12 replies to this topic

[jastey]

Corthala Romantique - Valygar Romance
for BGII, BGII:EE, BGT, EET

Originally by Domi, Beyshaliban, and Caetlyn. Edits by Meira and jastey.

After a long hiatus, the mod finally hits beta 0.4!

About
Originally a part of the TeamBG mod 'Tortured Souls', the romance had a short-lived history as stand-alone part of said mod. When support for the stand-alone Valygar romance was abandoned, Beyshaliban volunteered to make it a WeiDU mod.

The original path and speed of the romance was altered and Domi wrote a lot of additional lovetalks, flirts and banters.

ToB content was added and the mod reached beta status in 2005. The SoA part was still under revision by Meira then. Aside from that, an expansion to the Sphere Quest was added. You will meet an interesting not joinable NPC, a character from Valygar's past, based on Domi's story Biographer's Notes: Valygar.

In 2018, the mod was fully recoded and revised by jastey, with Domi's blessings: After the mod going on hiatus while still in testing and under revision, it was now newly recoded and revised to make the romance flow with less bottlenecks in-game, make the banters more in-character, and also to make the development of Valygar's feelings with regard to his vows more consistent.

Content
The Mod Corthala Romantique adds a romance for female PCs (no short races) of good or neutral alignment (no chaotic neutral) or female druids. To proceed with the romance, the reputation has to be above 13. The mod also adds friendship talks for the SoA part of the game for PCs that do not fulfill the romance criteria. For ToB, all dialogues added are for romance, only. Also added are banters with other NPCs and interjections, for romance and non-romance case.

As a second, optional component, the "bathing flirt" can be installed for the romance - there was a time back then where NPCs were supposed to have at least one, romantic-encounter-like bathing flirt, "Kelsey-style". Although being a very romantic and humorous encounter, it was made an own install option because reply options and PC reactions are not always freely chosable. The content does not exceed teen rating.

The third, independently installable component introduces a quest to let the sphere be guarded or be sealed forever by a friend of Valygar, Leonora. The quest can be installed and played without the romance.
The quest to close the sphere might trigger while the sphere quests are still running. Just tell Valygar that it has to wait.

Compatibility and possible conflicts

• The mod uses BCaesar's RestCheck to ensure rest dialogues do not fire at the same rest as BioWare/BeamDog ones.[/*]
  
• NPC-Strongholds: The quest to close the sphere might trigger while the sphere quests are still running. Just tell Valygar that it has to wait.[/*]
  
• Extended Sphere Quest / Mage Stronghold Mod: The quest to close the sphere might trigger while the sphere quests are still running. Just tell Valygar that it has to wait.[/*]
  
• Romantic Ecounters, components "Valygar Romance, by Kulyok" and "Valygar Romance ToB, by Kulyok": technically, the two mods are compatible. Content-wise, I don't think it's a good idea to have two romances play together, as they paint slightly different pictures of Valygar and might make him sound like he has a bad short-time memory.[/*]
  
• Tortured Souls: the mod is not compatible with the mod Tortured Souls that still contains an own version of the Valygar romance.[/*]
  
• Unfinished Business, component Suna Seni/Valygar Relationship: install this UB component first to make those two mods compatible. Note: The current love affair of Valygar and Suna Seni will be tuned down to a past love. For this, three lines of UB's Valygar's dialogue are tuned down so he no longer calls Suna his love. Additionally, there will be a follow-up dialogue in case of PC-Valygar romance.
  [/*]

If you are interested, please take the mod along in your game and let me know if you encounter any problems!


Download current Corthala Romantique beta (Windows)

Download current Corthala Romantique beta (OSX)

Download current Corthala Romantique beta (Linux)

Edited by jastey, 31 March 2018 - 11:35 AM.

[Roxanne]

Two questions

1. The (old) Planar Sphere mod for classic BG2/BGT had a special ability for the PC to directly travel to the sphere at some stage of the sphere quests. Is this disabled by component 3?

2. Is there some global for other mods to disable romance if player chosses Valygar?

Edited by Roxanne, 31 March 2018 - 06:21 AM.

