Herald’s Start Positions – Kislev & Norsca

Herald’s Start Positions – Kislev & Norsca aims to achieve geopolitical balance in Kislev and Norsca in Immortal Empires through a start position script. It is fully compatible with Mixu’s Unlocker and Immortal Empires Expanded.

This mod is aimed at players who generally enjoy the vanilla Warhammer III experience, but would like to have some of its gameplay issues fixed, or are looking for a new experience, while conserving the vanilla feeling of the game.

It is not aimed at players using a lot of mods which bring new factions and/or change start positions in Kislev and Norsca, and wasn’t developed keeping these mods in mind. An exception is Cataph’s Kraka Drak, which is now fully supported.

The main geopolitical balance issues of the area in vanilla Immortal Empires include:

– Kostaltyn‘s faction getting destroyed in the first 20 turns by his northern enemies very often,
– Katarin struggling to survive against enemies in the north and south,
– Wulfrik dominating most of Norsca quite quickly because of the Norsca confederation mechanic.

Here is a summary of the changes mostly resolving these issues:

– Azazel took Sigvald’s place in the Shard Lands, deciding to deal with the Dark Elves in his own way, shying away from Kislev – which can now breathe more easily without Azazel and his vassal(s) invading early on;
– Sigvald the Magnificent ventured into the Naglfari Mountains looking for beauty, while establishing a power base in Norsca;
– the Graeling occupy the Doomkeep and Graeling Moot, standing in defiance to Sigvald’s ambitions;
– the Bloodmaw Ogres have moved into Graeling lands looking to make some quick cash, if employed by the local Norscan lords, or on their own;
– the Maggoth Kin have started a Nurglite insurrection in the Helspire Mountains against Varg Norscans;
– Wulfrik the Wanderer moved his attention to the Sea of Claws, starting at war with Skaeling instead of Naglfarlings, preparing to raid the Empire’s northern provinces or find different challenges;
– Malakai Makaisson is in the process of clearing the Mountains of Hel of any Chaos Umgi presence, effectively becoming a threat to any of the surrounding Chaos & Destruction factions, and a strong buffer for the Kislevite factions, now allowing their expansion throughout Norsca and into the Chaos Wastes;
– Kraka Drak has been reintroduced controlling its rightful hold, surrounded by Baersonling Norscans eager to raid their treasuries;
– Throgg has moved to the Tower of Khrakk, where he expands against the Sarl controlling Bay of Blades, and the Kislevite Brotherhood of the Bear controlling Sarl Encampment, now renamed to Jotunheim;
– Katarin and Kostaltyn have both been given new Warriors of Chaos starting enemies, slightly renamed unused minor factions – Kvellig Raiders and the Tong Legion respectively, each controlling two minor settlements;
– the Ungol Kindred have replaced the Druzhina Enclave in Troll Country as Throt’s starting enemy, while the Enclave rebelled against Katarin’s questionable authority in the rest of the Southern Oblast.

Other notable changes include:

– Lair of the Troll King (Khazid Bordkarag, Kraka Ravnsvake) and Winter Pyre (Kraka Dorden) have been added to the list of Dwarfen holds for their grudge system and had their campaign settlement models changed to Dwarfen settlements;
– Throgg’s landmark from the Lair of the Troll King has been moved to the Tower of Khrakk;
– Malakai’s climate suitability for Chaotic Wastelands has been changed from Uninhabitable to Unsuitable, to make expanding into the Chaos Wastes a bit more viable for him;
– the starting mission lines and victory objectives for the affected characters have been adjusted to their new start positions.

The mod includes a variety of balance, flavour and polish changes in the area.

You can see the most important changes in the screenshots, and all of the territorial changes on the map created using nopeace.net. Factions starting without a settlement are shown controlling the region in which they start their campaign.

I recommend using this mod alongside the following mods, especially if you would like to play as a Kislevite faction:
HSP – Ostankya near Kislev,
HSP – Gelt in the Empire,
HSP – Drycha in the Forest of Gloom,
HSDM – Golg Maneater,
HSP – Northern Chaos Wastes.

I also recommend using these mods together with other Herald’s Start Positions mods, and my mods in general, as they are all being developed in conjunction.

Herald’s Start Positions are now also available as a single subscription mod compilation, which will be continually updated with every future HSP mod release and update.

Herald’s Start Positions mod series should work with mods like SFO: Grimhammer III, which rebalance different aspects of the game, but generally do not touch the start positions of the factions.

The Victory Conditions Overhaul mod overwrites the vanilla victory conditions, including the changes made by this mod.

Credits go to Porkenstein for the faction intros and the narrative script, which I edited to fit my changes; Swissbob for his Azazel and Sigvald code which I used as a base for this mod; and nopeace.net for the maps I used to show the territorial changes.

I’d also like to thank Porkenstein, Rhox and Drazhir for helping me out with some details along the way.

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