I love this mod and the playstyle it has brought out for me

@ HaySeuss

It is a Dark Ages.

@Lucasleepwalker

Thanks. Enjoy the mod!

@ Drakken

Right now I am too worried about AUH to think about anything that deep.

Hi! Wondering if there was a way to tweak AI vassals to be less prone to start Dissolution factions? Maybe, for example, if there are no more legitimate claimant to the throne, or something like that?

thank you for spending your free time making this mod for us to enjoy

@Cardolam

Thanks for replying. is parent having these non-congenital traits passing over a dark ages thing or is that in base game?

@HaySeuss

5% of the children have the Dull trait, as well as the Shrewd trait, the Weak trait, the Strong trait, the Loyal trait or the Disloyal trait. The chance is further modified by the parents having the trait. If both parents have it, the chance is bigger. All things considered, it should be a rare happenning.

You either are experiencing a serious case of bad luck or you are reloading the game for the same child when the random seed is already set and you get the same result.

is there an increased chance for the dull trait? because almost every child I have ends up getting it

@Proxima-b

It is all a matter of taste for you and of design improvement for me. But yes, expect a game rule for you to fiddle with next week.

Probably the pregnancy game rule can be expanded like:
vanilla
forgiving
dangerous (AI only)
dangerous
dangerous (player only)

Just like how vanilla game deals with foreboding events.

However, giving the player such unfair advantage over the AI, on something that crucial, feels exactly like a "sugared and childishly forgiving gameplay" you just described. The unfair advantage is much more prominent if playing at a female dominated realm.

As someone who always plays with Dark Ages, to be spared from death because of this special treatment, doesn't feel like "a break", it feels like plain cheating. According to the comment section I'm probably not alone on this thought.

I also need to mention that, the most interesting 100 years of my last playthrough, was when my young empress died from her second childbirth and the empire went into chaos. And trust me I didn't think it was "punishing" at all, just good old fun.

@ Proxima-b

Dark Ages is about immersion, role play, and yes, challenge.

However, what I want to achieve is not an harsh and punishing environment for the player but instead getting rid of the much sugared and childishly forgiving gameplay vanilla presents.
If one wants a challenge for itself, something I personally abhorr and feel it does nothing to further gameplay and the quality of the implementation as a work of art, one can play in apocaliptic mode.

Bottom line: When I consider a 7% chance of the female PC dying at first pregnancy - thus with questionable possibilities to continue playing - and a compounded much higher risk if she has 3, 4 or more kids, I believe the player can be fairly given a break. In the end, the death risk is there, only toned down.

As the greatest ally of ck3 AI - i agree, throwing AI under the bus like that is not pretty.

“Player controlled women will have substancially less chance of dying during childbirth”
This is suspicious. to gamify this feature, to pander the player like this... It feels like the exact opposite of how this mod is about.
Thank Odin I can mod it back for myself.

Version 2.38 (17/10/2025)

- Event pool for Landless Characters is 90% complete
- Added some more granularity to Court Schemes
- Improved the tooltips of the outcomes of event "An Artistic Offer"
- Improved event "A Martial Offense" by properly selecting meaningful rulers
- Fixed tooltip in option of event "A Martial Offense"
- Martial Skill now multiplies by 1.5 in terms of Advantage granted (!)
- Fixed a problem with gold in the decision "Train Commander Skills"
- Fixed a small balancing issue with the logic of the AI picking the decision "Train Commander Skills"

(cont.)

(cont.)

- Increased the potencial rewards of event "A Long Voyage"
- Decreased the risk of death on childbirth for mothers of several children
- Player controlled women will have substancially less chance of dying during childbirth($)
- Updated all language files (*)


(!) - In vanilla it multiplies by 1, so now the Martial Skill plays a more determinant role in battles
($) - Around 3.5% per pregnancy at most for healthy female characters
(*) - The language displayed is always English except for Spanish that has now an updated internal translation in Dark Ages. There are submods for Spanish, Polish, German, Chinese and Russian translations. I don't have a clue how update they are

@n00bGingrich

Checked it and its indifferent as LMF only adds new stuff, so, no troubles. As SOP I would say loading Dark Ages last.

