I'll get into your post Sulphur and make those additions. Looks very well informed. I've been reading books on Flanders for inspiration, so this is exactly what I needed.

@Legion, Duke of Rockford Awesome! I did look into a way to modify character expectancy or age but it seems you can't directly modify those values once the character is actually created. Brilliant work around. Appreciate your help again. All currently outstanding bugs should be resolved. Will test some tonight to confirm.

@Sulphur I'll add it to the list of items. Currently have the Belfries represented as an advance but a building is far more interesting. If you have any suggestions feel free to let me know.

Alternatively, it looks like there is also a character modifier that can increase a character's life expectancy. Just discovered it now in that same mod:

dcm_char_life_extension_modifier = {
game_data = { category = character }
character_life_expectancy = 200
}

So, theoretically, you could apply the character modifier with this attribute immediately at game start with an on_action.

Wow, quite an evolution of this mod! :)

About the Flemish ruler, at game start, being at life expectancy, there is one possible, if less elegant, path to ensuring that he lives a bit longer: Apply a character modifier with immortal attribute to the said character immediately at game start with on_game_start via on_action.

Then, when the time is right, have a hidden event fire to either remove this character modifier OR kill the character.

As for this immortal attribute, you will have to create a character modifier with it, as it is not in any existing character modifiers from vanilla. This is from Burk's MEGA Cheats Menu mod :

dcm_char_immortal_modifier = {
game_data = { category = character }
is_immortal = yes
}

I don't know if a character modifier can be hidden or not, which may be a potential downside of this approach.

Small spelling mistake:
- once you get rid of count de Dampierre, the regent is misspelled 'van Atrevelde'
instead of 'van Artevelde'

Nice! I was making my own Flanders Flavor mod but you're already covering plenty of what I was envisioning so I think I'll cool it :D
Idk if you're also interested in creating some more structural flavor like buildings (belfry, beguinages,...)
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/flavor-suggestions-for-flanders.1766109/
^made an overblown PDX suggestion thread if you ever need some more inspiration!

For unknown reason, Nevers and Rethel became French fiefs (!) after the count's overthrow in Flandre. I think this could be corrected by adding to event for the restoration of the count's power lines, turned Nevers and Rethel into French vassals again. Perhaps this should remove their succession to the king and restore Flemish-Nevers-Rethel union.

After reviewing the mechanics its not an issue of the appanage mechanics, that would actually fix this. It's that you cannot form personal unions with the standard vassals. In this mod I set it so Louis II is the Dampierre option, not Louis I in the case he's alive, which will break the PU and it cannot be reformed.

Taking a look at this it's interesting Appanages aren't what most of France's vassals are, since they have a lot more autonomy gameplay wise than a regular vassal. That provides me some ideas to test for later. Anyway I'll fix the event hopefully by having Louis I return if he's alive.

@Travian “ I tried making Louis II ruler to inherit Nevers and Rethel, but somehow the Heir of France was forced to inherit from Louis I”, I think it’s caused with vanilla “promotion to appanage” hyw mechanic for French vassals.

As always appreciate the feedback. Mostly making these as an excuse to do a super deep dive into the history of areas I find interesting.

@Travian Fixed the first two issues, the two Jacobs one with a patchwork fix. The last one I believe is an error with how the EU5 personal unions are created/maintained. For that one, and to fully resolve the two Jacob's I'll have to rework some of the event logic. I'll get to that tomorrow.

Phenomenal mod! Adds so much needed context to the political landscape of the lowlands.

I did find a few bugs in the flanders event chain, When England embargos you the modifiers are not removed if you align with them. Also there is some weird mechanics with Jacob Van Artevelde. It seems the game generates a second character with the nickname "the Brewer" allowing for both cabinet slots to be Jacob. Also when the event fires allowing Jacob to take control, and its following options, or the duke to return, all options returning to the Dampierre end the union with Rethel and Nevers.

I tried making Louis II ruler to inherit Nevers and Rethel, but somehow the Heir of France was forced to inherit from Louis I.

Great name change! Nice thumbnail too. I wish you luck friend

Added the Flanders event chain. May rename this mod to a general HYW flavor pack, or focus on providing more flavor to the rest of the dutch/lowlands states, as the scope for it has increased as I've learned more about modding.

@Legion, Duke of Rockford Indeed, that is what I'm currently working on. I have an entire event chain worked out that will have the entire revolt, with a few alternate paths. Just have the localization left to do.

Lovely, Steam removed tabs in my code example. -sighs- :p

Another possible path is that requirements of not being at war and/or specificity to a character could probably be entirely removed, but this would require the localization to be rewritten, since it talked about looming war and specifically refers to the historical character.

Alternatively, could add another localization and use triggers for localization, so that event can display different localization if the historical character is dead. You can see the example for this in flavor_eng_diplomacy.1 under Europa Universalis V\game\in_game\events\DHE\flavor_eng_diplomacy.txt

So like this:
desc = {
first_valid = {
triggered_desc = {
trigger = {
character:fla_jacob_van_artevelde = {
is_alive = yes
owner = root
}
}
desc = hundred_years_war.220.desc
}
triggered_desc = {
trigger = {
character:fla_jacob_van_artevelde = {
is_alive = no
owner = root
}
}
desc = hundred_years_war.220.desc_alternate
}
}
}

@PCJaegr Almost missed your comment regarding the event because of lack of notification from Steam (thanks Gabe...), but, wow, I didn't know that event never fired because of these reasons. I was aware that it is specific to a character, but was not aware he was at his life expectancy. So that means he was near his eventual death at game start? Interesting. You may want to report this in Paradox's Bug Reports forum, if you have not done that yet. This is clearly a bug as a result of design flaws.

