@Potatoes and Tomatoes:
I haven't updated the mod since 2021. The modifiers worked when I developed it originally, but stuff might have changed since then. I don't play Civ games anymore and don't plan to again, so I won't be able to fix any bugs, further balance changes or adaptions to the new DLCs.

Anyone else feel free to fork the mod to maintain/develop it further. Credit for original work would be appreciated.

Hey Nere, have the comment i posted been adressed? or was it an issue from my side? i would really like to enable SS again!

Initiation needs a diff downside; playing for suzerain means you never wage war against them anyway. Maybe no longer passively earn influence points ? Or halving them.

I stopped playing SS specifically because Owls was so OP and it meant getting Suzerain, which when playing on larger maps with many CS can make you the winner with ease

Hey nere.

Good mod, however, some effects dont seem to apply.

for example owels of minerva - combat ability, is not applying...

Fixed

The description doesnt mention an important malus that exists in Hermetic Order Tier 2: There is -2 amenities in all cities. Description should be corrected.

Thanks for doing this mod. It worked out great for me with the Illuminati ( I mean Owls of Minerva ;) despite the nerfing of the military.

someone really hates vampires it seems

doesn't work in multiplayer
monuments still +4 faith
no science from lay lines
etc.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. The reasoning I used back when I made this was to make each SS play very distinctly. Is this a bit too much? Probably, at least for some peoples tastes. I pretty much left the Civilization franchise and I honestly don't expect to be back. If serious bugs are found I will probably make time to fix them out of respect for the community, but otherwise no new features/balancing or anything like that.

If someone wants to make a new version of this and experiment with better/different balance feel free to do so, but please credit me with the original idea and make a link back here.

I think this is good, however, the maluses are a bit to big. I mean really? The sanguine pact can't gain influence points and grievances don't decay!?! Something more balanced would be 50% less influence points, and grievances decay 50% slower. This is only for the sanguine pact, but please, look over ALL the societies to ensure that they all still are balanced.

I agree with the others, a lot of these changes seem good but I think you went a bit too hard on malaces, as it kills more creative ideas like a science game using vampires for defense and their castles, and Arabia as a whole because 3/4 actively hurt them and the last one just sorta exists.

Voidsingers is too strong in this balance. The AI, including city states, constantly keep losing cities through loyalty and it's just not fun. Not sure what makes it this way, but I never saw it happen like this before installing this mod.

ss_tweaks_text.sql >

LOC_ABILITY_SOFT_TARGETS_ATTACKING_UNITS_COMBAT_STRENGTH_PREVIEW_DESCRIPTION

Needs to be:

LOC_ABILITY_SOFT_TARGETS_ATTACKING_UNITS_COMBAT_STRENGTH_PREVIEW_DESCRIPTION_NERE

Otherwise it doesn't show up

Same for

LOC_ABILITY_SOFT_TARGETS_ATTACKING_UNITS_COMBAT_STRENGTH_PREVIEW_DESCRIPTION_2

Needs to be

LOC_ABILITY_SOFT_TARGETS_ATTACKING_UNITS_COMBAT_STRENGTH_PREVIEW_DESCRIPTION_NERE_2

This mod seems amazing but a bit too ambitious. It really reworks the societies a bit too much IMO. The Sanguine Pact -50% GPP is horrible and removes all flexibility. The Hermetic Order -90% faith and Voidsingers -20% science really murders Arabia, as a Science/Faith civ. I would like it if you made a "Lite Version" of this mod that only had the smaller changes, specifically the changes to leylines.

I do really appreciate your work especially balancing Hermetic orders cause they have been too weak on vanilla

Sanguine pact malus -50% Great Person Points is too much compared to other maluses...
I think you shold add something to compensate this or maybe change it the malus to -25% and move this malus to a later era. Otherwise you can only do dominiation victory with sanguine pact...
Other secret societies could achieve victories that they don't have advantage. For example you could achieve domination victory with faster tech up by Hermetic order or gain a cultural or sceintific victory by stealing great works or technologies with Owls of Minerva. Voidsingers are very versatile, maybe except science
But vampires having 1/2 great people except generals mean they will fall behind in every way other civilizations have so I don't think its fair compared to other secret societies

If I remember correctly there is no way in the game code to do that. You can make it decay faster or not decay at all, not slower.

And I'm happy you are enjoying the mod ;-)

Really enjoy the Mod. The idea of Maluses is wonderful! Perhaps the Pact could decay grievenances at 1/2 rate instead? Currently It just makes any non war play so much harder. With Vampire castles you can get insane yields in capital which can be useful for a science victory.

