THIS IS AN ARCHIVED POST FROM THE PREVIOUS UPDATE NEWS THREAD

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02/01/2019 UPDATE

The first major update to the mod is here! Here is what you can expect...

• Victory conditions - Victory conditions have been added to all unlocked factions. At present, they are virtually all copied from the majors with a few slight variations where necessary for the sake of balance. I may be open to deeper customisation in the future, particularly if anybody thinks the default victory conditions are too easy to achieve when given to a specific unlocked faction. Yes, you have to face those pesky Normans now!
  
  
• Fixed UI - Thanks to the handy tutorial by Drunk Flamingo, I have fixed the unsightly UI bug that plagues all unlocked factions. You can now see all your tabs! Saying that, as Drunk Flamingo is currently doing it 'properly' for me (I don't know when he shall be finished) factions still don't have functioning mechanics. Don't be scared by the bugged out numbers/bars, it won't affect your game. It may not be a total fix, but it's a start!
  
  
• Maps - All unlocked factions now have (poorly drawn) maps on the faction selection menu. To make the mediocrity more uniform and make them stand out less, I have also redone the maps for the playable factions. I know, they aren't great but I never claimed to be an artist!
  
  
• Leader portraits - All unlocked factions no longer sport the portrait of that generic Roman general on the faction selection menu. I have noticed that, despite using the portrait ID given to me by the game files, they appear to not be correct for some factions and show a different portrait when you load up the campaign. Saying that, it's not really that noticeable. I mean come on, how often do you stare intently at your faction leader portrait?
  
  
• Faction descriptions - All factions have been given descriptions on the faction selection menu. Admittedly, they were written in haste and the starting overview/historical information contained within them is likely to be sketchy, especially for the smaller and/or more obscure factions I haven't really played as and that don't have expansive articles on Wikipedia. Still, it adds a nice level of flavour.
  
  
• Culture-appropriate voice actors - Now we're getting into the really minor changes. Now, factions should have culture-appropriate voice actors when you select them on the faction selection menu. Previously, they all used Anglo-Saxon voices. This is made even more minor when you consider that, for some reason, they already use the correct voice actor for their culture on the campaign/battle map.
  
  
• Dynamic faction names - Minor factions will now change their names when they complete their short and long kingdom victories. Currently, name changes for unlocked factions controlled by the AI will be limited to the pack you are using. So an AI Cent will not become Anglo-Saxons/England if you are playing with Pack 2 or 3 active, for example, as they are only unlocked and given victory conditions in Pack 1. As I didn't think 'Teamhair' made sense for any faction other than Mide (the Hill of Tara, which is in Mide's territory, is historically associated with the Mide High Kings of Ireland), Irish factions do not change their name upon a short kingdom victory. Don't worry, it isn't a bug/oversight! They will become 'Ireland' upon achieving a long kingdom victory.

i haven't done significant testing so I apologise to anybody in advance if they run into problems where there were non previously. Let me know and I'll try to correct it. I've noticed you get a crash as Seisilwig when you try to open the faction overview but this seems to be a problem in the current (previous) version. Like with Athfochla and Fortriu, I have no idea how to fix it :(

That's it for the moment. Until the next time, enjoy!

05/01/2019 UPDATE - PART 2 ONLY

This is a minor update for the second pack of Manic's Expanded Factions (both 4 and 12TPY versions).

• Fixed unit rosters - The unit rosters for the Westmoringas and Westernas factions have been fixed. Previously, they had used a very limited and somewhat buggy Viking/English hybrid. Why? I assume it's because they aren't really supposed to survive beyond the first few turns and the developers never put much thought into them. They should now have the full roster given to all other English Kingdoms factions, minus any West Seaxe and Mierce unique units.

Please let me know if there are any other factions out there with incomplete/bugged unit rosters in any of the mod packs and I shall strive to fix them as quickly as possible.

11/01/2019 UPDATE - PARTS 1 & 2 ONLY

I am happy to finally bring you some progress in regards to fleshing out unlocked factions' access to their respective cultures' mechanics...

• Working culture mechanics for English Kingdoms - Unless there is something waiting to show it's ugly head during the mid-to-late campaign, all English cultured factions should now have fully working fyrd and burghal mechanics. Be warned however, fans of those smaller English nations, as you may find progress can offtimes be a cruel mistress. Starting positions for many English nations will now likely be significantly harder. Where West Seaxe begins with a fyrd limit in the low twenties, the likes of Westmoringas and Westernas begin with a measly 3.

At present, the English Kingdoms' mechanics file has proven to be the easiest (by far) to unravel. As I am still not very knowledgeable about the whole scripting thing, just this much was achieved only through immense luck and perseverance, I cannot say with any certainly that I can do this for any other culture group. Only time will tell...

Until next time!

19/01/2019 UPDATE

This is the next substantial(ish) update to the Manic Expanded Factions mod. If you're not like me and you have friends, especially ones that play this game as well, you will likely enjoy this to some extent (at least I hope so).

