Hi there! This is the first developer diary for Dawi Kiss, a submod (or mod mod) for the Geheimnisnacht mod of Crusader Kings II.
Let's start off by talking about Geheimnisnacht. It's a really fascinating mod, full of great graphical assets and interesting ideas. Unfortunately, it's also a frustrating mod with a lot of lazy or over-ambitious scripting, missing localisations, ill- or un-tested attempted features, assets for unimplemented features, and strange lore interpretations of the Warhammer world. Just about everyone who likes the mod and knows how to mod CK2 ends up implementing fixes of their own. Drive that process down the road a few miles and you end up with something that looks less like a couple of fixes and more like a submod.
Dawi Kiss is an outgrowth of that process. It began last year with some frustration around lore interpretations, and really got going with the release of Geheimnisnacht 1.2, in which the mod team seemed to take several steps back rather than really improving the mod. Worse than just making mistakes, the Geheimnisnacht team seemed to be adding new features without testing them - and in the case of the trade system, seemingly without testing it once. (For example, the Geheimnisnacht team claimed that their trade buildings could do things that cannot be done in CK2. When the mod is played, the buildings promise effects that aren't delivered.) That attitude towards players of the mod is really offputting, and it doesn't encourage other modders to apply to join the Geheimnisnacht Team. To be frank, Geheimnisnacht looks dysfunctional.
At the time of writing, nobody knows when or if the issues with the main mod will be resolved. The Dawi Kiss Development Team hopes for the best, but is preparing for the worst. If Geheimnisnacht ceases to be updated, this submod will address compatibility issues while CK2 continues to evolve. If Geheimnisnacht carries on, Dawi Kiss will keep pace as a content expansion. And if Geheimnisnacht really gets sorted out, perhaps the Dawi Kiss material will get absorbed by the main mod.
For now, while the DKDT doesn't claim to be anywhere close to infallible, it is going to strive to be reliable. Even in early releases, every new feature has been tested and checked for basic functionality. CK2 is a complicated game and this is an amateur project, so some features might lead to unexpected results later in the game or have graphical or localisation issues that show they're still being worked on. Where these are known issues, the Dawi Kiss documentation will address that - and when they're not known issues, your feedback is the key to resolution.
