Missions - Pope. Council and Guild

[pevergreen]

Taken from descr_missions.txt

Pope Missions: 
               - join crusade
               - return home city
               - cease_hostilities
               - assassinate_cardinal
               - assassinate_witch
               - papal_blockade_port
               - break_alliance
               - papal_build_church
               - convert
               - gift_from_pope
               - give_cash
               - give_ancillary
               - recruit_priest
 Council Missions: 
                - assassinate_general
                - council_blockade_port
                - council_take_rebel_settlement
                - council_take_settlement
               - gift_from_council
                - council_marry_princess
                - annex_settlement
 Guild Missions: 
               - guild_take_settlement
               - guild_recruit_agent
               - guild_acquisition
               - guild_trade_agreement

This Line is particulary interesting

- difficulty_threshold [float]	difficulty threshold used for mission rejection.  mission difficulty levels <= difficulty threshold are not selected for first 50 turns or if player on easy difficulty setting (default = 0.0)

So some missions are off limits for first 50 turns or on easy.
Along with turn_start. turn_start default is 2, so you cannot get a missions before turn 2. (which makes sense)
Some missions have their own turn_start, for instance, blockade port can be given from turn 3.
One pope mission is return_home_city (ie give rome to them) reward for doing so:

	reward
	{
		null_payback	HUGE_PAPAL_STANDING_REWARD
		null_payback	VNV_ADORED_BY_POPE

no doing so:

		null_payback	LARGE_PAPAL_STANDING_PENALTY
		excommunication_chance	0.05
		inquisition_chance	0.05

Multiple other things as well as rewards, but this is the best

payback_list pope_rome_min_penalty_major_reward
{
	reward
	{
		null_payback	HUGE_PAPAL_STANDING_REWARD
		money		2000
		null_payback	VNV_ADORED_BY_POPE
		;null_payback	CHANCE_ANC_RELIC
	}

Is that Chance for ancillery relic edited out? Shame if it is.

Reward for killing Cardinal (not confirmed)

		null_payback	VNV_POPES_ENFORCER

The Council gifts of money are in 500, 1000, 2000 as is the popes, but with the addition of 0.01, 0.05 and 0.1 income.

Unit Rewards:

payback_list council_mod_unit
{
	reward
	{
 		buildable_unit 		800	3
	}
}

payback_list council_mod_unit_best
{
	reward
	{
		best_buildable_unit	1200	3
	}
}

payback_list council_major_unit
{
	reward
	{
		best_buildable_unit	1200	4

The Regicide missions from other factions are intersting. It is commented out

; TBD add faction_standing_boost via this file etc.

So they havent finished parts of the game after all...

Chance for AI faction to join the crusade

chance of ai accepting = ai_accept_base_chance + (faction_standing_to_papacy * ai_accept_fs_modifier) + (global_standing * ai_accept_gs_modifier) + (num_settlements_owned * ai_sett_modifier)

More detail inside spoiler

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Expanded from above

    settlement Rome			; the id of the settlement belonging to the papal states
    ai_accept_base_chance 20.0		; base chance for ai accepting mission
    ai_accept_fs_modifier 80.0		; ai chance modifier for the papal standing with the ai faction.  i.e. the more they like the pope, the greater the chance
    ai_accept_gs_modifier 20.0		; ai chance modifier for the factions global standing.  i.e. the more tructed the faction, the higher chance to give back
    ai_min_settlements    3		; the minimum number of settlements an ai faction must have to accept
    ai_sett_modifier      5.0		; ai chance modifier for each settlement an ai faction has


; chance = popes_violence_attribute * -0.03 + (pfp_score_threshold - attackers_pfp)/8 + (defenders_pfp + 1)/8
; chance += settlement_score_offset (if target is a settlement)
; chance += default_settlement_score_offset (if targets default owner is attacker)
; chance += navy_score_offset (if a naval battle)
; chance += army_score_offset (if not a settlement or naval battle)
; chance += military_access_score_offset (if not a settlement or naval battle and target has miloitary access)
; chance += own_region_army_score_offset (if battle in attackers own region)
; chance *= ai_atacker_modifier (if attacker is ai)
; chance *= ai_human_defender_modifier (if defender is human)
; chance *= ai_papal_defender_modifier (if defender is papal states)
; chance += target_mission_offset (if target already has a cease hostilities mission against attacker)

The Reason for killing Cardinal missions dont appear often(or at all)

    difficulty_threshold 0.4		; assassination mission marked as too difficult if chance of success <= 40%

If the pope asks you to blockade port, it looks like you have to do it for 3 turns. And it has to be within 3 turns distance of a ship.

Your Papal standing affects how much you get off him for the gift_from_pope

All Assassination missionds have to have better than 40% chance to succeed, otherwise not given.

