Immortality Rebalance

This mod seeks to add in the ability to play as an immortal ruler but for players who want to trivialize less aspects of the game to maintain the challenge this game can provide.

Here we couple together immortality with witchcraft so it acts more as a ritual you perform than a setting you simply click.

To take the decision to become immortal, you must either:

Be a witch (naturally occurring)
Have taken the Research Witchcraft decision which becomes available to research upon obtaining the Scholar trait from the learning lifestyle.

The costs are currently still undergoing balance changes but the current costs involved with the decision are as follows:

1000g
1000 prestige
1000 piety
1 ‘small’ human sacrifice

One of the big ideas behind this mod is that immortality is obtained through dark arts and rituals and as such it seemed something that could be researched or learned. When you become a Scholar you now have the option to research witchcraft which will be in some cases a series of learning based challenges to uncover the secrets of the Horned God.

The mod uses the base games Witchcraft secret and trait with some small modifications to it (more on this later), so players can also just opt to use this as a way to not have to wait around for a random chance at the witchcraft event if they mainly want to found a coven.

Costs are intentionally steep, especially if you want to achieve them by your first ruler. This is possible but varies in difficulty wildly depending on your start. Be warned however, the effects of the ritual can be felt across the land, there is no hiding your secret once you’ve undergone the ritual, your secret of Witchcraft and Immortality will be revealed to all!

Only the strongest minds can withstand the ritual and not come out the other side changed (hint: stress management is key)

Accompanying immortality there is the Curse of Immortality , this applies the following negative effects:

-20% Income
-20% Development Growth
-20 General Opinion

This is primarily to slow down the player progress to compensate for the upsides of immortality.
Note: There is a game rule in place to toggle off the occurrence of the curse if you want to play a higher powered immortal character.

If at any stage you wish to progress to the next character in your succession for any reason there is always the option to give up immortality and depending on age, death will follow swiftly. Alternatively if you wish for your ruler to simply retire there is a decision which allows you to abdicate the throne at any stage and allow the next in line to immediately take over.

Much more is to come with the mod, a more detailed set of planned future features will be released in a later update however currently planned is:

Game Rule: AI can take the decision.
Casus Belli: War against Immortal characters (AI and Player can take)
Recurring Events: A set of events that will trigger over the time of being immortal which will contain sets of challenges which can either ease or worsen the Curse of Immortality
Currently in consideration for events that will give new learning traits, but this is lowest priority currently.

Some other mods may interact with the witch trait, if so this may cause some small issues around animations, and potentially gaining an extra perk of +1 learning. Localisation in english may be impacted as well but less likely.

These are the only game files changed so compatibility with other mods should not be much of an issue.

Credit: Extended Immortality, source of immortality trait (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2226696932