@BadCub
The Blacksteel units not having descriptions is because the "copy spearman" command doesn't copy descriptions like I would like. I've added them directly to the Blacksteel units with the latest update.

@Tuurin3
Once you have 25 research, there is a 6% chance each turn a Magic Library under your control becomes an Academy of Higher magic. If you lack an Academy of Higher Magic, you get a second 20% chance (on top of the 6%) to get that upgrade. The Level 2 Library must be a Magic Library, it can't be like a City with a Arcane Guild. If it still seems broken, I may have to ask for your save file to check what's going on.

@ImperfectusZion
Problems? As in PLURAL? 😭

great mod unfortunately it had problems in multiplayer

I have a pretty advanced game and have been spamming research in my lvl 2 Library I converted into the main base. But its just going and going and not upgrading the library to lvl 3 did i misunderstand how to trigger that? Cause Most of the research gets used each turn.

Hello. Awesome mod as always. Are the blacksteel unit descriptions a work in process, or is it a bug that there are none?

I'm theorizing the addition of magic items to the base game shifted my item IDs. Since most IDs seem cursed to stretch their sprites, I probably have to painstakingly determine which IDs are least-cursed again.

Item sprites still often appear massively oversized. Great update otherwise though!

I've updated the mod for 5.32, amongst other things, which will break existing saves.

@Nukular Power
Thanks a bunch! I have a number of other incomplete mods I occasionally work on. I'd like to publish another at some point.

@CatFoodBob
I 100% checked if I could add a custom variant of the Mage Guild to the class, as increasing the library level of tiles would be pretty on theme. Having a Guildmaster ally come drop a Mage Guild on your City of Scribes definitely removes one of the class's gates.

Something i definitely noticed with new guildmaster update but the librarian class probably works INCREDIBLY well with the guildmaster.
Mainly cause the guildmaster can just Cheese the librarians starting citidel to tier 3

Hate to double post but the way all this stuff is implemented is really cool, hope to see more nations like this

love this faction honestly, thanks for making it

Defintely wish there was an event to get some just. "Book Casters" that the book elemental spawns just to add in army

We keep getting an error at line 924 no spr for command line when playing multiplayer any ideas? We have subbed and resubbed.

@Lordlynel yes I am also experiencing the "items bug". it also seems like I get some items that I usually never get. very powerfull item that e.g. grants immortaily

@Deppelganer
Thanks! Love to hear it.

@Lordlynel
No clue what happened with your save there. I can't think of a recent patch that would've committed such a sin. Notes are "unimportant" but not noncombatants, as noncombatants aren't treated the same as other units for selection during events. Adding that tag may break functionality, it would requiring some testing I can't remember if I've already done.

You're absolutely right about converting all starting scribes to Librarians, I'm bad at math. I don't like the idea of adding more free research, so I've slapped a price tag on the LibSAT to make acquiring more Librarians an all-in. Not a perfect fix, perhaps, but a quick one.

When I saved and quit one of my saves, then reloaded, all my items from this mod had transformed to different items from this mod.

I think research and notes should probably noncombatants, so they don't clog up the walls.

@RawrWolfie In these threads we tend to focus on the things that could be better but just to be sure my point come across you have made a very good mod. Very unique and it offers a good challenge. Many of the other mods are a bit OP so its nice that you kept this rather balanced and maybe even under powered in the early game. Thanks for making this mod :)

I tried a couple more runs, one of which has got decently far. It seems like the most consistent strategy is to move one scribe to the adjacent farm to collect notes, and turn every other starting scribe into a librarian doing independent research every turn. This generates research far faster than trying to actually send scribes out to collect notes, and exposes the scribes to minimal danger. I would maybe suggest increasing the chance for notes to give research automatically (maybe even make it vary depending on the type of notes), in order to incentivize actually collecting notes, rather than just turtling up with only notes on the harvest.

I'll have to playtest myself a bit more to evaluate if the early game pacifism is too much, but I may be cursed as the mod creator with a bunch of CoE5 hours and find a way to make it work more often than not. Being outpaced by AI when sticking to just two tiles seems appropriate, my intent was never for the class to play that passively. Capturing unguarded farms/hamlets/fungus with Scribes/Homunculi is necessary even if you can't hold them. Losing the starting Scribes the first year or two to forest-stealth monsters could definitely spiral into a loss. Not nabbing any forests for fear of forest-stealth monsters is also probably a losing play. Resigning early sounds like peak CoE5 gameplay to me.

The book fops should die horribly to any half-baked rush strategy. The class just isn't designed to cut it competitively. There's nothing competitively viable about RNG tossing you 3/3/3 caster at the low cost of some Scribe walking a circuit between Notes tiles. I cringe at the thought of a Librarian going up to the Troll King demanding a "1v1 me bro." As catfoodbob discovered, the mod crashes randomly in multiplayer so everyone in the game would have to sign off on frequent reconnects.