Example of Council Mission:

mission annex_settlement
{
    COUNCIL_MISSION
    duration 10
    exclude_duration 30
    score_modifier 0.8
    turn_start		3
   paybacks
    {
	random 0.33	payback_id council_mod_income
	random 0.5	payback_id council_mod_unit
			payback_id council_mod_unit_best
    }

    min_strength_balance	3.0	; minimum ratio of sent faction to target faction army strength for issue of mission
}

So 33% chance of mod income that is; 2000 Florins, and 5% chance of mod unit and mod unit best.

Mod unit is 3 units with max cost of 800 and mod unit best is 3 units with max cost of 1200

All the missions guilds can give are there, found the Masons ones are to build church line of buidling (majid/church)

And the end of the file, would allows with some simple modding, for other religions to crusade/jihad! But Variable not allowed

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

mission crusade_active ; (NOT SUITABLE FOR VARIANTS)
{
    duration 0
    paybacks
    {
        payback_id empty_payback
    }

    eligible_religions
    {
        catholic
    }
}


mission jihad_active ; (NOT SUITABLE FOR VARIANTS)
{
    duration 0
    paybacks
    {
        payback_id empty_payback
    }

    eligible_religions
    {
        islam

Edit: Some minor fix ups
Thank you

[wilddog]

And the end of the file, would allows with some simple modding, for other religions to crusade/jihad! But Variable not allowed

Curious had you tried that? I tried other religions and it made no difference. Eg I changed the reference to Orthodox and Islam religions were still the only ones that could create a jihad.

[DarkKnight]

Great info. For the past three weeks I researched and wrote a full guide to missions over at TWC and posted it a couple days ago. Just noticed your post here and wish I saw it earlier, as you have a little bit different interpretation of some things than me. I can't give you a link to the guide right now because TWC is down... like it always is.

But I would like to add some commentary.

Pope Missions: 
               - join crusade
               - return home city
               - cease_hostilities
               - assassinate_cardinal
               - assassinate_witch
               - papal_blockade_port
               - break_alliance
               - papal_build_church
               - convert
               - gift_from_pope
               - give_cash
               - give_ancillary
               - recruit_priest
 Council Missions: 
                - assassinate_general
                - council_blockade_port
                - council_take_rebel_settlement
                - council_take_settlement
               - gift_from_council
                - council_marry_princess
                - annex_settlement
 Guild Missions: 
               - guild_take_settlement
               - guild_recruit_agent
               - guild_acquisition
               - guild_trade_agreement

There are three more missions not cited there that are found in the file:
send_emissary
reinforce_region
regicide

So some missions are off limits for first 50 turns or on easy.

I interpreted that code differently. The only place that we see the difficulty_threshold parameter is assassination missions. I don't see this as the mission being off limit for the first 50 turns (if threshold set to 50), but the mission is off limit if the players best assassin has less than a 50% chance of success on all valid targets. The mission is only off limits before the turn start or on easy. I'm not saying I'm right and your wrong, just offering my view.

Is that Chance for ancillery relic edited out? Shame if it is.

Reward for killing Cardinal (not confirmed)

The reward being commented out in descr_missions doesn't mean that it still isn't given out. All that is there is a null_payback. As the name implies a null_payback does not do anything. The null payback is simply a text string which the game looks up in missions.txt.strings.bin.

Lets say we have the null payback HUGE_PAPAL_STANDING_REWARD. When the mission is issued, the game looks for HUGE_PAPAL_STANDING_REWARD_PRE_DESCR in the expanded file. The corresponding text is what is displayed in game as the reward. If the null payback were listed as a penalty (in descr_missions) then the text in missions.txt.string.bin would display as the penalty in game.

Then when the mission is completed it would look for HUGE_PAPAL_STANDING_REWARD_DESCR in missions.txt.strings.bin. That is what it would tell you is your reward in game. If the payback were listed as a penalty, when you fail the mission it would look for null payback name_DESCR to display the text.

To reiterate what I said before, the null payback does nothing in terms of gameplay. For the papal standing null paybacks, take a look at descr_faction_standing. In there, there are triggers which are fired when the faction completes or fails a mission. This is where the actual papal standing rewards and penalties come from.

The same with traits and ancillaries given by missions. Look in their appropriate files, and you will see the trigger for them is when the faction completes the mission, or recieves a certain payback. So just because the null payback is commented out, does not mean that the code still isn't set up in the ancillary file.

The Council gifts of money are in 500, 1000, 2000 as is the popes, but with the addition of 0.01, 0.05 and 0.1 income.

Could you explain that bolded part to me, I don't quite understand what you mean. As far as I am aware of both the Pope and the council give flat cash, with nothing related to income. Some council paybacks have a mention of income but they are commented out so have no effect.

The Regicide missions from other factions are intersting. It is commented out

; TBD add faction_standing_boost via this file etc.

So they havent finished parts of the game after all...