[jastey]

1. If the player decides to close the sphere, the door of the sphere will be locked. Nothing else is changed.

2. In SoA, the romance active variable is "H#ValygarRomanceActive": 0= no match, 1= flirting, 2= committed, 3= broken.
This is also valid for ToB albeit there is no flirting status (i.e. 0,2, or 3), but in addition, the "ValygarRomanceActive" is set to "2" for committed romance, too, so all the hidden romance UB content will play.

Edited by jastey, 31 March 2018 - 09:38 AM.

[Roxanne]

1. It is SETUP-PLANARSPHEREMOD.TP2~ #0 #3 // Planar Sphere Return >>> it is two innate abilities for the protagonist - similar to the ToB pocket plane spell - which transports the party into the sphere or back out of the sphere to the previous location. The tuned down EET version of the mod does not have it. So this would bypass the locked door even after your mod closed it.

 

The spells are SphHome and Return and they set globals of the same names to 1 to trigger Baldur.bcs

 

IF
    Global("sphhome","GLOBAL",1)
THEN
    RESPONSE #100
        ClearAllActions()
        StorePartyLocations()
        FadeToColor([30.0],0)
        Wait(2)
        ActionOverride(Player1,LeaveAreaLUA("AR0411","",[2774.2650],14))
        ActionOverride(Player2,LeaveAreaLUA("AR0411","",[2839.2781],11))
        ActionOverride(Player3,LeaveAreaLUA("AR0411","",[3160.2717],4))
        ActionOverride(Player4,LeaveAreaLUA("AR0411","",[2989.2821],8))
        ActionOverride(Player5,LeaveAreaLUA("AR0411","",[2908.2795],8))
        ActionOverride(Player6,LeaveAreaLUA("AR0411","",[2842.2772],8))
        FadeFromColor([30.0],0)
        SetGlobal("sphhome","GLOBAL",0)
        Continue()
END

IF
    Global("return","GLOBAL",1)
THEN
    RESPONSE #100
        ClearAllActions()
        FadeToColor([30.0],0)
        CutSceneId(Player1)
        RestorePartyLocations()
        EndCutSceneMode()
        FadeFromColor([30.0],0)
        SetGlobal("return","GLOBAL",0)
        Continue()
END

So you could disable this by adding some condition to it e,g, !Global("SphereclosedbyValygar",Global",1) or whatever your mod sets.

 

 

2. Thank you for the info

[jastey]

Thank you for the info! I'll ponder a bit whether I want the Corthala Romantique mod to disable it. It would make sense, definitely.

[jastey]

And the linked package updates to v0.5 beta.

Changes:

-the variable "ValygarRomanceActive" (original game variable to enable the UB Valygar hidden romance content) will also be reset if romance breaks in ToB.

OSX and Linux packages were added for download in the first post.

Edited by jastey, 31 March 2018 - 11:36 AM.

[Roxanne]

Thank you for the info! I'll ponder a bit whether I want the Corthala Romantique mod to disable it. It would make sense, definitely.

The spell serves only one purpose, a convenience tweak to enter the sphere while the mage stronghold quests are running. Later on the only reason to use it would be if you stored equipment in the sphere (something the player needs to consider anyhow if he decides to let Valygar close the sphere.)

I would advocate that disabling it when the situation is reached in your mod would make both mods consistent and compatible. You decide to give up the stronghold with all its advantages because of the (good?) reason provided by your mod. It is in the interest of all mods involved to make the game appear to the player as a unity, not as a patchwork of inconsistent mods.

From your description it appears to be clear that the player can complete even any extended sphere mod and not lose any content. If you decide to close it, then it should be shut and not accessible by some backdoor tweak anymore.

Besides...that sphere jump spell could always be misused for *quick travel* to Athkatla from far away regions (even Underdark or Spellhold), so it already had some doubtful side effects. Having it active after your plot would only add to that.

Edited by Roxanne, 31 March 2018 - 11:37 AM.

[Amberbaum]

I still remember being a longtime lurker and following this mods progression only for it to be put on hiatus. Thank you for adopting it and thank you guys(Domi, Beyshaliban, and Caetlyn) for creating this project in the first place

 

So regarding the beta participation, any mod setup we are allowed to have, except anything Valygar and his quest related or do you prefer the game to be clean and stable(No 2.5 Beta BG2EE)?