@Embarec
You can definitely use another mod like Garrison Defense or AI Suicide Prevention to add early game defense units, but I don't feel that class needs anything more of that vein built-in. Four arbalests and a Librarian is more than the like two archers many vanilla classes rely on to stave off independents. Investing scarce early income on defensive units while waiting for a good research event and watching the AI play doesn't sound that fun either. I'd rather force that income into some form of expansion: random recruits, Grants, caster graduates, Domesticate Animals, gem trade for Lesser Bindings, anything not stationary. Even then, Blast Traps and Gate Guards are currently an option. Iron trades 1:1 for gold.

@Lordlynel
Scribes can get XP from the event anywhere. I never even thought of restricting it to Scribes hanging out in the Publishers Forum so you can supercharge your favorite one.

@Doppelganger
I see what you're saying and am starting to see how either of those options could work. I think I prefer the outpost method, as stupid units may fail to step on the right tiles, get themselves drowned, and cost longer turn timers to process their events. I may implement outpost(s) in some fashion to replace Scribe micro as the game progresses.

@Embarec
Not sure if I prefer the idea of homing stupids to just more mercenary companies like the Mudfoots if I need to shore up the early game. On one hand the player would be living the Scribe life, but on the other hand having at least one fighting force to directly control might just be more fun. I can't imagine the stupids would be particularly expedient at getting a player to higher income levels.

Research is accumulated too slowly to be your only output, the occasional +60 gold does not make up for a complete lack of all earlygame ability to take small settlements, especially with the expensive and unreliable troops available to this class. Even the low level AIs frequently rush me long before there is any possibility of putting up a meaningful resistance, and I imagine that in multiplayer the insane early vulnerability makes the class almost nonfunctional against a rush strategy.

The trick is to focus on research. Let scribe take notes and then the librarians do independent research. its freee and it will get you more troops, gold, magic items etc.
The mod is not broken you just have to take non-aggressive approach and the knowledge work for you.

The scribe xp event is showing up even when all my scribes are outside the publishers forum

Second, I would suggest giving them some sumonable chaff, although I would also suggest making them Stupid. Mindless worker-drone golems that run out into the world trying to follow orders and gather resources for their masters, but are so bad at it that they wind up just basically roaming randomly. Maybe give them a hatred for owned locations if that's possible so that once they are built they'll just start roaming endlessly. Would help with taking over an area around your libraries over time, without making them particularly powerful on the offense.

@rawrwolfie Might I make a few suggestions? It's undeniable that they are.. insanely under powered early game, and can just get unilaterally stomped by players or AI Long before they can get off the ground. So what I would suggest is two-fold. Give them defensive summons. Start them out with several strong immobile golems, something like Watchers for example, that protect their first library (Which honestly I'd suggest making a "unique" one that has 3 tiers and a smattering of all the resources they need but at a really really low rate, and even then I'd suggest doing it through events to randomize it a bit, but that's a separate suggestion). Several starting guardians, and the ability to create/summon more that's a bit earlier and more accessible then the siege weapon summons you get later.
(c)

I'm just not sure how to reach the point that I could possibly start building magic libraries, given the high cost in gold and how gold starved this class usually is.

My problem is that I cannot get the gold income to do any of that, because I have no troops to take even basic income locations (farms, hamlets) with, and all of those progression things require lots of gold. My most successful run so far, I just sat at my starting base, collecting research only from the adjacent farm, until I had accumulated enough gold to purchase some spearmen and some archers from the random offers, and then I began attacking lightly defended hamlets and farms to increase gold income, like a normal class starts out doing. I managed to start accessing the midgame options (got an artifact from forbidden folklore, started to produce diode golems), but by that point the AI was so far ahead that they crushed me with vastly superior forces.

@RawrWolfie an alternative is to be able to set up scribing outposts that did the notes automatically so the player didnt have to grind them.

@RawrWolfie I was thinking that you just let them roam around and whenever they encounter a territory that needs to be noted it would do so. Pretty simple I think.

The Mudfoot Company is something I added last minute (I haven't even played a game with them myself) because I feared the "I feel like I can't do anything phase" might go on for too long. I still very much want the Librarian's start to be citizen scholars trying to survive big bad Elysium. Not sure it's the healthiest thing in context of CoE5 gameplay, but it is at least novel, which I figure is more important for anyone looking for more CoE5 content from mods. Starting troops would make the class more samey, so I tried to make 5 Scribes somewhat interesting enough of a start.

If you're struggling to find a Magic Library or suitable tile to build one, you can Raise Levees out into the ocean until you're far away enough from any gold income locations.