I think, perhaps, life expectancy could be extended for the said character. Or change it so that France is not automatically pulled into war. I think Paradox actually changed it recently so that this does not happen anymore, possibly in the 1.0.10 beta. Alternatively, make it so it does not fire only if England and France are at war with each other, not simply having Flanders being in a war. Or simply do an event chain as you said. These are a few possible paths I see here.

The 1.0.10 beta have mechanism for french and english vassals to flip allegiance, might want to look into that to make sure this is compatible

The new event is a big abstraction of what the historical events were, but I'll look tomorrow to make it a proper event chain for Flanders. For now this works fine though. Also may look into making a similar event chain for Brittany, to represent the Breton war of succession, and allow Brittany to pick either side. Historically, they sided with England while the succession conflict was ongoing, then switched to France afterwards.

@Roflpotamus It isn't an issue with this mod. It doesn't edit any modifiers like that, only adding two new entries to the diplomacy manager, and overwriting an event for Flanders.

@Hans Wurst Flanders did declare Edward III as King of France, and as a vassal under France I think the characterization is fine here. Flanders for most of the middle ages had a similar situation to Brittany, technically part of France (Also partially the HRE) but de-facto not. However that status-quo changed during the Franco Flemish War (1297-1305). So Flanders remaining a vassal under this context, rather than being a pseudo vassal that I represented as a tributary is more correct in my opinion. To add, I also wished to represent Flanders being directly involved in the English side for much of the conflict, and a simple alliance wouldn't represent that.

I have this installed and also the French vassals less loyal mod, but right after gamestart all French vassals are insanely loyal already.

Wouldnt it be better to make them independant but just allied to England? Flanders was dejure part of the HRE even if the French kings had Flanders as their vassals in theory. But in reality they were mostly, or atleast the flemish trade cities, loyal to the english crown. Making them an english vassal seems a bit weird.

@Legion, Duke of Rockford I did fix the event so it properly fires. The issue was the event won't fire if Flanders is at war, or if a character is dead. Flanders quickly is pulled into the Scottish war, and the specific character starts the game at his life expectancy. So it usually never fires. I also changed the result to make Flanders a vassal instead of a moderate loyalty hit. May come back to this and make it a proper chain to reflect the historical events of french side -> english embargo -> neutrality -> english side. Would also add a potential path for Flanders to stay neutral.

RIP Hainaut. It gets gobbled up within the first few years now by France (it's a crapshoot otherwise if they survive. I've had some games where France left it alone.) Worth it though for the changes to Brittany and Flanders.

good boy

@kimbo will be compatible with anything, only injects new diplomatic relations currently. worst case its overwritten by something else

Thanks a million, wish I found this mod sooner. Flanders has an army of 33 ships when the 100 years war starts, and crushed my puny English fleet of . . . 8 ships. Stranding my armies in England as I watched Bordeaux burn to ashes.

Nice! Though I still got demolished as England

Nice, is this compatible with Historical Tweaks? *edit* yes, it is

Loyalty desire doesn't do anything, AI never rebels since power balance is too tipped to France's side. The decision to have flanders be england's vassal is fine, but maybe an event to make them go independent after 1350-1360 would be good.

why not have flanders be a tributary to england as well?

hmm thats interesting, I'll take a look at that event and see if I can have it fire more reliably. Would be more accurate than having Flanders start directly under England, was simply a small fix made in a few minutes. Flanders and Hainaut according to the sources I saw did directly involve themselves in the Edwardian phase of the war, though Hainaut defected back to the French side afterwards. Most of the various French feudal states fought on both sides at various points.

Sorry for the multiple comments in a row; had to break them up because of 1000-character limit. :@

Finally, I saw opinion debuff was mentioned in the comment for testing. I think liberty desire might be actually more potent than opinion debuffs. However, the subject's own liberty desire modifier is actually named "loyalty_to_overlord" in the code. Yeah, took me a while to find that modifier in modifier.log. :p

I don't think that event ever fired in my campaigns as England, because I was unaware of this event until I looked in the files, which will only fire if Flanders has an opinion of greater than 0 with England. It almost certainly never fired for me because I never received notification. The event has "major event = yes" along with major_trigger set for ENG or FRA, meaning these countries should receive notification if Flanders got this event and chose an option. Since it never fired, it probably meant Flanders always had opinion equal to or less than 0 in my English campaigns played so far. I am going to try improving opinion of Flanders immediately on the start of my next English campaign and see what happens.

Speaking of Flanders, it appeared that there is a vanilla event that gives Flanders options to either side with England or France. Siding with England gives it a severe liberty desire. The option to side with England is set as historical option, so the AI will always select that option if you chose to use game rule, where the AI will always choose historical option. This event can be found under hundred_years_war.220 within Europa Universalis V\game\in_game\events\situations\hundred_years_war.txt .

Interesting, County of Hainaut was allied with England in the Hundred Years War? I was only aware of Burgundians, Portuguese, Bretons, among the others, having had allied with the English at one point or another during the Hundred Years War. I can't find information about Hainaut being historically allied with England by 1337, though that seems plausible. Not sure if Flanders were actively involved in the war or at best neutral. They were almost certainly not pro-French, though. If I recall correctly, they went to war with France before 1337 and the French lost.

in history i dont think so

Finally, Brittany is playable.

Friedrich like what?

Probably better than vanilla? Ideally there would be event chains for these two sub-situations which interact with the broader situation.

great mod would love if futher changes were made to make it more historical

@Gilese581 I did initially test just giving Flanders large opinion debuffs of France, but even stacking multiple negative opinion modifiers did not make them disloyal.

Would be nice if it was less deterministic, ie Flanders hates France at game start but could potentially be won over with diplomacy but in the absence of that it's better if they always declare for England rather than always fight for France.