• Unlocked factions for multiplayer - Unlocked factions are now (or at least should be) available for selection in multiplayer campaigns. So long as you have the appropriate pack selected, you should be able to play as any faction you can already play in singleplayer. Unfortunately, due to various practical and technical limitations, you can only play against fellow players using the exact same mod pack as you (with pack 1 enabled, you cannot play against someone using packs 2 or 3 or any of the 12TPY versions etc.). This includes any other additional mods (better camera etc.) they may be running alongside.

A big thank you to sixt for pointing me in the right direction in regards to the correct file of the mod to edit, and a big thank you to KK_Dennis (and his friend) for helping with testing.

In regards to adding culture mechanics to other factions, it would seem that it is much more difficult than I originally thought. I feel I may be fairly close to enabling mechanics for Gaelic factions, this is still not a given. I currently haven't heard anything back from Drunk Flamingo regarding his efforts to add mechanics on my behalf, but I am confident he's still working on it.

Until the next time!

20/01/2019 UPDATE

Helo fy ffrindiau! (Yes, I can speak Google Translate). I am pleased to present yet another biggish update for the Manic's Expanded Factions mod.

• Working culture mechanics for Welsh factions - All Welsh factions should now have access to the heroism mechanic. It took a lot of desperate tweaking and luck to get this to work so please do not expect it to be perfect, but I do think it's close enough. The only issues I've noticed are hardly issues at all. 1) All factions, regardless of their starting territory, begin with 8 heroism from settlements. I'm not sure if this is actually a bug or just the base heroism. It doesn't cause any gameplay issues as far as I can tell. 2) Natural decay of heroism seems a bit slow. The game files say it should fire once every 5 turns but, testing various unlocked factions, it was usually 15 or so turns before it first decayed. Again, it doesn't affect gameplay but I worry it may lead to factions becoming overpowered rather quickly with it being easier to attain and stay at higher levels of heroism. Other than these two minor issues, heroism gain and loss should work as normal.

As far as unlocking mechanics for other culture groups goes, my work on the Gaelic factions is coming along nicely. While I still can't get it to work for Scottish factions, I have managed to give Irish factions fully-functioning culture mechanics. However, I have encountered a very annoying technology bug where Irish faction tech trees are all unlocked on turn 1. This is made even more frustrating by the fact that, aside from this one issue, I've got Irish culture mechanics working perfectly. I hope I can solve this issue before I tear all my hair out...

Until the next time!

13/02/2019 ANNOUCEMENT

I am pleased to announce the release of the Manic's Emergent Factions mini-mod which should allow you to play as any of the unplayable emergent factions in custom battles. Yes, you read that right, unfortunately this does NOT enable emergent factions for the campaign as many people probably want. That sort of stuff is still 'look at my fancy university degree in computing' level of modding and I'm more at a 'look at my 5 reasonably good A-Levels' level of modding...

I do not know at present whether or not you can play as them in multiplayer battles, AvPD does have its downsides. However, if there are any problems, do not hesitate to post them on the mod's workshop page and I'll try my best to try and fix it.

In regards to the main mod, a fix for the tech bug that plagues the Gaelic factions still eludes me. It's a real shame as, aside from that, they have pretty much fully-functioning and bug-free legitimacy mechanics (except for the Scottish factions). If I do ever find a solution to this, that will likely be the last culture group I can successfully give mechanics to as the others seem to rely heavily on faction-specific events to work properly (Here-King and Expeditions etc.) which I haven't a clue how to edit.

Until next time!

23/11/2019 UPDATE

OwO what's this? An update? That's right, folks. After almost a year, I am very pleased to present to you (finally) an update to the Manic's Expanded Factions mod!

What does this update add to the mod, you ask? Well:

• Unique faction traits - The flagship feature of this update is that all factions now either have their own unique traits, or are given 'group' traits (i.e. all those small independent Viking towns in the Midlands are all given the 'Viking Borough' trait which gives a large morale boost to fighting in their home territory and a small tax boost to replicate their similar defensive and urbanised focuses). I have not had the time to test them all out in a full playthrough and they may be very unbalanced so please do not hesitate to report any problems you occur.
  
  
• Sexier maps - The maps currently used on the faction selection screen are not all that great in my opinion. You may disagree but, as the person who made those maps, my opinion matters more than yours (jk). So I have also added some new and (I would say) improved maps that look both 'fresher' and more unique (compared to the vanilla ones) which I hope everyone finds either very appealing... or at least less ugly than the previous set!

Unfortunately, as always, I have not been able to fix the crashing issue with either the Pictish factions or Seisilwig (though they still have been given their own faction traits in this update) and I have had no luck with granting culture mechanics to the Irish factions. As of now, I won't even mention this 'hiccups' in future updates unless I actually manage to make any progress towards resolving them.

Hopefully though, the addition of faction traits to the mod should at least placate a few people who wanted unlocked factions to be more 'fleshed out'. Please do bear in mind that I am not an expert at modding by any means and I only undertook this project in the first place because no 'proper' modders seemed willing to undertake the task. That being said, I do apologise to anybody who expected these issues to be fixed!

Anyway, I hope these small additions and changes were worth the wait.

Until next time!