@Doppelganger
Which mechanics could use better explaining? I try to make it clear in ritual/unit/class descriptions. In the late game upgrading scribes to librarians and spamming Research Grants is going to net you way more research than using scribes+independent research. Having no scribes also removes the "scribe gained xp" event from the pool. A stupid Scribe smart enough to seek out the correct terrains and autocast Take Notes is not possible.

@Pandemonium
Thanks for the bug catches. I broke Custodians in one of the patches. I've fixed them so they can learn tier 2 rituals again. It won't fix any currently promoted Custodians that got the wrong rituals, however. I also updated the restriction on Astral Column to only be usable on the Elysium plane rather than Elysium/Sky/Argartha, since the planar group ID just doesn't seem to work in that capacity. It should be usable now.

@jarpe
Not spending 75 gold and 9 AP on a Historian just to teach them Resist Magic, Purify, and Curse is totally valid. Everything in the class is overpriced because you have 2 special resources, double income, and the ability to double trade. Your best caster is whichever one you can give a magic book, so perhaps wait and see what generic casters / spellbooks you get rather than teach an early graduate spells. Building up dope triple casters is meant more as a fun option in the mid/late game, but can be necessary early with lack of recruitment offers. My friend prefers Surgeons for that purpose.

@catfoodbob
Multiplayer crashes because there's a bunch of custom magic item sprites, which CoE5 apparnetly doesn't handle well. You can rejoin a game that crashes out due to those random errors and be fine, but the only fix I have would be removing all/most the custom item sprites which I decided against. It's not something I'll repeat in future mods, I learned my lesson here.

@jarpe the whole gimmick is that the faction focuses around libraries, that includes spells. Think of them like what that dude wants to study, but he still has to actually study. They aren't thematically meant to be combat casters they're academics, their main purpose is their rituals and later if you need casters then you can invest the resources to teach them.

It would be most useful at the beginning when you are weak, but you don't have time and money to give them spells and later in the game you have lot of other casters and it is waste of time again.

What is the meaning to give them schools then? I always finish the game without buying any spell for them, because it is waste of time and money. It is completly useless.

There are alot of multiplayer error messages

@jarpe per the creator, that is intended that they start with no spells

The total lack of starting troops and lack of early game access to consistent troops make this class seem very weak, since they pay extra for mediocre generic troops, and I often find that since I don't start with any soldiers I have no way to take nearby villages and farms to make gold to recruit the expensive mediocre troops. Maybe starting with a small, temporary mudfoot company would help alleviate the issue?

Also, I can't cast astral column for some reason. It says it can be cast anywhere, and I have enough gems, but despite walking half the map to find a spot it just says I can't cast it right now.

I think the custodian may be bugged. Once i leveled him up he gain "thesis on civil society", "$ continue archaeology", "% raise levies", and "+ chimera"

The spells are consistent across custodians.

@Pandemonium I found a regular library and it eventually it upgraded to tier 3 library by itself

Thank you for this mod. Its great. Is there a doc describing the game mechanics?
Also I would love if included a late game "stupid" Scribe unit to be hired at high magic academy so you dont have to grind notes manually the entire game. Would that be possible?

You didn't pay for the spells though, they are triple casters.

Historians and other upgraded scribes don't get any spells although they have magic schools. It would be good to give them two random spell in each school like normal casters when they are recruited.

@cat
That wasn't intended. I've patched it so newly minted Librarians can also upgrade to tier 3. Thanks for another find!

@junk
It's possible to use the 'Publshers Forum' to reset the Research location to a surviving Library as long as Notes/Research were still being generated in the ruins. If it were me I would try to operate out of the ruins just to see how wacky/buggy it can get.

@jarpe
Thanks for the info, I didn't realize getting an option from one pool would remove it from the other. As for your items changing, that occurs when IDs are loaded in a different order. I did an update to add Bless to some of the magic items, which shouldn't mess with the IDs but perhaps modded items function differently than modded monsters. There's less know-how in general when it comes to modded items. Loading another mod with magic items that wasn't loaded on the original save could cause problems, but I suspect the culprit is somehow the Bless update.

What do you do when you lose your only guy that can actually promote to Tier 3 it seems like all of them should have this power and not just your original one.

@RawrWolfie
yea i lost the publishers Forum. i was able to generate research afterwards but notes had to be in a new location. also the research that i had didn't work and give me any breakthroughs from the broken Forum, so my librarians just sat in a ruins and couldnt do anything xD

In base game dark bless and normal bless are the same. Normal bless units get bonuses from dark bless and dark bless units get bonuses from normal bless. From what i saw there is shared pool of bonuses. Some bonuses you can get only from dark bless rituals and some only from normal bless rituals, but lot of them is shared and you can get them from both rituals. So when you get shared bonus from normal bless ritual, it is removed from the pool and you will not get it from dark bless ritual If you have acces to both rituals.