Bay 12 Games Forum

So when you first asked about the missing treasure ("missing" doesn't mean anything really: the treasure's whereabouts could be widely known), did the person tell you something like "Last I heard it was held by Urist McHilldwarf"? If so, look around for said Urist (you probably won't be able to get specific info on his location, like what house he lives in); when you find him he'll have the artifact in his possession.

If, on the other hand, you were told "Last I heard it was in these hillocks here," then the artifact will possibly be found lying in some random spot somewhere in the hillocks (the entire hillock site, not just in or near the houses). The only way to find it is to look around.

As far as I know no one will give you more specific info on artifact locations, only where they are and/or who holds them. Note also that such info can be wrong - the artifact could have been recovered and taken away by another adventurer before you.

You can vassalize them like anyone else, by diplomatic action (right-click on their portrait); no special intrigue decisions needed.
You will have to surpass the usual penalties for offering vassalization: religion, culture, de jure status, opinion, and relative power (distant realm shouldn't be a problem - their castles are probably all in your realm already).

The grandmaster is already of your religion and (probably) culture as well, so that's taken care of.
There's nothing you can do about "not my de jure liege" (since Holy Orders have no de jure liege).
Opinion is pretty easy to manage in the usual ways, gifts etc.
To boost the "relative power" calculation in your favor, try raising the Immortals. That not only boosts your available troops by 9,000, but reduces theirs by the same.

It may also help (or even be necessary) to have a dynasty member as grandmaster, as I think that adds positive score.

Also, I did this pre-Holy Fury, so the new Holy Order government may prevent this. I doubt it though.

My view tends to be that it's fan made stuff, so probably won't be all that well balanced or whatever.

For me it's mostly that, if I think a certain mechanic could be improved, I usually form a very specific idea of how it could be improved, which I don't expect modders to implement. And usually the original gameplay is not bad enough to make me stop playing, so I just suffer it.

The same goes for total conversions as well: I've never played Elder Kings because I have a very specific idea of what I would want an Elder Scrolls CK2 mod to be like, and it's not Elder Kings. Not saying it's bad or anything - I'd probably still find it enjoyable - but it wouldn't scratch my idiosyncratic itch.

On the subject of TCs though: has there ever been a "Americas in the Medieval Period" mod - set at the same time (1066 - 1453) but in North/South America? I guess getting historical info would be the big problem, but that's already the case for most of the Old World pagans; and I just think it'd be a neat experience.

I encountered someone like this once: she was the lady (or former lady) of a nearby hamlet, which had been attacked by goblins and subsequently abandoned. The rest of the town were refugees in a nearby camp, among them some of the lady's hearthspeople, who told me they were soldiers in her service. She, however, naked and mute, just stood on the fringes of the goblin camp nearby (the goblins, actually, were also refugees - I don't know why they abandoned the site though). After a while one of my companions attacked and killed her for no apparent reason.

Later on I was traveling pretty far north of that location, came across a * on the map - it was a group of naked peasants/wrestlers, only one of whom had any name (though they could all talk) - they mostly introduced themselves with "Greetings. My name is ." Their leader said they were refugees from the aforementioned town - which, again, was quite a ways in the south. I left them, but went back to check on them again, and they had all vanished.

Basically, insurrections/conquests/refugees are rife with bugs and glitches (along with most of the rest of the game). Whatever this bug is, it's probably related to confused civilization/group identities.

What is this deal with animal recruits then? Whom are those?

Those are historical figure animals - named animals whose histories are traced. Chances are some of them have rampaged or killed someone at some point. Killing them should make people approve of you as a "hunter." I don't know why their called recruits, maybe some game-internal reason to make them move in the world.

Started a random world. Playing as one of the Jews of this world - the Shinadi, who have a cluster of independent city-states in Anatolia. We're totally surrounded by the world's largest religion, the Harivarmanians, who are basically Catholics with ship raiding, river movement, and divine marriage. We're right up next to the Holy Sistani Empire, a massive Harivarmanian empire in Persia dominated by pseudo-Norsemen. At first I thought I'd try to unite the Shinadi city-states, but actually I've been having more fun with alliances, so I might just keep everyone independent for now.

Meanwhile, the whole of Africa is controlled by the Cairene Empire, with the emperor based in the Sahara Desert.

Why is this syndrome not documented, or is it a bug ?
 Others have had issues with this since 2010 ( Google search ), there are no syndromes listed in the wiki that do this, there are no syndromes in the game's files that have this effect ... and no, it's not acid or boiling rain.

If the cause is indeed the evil sludge (which seems likely), then there won't be any documentation because syndromes for evil weather, as for FBs, Titans, and demons, are procedurally generated for individual worlds.

As for why dwarves don't get it, as others have said the syndrome could be caused by ingestion: only cats licking themselves would have cause to ingest the sludge, so naturally only they'd be affected.
However, it may still be contact-based: dwarves tend to wear shoes/socks, which would prevent their bare feet from picking up the sludge, but cats are barefoot.

As for why it doesn't affect adult cats, I admit I don't have a sure answer for that. My guess is that it has to do with size, for one of two reasons: 1) some syndromes are diluted with size, so perhaps the syndrome is weak enough to be shrugged of by adult animals, while kittens are still small enough to be affected; 2) larger creatures naturally have more blood to lose, so even if adults are affected by the syndrome they might not die from the bleeding.

Another possibility: is your fort in a "Scorching" region? Long exposure to such heat can melt fat and cause bleeding (which, again, smaller creatures might not be able to survive).

Either way, my advice is to quarantine your cats indoors. If the problem is sludge-related, a few kittens might still succumb (from picking up the syndrome before they were quarantined), but eventually the deaths will stop. At least this way you can test the hypothesis: if the deaths continue long after the quarantine... I don't know what your problem is.

Spouse might not "count" for returns. For abducted children, at least, I know the following works: while their traveling with you, ask them... I think it's either "Inquire about any troubles" or "Ask about the journey together", can't recall which - the child will tell you who to bring them to (usually a parent). When you bring them within sight of the person mentioned, the rescuee will automatically leave your party and run to the relative, everyone's happy, you're a big hero.

In actuality, other family members than the one mentioned will cause the same reaction: I was taking some dwarven children to their mother, but they saw their brother first and were properly "rescued." They also, unfortunately, seemed to initiate combat with someone, causing many of the dwarves to start beating each other up - so, be warned: abducted children may leave the dark fortress with some goblin ethics, including "kill everyone you see who isn't a goblin."

As for other rescues, such as saving people from approaching armies, I don't know.

Maybe try taking out [ITEM_THIEF]? That might prevent them from declaring full-scale wars and limit them to stealing, like vanilla kobolds. I don't know for sure, though.

How big are the creatures? Size is the number one thing that determines success in world-gen battles, as far as I can tell.

Also, they seem not to have any professions? I know at least Furnace Operators are needed to give a civ access to metals, so perhaps they're unable to produce any weapons/armor. I don't know if that would cause them to lose more often.

How are the civs doing otherwise? Do they have enough population to win wars? If they need to eat they'll need a source of food (farming, livestock), which they don't seem to have right now. Are all your positions showing up as intended?