Interview with Crusader Kings 3: Tales of Ireland mod creator Hutma
In my continuing series of interviews with mod creators for Crusader Kings 3 I found Hutma the create of the Tales of Ireland mod on, like always, Discord!
Tales of Ireland is a total conversion mod of Crusader Kings 3 which converts ancient Irish mythology in a playable and in-depth world.
It has over 1000 counties, magic, a new development system dealing with cattle, a clan system, and vampires! [I love vampires! — LH]
I reached out to Hutma on the Tales of Ireland Discord and threw my standard questions, plus a few more at him!
[Tales of Ireland is currently experiencing a crashing problem, but Hutma is working diligently on it! I will remove this part of the interview when the crashing is fixed! — LH]
Tell me about this issue you are having?
Well, our current problem is that Tales of Ireland is experiencing a crash, the source of it is still unknown and the error and crash reports are not of much help for fixing it…
I am currently spending all my efforts to fix this crash, but it takes a lot of time, sadly.
Now back to the normal questions!
In this day and age, it seems like every mod, game, or even office software has a Discord. How is Discord working out for you/your mod team? Where you on Slack before Discord?
Discord is a great place to exchange both with my teammates and with the players. I started using Discord when I started modding, and I learned to mod thanks to the CK3 mod Coop server.
Later I created our Discord for Tales of Ireland, which was the best thing I have ever done for the mod. Thanks to this Discord I met a lot of people that had and still have a lot of great ideas to enhance Tales of Ireland. It’s a good place to organize the teamwork, the functionalities of pinning messages, use threads etc. are all useful in that regard.
Before Discord I didn’t use Slack, but I was not modding at all either way.
It seems like your team is quite small. How do you find time to make all of the massive changes to Crusader Kings?
During the Covid lockdown I was still a student with a lot of free time, I would spend 8 to 10 hours a day on modding Tales of Ireland. And this lasted for about a year.
The team is small, but I had a lot of time to compensate. Now I struggle with finding enough time to mod, but I still spend at least 10 hours a week on it.
How did you get into modding?
During the Covid lockdown I realized that I had a lot of free time available. I’ve always wanted to learn how to mod, but it seemed inaccessible at the time.
But one day I decided I would spend my day modding Civilization 4. My favorite title in the Civilization franchise. I ended up creating a post-apocalyptic total conversion mod for it and a month later I got in Crusader Kings modding!
How does someone get into modding in general?
The two main things that you need to have to get into modding are motivation and time.
With both motivation and time, you can achieve anything in modding. The skills you have to learn to mod are not that hard to approach, especially when there are communities of modders helping each other.
There are no other requirements for getting into modding.
Do you accept new people into your team?
Yes, I accept anyone into our team, if people want to join and learn the basics of Paradox Script and modding in general I sometime do streams on Discord where I would give a small modding class. If someone wants to have a first modding experience, doing some events etc. never hesitate to contact me.
I noticed some of your mod team works on other mods as well, how do they manage their time between the mods?
Modding is a hobby, so I never require anything “strict” from my team. They are entirely free, free to join and leave as they want, free to invest themselves a lot or only a little. Because of that I’ve never had any problem with this at all.
On the contrary, having members on several teams helps creating cooperation between the mods.
Is there competition between the different CK3 mods? Are there any mods you want to trash talk (I am kidding! Unless…)?
Crusader Kings modding is the most welcoming, helping, cooperating community I know. Resources are shared, modders help each other a lot (shout-out to Tobbzn who is a huge helper of the mod Coop Discord server), it’s a great community. All this cooperation takes place in the Mod Coop server.
Because of this I have no mods to trash talk, sadly.
The best example of our community cooperation is the ModCon that took place last year. It’s the kind of event that you can only organize in a community that cooperates a lot.
How long have you been working on this mod?
I’ve started working on Tales of Ireland around the 26th of September 2020.
What is your process for working on the mod? Do you use traditional programing tools like Git, or do you just wing it?
I have a public Git but it’s not up to date, I stop updating it since the crash, but I will start updating it again once it’s fixed. Either way I’m the only one to ever commit on this Git, usually my teammates send me their files and I add them to the mod, it’s easier for them, they don’t have to learn how to use Git. And it’s easier for me, as I can centralize everything and make sure every addition works.
Do you get paid for working on the mod?
