The Engineers Guild (Allows Dwarfs to gift settlements outside of Old World mountain regions to a vassal Dwarf AI)
This mod allows the Dwarf player to gift non-mountain regions to a vassal AI named The Engineers Guild, who will act as an unbreakable vassal and protect its lands, and build armies of its own to help the player defend or expand. Any land it takes will be under its control but if it takes any land that is considered rightful Dwarf territory, it will concede it to the player by next turn. The list of areas considered rightful Dwarven territory for the purposes of this mod is as a general rule the mountain regions of the Old World, but a precise list can be found here: https://i.imgur.com/jfZKjKH.jpg
This is an attempt at making the player stick to the bounds of the mountain regions for the lands he owns directly, and to own the rest of the world as he conquers it through an indirect vassal that is The Engineers Guild. In the lore, the Engineers Guild is the most powerful out of the Dwarven guilds and it has its own armies independant of any other group, and they control travel between Holds as well as protecting trade caravans, which is why I thought they were a good candidate for being the vassal AI. The player still has the option to occupy any land outside the mountain regions he wishes as normal, the main purpose of the mod isnt restricting gameplay but adding to it, so this just gives him the option of not having to own it directly.
This introduces a new faction with its own flags, banners and colours, but does not edit startpos, since it makes use of an NPC faction of Dwarfs that normally only shows up in a mission battle and renames it and introduces it to the campaign map as soon as the player first takes a non-mountain settlement and chooses to gift it to them, so the mod should be compatible with most things.
As a minor flavour effect, depending on the ammount of regions The Engineers Guild owns, The Dwarfs will receive a small boost to their trade income, starting at 1% when the Guild owns 1 region and capping at +10% when The Engineers Guild owns 100 or more regions. It wont change balance much and its not something to bank on but its a nice loreful effect, trade routes being improved and defended by The Guild improves trade revenue.
Savegame compatible.
Should be SFO compatible, but I havent tested it on it fully.
Only for the main Dwarfs faction.
FAQ
-Can you make a single mod out of these?
Due to the way they work, by using a faction that usually only shows up on a quest battle for another faction, having all the vassal mods activated or in a single mod would only increase the odds of something going wrong. For example, one of the factions is used exclusively in a single battle in the Sartosa campaign. Since the AI doesnt really do the quest battles, as long as the faction used for the vassal AI is used for the player while it plays a non-Sartosa faction, there is no risk of things going wrong. Meanwhile, if all vassal mods are active and the player is playing Sartosa, and he somehow ends up an ally of the vassal faction and he wants to do the quest battle that will make him face them, problems might arise. Also, I dont think the AI can use the vassal mechanics correctly since it wasnt originally programmed for it, it would only end up gimping itself. For now I prefer to keep things modular and not assembling them in a single mod to avoid such problems.
-Can the AI use this?
The AI can, but likely wont make use of the gift to another faction feature due to the fact their priorities for gifting are set really low by default. Raising them is possible, but in my testing the AI isnt great at handling the vassal mechanics. Only the "Tides of Chaos" Chaos AI has the chance of gifting regions to its vassal AI greatly increased.
I have made an optional submod that raises the gifting priority for all AI factions, but it might upset balance in other unseen ways, but if you really want the AI to be able to gift to its vassal more often, you can use it: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1903090497
-Can I make a suggestion?
Please do, I like listening to ideas to improve the mods and make new ones.
-Is this compatible with x?
As a general rule of thumb I try to make things in a way that they’re compatible with most things, if you find something they arent compatible with, do let me know.
