NOTE: This guide is meant for beginners. I'm not an expert, I'm just sharing my experience in making a mod and hopefully it helps someone who's struggling. Please comment and let me know if I made any mistakes or if you recommended any changes.

First things first. create a new mod using the launcher. For details about that and other things I don't mention here, visit https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Modding

I'd recommend using Notepad++ or something similar to edit all of the text files mentioned in this guide.

You should have a mod folder that looks like this.








Make sure you update the descriptor.mod file so it uses the thumbnail you want to use by adding this to the file:

picture="thumbnail.png"










Now it's time to create some folders. You should have a directory of folders that looks like this:

gfx>coat_of_arms>colored_emblems




localization>english

Now that you've set up the gfx folder and its subfolders, go to the last one called colored_emblems.

This is where all the .dds files (the emblems) will go. Once you have all the .dds files in there, now it's time to create a .txt file. You can name it whatever you want, I named mine jp_norse_coa_emblems.txt

All this txt file does is tell the game how many colors are in each emblem and what category they go in.


It's important to get this formatting right as this is what the game uses.

The first part is the name of the dds file for your emblem.

Then colors indicates how many colors your emblem has. Max is 3 colors. The dds file uses three colors as seen here to indicate how many different color options there are.
















Blue, Green, and Magenta. If your emblem only has two or one colors then type that in. Make sure you get this right otherwise you won't be able to assign a color in game. The longship posted here has 3 colors but it looks like it only has 2 until you zoom in on the eyes.

The last part is the category the emblem will go into. Make sure it's lowercase.

Do this with all the emblems you have and when you're done it should look like this:

I'm new to modding and this is the part that threw me through a loop. It's really easy to do, but if you're new to modding like me then it can be confusing because this is the stuff that isn't really explained well in the wiki. Maybe if you read the entire wiki then you could get it, but I'm lazy and just wanted to do one simple thing.

Open up your localization folder and the english (or your language) folder inside that.

This is where using a program like Notepad++ is really important. Localization files basically tell the game what to do with this new stuff you've added. But the file has to be the right kind of file.

So open Notepad++ and at the top under encoding make sure it's set to UTF-8 + BOM

Then type this in:


Formatting is really important here as well. The lowercase norse is the name of the category you assigned all those dds files in the last section.

Then save the file as coa_designer_l_english.yml in your localization>english folder.

The "Norse" in quotations is how the category will appear in game.










Another example, let's say I wanted to add a bunch of super-hero emblems to the game:


Then in your colored_emblems txt file all the dds files would look like this:

And that's it! If you did everything right your new category and emblems should show up in game and look something like this: