[mod] Tentacled Dreams

[souldead341]

18 hours ago, Banana Banana said:

Some way to counter act corruption and cleanse yourself would be interesting. Sometimes you just want a "pure" character during a long playthrough.

I personally would like that as well, especially specific corruption events along the lines of "trying to use tentacles against enemies without being corrupted, but being corrupted anyway".  I don't think that'll happen without someone doing a submod.

 

As for pure, if you want to the kitsune sub mod had a way to reduce corruption, though it's been a while since I played it so I'm not sure if it's working on the current version.

[glanducra]

Does anybody know what causes tentacle concubinage female rulers to marry random mooks of the local religion?

Is it some vanilla event that goes through the regular check for interfaith marriage? If so, will it stop when the counties are converted to the dagonist faith?

[Cheri Song]

On 8/21/2020 at 8:47 AM, glanducra said:

Does anybody know what causes tentacle concubinage female rulers to marry random mooks of the local religion?

Is it some vanilla event that goes through the regular check for interfaith marriage? If so, will it stop when the counties are converted to the dagonist faith?

They are probably doing this because no one else will accept their marriage offers. Sorry, I've stopped updating Tentacled Dreams for CK2, but I'll keep an eye out if this happens in CK3.

[Spenser]

11 hours ago, Cheri Song said:

I've stopped updating Tentacled Dreams for CK2

Oh, so no more updates on this mod? Shame. But thank you anyway, it was one of the best things, which happens to CK2:)

[glanducra]

On 8/22/2020 at 6:18 AM, Cheri Song said:

They are probably doing this because no one else will accept their marriage offers. Sorry, I've stopped updating Tentacled Dreams for CK2, but I'll keep an eye out if this happens in CK3.

No problem. I found the issue I think; those guys are stragglers courtiers that end up in their courts after being displaced by wars, and since you can marry any courtier no matter their religion, they are allowed to marry them.

 

Do you have any words on how moddable CK3 is gonna be? I mean especially graphically. So far we've seen all characters being animated 3D models, so is there gonna be a "portraits only" play mode for modders?

[Abraxis00]

If you've finished development on Tentacled Dreams, then I just want to thank you for all the hard work you've put in.  This is easily one of my favorite CK2 mods, adult or non-adult, right up there with Lesbocracy and After the End.  It's been great fun trying to spread the Dagonic faith and obedience to the beloved Tentacle Masters across Europe, and I hope to see your work in CK3 when it's ready, whether it's more tentacle fun or something entirely different.  You've been great!

[Megaduck01]

I want to echo Abraxis00.  Thank you for all the hard work you've put into Tentacled Dreams Cheri Song.  I never would have played CK2 without it and I loved playing as a secret Dagonic and spreading the love of the Tentacle Masters.

[Wily Rodent]

So with Tentacled Dreams for CK2 coming to a close, I feel it appropriate to write some sort of breakdown. Maybe you can use it as reference for future projects.

 

First things first, Tentacled Dreams is probably one of the most well made mods for CK2 out there. Note that I said "most well made" and not "best" and I will get into this over the course of this analysis. The amount of polish and attention to detail is stunning, but looking back at it, it always felt like something created by an artist rather than by a game designer. It sets up the atmosphere really well, but the gameplay has some issues.

 

But let's start from the beginning. The first thing anyone installing Tentacled Dreams notices is that the mod is cleanly separated into different components, making it easier to update the mod without having to download all the images again. Looking into the folder structure and even the files reveals that everything is well structured and well documented. I've looked into a lot of mods on this site and Tentacled Dreams definitely has the cleanest code out of any of them. I've even found myself looking at Cheri's code for reference when I couldn't figure something out during my own brief stints at modding, so that's definitely a big plus.

 

Starting up a game, the next thing that comes to attention is that there are a lot of options that directly influence how the game will play out. For a mod like Tentacled Dreams, this is very important, as the amount of influence the Tentacle Monsters will have on the game needs to be decided on a personal basis by the player. The game then leads the player into this eldritch horror story with well-crafted scenes. Again, everything just looks clean. The optics and polish on this mod are just stunning.

 

I've tried to write a submod multiple times and I always lost the motivation for a single reason: Gameplay.

