Rise of the Catgirls mod for Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness

It's been a little while, hasn't it? Hopefully some people are still interested in this little meme project.

Even though this is now officially the full release of the mod, I have some more things planned that I want to add, especially for Genroku and the capitalists. However, I wanted to release something after such a long hiatus.

This update adds a lot more content to Catgirldom, which I'll briefly talk about here.


- Assimilation -

Catgirldom has the ability to assimilate various different cultures throughout their territory over time. This assimilation happens slowly, but it can be quickened by lowering taxes and avoiding excessive wars. I touched on this in the last update, but it wasn't fleshed out at all.

After receiving the Tsushima Incident event, and establishing the Western Protectorate in all of Korea, you'll get a decision to appoint Itu Umeko. After appointing her, provinces in Korea will start converting to a "catgirlified" Korean culture, called Seobuin. You'll also be able to directly annex this protectorate so long as a couple conditions are met. After annexation, you can promote Itu Umeko, which will unlock the ability to convert many more culture groups that are within your kingdom. Potential groups to assimilate include:

- Han
- Southern Chinese cultures (Yue, Min, etc.)
- Vietnamese
- Manchu
- Mongol/ Oirat
- Russian
- Tibetian
- All Turkic cultures EXCEPT Azerbaijani and Turkish (Uighur, Uzbek, etc.)

In the future, I'll add more cultures that you can assimilate as Catgirldom. Some groups take longer to assimilate than others, and to assimilate Han provinces, you'll need to fulfill a few extra special requirements which are mentioned in the mod.

Things that increase assimilation speed include:
- Low taxes (the lowest beneficial tax rate for the poor is 39%, and the middle class 44%. Lower taxes on the upper class does not give benefits, but high taxes on them will give maluses. Keep their tax rate below 80% to avoid that.)
- Low province militancy; having less than 1 militancy in a province will provide a bonus to most cultures.

Things that decrease assimilation speed include:
- War exhaustion; war exhaustion over 10 will start to give maluses, and quickly increase after that.
- Being at war; being in a war at all will provide a malus to assimilation speed, as well.
- High taxes; low taxes give a boost to assimilation, while high taxes (especially on the poor) will make assimilation go much slower.


- Expansion in China -

Catgirldom has a scripted expansion path into China, beginning with the Dandong Incident. This can occur after you annex the Western Protectorate, and has a higher chance of happening if you station troops on the border at Chonchon, and if you have low relations with China.

After the incident, you'll be able to gain cores on Manchuria and take the region. After taking Manchuria, the next event to happen is called the Shang uprising, in which you can help rebels in China who will then become your vassal if you beat the Qing/ Taiping. To advance further into the scripted events, you MUST accept the offer to help the rebels.

The rebels (Shang) will also gain a bit of territory - including Beijing - if you win the war. You can annex the Shang later on through an event. After that event, you'll be able to claim the Mandate of Heaven and gain cores on all of China. This will come at a heavy infamy cost, though, and you'll get debuff for every Chinese province you occupy until you unite the whole country.

After unifying China, there's another decision you can enact, a very overpowered one... I don't think I should spoil it, but I promise it'll be worth the effort of taking over China (I guess taking over China is worth the effort in itself anyway).


- Other Content -

A few other changes have been made. You may now annex Fei's territory in Sado after the Great Disturbance, which will result in her giving up her status as co-queen. A few new minor events have been added, including a new (but small) uprising that'll happen within the first few years of the game (so long as you abolish slavery). There's not much to it right now, but I plan to expand upon it later. There's changes to the names of the various new cultures to better reflect the update. And of course, many bugs have been fixed. There may still be a few in the later stages of the game in China, so please let me know if you encounter anything.

If you have any questions about the mod, feel free to ask them here or on the main page. I hope you enjoy RotC!