EB and the MTW2 heir system

[Xtiaan72]

How are you guys going to deal with the horrible family tree system in MTW2? ( you can't pick family heir)

It's hard-coded isn't it? Haven't seen a mod yet that has managed to get rid of it.

One of the worst changes from Rome to MTW2

[Tellos Athenaios]

IIRC alpaca made a script [for a different mod] which let you appoint the heir? Basically the position of "heir" is a trait, and traits can be assigned via script...

[Dumbass]

Surely CA didn't delete it from the engine? That's an incredibly foolish idea if they did. If they have only disabled it, wouldn't it be possible to re-enable it somehow? Seeing as they didn't delete the marian reforms, only disabled it.

[Foot]

One can only hope ... and research. However I think most people have given up on making it work. Mods far more advanced that EB use the auto chosen heir, and I don't think there is very much hope this will change.

Foot

[Xtiaan72]

IIRC alpaca made a script [for a different mod] which let you appoint the heir? Basically the position of "heir" is a trait, and traits can be assigned via script...

So what your saying is when the faction leader has his first son...he is given the trait heir....and then the script "forces" the game to give that character the crown ( from his uncle the regent or what-ever)


What is the name of the mod that alpaca put it in?

[BozosLiveHere]

Giving the Heir trait to another family member changes nothing. Unfortunately, for all we know the auto-assignment of heirs is a hardcoded "feature" of M2TW.

[Xtiaan72]

Yea, can't believe they did that....

[Reno Melitensis]

Why choose your own faction leader and not let the AI do it?. After all leaders where not picked only on their qualities, but also on their connections and corruption. Bribing the King maybe in choosing you as his heir. Thats why some leaders failed in History and where assassinated, while other archived immortality.

Cheers.

[Mithridates VI Eupator]

yea, but still...

Even if they tried to bribe you, you could chose, wheter to accept the bribe or not.
Anyway, as it appears to be hradcoded we will just have to accept it, and to be honest, I think it's something I can live with.

[Captain Trek]

yea, but still...

Even if they tried to bribe you, you could chose, wheter to accept the bribe or not.
Anyway, as it appears to be hradcoded we will just have to accept it, and to be honest, I think it's something I can live with.

Yea... Particularly if factions (such as Rome) where the family tree system would be ahistorical use the system that the Teutonic Order in Kingdoms use instead (where there is no family tree)...

[Xtiaan72]

Why choose your own faction leader and not let the AI do it?. After all leaders where not picked only on their qualities, but also on their connections and corruption. Bribing the King maybe in choosing you as his heir. Thats why some leaders failed in History and where assassinated, while other archived immortality.

Cheers.

Because MTW2 auto select system doesn't seem to have any rhyme or reason to how heirs are chosen....The logical choices get skipped... It will skip from brother to brother moving right and then suddenly it's choosing someone on the other end of the family tree who is a second son....An you wonder is it because that guy has some logical quality...Like high chivalry or piety or a trait that makes it make sense...But no the guy is a frigging toaster and his older brother is a genius.....

It's absolutely one of the lamest game mechanics in MTW2..

[General Appo]

Yeah, in my first MTW2 campaign I was playing England and had a great family part, everyone was a freaking genius and I trained up the future prince and his brothers to become great kings once that day came. Then their father the current Prince died, and my most worthless guy of all, the son of the Kings cousin, became Prince, instead of the ones I´d trained, who were his closest relatives as nieces, seeing as he didn´t have any sons or remaining brothers. When I then found out that I was stuck with this worthless sucker as my future King I was pissed. Stupid idea from CA.

[Xtiaan72]

You end up having to kill off half your family to get the guy you want...and then you don't have enough family members to govern properly. Having a guy you haven't trained up as leader is really bad in MTW2.. because low authority causes your other family members to go rebel...

[||Lz3||]

in some sort of way its more realistic... isnt it? sometimes there were really awful kings - or roman emperors...- <.<

[satalexton]

but then, if i know some duffer's going to rule our country, wouldn't one usually try to prune him out before he actually sits his bottom in the throne?

[Xtiaan72]

But there is no good game mechanic to kill them off...