Now, from a pure controls perspective, the mod is amazing. It doesn't fall into the same pitfalls as IST or DWR, where the optimal way to play the game involves constantly pausing the game and maneuvering menus and barely completing a year in half an hour in a constant grind to get some advantage out of the game. No, tentacle gameplay is fluid and never feels like a chore (except for managing a stack of 60+ warbeast spawns when a single unit with a different raiding stance snuck in. Fuck that.) The optimal way to play the game is also the most fun one, which is very important, the problem is just that there isn't much game to be played.

 

But let's take a step back.

Playing as a normal character and being corrupted feels amazing. There is even some fun in playing around with the tentacle cult, though that bit always felt a bit bare-bones. Playing in an actual Tentacle Empire, on the other hand, is less than stellar. Of course, you have a lot of powerful options, but the game always seems to lack the impact. Crusader Kings is about constantly being fucked over by the game being a dick to you and you managing your resources to mitigate risk. With the tentacle brood, there is exactly none of this. The realm is remarkably stable, there are no random events that threaten to upset your status quo, you don't have to worry about assassination either... So you lack the risk, but you lack the options, too. There just isn't a lot of variance here. There neither is any room for catastrophic failure nor for exceptional success. Everything will just slowly trod on in a very predictable manner.

 

You have very limited control over what goes on in your realm, and the options you have to micromanage things seem very sandbox-y. A lot of times you are at the mercy of the ai and you are constantly on the lookout for talented recruits because all the good characters tend to commit suicide half way through their nominally useful life span... Sometimes even earlier if you aren't careful. Poaching for talented women, while an interesting concept, is also the only way to reliably get good leaders. And there is the constant risk of just losing them. That time I lost a 25 year old commander with 31 martial and terrain mastery (narrow flank is amazing with tentacle warbeasts) because I didn't pull her out of the dungeon in time and she just decided to kill herself at the end of the fertility festival was really painful.

The main issue I see with the game is that for gameplay that is supposed to revolve around amassing breeding slaves, there is an awful lack of actual breeding going on. There is no point ever trying to purposefully raise a great leader, just look through the vast pool of available choices and recruit or "recruit" whoever you need to fill the role. Just be weary of the end of the fertility festival when employing the second choice because the game has a nasty habit of randomly picking the characters you actually have plans for. There is also no benefit to looking out for good breeding stock. There absolutely should be different qualities of slaves, with some traits that make for better or worse breeding slaves. Characters with strong or brawny spawn extra warbeasts. That would be amazing. There doesn't seem to be a very high chance for inheritance either, so trying to breed for children with great traits to raise on your own is again foiled.

 

There is the option of "silly" monster behavior, but it just doesn't do enough. That option should totally untangle the tentacle monster gameplay from its normal play and make it function entirely like a normal in game character. Instead you are locked into a character with predetermined horrible stats and a predetermined lifestyle trait. The fact that the character isn't incapable and that all his stats now matter is invalidated by the fact that the game would lock me into horrible stats, rendering the whole point moot.

 

So we covered starting out as a female, playing as a tentacle monster, what else does the mod offer? Playing AGAINST the tentacle brood?

 

The Tentacle Brood just isn't all that scary. Their aggression levels seem to be very low and they seem to be very reluctant to ever invade a neighbor. I wonder if the incapable status somehow changes their ai behavior to be very passive or if its a problem with the regent. I don't even know which of the two's personality the ai decisions are based on. Should be easy to run an experiment on, but never bothered. Even their takeover through subversion is slow. I've cranked up everything to max, with long pregnancies and multiple pregnancies to create a state of almost permanent pregnancy for almost every woman in the world, trying to blanket out the birth of male humans as much as possible without being a total ass about it (I didn't set tentacle born children to "enslaved" though, that felt a bit too heavy-handed) doubled up the frequent encounter rate by editing the files, doubled up the recruitment and corruption rate for the tentacle cult and they still didn't have any significant impact after 200 years of gameplay. Sure, some empires were taken over by tentacle monsters, but even with everything cranked up to the max, the game still wouldn't allow me to create a tentacle apocalypse where everything is falling apart.

 

So let's go into detail over some of the issues with game flow.

