I never bothered to check for Malakai mods but this one is almost exactly what I needed to enjoy the engineer slayer again - Elspeth was just too huge of a competitor back then.

Almost, because even if the starting point is perfectly manageable, Malaki being so OP, it still lacks in the RP dpt and could use some tweaks so that the starting province doesn't push you North/East into Archaon and Kolek, but to Karak Drak / Chaos Dwarfs, and Kislev. Or if you didn't need to kill the poor ogres. As of now, you just don't have the choice but to delete the Chaos, which is fine, but not what the campaign aims at.

I use the console to change that but... it feels like cheating, it kinda breaks the mood (and the mod, ahah) (ahem), and I'm just too old and blind to learn how to mod =)

Anyway, really great and straightforward job, so the long commentary, thanks !

Right, I understand what you're going for here. Maybe one day i'll give it a try :)

@RogueSkeptic, thanks! pretty much all of my start position mods are compatible through all updates unless they directly mess with starting locations that I'm changing

@Therivox, I knew this would be kind of doomed, which is the point - you're playing as a slayer going to the middle of the wastes to a place called Karak Dum
Malakai is uniquely designed to be an effective nomadic faction, so try to survive!

Nice if you really want a challenge, but not really fun to have Archeaon and Astrogoth teaming up on you from turn 10. Campain lasted until turn 20.
Using this knowledge, I suppose you can turtle your starting area until you have tier 3 walls on all 4 settlements when attempting to venture further, but that's not my cup of tea.

Missions sometimes still ask to go to the area around Karak Vlag, which is very far down the list of priorities in this start.

Just to confirm, this works on the latest Campaign AI BETA #2

Being surrounded by chaos dogs is just what the slayer engineer needs to test his munitions

All good! It still works fine, albeit ofc now Ferrik being there also is very odd since they got hacked out. I just figured it was worth pointing out that this is a VERY different spot with it being Arbaal's intended province.

@Daverin2112, I'll do some testing when IRL stuff lets up but I suspect that changing some starting enemies will be enough to alleviate the pressure. I really want to avoid changing too much for the sake of compatibility

Will be curious if you want this to remain the exact same, since this all but forces an elim match between Arbaal and Malakai after DLC. Not that this is unprecedented, but even Teclis v Kairos nominally leaves space to pretend it isn't gonna happen, loool.

@BigWillz, doesn't need an update! I will update all of my mods when the DLC comes out, whether they need it or not.

update please

does it work with SFO?

@David, based on what? Because him starting in Karak Dum is a lot more lore accurate, as that's where he and his crew traveled to with the Spirit of Grungi when they started their journey of the chaos wastes.
As such I personally think the change of start position to Karak Dum is the most logical choice.

I think karak vlag fits better with malakai

To be honest I'm not really planning on scope creeping into the realms of chaos map on any of my mods. I'll leave that map as CA intended it since it usually is tied to more carefully curated narrative events.

Thx for the mod !
Same as SS7877, could be great to have the same in RoC

Thanks for the mod.
Can you make an analog for Realm of Chaos, pls?

Yeah these start positions I set up are mostly to my taste, which is to say more challenging than vanilla starts in general.

But one of their major goals is also to make the world feel more authentic to the setting and interesting to play in even if you aren't using a moved faction.

That's very cool, @Porki. Particularly like how this brings Kraka Drak back at the same time, also with Cataph's mod. Good work! As we say in my mother language: This mod "smashes two flies with one flyclap" :) (Way cooler than birds and stones IMHO)

@Da Haloshock
I'm pretty sure Porki's mods are mostly made to ensure that those start pos changes work fine for all the parties involved. I'd be surprised if the scope of this mod included any tweaks to campaign start difficulty (adjust starting armies etc.) but it could be that they do - in that case I'm simply wrong and you are right (happens all the time!). But do youseewhatimttryi.... wait!

Weird, do you also hear two mini violins far away - it almost sounds like they're softly playing the main melody of JT's "Cry Me A River""! That's cold <3

It's a very hard start with the first army being literally twice the size of your own and having to build up every settlement from scratch but the killer is the attrition and the lack of grudges you get for going after the daemons to the north.

@Autumnchain, yeah I think they pull that from the startpos unfortunately. I suppose someone could make the highlighting invisible, that would help with the polish.

Robies mod hasn't gone anywhere sneezeoid.

