Crusader Kings II - Paradox Entertainement (02/12)
- Thread starter Tellus
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I like what it does for ugly. As opposed to vanilla where nothing happens.
Vanilla also does nothing to show attractiveness though... Mind you, there is a bit of logic with that since the character portraits are supposed to be, well, portraits: they aren't necessarilly meant to reflect reality. Not to mention attractiveness and uglyness are rather subjective concept that not only vary from one individual to another but also because beauty criterias have varied over time.Sevarics said:
I do like the fact the Anime Portraits mod wanted to add a visual effect in regards to attractive or ugly. In fact, I actually like what they did for attractive since they basically just added a visual effect you see in manga to insist on the beauty of a character. But with ugly? It just adds a rather bizarre mouth, which kind of clashes with the rest of the artstyle from my POV... I think they could have done better.
The thing with portraits is that they don't reflect reality... But even then details do emerge.
Look at the paintings of Charles II of Spain.
Even when they are doing their best to make him look good, they can only work with what nature provides. His head is misshapen and his tongue is sticking out.
Reading about his physical description makes it worse, but even before that you know that there is something messed up about him.
I think that there should be something in the portraits that reveals things like that about the character.
If the character has the attractive trait, then maybe the painting should convey someone REALLY beautiful.
If the strong trait is present, then have the character be more muscular.
If the quick trait is present, perhaps a quirky, mischievous smile.
If the inbred trait is present, perhaps the painting should be distorted, like the artist tried to make the person look good but messed it up.
Hell, I might want to role-play as my character, but I don't want to get so disgusted with his face that I quit the game.
That might be true but you're taking one of the most extreme examples: you frankly can hardly end up worse than Charles II of Spain did. The guy had so many troubles it wasn't possible to hide them all.Shiva said:
Plus, there also are famous counter-examples: one I can think right ahead is Louis XIV's portrait of 1701 by painter Hyacinthe Rigaud. There is little doubt the portrait has been idealized and that Rigaud erased several of the Sun King's defects at the time the portrait was made. Louis XIV for example doesn't have any scar of smallpox on his face despite the fact he had suffered from it in his young years and it had left a mark. Another comment could be made on his feet given that he regularly had gout crisis in his last years. Of course, the portrait doesn't reflect any of that because it's supposed to exhalt the Sun King's majesty, something which these deffects could tamper somewhat.
A noble sentiment but I sadly think this isn't possible because any choice made would be biased.Shiva said:
Attractiveness and beauty are, as I said, quite subjective and vary from an individual to another. They've also varied over the ages and I'm pretty sure the medieval standards of beauty aren't our own. Further complicating things is that no one can guarantee the beauty standard of Western Europe were the same as that of Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East or even India. The reason I gave the Anime Portraits mod a pass on that is because they didn't touch the character portrait itself, they simply added a background effect to make us understand she's considered attractive.
Saying that strength should be reflected by muscles isn't necessarilly wrong but again, being considered strong doesn't mean you are as muscular as Arnold Schwarzeneger or bodybuilders. Plus, how do you reflect that on CK2's portrait style? It only shows the head and a bit of the shoulders.
For quickness and higher intelligence, saying the character should have a mischievous smile is quite arbitrary. Plus, when people are posing for a portrait, they generally adopt a rather blank expression. And quite frankly, there are people who look intelligent but are downright stupid and vice-versa.
As for inbreeding, that is assuming that inbreeding always has physical consequences on people... When the fact is that sometimes it's very subtle.
Some of the vanilla portraits are already pretty ugly though... It's not too distracting but still...frustrated progressive said:
Not "actual inbred person" ugly, though. There is quite a difference.
I believe there's a mod that introduces new facial features for ugly or insane people.
BTW, has anyone here ever driven the Caliphates to destruction by converting Ogedei Khan?
Also, I think I may have turned most of the Middle East Catholic. The Seljuk Sultanate got split apart into several branches, and it's basically messy bordergore now. Oh, but Khiva was able to get out of the mess under a Mazdaki revolt.