Firstly, tentacle cultists suck. They really do. I've ran three separate campaigns for roughly 150 years in observer mode and they took over the HRE once by chance. They never ever managed to create a single lasting empire in the other two runs, and that is again, with everything cranked way beyond what the mod usually allows for. Mind you, I didn't enact full status of women in the options, maybe then things might pan out differently. I did another subsequent run because I remembered that back in February my test runs were a lot more successful with way less extreme settings and suddenly they spawned multiple tentacle empires. So what's the difference? I changed a single setting that allows the AI to invite tentacle monsters to their court. Ultimately, what spawns the tentacle broods that "take over the world" is not the fact that the cultists prepare grounds for a takeover, it's that random tentacle slaves start inviting monsters to court once they were exposed and the game is really bad at handling the cleanup of that.
Crusader Kings doesn't know the concept of blood guilt. Therefore, children will never be punished for the crimes of their parents, even if they aren't their actual parents and even if the child in question was the actual crime. In this case, it literally means that a tentacle slave will be burnt at the stake for adopting a tentacle monster into her family, while said tentacle monster will be acknowledged as their heir due to being the "oldest". And everyone will just sweep the issue under the rug and pretend that just didn't happen. That is a thing that will happen regardless of whether or not there are tentacle cultists, though the cultists tend to speed things up by corrupting more female rulers. But what brings a tentacle empire into being usually isn't the cultists staging their big takeover. How could they? They are no localized group with a concerted effort to overthrow the status quo, they are a global tentacle fan club, so to speak, that occasionally try to prepare a province for the big takeover that is gonna happen on the other side of the world. Nothing really threatening. They are random noise at best, in the random heresy that goes on every day and will simply dealt with by the clergy like all the other small, isolated instances of heresy, unless by sheer chance they manage to get an empress on the throne.

If the cult leader could somehow designate a realm as the focus of all the tentacle slaves, the cult might actually pose a threat, but as it stands, it does nothing unless specifically guided by a player.

 

Next up, the heresies are again usually spawned by the game's heresy system randomly flipping characters and provinces due to a low religious authority, rather than by any other method the mod provides. Tentacle monsters invited by people with the secret lilithid or submissionist religion will be dagonic, further exacerbating the problems those heresies have with establishing a foothold. The submissionist faith has it rough in particular because an inability to grant women land will also mean that they will miss out on a lot of the stat boosts landed characters gain and with weaker council members as a return, which brings us again to the main problems with tentacle monsters: They are really dependent on having good councilors, but there are no good ways to create better than average councilors other than just poaching them and even those you get just tend to need replacement quickly.

 

It's kind of a shame that after three failed attempts at adding to tentacled dreams via some modding of my own, I finally found something that doesn't just add more fluff, but actually expands on the gameplay just as the development of the mod has come to an end. A great way to fix almost all of the issues would be to create a society for tentacle monsters. Not as a functioning society, but rather as a means to visualize the progress in a long quest chain that unlocks more powers for tentacle monsters in a quest to create better breeding slaves and providing additional training to your slaves for various stat boosts and traits... Maybe even the ability to create an immortal "perfected slave" at the end of all the breeding and selecting for various small modifiers that the society would add to your tentacle born children. 

But alas, the time is up. CK3 is here and seems a lot of fun.

 

As for Tentacled Dreams, I would definitely rate this mod a solid

 

9/10.

 

Definitely looking forward to your next project.

[Boyar]

Hi! I love this mod, but i have question!

Is there any way to hide the presence of traits associated with tentacles for courtiers? Otherwise, all intrigue is lost. Hiding these traits for NPCs is a very important part of intrigue.

If these traits could be identified by the excessive lust of courtiers and sudden childbirth or spying - it would be cool. This would allow for an interesting preemptive hunt, before everyone is corrupted and enslaved by the tentacles. After all, it's more interesting to play when you don't know which of the courtiers is infested. And they, in turn, can infest other courtiers.

Is it possible to enable or disable this function as an option?

Thank you!

[Zairest]

I can't wait to see mods like this for ck3! nice job

[veedanya]

Probably futile to submit a bug note because you said you stopped updating the CK2 version, but I noticed a minor bug while writing a compatibility patch for your mod: At least one check in wol_seduction_events still uses the old "age =" scope instead of "practical_age =" scope (which accounts for immortals and long-lived races like Kitsunes or Elves. Might want to run a quick search-and-replace.

