Greetings, emperors!
I’ve talked a lot about the features going into this update, but today I want to talk about something a little different, how you’ll be able to change all of it yourselves. Imperium Sine Fine is getting a proper desktop modding system, and I want to walk you through how it actually works.
The philosophy behind it is simple: a mod should only need to contain what it changes. Everything else is inherited automatically from the base game. This keeps mods small, keeps them easy to maintain, and means a game update won’t quietly break every mod that happens to touch a file you didn’t even mean to override.
Mods live in their own folder on your machine, and every mod needs just one required file, a small mod.json descriptor giving it a unique ID, a name, a version, and an author. From there, you only add the files you actually want to change. Want to tweak troop stats? Drop in a data_troops.csv with just the rows you’re changing.
That override-versus-additive behaviour is really the heart of the whole system, and it works consistently across most file types. If your file shares a name with a vanilla file, the vanilla content is replaced. If it has a new name, its content is added alongside the vanilla content instead. Want to add a brand new event? Give it a new filename in the events folder and it’s added on top of everything already in the game. The same logic applies to focus trees, spirits, even localisation strings.
Troops work a little differently, and it’s worth being precise about this. You cannot invent an entirely new troop type from scratch, the game’s roster of troop categories is fixed. What you can do is override an existing troop set and troop type combination to change its stats, or, where a faction doesn’t yet have its own version of a given troop type, add one so that faction gains access to it. It’s customisation and gap-filling within the existing structure, rather than creating something the game has never seen before.
You don’t have to start from a blank page either. The Mod Manager has an Extract Game Data button that copies every single moddable file, all the CSVs, all the JSON, every config file, into a new mod folder for you, pre-filled with the current default values. From there you simply delete whatever you don’t intend to change and edit the rest. It’s by far the fastest way to get started, and it means you’re always working from values that are guaranteed to match the current version of the game.
Beyond the data files themselves, there’s also a config system for tuning game constants directly, things like crime thresholds or combat multipliers, without needing to touch a single CSV row. And if you want to go further, custom artwork, replacement UI icons, even full localisation packs, all of that is supported too, following exactly the same override-or-add logic.
Running multiple mods at once works through a simple load order. Mods lower in your list load first, mods higher up load last and win any conflicts. Want to build on top of another mod? Put it above. Want your changes to take priority over everything else? Put yours at the very top.
One thing I want to be upfront about: mods are recorded in your save games. If a save was created with certain mods active and you later remove one, the game will flag it clearly so you always know exactly what you’re loading and why something might look different from how you left it.
In my next post I’ll cover how you actually get your mod in front of other players, because once you’ve built something you’re proud of, sharing it is refreshingly simple.
If you haven’t yet, please wishlist Imperium Sine Fine on Steam, it helps enormously as I head towards launch!
Cheers!