Also, I think I may have turned most of the Middle East Catholic. The Seljuk Sultanate got split apart into several branches, and it's basically messy bordergore now. Oh, but Khiva was able to get out of the mess under a Mazdaki revolt.
I assume he means they haven't usurped the Shia Caliphate and are thus 'secular' but that's just how I interpreted it
Why must France always balkanize in my high medieval games? Screw you Aquitaine you make my maps look dumb.
Anyway, playing a Henry of the Obotrites starting in 1081. I'm on Henrik III not, whose just inherited Denmark and I control Lubeck to Marienberg on the Baltic south shore.
Anyway, playing a Henry of the Obotrites starting in 1081. I'm on Henrik III not, whose just inherited Denmark and I control Lubeck to Marienberg on the Baltic south shore.
I definitely had a playthrough as Aquitaine where the king of France wanted one my duchies and I told him to fuck himself, the kingdom shattered in the civil war that I started and we all got conquered by the Muslims.
After wrapping up my Aquitaine game, I spent a couple weeks playing around with the Ruler Editor feature (with the mod that unlocks it) and I have to say that I found it a bit lackluster and it took me awhile to figure out why.
It wasn't merely that the characters I created were overpowered, it's that there wasn't a real narrative that I could get a hook into. With my Eleanor of Aquitaine game, I had a narrative in my head about Eleanor managing to set her own terms and becoming the first woman to carve out a Kingdom in her own right, her descendant's antics kept me invested in the plot.
With 'custom' rulers I couldn't create a narrative in my head that was interesting for them. (Though I am in the market for a mod that let's me add the banners of the families from Game of Thrones to the regular game, I'd like to play as an English Bolton clan, just as an example).
So now I'm playing a Scottish game using a relative of the infamous Macbeth, and so far I managed to gain control of Scotland, and through his marriage to one of the MANY Danish Bastards, his son helped his mother usurp Denmark from the Swedish 'Germanic' Pagans, then he inherited it, and I've tweaked their inheritance laws after clearing out the Danish vassals that hated me. Now Denmark and Scotland are a 'United Kingdom' as it were.
But as usual, France balkanized, and the HRE lost Italy and bits of Burgundy due to a revolt of some sort (I'm not sure when it happened, I was busy usurping Scotland from Malcom III and Donald II and noticed it after the fact).
Now I plan to eat into the Irish counties, and wait for opportunities to take land from England, break up that beast as much as possible. After all a weak England makes us Kings of Scots happy!
It wasn't merely that the characters I created were overpowered, it's that there wasn't a real narrative that I could get a hook into. With my Eleanor of Aquitaine game, I had a narrative in my head about Eleanor managing to set her own terms and becoming the first woman to carve out a Kingdom in her own right, her descendant's antics kept me invested in the plot.
With 'custom' rulers I couldn't create a narrative in my head that was interesting for them. (Though I am in the market for a mod that let's me add the banners of the families from Game of Thrones to the regular game, I'd like to play as an English Bolton clan, just as an example).
So now I'm playing a Scottish game using a relative of the infamous Macbeth, and so far I managed to gain control of Scotland, and through his marriage to one of the MANY Danish Bastards, his son helped his mother usurp Denmark from the Swedish 'Germanic' Pagans, then he inherited it, and I've tweaked their inheritance laws after clearing out the Danish vassals that hated me. Now Denmark and Scotland are a 'United Kingdom' as it were.
But as usual, France balkanized, and the HRE lost Italy and bits of Burgundy due to a revolt of some sort (I'm not sure when it happened, I was busy usurping Scotland from Malcom III and Donald II and noticed it after the fact).
Now I plan to eat into the Irish counties, and wait for opportunities to take land from England, break up that beast as much as possible. After all a weak England makes us Kings of Scots happy!
A little bit of map modding. All you would need to do would be to move Dragonstone where you want it to be. Seems like a pretty simple change since all you would need to do is to work on the map. And provinces would probably already be defined, unless the sea zone around Dragonstone had been modified.libbrit said:
Seems simple enough as far as I can tell.