 

Also a number of the checks seem to have no incest check; they only see if messelian or zorostrian religions are present to detect if incest is permissible. And not things like divine marriage in reformed religions, or your incest-checking script.

[Miss AshleyJ]

This proud tentacle slave can not wait for her masters to join her in CK3

[o5850028@nwytg.net]

On 8/22/2020 at 6:18 AM, Cheri Song said:

They are probably doing this because no one else will accept their marriage offers. Sorry, I've stopped updating Tentacled Dreams for CK2, but I'll keep an eye out if this happens in CK3.

so you're not gonna mod for ck2 anymore? just going to focus on ck3?

[sataniccatholic]

Since there are quite a whole lot of people who have expressed themselves, I would like to join those who have spoken up already and -

THANK YOU CHERI - !

On 8/23/2020 at 11:27 PM, glanducra said:

Do you have any words on how moddable CK3 is gonna be? I mean especially graphically. So far we've seen all characters being animated 3D models, so is there gonna be a "portraits only" play mode for modders?

From what I saw in the workshop, yes "portraits only" is possible.

 

Though trying to set up dynamic scenes in CK3 remain a problem. Most mods are currently cosmetic and don't make the most of 3d models.

 

For the moment, I guess I am stuck with tweaking Tentacle Dreams for CK2. How does one create a holy order anyway?

 

[WolfOfPasloe]

Kinda sad to see that the curtains are closing on so many CK2 mods so quickly after release of its successor, but I get it I guess. Best to start running right out of the gates. Modding new Paradox games is a chore when every update early-on tends to break things, though, so at this point it's kind of a bummer for me specifically. ? Stellaris gave me mod-fatigue

This mod was one of the most regularly-updated mods here, and I was always excited to see an update. Will certainly be watching to see if any submods appear from here on out, and I'll be sure to get the CK3 DW Tentacles whenever I end up finally jumping on the new game. Best of luck with it though!

[TNG]

Thisbis really interesting and I can tell that a ton of effort has gone into it.

 

Is there a guide of a comprehensive feature list or similar for this? Other then going through every page of this topic and compiling a concept from individual update announcements?

 

Something like, this ability does this, that trait does that, this characteristic hurts diplomacy while this one helps it.

By the way, this is how you plot and scheme as a monster. 

Etc...

 

I was trying to do a TM run and am pretty sure I'm not quite paying this right. 

[TNG]

On 8/21/2020 at 11:18 PM, Cheri Song said:

They are probably doing this because no one else will accept their marriage offers. Sorry, I've stopped updating Tentacled Dreams for CK2, but I'll keep an eye out if this happens in CK3.

Well its a cool mod. Thanks for making it!

[Rioghal]

Hey, so I know the mod's development has been put on hold but I have an issue that I can't find a fix for after searching through the topic so maybe another player has a solution.

 

I have several former tentacle invaders floating around with their special duchy title even after they lose all their titles. This wouldn't be an issue normally but given how active these landless characters are, it's started to cause issues with stuttering when 50 different landless tentacle monsters are all doing their thing constantly. Some of these titles have even passed on to one of their wives after the monster died or a vassal if the monster passed it to them and then lost their realm. Is there any way to destroy these titles via event or any other method? I assume I can try the old usurp title to a dead or yet to be born character trick and see if that works but I would hope that there's some sort of trimming event to do away with these pointless titles. Thanks for any help!

 

edit: Nevermind, I abandoned the save but I assume the issue likely stemmed from the massive number of landed tentacle cultists more than the landless tentacle monsters themselves.

[legoryan717]

So booted the mod up recently and the option to ravish has disappeared, can't figure out what could of caused it as no other mod causes this, please help.

 

EDIT: so figured out all most of the tentacle traits had disappeared, thinking I corrupted the save some how, might just restart

[rcy68]

Great mod. Thanks for all the work on it.

 

So, I`m a total noob at CK2. Just picked it up because it was free and The Spiffing Brit videos about it. I have 0 DLC.(EVERYTHING but christians is DLC?!)

 

Started a new game, and when I continue with the autosave, all my kids are dead, and the one kid I started the game with is just gone. Any idea why this is happening? I`ve played a couple times before, and this didn`t happen. I even restarted a couple times, and the same thing happened. I`m starting in Ireland, if that matters. The one difference this time is that I disabled "House of O" mod. And started as a landed tentacle beast instead of a female ruler whose the result of mother being impregnated by tentacles.