I am thinking about it. Will depend on if they are used in a proper way or not, so I will watch for reports on that from civfanatics and other places.

Now that the AI should be using the cultists more effectively since the last update, will you reintroduce them?

New version is up now. See change notes (to the right of the Like, Award, Favorite buttons) for details.

Ah I see. I haven't tried that map type, I mostly play on my Seven Seas modded map script. Also a lot of land on that one, but it might be less then lakes? I don't know.

But I think there is no silver bullet to solve this problem. If a map script with a lot of land is used, then ressources are spread out, but if there is only a little bit of land, then it will be clumped. If you are interested I could help you edit the mod yourself, so you could tweak the number of leylines yourself?

I think it is possible to "spawn" leylines from Great Scientists, but it would a lot of work, so it would probably not be something I would have time to handle to be honest.

I usualy play with lakes map, which means a LOT of land. In that map style they are super spread out, usualy. Personnal preference would be a way to use great scientist to just add leylines, but doub t that'd be easy to do.

@Paul: In my test games I always had a reasonable amount of leylines. Within my 5-6 core cities, I could get about 2 leylines on average for each city which felt great. Did you try the mod in 1 or more games?

would it be possible to add a bit more leylines? hermetic order seems ridiculously hard to play properly because of the randomness of leylines.

The playstyles:

--Order hunts for powerful leylines and Great People. They are great at science, and terrible at Faith

--Owls wants peace and trade, and will help out civs in need. They are good all-around for empire development and got a slight edge on Diplomatic interactions. They are terrible at waging war

--Voidsingers wants you to just simply accept The Great Truth, stop resisting, and join them in their utopian world. They like a beautiful world focused on Faith and Culture, with a twist of offensive loyalty pressure, and they are terrible at trade and science.

--Pact wants war. All that "improving the empire" that other societies talk about is not really something they understand. They are generally weaker in building an empire and terrible at having good relations.

New version will be uploaded the same day as the next patch.

Overall goal of this update
1) Some balance tweaks based on user feedback and my own playtesting
2) Making Owls and Voidsingers less passive, and providing them with some distinct playstyles.

Just uploaded a new mod to improve with World Congress (Yes a bit late I know). Check it out :-)

@Bunzato: The maluses are meant to offer tough choices. A secondary intent of maluses are to balance it all out and avoid power creep. If there are only bonuses then power will rise way too much as in original SS. Also, some things are impossible to balance. You can't grant half a vampire or half a wildcard slot. So maluses are a way to say, "Sure, have your wildcard slot, but then your army will be weaker". Which goes right back into tough choices :-)

Neat ideas - but my biggest issue are the various maluses. They're not really "fun" especially things like -90% faith in cities. Faith is such a powerful resource in Civ that you're gutting yourself by going that SS. Etc. etc.

Upcoming changes (no ETA)

Order tier 2 malus : -2 amenities on each city
^
Order are generally a bit too strong since they were buffed all around and playtesting shows the malus is too weak.


Void tier 2 malus+bonus : Can't harvest / chop ressources. +1 appeal på alle tiles. +2 Faith, Culture, Food and Production for each district build on a Breathtaking appeal tile.
^
Voidsingers are too passive. Adds a new bonus which should alter playstyle, and a new malus to counteract the bonus (which should also affect playstyle)


Owls tier 2 malus+bonus : -5 CS on all units. +500% favor from emergencies and scored competitions
Owls tier 3 Malus: Cannot heal outside your territory, and existing malus increased to -10 CS on all units. Combinign with tier 2 malus, will result in a total of -15 CS.
^
Playtesting shows Owls to be too strong, since the malus are too small. Adds some more malus, and a bonus to changing up the playstyle.

It seems to work for me now just fine. I don't get the error anymore, even though I'm playing with all dlc and a couple of mods.

@Moxys: Find me on CivFanatics and I might be able to help you out.

@Update on the error: With some help from people having all DLCs, it seems theres is no problem with this mod. If you experience an error after loading this mod, it is probably something on your end, so consider clearing your cache. Or you might have an incompatible mod. If you upload some logs files I will still take a look and see if I can help.

I am wondering of it's possible to get a mod of only having more ley lines spawn more evenly. In general I'm happy with the societies, but find the RNG of Ley Lines to be too penalizing.