 

- Any NPC mods? I am also interested in testing your beta version of your Ajantis BG2 mod (v15).

- Any tweak mods - for example mod components that disable some annoyances like "You Must Gather Your Party ..." or the Cloak of Mirroring SFX. Or increased stacks.

- Party AI mods? Probably not......

- Quest Mods like Alternatives? Although I guess it would be smarter to play the vanilla routes just like having the vanilla NPCs in your group.

- BWS or non BWS install?

Edited by Amberbaum, 02 April 2018 - 05:40 AM.

[Roxanne]

I still remember being a longtime lurker and following this mods progression only for it to be put on hiatus. Thank you for adopting it and thank you guys(Domi, Beyshaliban, and Caetlyn) for creating this project in the first place

 

So regarding the beta participation, any mod setup we are allowed to have, except anything Valygar and his quest related or do you prefer the game to be clean and stable(No 2.5 Beta BG2EE)?

 

- Any NPC mods? I am also interested in testing your beta version of your Ajantis BG2 mod (v15).

- Any tweak mods - for example mod components that disable some annoyances like "You Must Gather Your Party ..." or the Cloak of Mirroring SFX. Or increased stacks.

- Party AI mods? Probably not......

- Quest Mods like Alternatives? Although I guess it would be smarter to play the vanilla routes just like having the vanilla NPCs in your group.

- BWS or non BWS install?

For information

The Ajantis and Corthala beta mods are not yet included in BWS. Normally jastey, both mod's author, will initiate this when she thinks the beta test phase is successfully finished.

[jastey]

Hi Amberbaum,
I would be very happy if you'd take the Corthala Romantique along in your install. Actually, I am fine with almost all install choices and other mods. Only for testing it would be great if you would be able to reinstall the mod if necessary during your runthrough. Sometimes there are bugs that really can't be fixed by Console. So, installing the mod almost last would be great.

One of my playtesters has a modded EET game running and reinstalled Ajantis several times and it worked.

For Ajantis, having Alternatives and seeing whether his crossmod is working alright would be great, actually.

Hm, I just realized there is no Valygar - Ajantis romance conflict, yet...

Edited by jastey, 02 April 2018 - 07:54 AM.

[Amberbaum]

For information

The Ajantis and Corthala beta mods are not yet included in BWS. Normally jastey, both mod's author, will initiate this when she thinks the beta test phase is successfully finished.

Oh, I am sorry. I should have expressed myself clearer. I meant BWS install (Alternatives, Tweaks, etc) and then manually install the Beta mods afterwards.

 

 

For Ajantis, having Alternatives and seeing whether his crossmod is working alright would be great, actually.

Hm, I just realized there is no Valygar - Ajantis romance conflict, yet...

Okay. Ajantis(Beta), Alternatives and Valygar(Beta) it is then. Then I need three playthroughs were I play the Alternative route and the standard routes. Ugh...that means I need to test Bodhi's route, too. Is this even possible with Valygar in my party? I know that Ajantis doesn't like it. Valygar romances people with a good reputation and accepting the help of the Vampire Faction seems counterproductive for a good or neutral person.

 

I use BG2EE and not EET by the way.

[jastey]

Just start with a playthrough you want to play. I have to admit I don't even know whether Valygar accepts Bodhi or not. The mod only adds the romance and some more banters and only some specific interjections, Valygar's overall reactions are still the vanilla ones. I am not sure how much reactions to the Alternative routes he has, tbh. This would be dependent on what was added by Altrnatives.
But, since the rep should be above 13 at some point, playing a good PC is recommended (and fits for both Valygar and also Ajantis).

I am thankful for your interest in testing and will be grateful for any feedback. Don't forget it's supposed to be a little fun for you, too, hopefully.

Edited by jastey, 02 April 2018 - 10:40 AM.

[jastey]

The mod packages for OSX and Linux are updated with the current weidu. There was no changes in version number. OSX and weidu users with problems installing, please remove the old mod package from your game and download the current one.