No, not at all, it’s not the objective of my modding journey. It’s actually the opposite, my teammate Snoe and I have both spent money for the mod to get resources such as music and art!
Normally I ask about getting sued around this point, but I don’t think Ireland is going to sue you. So instead, have you had any reactions at using Ireland as your point of focus?
No one ever talked about suing, and I take care of using free to use resources for the mod.
But we have had many positive reactions about focusing on Ireland. Ireland and Celtic mythology are not often represented in pop culture and many Irish people have thanked us for putting light on their magnificent country and its mythology.
Is there anything Paradox could do better to help the modding community?
Paradox is already very invested when it comes to modding support. I don’t think many companies publish entire developer diaries about modding!
Paradox supports us by implementing tools for modding, logs, .info files in the game files to explain how each type of file works, they are present on the Mod Coop and exchange with us daily, they present mods on their Twitter, they add some modding features that are asked for by the modders, and the list could continue.
It’s great to feel supported and listened to by the developers.
What is the best thing about being a modder?
The best thing is that I got to learn a lot of skills (coding, making graphical assets, managing a team, managing a community, marketing/communication around the mod etc.), I also have a better level of English now ^^.
Besides the skills I learned I also got to meet great people; some I now consider my friends. I even plan to take a trip around Ireland soon and meet some of them!
Tales of Ireland is a project I’m very proud of; it is among the greatest things I’ve ever done in my life.
What is the worst thing about being a modder?
The worse thing is pressure. Especially now as Tales of Ireland is encountering a crash issue. I feel pressured to fix the crash quickly but so far, I’ve failed, and it leads to frustration.
Even when the mod is not encountering any issue, I have the pressure of the community. It’s inherent to creating a community, you don’t want to disappoint them.
Why did you pick Ireland and that time period as the place and time you wanted to adapt in such detail?
I’m a bit Irish, I’m French. But since I was a teenager, I’ve always been fascinated with Ireland, with its history and culture. It became even stronger after I took a trip of 22 days there. I fell in love with Ireland and it’s a passion that never goes down.
As for the time period, I wanted the mod to have variety, in cultures, faiths, gameplay mechanics etc. And I discovered Irish mythology when I started to work on Tales of Ireland during my research for the mod. I loved the idea of adapting this mythology that very few people know about.
Why did you pick CK3 as the game you wanted to use for your mod? Were there any other games out there that you thought about using as a platform instead of CK3?
CK2 was one of my favorite games, I have played it for more than five thousand hours. And when CK3 came out I was already into modding for Civilization 4, and I immediately wanted to mod CK3.
What do you think of the Royal Court DLC?
I like it a lot, I think it’s a great first step towards adding flavor to Crusader Kings 3, which is the thing that is the most lacking in it at the moment.
I hope this direction will be kept with the objective of making every region of the game unique to play. Which is exactly what Paradox is doing why the Fate of Iberia flavor pack, the upcoming DLC.
What are the biggest challenges of adding an exhaustively detailed Ireland to CK3?
The biggest challenge is that once you have a big map you have to fill it up with both coherent and interesting content. Ireland in Tales of Ireland is made of 1000 counties, which is a lot when you realize that you need to create flavor for each of them.
Even with the huge amount of history and mythology around Ireland how do you go about your research for the mod?
My steps are the following.
First, I search on YouTube for any video about the subject I’m researching, when I get lucky and find one, I can usually find sources from there as I’ll have a general view on the topic.
Then I search in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a great platform because you get a list of sources at the bottom of each page. When you find a page about the subject you are looking for you can dive into the sources easily. In addition, the Wikipedia page will give a great overview of everything related to the topic.
Then I go for deeper internet search. For that I use specific terms that I have learned through my previous research. I also ask on Tales of Ireland Discord if anyone knows about hardly accessible but rich resources. With time and precision one can find a huge lot of things on internet.
Finally, it only happened twice, I order a book about the topic and read it.
With all of that I usually get all the information I need for the mod.
It seems like most of the factions are made up or only loosely related to history. How many of them are on record as existing even if they existed only in folk lore?
All of the factions of the mod are present in Irish mythology, in particular from the Book of Invasions. We have taken liberties when it comes to the design of those factions to have a better, richer gameplay. But besides that, most of the factions are closely related to the mythology.
There are a ton of new mechanics in this mod compared to vanilla CK3. Since getting in to each one would be insane, what are the top three new players need to know about?
It’s hard to select only three.