 

Edit: Oh, and that damn tooltip drives me crazy. A little delay would be nice. Off-topic, I know, but "AAARRRRGGHH!!!".

[souldead341]

18 hours ago, rcy68 said:

Great mod. Thanks for all the work on it.

 

So, I`m a total noob at CK2. Just picked it up because it was free and The Spiffing Brit videos about it. I have 0 DLC.(EVERYTHING but christians is DLC?!)

 

Started a new game, and when I continue with the autosave, all my kids are dead, and the one kid I started the game with is just gone. Any idea why this is happening? I`ve played a couple times before, and this didn`t happen. I even restarted a couple times, and the same thing happened. I`m starting in Ireland, if that matters. The one difference this time is that I disabled "House of O" mod. And started as a landed tentacle beast instead of a female ruler whose the result of mother being impregnated by tentacles.

 

Edit: Oh, and that damn tooltip drives me crazy. A little delay would be nice. Off-topic, I know, but "AAARRRRGGHH!!!".

So, I honestly have no idea about the disappearing kids issue, but with the way that CK2 works you can never safely remove mods from your save file.  It might have to do with the regency being on if you don't have conclave, not sure about that but conclave is a requirement for tentacle beasts with regency turned on.

 

And yeah, the paradox business model is basically make a base game, then release dozens of dlc with different  minor changes for a few dollars each and major dlcs for more.

[rcy68]

6 minutes ago, souldead341 said:

So, I honestly have no idea about the disappearing kids issue, but with the way that CK2 works you can never safely remove mods from your save file.  It might have to do with the regency being on if you don't have conclave, not sure about that but conclave is a requirement for tentacle beasts with regency turned on.

 

And yeah, the paradox business model is basically make a base game, then release dozens of dlc with different  minor changes for a few dollars each and major dlcs for more.

Only the vanilla kid disappeared. All my Tentacle spawn kids were still there, just dead. It`s only that one scenario, starting as a landed Tentacle Beast, that`s borked for me. If it`s unlanded, or I start as a human(sort of), it`s all good. I just wish finding a woman with a decent rank was easier. Or I could make one, myself. But I need DLC for that. *sigh*

 

This didn`t happen on an ongoing game. New game. I learned not to add/remove mods from ongoing games from FNV/Oblivion/Skyrim modding. Always ruins the save, for me. I started a new game, things started getting more and more laggy, as they do over time, so quit, continue, all dead. It`s probably DLC related, I guess. DAMMIT!

 

Thanks for the reply.

[Cheri Song]

Sorry, I don't know what's causing your problem and I'm no longer updating Tentacled Dreams for CK2. It may be because you don't have the Charlemagne DLC.

For what it's worth, CK2 goes on sale pretty much all the time these days, so you should be able to pick up the DLCs at a reasonable price. I believe you can also get the Old Gods DLC for free by signing up for the Crusader Kings newsletter.

[Ashrana88]

I really like that this mod provides an alternative to death in the abdication mechanic, which allows for full utilization CK2's generation mechanics, which are a large important part of the gameplay loop, whilst still fulfilling the fantasy of immortality and "happy endings", which are obviously a big part of the fantasy for these kinds of mods.

 

If this mod gets remade for CK3, I think this would be a really good system to flesh out, perhaps by expanding the epilogue with custom farewells for characters that decide to abdicate with their close relationships and family members, and adjusting flavour text and the family tree icons to make it more obvious that they are still alive on the tentacular holiday of their dreams. Since the mechanic essentially acts as a replacement for the base games death system, it might be worth considering varying the ending based on traits and the characters legacy, perhaps also reuniting with lovers and family.

 

What would be really cool is a system where-in a young ruler could visit her ancestors in the breeding pits, acting as the tentacle religions equivalent of a pilgrimage. She could have family bonding time, learn about history, learn valuable lessons about rulership, and, of course, have lots of sapphic orgies in-between or during these discussions.

[DrPill]

Having an issue with duplicate generation of the futa trait on human offspring. Yes, I'm running both DWR and LF, but the DWR futa option is off. All other futa characters are being generated with only the LF trait, but tentacle monster pregnancies that result in human girls generate characters with a copy of the DWR futa trait *AND* the LF futa trait.