Update: Infixo was heplful in testing the mod, and he reports it have nothing to do with the DLCs. If anyone gets errors please do the following and I will do my best to help you:
1) Disable all other mods
2) Start a game
3) Find your database.log and modding.log from this location C:\Users\YOURNAMEHERE\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Logs.
4) Upload these log files somewhere (such as the below link).
5) Let me know which DLCs you have / dont have, and which modes you had active when start the game from step 2.

If anyone needs a place to upload the file, I made a thread on CivFanatics where you can attach the log file to your post: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/seeking-someone-with-maya-and-or-vietnam-pack.667951/

@Harold Smith: Yes, please upload your database.log somewhere and insert a link here. Judging from what people are saying I would guess the problem only appears for people with one of the two DLCs I do not own. Could you try to disable the Vietnam pack and Maya pack (found in the same place as mods) one by one and try to start a game with this mod? That would also be helpful in fixing this to know which DLC causes the problem.

I have the same issue as well. There seems to be some incompatibility with DLC content. I have all the content, however. I can send my database.log

@DanT: Alright. If the problem persists feel free to upload your databaselog or paste any error lines as described below, and I will check it out.

One thing of note: I do not own the Vietnam pack and the Maya pack. You could try to disable those as well maybe, since I can't test anything related to them on my end.

@Nerevatar I do have the Byzantium pack. I have all DLC except for the Teddy/Catherine personas since I've been purchasing the Frontier Pack DLCs individually.

I will try the new version tonight, though, thanks.

@pineapplespice: That error is the general error for a problem in a mod, so it might be anything. Have you tried disabling all other mods? If yes, then try to find any ERROR tags in the database logs and send them here.

The database log is located here: C:\Users\YOURNAMEHERE\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Logs.
You can open it with notepad or other simple text editors, and then you can find something like "[Gameplay] ERROR: ". Paste all lines which starts with this, and I'll try to help you out. You can also upload the file somewhere and send me a link.

Do note that if you have all DLCs and expansions, then it is most likely a problem on your end.

I'm having the same error and I do have all the DLC's, including the byzantium pack
I haven't tried a new game yet, since your update.

I believe I identified the issue. Apparently one of the effects I used is only available from having the Byzantium Pack. I guess you don't have that?

I have uploaded a new version which removes the dependency from the Byzantium pack. It was unnecssary.

I'm gettting an error when trying to start a new game with this mod after the new patch. The error says: "There was an error starting the game. We recommend disabling any mods and trying again. Error - One or mor mods failed to load content."

I've disabled all my other mods to try an identify the culprits and I still get the error with only this mod enabled.

Was easier then expected, so I pushed an update for the reduced malus on AI now. Will only work in current games if the bonuses have not been unlocked yet.

@maxkirk2019
I am not a fan of the unit maintanice malus myself, but it was the best I felt like I could find. Since Owls are the "gold society" I dont like the idea of them having a gold malus. But if you have suggestions for other replacements I am listening. Surprisingly few effects in the game allow for negative values unfortunately.

I agree about Pact and Great Generals, but unfortunately the only way the game allows for negative GPP rates, is to apply it to all types. I don't like it, but it is the art of the possible. As a band-aid I'll add the following for tier 2: Gain +50 Great General Points whenever your vampires kill a unit.

--> New version uploaded now. Also in that update: Obelisk faith reduced by 1.

And regarding the reduced malus for AIs: This will require a bit more work, but I definitely see the point that the AI would not be able to make good decisions in this regard. It will get done when I have the time.

first up this is not meant to be negative most of the changes are great
my solutions/ideal changes

Hermetic order
change the unit maintaince downsides are good but this doesn't make sense maybe swap it with the owls negative combat streangh or something similar as when going for a science victory money is very central and i dont really like the idea of deleting my army to keep my economy afloat even when i have alliances

Sanguine Pact
don't know if its possible but is there a way you could make the -50% great people points not apply to great generals as it sort of goes against domination games or add extra great general points production to they're buildings

note it might also be a good idea to make another version of the mod where the ai doesn't get debuffs as the -90% faith or 20% science really seem to cripple them especially when the ai's logic sensors don't kick in and try to go for a faith victory as hermatic order as it sort of makes that ai worthless

This sounds really good and I especially like the changes to ley lines. Maybe this will mean we can get more than two somewhere nearby (instead of halfway across the map).

@Eurritz: I'm sorry. Please close the game and it will update the mod so it should no longer happen. Just load your original save before everything was changed.

I just pushed that update to fix the issue for you.