small parts of the game first) have really helped me get my own stuff going. I've got a question that I'm not sure where else to ask, that probably has a pretty simple answer; where do I change the background GFX of my society that's shown in the society tab? I've got my .dds in the proper place and my spriteTypes in order, but I've no idea where to put a line to actually assign that background. In any case, thanks a lot for being so open with your work. I'll be sure to reference back to you when I'm done and get my stuff posted :)
Maal  [author] 6 Oct, 2019 @ 4:59am 
Since societies use everything, keep it for last then. You will need to know how to make events and decisions, so keep moving on to them. Make those you need for your mod, then slowly creep toward to society. The more modding you do, the more the society system will make sense.

If you have any specific question, you can just ask.
Mr. Aziz 5 Oct, 2019 @ 5:51pm 
I've pretty much finished the base for a mod I am working on, I'm moving on to events and decisions now. I was hoping to get a society in, but this is a lot
Maal  [author] 5 Oct, 2019 @ 5:18pm 
I suggest starting with some simple event chains and new traits. Societies can include nearly everything possible to do in CKII modding. It might be overwhelming to learn it all at once. My first ckii mod was Cultural Bonuses for example, very basic but taught me the code and not stuff are linked.
Canon 5 Oct, 2019 @ 12:20am 
yes those differenot files
Cappuccino James 4 Oct, 2019 @ 9:13pm 
@ Mr. Aziz

Societies aren't a good place to start if you've never modded CK2 imo. Even with Maal's tutorial, societies are hella involved and use a bunch of differen't files.
Mr. Aziz 4 Oct, 2019 @ 4:58pm 
Only just started around a week ago
Maal  [author] 4 Oct, 2019 @ 4:50pm 
Have you ever modded CK2 before?
Mr. Aziz 4 Oct, 2019 @ 6:49am 
Hey man, would you be at all willing to help me out in figuring out how to make a society? This is all sort of overwhelming and quite honestly I have no idea what I am doing despite you going through the trouble of making this as simple as possible.
Maal  [author] 3 Sep, 2019 @ 9:28pm 
@Cappuccino James
I have never tried to use more than 4, if the ranks work but there is no pictures it might be an UI thing which I have no experience with. Sorry.

The Elder King mod has societies with more than 4 ranks. You could try asking them or looking at their code.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1429073254
Cappuccino James 3 Sep, 2019 @ 1:10pm 
If you add more ranks in your society definition, how do you get the to show up in game? i have a .dds with 6 ranks and my .gfx has this:

spriteType = { #The 6 ranks pictures
name = "GFX_priesthood_of_mendes_society_ranks"
texturefile = "gfx\\interface\\societies\\rank_icons_priesthood_of_mendes.dds"
noOfFrames = 6
}

spriteType = { #The rank you are
name = "GFX_priesthood_of_mendes_society_ranks_highlight"
texturefile = "gfx\\interface\\societies\\rank_icons_priesthood_of_mendes_highlight.dds"
noOfFrames = 6
}

spriteType = { #The ranks when not available
name = "GFX_priesthood_of_mendes_society_ranks_locked"
texturefile = "gfx\\interface\\societies\\rank_icons_priesthood_of_mendes_locked.dds"
noOfFrames = 6
}

Ingame all i see is the 4 default ranks
Maal  [author] 2 Sep, 2019 @ 8:29pm 
@VonValerian
Been a while, but if i recall correctly:
= mean >= when it come to numerical values
== mean exactly that number

A few DLC ago there was only = so we had to use other methods to replicate ==
a-really-big-cat 2 Sep, 2019 @ 6:15pm 
Why do some of the lines in the decisions file have "==" and ">=" instead of just "="? Do they signify something different? I want to add a requirement for higher tier rank-up decisions that the character be female.
Maal  [author] 13 Aug, 2019 @ 5:14pm 
@ReconUHD
You could get around to mod any kind of group using this. All it require is some imagination as to which power/event/mission to give, and how to code them to work.
ReconUHD 13 Aug, 2019 @ 4:14pm 
nice, I may get around to mod a librarian/scholar/book writing society using this.
Spellbreeze 2 Apr, 2019 @ 5:41am 
I can open the rank icons and the society_exp_bg_tutorial_society.dds
Maal  [author] 1 Apr, 2019 @ 7:54pm 
@Spellbreeze
Some people told me the same about another mod, is there any of my dds you can open? I am not an expert on dds, I picked the options that worked in the game on my side but perhaps there are other options.
Spellbreeze 1 Apr, 2019 @ 5:21pm 
Hey, this mod is great! I did notice; however, that I can't open some of the .dds files in /gfx/interface/society. I'm using gimp 2.0 with the dds-gimp plugin (https://code.google.com/archive/p/gimp-dds/downloads) , and will get the message "Unexpected EOF" when I click on some of the icon files. Again, this is a great mod that's helping me to learn to mod a lot. :steamhappy:
Maal  [author] 23 Jan, 2019 @ 7:39pm 
@SyncedHumanMind
Glad it helped!
Wilpy 23 Jan, 2019 @ 5:21am 
Amazing mod! I wish there was a tutorial mod for every major game feature!
Maal  [author] 28 Dec, 2018 @ 5:38pm 
@vzellmeister
Glad you liked them.
Starting a private discussion on Paradox Forum would be the easiest to follow and share files I think. But here is fine too. If you do it here, start a new discussion on my mod's page so it is easier to find.
vzellmeister 28 Dec, 2018 @ 12:20pm 
I've quite liked your society mods and I'm working on a mod that uses society mechanics quite extensively. Would it be ok for me to ask a couple of questions? If so, what would be the best medium? Thanks!
Maal  [author] 18 Dec, 2018 @ 8:23pm 
@jamie_van
It is a mod idea, but I have a policy to not overwrite vanilla files. As these files will not be compatible with any other mods that would also reference them. So people would keep ask/begging for compatibility for other mods.

If you want to do it yourself, you have 2 options, edit the society or edit the trigger. I'd say to not edit the trigger, it will mess more mods than just the societies.

in common/societies/00_societies.txt
find and delete this line, there is a few instance:

has_tribal_or_nomadic_government_trigger = yes
jamie_van 18 Dec, 2018 @ 7:35pm 
That would be a good mod though. Lots of people play norse and it doesn't make snese to have the berserkers go away after fuedalism when it took 200 years after they'd converted to christianity for berserkers/ulfhednar to be outlawed.
jamie_van 18 Dec, 2018 @ 7:34pm 
yes I do sorry about that...
Maal  [author] 18 Dec, 2018 @ 7:32pm 
@jamie_van
You mean Paradox's warrior's lodges?
jamie_van 18 Dec, 2018 @ 5:22pm 
Just need to know how to undo the tribal/nomadic only restriction on my pagan holy orders...
Maal  [author] 6 Dec, 2018 @ 1:55am 
Updated with more comments and files!
Maal  [author] 5 Dec, 2018 @ 12:20pm 
@Arkansas013
You are welcome!
Ark 5 Dec, 2018 @ 2:58am 
Thanks for this mod!
Maal  [author] 29 Nov, 2018 @ 5:33pm 
@Golden Smith
It could really use an update with the new features added to Holy Fury. Do check again later this week as the code will change a bit.
金藏 29 Nov, 2018 @ 6:41am 
thx
Maal  [author] 13 Oct, 2018 @ 6:20pm 
@PapaPalpy
You are welcome! I hope it helped a lot of people creating societies, there is a few more today and they are fairly complex.

It could probably use a revision, I've have much more experience now.