This is a good start but I will NEVER accept Malakai as a Legendary Lord. He is very clearly a Hero character, not a war and economy co-ordinating general. I'll miss Robie's Malakai hero for Human Dwarf factions...

any plans on a Tamurkhan change too? i've done his actual start and it was quite painful haha, wouldn't mind to test new things now

Thanks. Now if only it was possible to edit the starting settlements on the map as well.

Brilliant :D

@Guvenoren, I'd just do it for AI, like what I did for AI Yuan Bo

Interesting. Assume it'll only work for AI, or work for player too? How will it affect starting dilemmas?

It's in RPFM. db/frontend_faction_leaders_tables

Can that table be accessed via RPFM or does the Assembly Kit have to be used? If yes to being accessible via RPFM, could you tell me the specific name of the folder in the database?

@Autumnchain it's in the faction frontend leaders table, there are x and y frontend override columns that everyone except eltharion sets to -1

How did you move the flag on the start location map?

@ChrisRColasurdo, which other mods are you running? Likely what's happening is you're experiencing a script crash and it's causing my post-first-tick script to not run.

Weird... maybe it's a me thing (but I don't see how it would be). My only thought / suggestion would be perhaps make it so Malakai isn't at war with Clan Ferrick on turn 1. That way AI Malakai has time to get out of the ocean and rebuild Karak Dum. And it would give player Malakai the option of either going north and fighting Ferrick or southwest and instead fighting the Goromondy. That would also remedy Pox's complaint below (that Skaven army is pretty big).

@ChrisRColasurdo, interesting - I updated the mod yesterday so he should be properly moved to Karak Dum now even when you have Norse Dwarfs on.

I think that the original Malakai start position is ass, why they keep doing that, this one is way better and makes more sense, close to the chaos wastes to find that sweet glorious ending for a slayer.

So I've tested a little more.

1: I downloaded the toggle fog of war mod so I could see what was happening turn 1.

2: When you have just this mod (and toggle fog of war) installed AI Malakai will retreat into Karak Dum and will win the fight against the skaven army.

3: However, I was incorrect in my first comment when I said this was completely compatible with Cataph's norse dwarfs. While with both mods installed Malakai does own Karak Dum his army does not start right next to it. Instead, when I toggled the fog of war, I found him floating in the water off the coast to the west a little ways. So, with Karak Dum being a tier 0 ruined settlement the skaven take it with no resistance. This is why I found him homeless when I first looked for him by walking from Kraka Drak for 5 turns. Sorry for being half right half wrong in my first comment.

This is a very frustrating start experience. The initial army you fight has enough units to swarm you (not enough of a frontline to hold them at the start, especially as they have some fast-movers) so you take high casualties for a first fight. Your starting settlement has no recruitment capacity for 3 turns, so you're limited to horde recruitment of 1 unit a turn, and taking on bak-bak at a reasonable time means you're going in with few units and facing the same problem at the first fight. I had captured Hell-Pit in the vanilla start in the same amount of time it takes to safely capture a single settlement in this. It's not a matter of being able to achieve the wins, it's a matter of it slowing things down enough that the first 10 turns (which are vital in every campaign) are a slog compared to every other campaign.

@Guvenoren, yes it's in the border princes. Gelt is actually from the Border Princes originally so I figured that it might work narratively. The only issue is that he'll help out the other order factions in the area quite a bit so I might need to tweak with the starting diplomacy to ensure that it doesn't result in ordertide.

Akendorf? That's close to border princes right?

Thanks for all your effort!

@Dr Charko, I already removed that effect actually, it's just an old screenshot. I'll update the image - it's the bonus AP damage that probably needs to be tweaked.

I think its the global recruitment duration that feels so strong, early game can let you snowball alot quicker

Fair enough, think it was more the amount of text that scared me than the effects. Peace with Maggoth Kin seems to be a negative for Kraka Drak, if that mod is used. Wonder if you could add a small bonus to offset it?

@Guvenoren, sure, I'd appreciate it. I was going to move AI Gelt to Akendorf so he wasn't stepping on Elspeth's toes

@Dr Charko, I can nerf it a bit but really the effects I added are mostly flavor and aren't too major. I figured that capturing a settlement on the other side of tamurkhan deserved a bit more of a reward.

As Karak Dum's #1 Fan, I thank Ye

Woaw why is the hammer made so powerful? Possible to have a version of this mod without those changes, would feel a bit like cheating

I kinda made it already. Made it in about 15 minutes. Could send it to you to help with workload.