Hello All!

Now this is long overdue, I've been putting it off because I haven't finished the graphics for any of the events or mechanics and I wanted to add screenshots, but I figured I should at least address my overall plans and directions even if I don't have any pretty visuals yet.

Because of the upcoming base game update, I plan to likely modify the season mechanic to work on the Steppe Season mechanic (assuming it's not DLC Locked) as from what I can tell from that mechanic would likely be much better suited for Seasons of Ice and Fire, and I think it'll probably make my overall plans much easier.


Starting off, the next update will be 0.1.5, which will add in a few small fixes to historical seasons, some adjustments to seasonal modifiers, a few flavor events and decisions to allow for better winter survival. An example being, “Winter Tax”, in which you can levy a tax on your vassal lords, or the smallfolk within your realm, which will give you a boost to your income at the expense of either vassal opinion or popular opinion respectively. I also plan to implement a game rule for whether or not fertility increases in winter, as I’ve gotten mixed opinions on that. Currently it’s a decrease, on the basis that in a multi-year long winter, people won’t want to bring a child into such a harsh world, but people don’t necessarily think rationally and nature may suggest that the opposite may be more accurate. Additionally you’ll now be able to use Enforce Truce on civil wars within your realm during the winter, as before it was kind of pointless if you could only use it externally, and the cool down in winter will be reduced significantly, to also be in line with the King’s Peace.


Either the next mini-update or for 0.2 (depending on when I get around to making this part, as I haven’t scripted this aspect yet), I would like to add a basic seasonal nickname system for the player, the Royal Family of the Iron Throne, or notable children born on a seasonal transition date. For the player, if enabled, there will be a small chance that when a child is born there will be an event that will give you the option of giving the child a nickname based on the season. Some historical examples include, Gael “the Winter Child”, Baelon “the Spring Prince”, but some non-historical ones that will be included will be “the Sweet Summer Child” (will only be applicable during a summer that is >6 years), and the Autumn Prince(ss)/Child (So very creative I know.) This shouldn’t be too difficult to implement, but I want to ensure that the mod is as compatible as possible, and to do so I try to modify the least amount of existing files as possible, and the ones that are modified shouldn’t be strictly necessary for the mod to still function at a barebones level, so it may be more difficult than I expect.


The main focus for Beta 0.2, will be Storms and Weather. In Canon, the Stormlands during Autumn often experience varying levels of severe storms, and following the AGOT Mod Climate Map in one of their earlier Dev. Diaries, (Forging Essos; in which storms go from Lys through the Stepstones, and into the Stormlands), the storms will impact the Stepstones and Stormlands the most. The Storms need to be capable of causing damage to the land, potentially harming characters, triggering script effects, spreading across the map, and importantly, visible on the map. Fortunately, the Epidemic mechanic should be able to meet all of these requirements. Disease Mechanic Based storms will be able to be disabled in game rules for those who don’t really want that. But for those who do, the storms will vary in intensity as epidemics do, Characters who are in the range of a storm, will receive a “In Storm” trait, which will have very small penalties of just -1 Diplomacy, and a very very tiny health debuff. While the ‘Storm’ will spread across the region, with destruction ranging from mildly inconvenient, to rather devastating, usually on the lighter side. To be as close to reality as possible, while still being a fun mechanic, the storms won’t last longer than a month or two, often times shorter. During these storms, there will be a number of flavor & story events that can trigger for the player. Storms like this, will *usually* not occur more than once in a season, while the next category may occur as often as the game wishes (when appropriate).

As not all storms are hurricane level, there will be a secondary storm and weather mechanic, using the event system. These storms will be much more localized to a county or two, and cause less destruction, but happen more frequently than the previous category. Other weather events will include a drought, which will be represented in the form of a modifier for the county and the ruler of the county, impacting control, development, income, and popular opinion. Droughts will vary in severity, with there being a severe drought that impacts an entire Lord Paramountcy or two once every 50 - 150 years give or take. Minor droughts will occur in the appropriate region at varying levels, but most regions could expect a minor to moderate drought once every 10 to 15 years, or rather every other summer or every other 2 or 3 summers, somewhere in that range.

Historically recorded (Canon) Storms and Droughts will be activated when appropriate when enabled via the game rule “Historical Weather”.


Hopefully this hasn’t been too dense to read, but let’s go over one last final additional feature (hopefully for the next update). In preparation for the harsh winter, wouldn’t it make sense to try and stockpile some resources? It absolutely does. But what if I want to passively do this, without needing to limit myself on spending. Well, during the summer and autumn, you can “store” gold in the Iron Bank, either giving up half of your treasury, or a percent of your income, and then when winter rolls along, you’ll receive a return on your investment (1.05 to 3x your initial investment). Doing this will give you a leg up if you choose to wage war during the winter, it will also allow you to maintain a more comfortable lifestyle during the cold weather.

Additionally, you will be able to take out Winter Emergency “Loans” from your peasant subjects, after all your well being should be *their* priority. However, doing so may upset them a little bit, leading to instability and discontent, and potentially even rebellions during the spring. This mechanic will be in the form of decisions and timed events (because that’s easiest for me to script if I’m being quite honest).


In the long run, I hope to expand the existing features (and these planned features), to have more depth and overall flavor, but my priority now is developing the mod to be functional and compatible, with each feature being fully functioning on a base level before expanding it to have more flavor and features. As I feel it is more important for the mod to be as bug & error free as possible, and ensuring that all planned features are capable of actually working. Since if the mechanics don’t work correctly or are incomplete, then no matter how much flavor or extra events are added it won’t really be functional. I also hope that the upcoming Steppe update will allow me to use the Steppe Season mechanic to add more regional variation and make it easier for me to change the map visuals during winter, as what I had planned originally would be pretty convoluted comparatively.

-Brendan