LMF recommends running theirs below for their own”fertility” mechanics to work

@finallyciv

No, that's not a thing that I consider doing as I would not split the entire mod, with its array of different designs and balance, into parts that by themselves would achive little if anything at all. It would also be a ton of work for nothing. Also, pay attention to what @n00bGingrich suggests.

@n00bGingrich

- I'll try Love, Marriage, Family now and check how that balances with Dark Ages. Notice you should load Dark Ages after it as both mods modify some of the same features.

@finallyciv

What mods are you running with Dark Ages? Loading a mod after Dark Ages will overwrite it's changes. Do some reflecting and decide which mods are more important and make sure the more important mod overwrites the other.

@Cardolam

Thanks for being so responsive to my own and others feedback. At some point I'm going to try the mod out with the Love Marriage Family mod. I think this might make a decent addition to your own list given that I've seen you use a similar marriage mod before.

Dear Cardolam, could you create a mod for your gameplay additions (events, decisions, etc.) that does not include adjustments to the gameplay? I would love to play your entire mod, but it conflicts with too many other mods I want to use. I don't know how much work that would entail, but I would be very grateful if you could do it!

Version 2.37 (10/10/2025)

- Event pool for Landless Characters is 80% complete
- Default Warfare Game Rule is now set to "Realistic" (!)
- The results of the "Realistic" Warfare Game Rule setting are now harder to predict
- Depending on the Martial of the AI rulers, they can be more adept of picking the Decision "Practice Sparring with a Blademasteer"
- Fixed a loophole where players could farm Prestige by marrying and divorcing Lowborn spouses in a never ending cycle
- Updated all language files (*)


(!) - The "Gamey" and "Childish" Warfare settings continue to be available for picking, of course
(*) - The language displayed is always English except for Spanish that has now an updated internal translation in Dark Ages. There are submods for Spanish, Polish, German, Chinese and Russian translations. I don't have a clue how update they are

@n00bGingrich

One can say that enabling the console is the mother of all cheats. It is up to the player if he/she wants to cheat that way or not. But, yes, I'll do something about it.

So I found an even worse prestige farm. Playing as a Nomad it is possible to infinite divorce and remarry the same person without consequence.

@ Ozee et all

A new version of compatch between Darkages and Culture Expanded has been released to solve a lingering issue with standard regiments size.

@ Ozee

It was supposed that DA normal MaA would be selected as they are loaded after CE. I will provide a fix in a few minutes.

@Proxima-b

I expect a challenge but would be solved, at least in terms of running everything, in a few days.
As you might understand, balancing the new content of AUH is a different kind of beast that will take probably until end of year. I plan to develop other stuff concurrently, though.

Will this mod take a lot work to update after AUH drops? Because everyone knows one cannot play CK3 with Dark Ages.

It seems for Culture Expanded compatchonly following text file is fixed in compatch ce_regional_maa_types but there are 3 other text files with MAA regiments as part of CE and those are still unchanged.

I did some more testing and it seem it works with with RICE but the CE is causing the issue.

I think it might be due to either RICE or CE altering regular MAA units in some way.
Could you please take a look at it?

- I launched the game running only with DA and noted all MAA size was reduced by 50%, so Light Footmen regiment was in size of 50 meanwhile heavier units were in size of 25. I guess this how it is intended to be in the DA, all MAA reduced by 50%

- when I launched the game with the previous setup I had, which is RICE, CE and DA without compatches the regiment size for reduced by 50% for special MAA which are not part of RICE and CE. The size of special cultural MAA regiments added by RICE and CE was not reduced (as expected) but I noted the size of regular MAA such as Light Footmen or Bowmen was not reduced either.