In MTW1 you could assassinate your own family members...That rocked...

What do you have in MTW2?.....Death ships...

Or a clumsy exploit if you mod in "city view" from Rome so that if you exit a battle against an invisible catapult it will kill off a family member...

Not really an elegant game mechanic!

[Cybvep]

Maybe it won't be that bad... One way to improve the situation would be to add certain traits connected with weak and unpopular rulers, vastly decreasing personal security, authority and such... Also, if you added "rebel" assassins, it wouldn't be bad after all. We can't change it, so let's make some good out of it!

[Xtiaan72]

I totally agree. I started the thread so some creative ideas about it could be brainstormed...

[||Lz3||]

lots of pathetic individuals managed to get the throne... and lived
we could... roleplay -so to speak- to send him in charge of the cavalry wing , and then dying in a valiant charge


or using the console command to kill character (not sure if it's still in M2TW)

not sure if this could be used but perhaps if there could be a button saying "assassinate" - could be in character's info page- that when clickled would spring the console command and kill the character

or what about the character "help" button? (the "?") can't we use it to spring the console command? somwhat like force diplomacy minimod works

where when clicling on the "?" a message saying "If you would like to assasinate this family mamember , click on the show me how button" LOTR-TW mod uses this kind of scripts to teletransport characters by "move_character" command

I'm not sure how hard would be to get the appropiate internal name for that specific character though

[Xtiaan72]

I think the an assassinate button on the general screen is the way to go. With a chance of the assassination failing based on "security" and giving characters even nastier traits....like "paranoid".....Caligula type stuff!

I think it's doable. I've been researching modding agents for a mod I am working on... I think there is a lot of potential here.

Here's a thread regarding modding agents if you want to check it out:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=181086

[Reverend Joe]

Yea... Particularly if factions (such as Rome) where the family tree system would be ahistorical use the system that the Teutonic Order in Kingdoms use instead (where there is no family tree)...

Wait, what's all this now?

[satalexton]

OR we could simply learn from the AI when dealing with 'excess' (excess being more than one) family members:

GLORY CHARGE!!!!

[Xtiaan72]

That does work but wouldn't you like the option of stabbing him it the heart from the character screen as well? Wouldn't that be cathartic when the AI skips over a prized character and give you a chump faction leader


And remember sometimes you will have to charge three or four people to their deaths before getting to the person you need...And some of those guys are useful, They just aren't the character who you have trained from birth to be Alexander the Great)

[absinthia]

i belive that the "set faction heir" function in the mtw2 family tree are just disabled.
while editing the .sd files (shared.sd, strategy.sd) i found references to the "change faction heir" button.
so probably it is just a mather of enableing it again. may even be posible to find out how by looking at the rtw files and duplicating the trigger (i supose it is a trigger of some sort).
will check if i am able to at least bring back the "change faction heir" button. giving it the correct function i can not promise...

[BozosLiveHere]

That is interesting, go on...

[Xtiaan72]

that does sound promising!

[Megas Methuselah]

I hate to be an asshole here, but it seems like such a simple solution as put forth by Absinthia could not possibly have been overlooked by previous expert modders attempting to bypass this dumb feature in MiNO.

Whatever the case may be, Absinthia did bring my hopes up. Good luck, friend!

[absinthia]

i am sorry to realize that Methuselah probably is right. i got a bit to enthusiastic when discovering these references in strategy.sd:

entry=SET_FACTION_HEIR_BUTTON_IMAGE
topleft=350,39
bottomright=381,70
page=stratpage_01.tga
alpha=1
mystery=0
coord=0,0

but i could not find any file that determines the lay-out of the faction family tree scroll. or the lay-out for any part of the ui.
may be the lay-out is hardcoded after all.

[BozosLiveHere]

These tga's can be found in the ui\southern_european\interface folder.

[absinthia]

i know the tga`s. in fact it was while adding a new faction logo (and thus adding a new reference in strategy.sd) that i noticed that the reference to the set_faction_heir_button_image still exists. that gave me the hope that there would be another file that could be edited to change the lay_out of the ui and add the set faction heir button.
problem is that i did not find any file that determines how the ui is put together.