I’ll say the first one is the Cattle system. Cattle could be used as we use money nowadays in ancient Ireland and was also a mark of power. Because of this we have replaced Development of vanilla by Cattle. Cattle is a value that will give bonuses to the provinces (three times bigger than the development bonus) and will fluctuate a lot during gameplay through events, wars, decisions. Cattle is an important resource in Tales of Ireland as having lot of them enables strong decisions and enhances county production by a lot.
The second system I would like to introduce is the magic system. A character with the Magician trait can perform magic, using a fancy new UI tab. Magic does not use a mana system but instead a soft cap. Every time you use a spell your character gains magic stress and depending on their learning and their magic stress their next spell can fail and lead to bad consequences. Magic is powerful but be careful when using it too much.
The third system I would like to talk about is the focus less lifestyle trees. There are 3 of them (one being only for magicians). These lifestyle trees do not have focus for the character, and you gain experience in them depending on your play style, decisions in events etc. The perks that are unlocked are very powerful but getting experience is slow.
What are your long-term goals for the mod?
My vision for the mod is to expand the map to Wales and north Britain and then adding as much flavor to the mod as possible. The goal is for the player to have a unique experience, diving into Celtic mythology. Ireland will always be the main focus of the mod; I have lots of plans for adding flavor and unique mechanics to it.
What are the differences between the different mod starts?
All bookmarks start on the same date but will present different characters. Three of them are here for the different regions: Ireland, Mann, and Scotland.
One of them is focused on magic, vampires and wolfwalkers.
Is there a tutorial for Tales of Ireland somewhere?
No, there is no tutorial for Tales of Ireland. But the mod main mechanics are the same as the vanilla mechanics so a new player should not feel lost at all when it comes to gameplay.
Why are some of the rulers 1500 years old?
The Tuatha De Danann, in the lore of the mod, were defeated into retreating into the Otherworld forever, a long time ago.
Now that the rule of the Milesians, their enemies, is coming to an end, the Tuatha De Danann are coming back from the Otherworld to get revenge. In the Otherworld they did not age. That is why they are so old. But that is only for the first generation of them. Once they die, they will be replaced with “regular” Tuatha De Danann who have a life expectancy of about 150 years old.
I haven’t seen the clan system before in a mod. How does it work?
The clan system encourages you to play the dynastic game instead of only your own realm. To establish a clan, you need a number of independent rulers of your dynasty and be the head of the dynasty.
The clan is then formed and has unity value that represents how centralized around its leader the clan is.
Depending on unity the clan members and the clan ruler get access to different options and bonuses, such as unique casus belli.
The clan leader can take some unique actions that get more powerful the more independent rulers of his dynasty exist.
I heard that you will be adding parts of Scotland. Why?
Scotland is already in! Scotland myths are very close to Irish ones because the ones that are called the Scots are actually descendants of an Irish tribe. Scotland’s Celtic folklore have some interesting variations and is an interesting one to add to the mod.
The same will be done with Wales and was done with the Isle of Mann before.
I believe there are vampires in Tales of Ireland. Should I be worried about blood suckers attacking my character in the night? How do I become a vampire?
Vampires will only suck the blood of their courtiers and vassals, so you don’t need to worry about it. On the other hand, they are immortal and will be tough to destitute or beat. Watch out if your neighbors are vampires.
To become a vampire there are two ways. The first one is to simply start as a vampire. The second one is to become a magician and unlock the second level perk of the Dark Magic lifestyle path. You will get an event to either become a vampire, or a wolfwalkers if you wish it.
I think some jerk in Corkaguiny keeps casting spells on me. How do I make them stop?
Kill him or destitute him.
And finally, I can’t pronounce any of the names, provinces, or generally any of the words in the mod. Am I still allowed to play it?
Of course, or else, I would not have been allowed to mod it in the first place.
Hutma has plans for the future and he had this to add!
Once this problem is fixed, we will focus on making a richer experience for the player, adding events, decisions, artifacts, flavor in general. We have released Scotland recently, but we still have a lot of work to do to make it better.
The next map expansion will be Wales, but it will not be soon.
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And that is it for this interview! Thanks to Hutma for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer the questions!
If you are interested in checkout out the mod, you can find it on the Steam Workshop!
Want to talk to Hutma or the Tales of Ireland community, then check out their Discord!
If you want to talk to me, you can join my Discord or follow me on Twitter!