- I launched game with RICE, CE and DA with compatches. This correctly reduced the size of MAA regiments added by RICE and CE by 50%. However I noted the size of regular MAA units, such as Light Footmen, Bowmen, Pikemen, Armored Footmen, Light Horsemen etc was not reduced and it remained at 100 units per regiment.

@Cardolam

I was not aware of the incompatibility with RICE and CE before,so I only played without compatches.
I downloaded the compatches and started a new game to check on the numbers, but there are few things that I do not understand, maybe they are intended to work that way or maybe it still some bug / incompatibility so I started some testing and here is what I noted

I created another new submod today to make Dark Ages and Culture Expanded fully compatible. Any odd effect between both mods, please report here or in the submod comments.

You can access the submod

HERE

or check the Dark Ages description in the section about submods.

@ Tankthinker

Yes, it is harder to predict who wins a battle.

However, it should be noted that outside that setting, Agincourt or Aljubarrota, among many other apparent one sided battles, could not have happened. Please notice that even in "Realistic" mode, battle points continue to be paramount to who has the best chances of winning a battle.

But I agree it is not a setting for everyone, far from it. That is why I made a game rule in first place. If you want an easier system to "game" or min-max, pick the "Childish" level in the relevant game rule.


@ Dinobot

Good idea. Will do it, yes.

Would it be too much trouble to make a compatch for Culture Expanded as well? Same issue as RICE, not all MAAs are halved. I had to use your other mod Increased MMA size to revert the change but I would prefer to play your default setting.

In case anyone is wondering if they should put it on "realistic" warfare settings for this mod DONT. It is the dumbest system i have ever encountered from a mod, literally no logic to who wins battles.

I created a new submod today to make Dark Ages and RICE fully compatible. Any odd effect between both mods, please report here or in the submod comments.

You can access the submod
HERE or check the Dark Ages description in the section about submods.

@Captain Smollett

Didn't know that. If they are new types, they will be quite overpowered as they will have double the number of men.

RICE has it's own MAAs though so it probably doesnt work well with dark ages just by that virtue alone (since those wouldnt be halved like vanilla ones)

@ n00bGingrich

I included RICE without any issues with Dark Ages in my runs a few years back, so I don't think there is any problem mixing both (load Dark Ages last in your mod list).

While I have the utmost respect about the developer of RICE and what he is achieving, I feel it's implementations lack relevant effects to affect the gameplay in meaningful ways (what's the point of an event or a decision to give +/-10/20 Prestige plus/minus 5 Stress?) . This coupled with a significant hit in the game's performance made me drop the otherwise excellent mod.

Notice my observations are dated and might be wrong as for the last 2 years (at least) I am not using RICE.

What do you think of balancing with RICE? I think it might be a good mod to add to your own list.

@R0B0T

It seems so. Load Dark Ages last in your mod list.

Is this compatible with culture expanded?

@ Rafael

Glad you are enjoying it!

I tried apocaliptic for the first time and I am loving it !

@ mairao

Glad you are enjoying!


@Proxima-b

I play with normal difficulty, yes. I have lots of fun with the emergent storytelling capabilities plus the extra challenge. But I don't min-max or meta play the game.

Terrific, the apocalyptic mode is proper apocalyptic now.
Does DA go well with vanilla difficulty setting? Like is it designed to run with normal or harder difficulty?

Really appreciate the less pronounced prowess decay due to old age. I did feel it was way over the top.

Keep up your amazing work!

Where do all the new music come from? Some of those are great, the one called "wilderness" for example.

Version 2.36 (03/10/2025)

- A new modifier was not localized for all languages except english. Now it is.

Version 2.35 (03/10/2025)

- Event pool for Landless Characters is 70% complete
- Apocaliptic mode turned slightly more apocaliptic for the player and less for the AI (!)
- As a male character, marrying a much older spouse carry consequences, now(#)
- Fixed a few Indian titles appearing without the respective colour
- Going up a Stress level now carries a 5% chance of leading to a stroke(%)
- Prowess penalties due to old age are less pronounced now

(cont)