From the looks of it, they had different people working on descr_missions and descr_faction_standing. The person working on missions would add the null payback then leave a comment for the person working on faction standing. Either TBD was the person working on faction standing, or it is meant as To Be Decided, as they were going to decide how much faction standing should be added after some testing. They probably did that for all missions when making the game, and when the guy added the faction standings bonus, he would remove the comment from descr_mission. It was his checklist. Then obviously they never got the time to finish the regicide mission.

chance of ai accepting = ai_accept_base_chance + (faction_standing_to_papacy * ai_accept_fs_modifier) + (global_standing * ai_accept_gs_modifier) + (num_settlements_owned * ai_sett_modifier)

Well... that isn't exactly the chance of the AI joining the crusade. To be more accurate it is the chance of the AI joining the crusade IF given the Join Crusade mission.

The Reason for killing Cardinal missions dont appear often(or at all)

I could never get this mission to trigger. The problem is that even with a level 9 assassin all cardinals will have less than a 40% chance to assassin. Either the lethality of assassins needs to be increased, the difficulty threshold lowered, or the defense of cardinals needs to be lowered. But all of those have bad side effects. If assassins are made more lethal, it unbalances all other aspects of assassination, as those would rise. If the difficulty threshold is lowered then the player will recieve a mission which could be near impossible to succeed. If the assassination vs cardinal base chance is lowered then it causes adverse affects when the mission isn't active. It would be too easy to kill off the college of cardinals to get your own cardinals in.

If the pope asks you to blockade port, it looks like you have to do it for 3 turns. And it has to be within 3 turns distance of a ship.

Correct about the length of blockade. The same goes for a short distance council blockade, three turns. Medium distance, 2 turns. Long distance, 1 turn. All Papal blockades are for 3 turns.

However I found in play testing that the 3 turns distance isn't from a ship. I disabled all missions except the council blockade distant mission (I did similar things to test all missions). The mission only triggers when you are at war with the target. When I tested the short and medium range missions, and I built a port in a city and gave it to the rebels. Mission triggered. I declared war on my neighbor HRE (I was Venice) who had a port right next to me (Bologna), mission triggered.

Now back to the distant blockade mission. I positioned a ship 6 turns from the Portugese port (the threshold is 5 turns for this mission). Then I declared war on Portugal. Then I moved my ship into the 4-5 turn range from the port which should trigger the mission. No trigger. Kept moving it around. Move the ship all over the place and could not trigger. I then declared war on France, whos Toulhouse port is a bit closer to my capital. Mission triggered instantly, even though my only ship was right next to the port. The mission should not trigger unless the ship is at least 4 turns from the port (no more than 5). I reloaded from before the mission was issued and used the character_reset cheat to move that ship around and see how the mission was triggered. I found that no matter where my ship was, the mission was triggered. I then even disbanded my ship. With no ships, the mission was still triggered.

Then I declared war on HRE, no mission triggered. The results of this have me convinced about how the system really works. I think it is distance from your capital. A 1 turn distance would be the distance a ship can cover in 1 turn. So if you set the max turn distance to 3, it does not look at ports outside a 3 ship distance radius from your capital.

Your Papal standing affects how much you get off him for the gift_from_pope

The papal standing condition is used many times for many missions. There also are other conditions: random, cash, and difficulty.

The gift from council uses the cash condition. So the amount of money they give you is dependent on the size of your treasury.

The values you set for these triggers are the maximum that the faction can have for the payback to be given as the penalty/reward. For example
papal_standing 0.6
means that if a faction has less than 0.6 papal standing they will recieve this payback.

So 33% chance of mod income that is; 2000 Florins, and 5% chance of mod unit and mod unit best.

You mean a 17% chance for mod unit best. 33% for income, 50% for mod unit. So 100% - 50% - 33% = 17% chance for mod unit best.

And the end of the file, would allows with some simple modding, for other religions to crusade/jihad! But Variable not allowed

It actually is variant, which is something completely different. A variant is another of the mission going under a different name. And example of a variant is council_blockade_port blockade_distant
The "blockade_distant" is the variant. It is the blockade port mission, only the variant tells the game that it has different parameters than the original, so the game considers it two different missions. The crusades and jihads can still be modded. You just couldn't make a variant for them. Say "crusade_active blah" then define separate paremeters for it.

Curious had you tried that? I tried other religions and it made no difference. Eg I changed the reference to Orthodox and Islam religions were still the only ones that could create a jihad.

I am guessing it is a UI problem. In order to create a crusade you have to have the button to do so. Each culture has a different UI. Maybe if you modded the other cultures UI to that of the catholics and modded the mission, then you could crusade with other cultures.

[pevergreen]

Thank you for those corrections, if you havent already, go and mod my original post to put the corrected things in, and your point of view as well.

As for the income, I will look through the file after work, but my explanation is most likely wrong.

I am new to modding, so its good to have someone who knows what they're talking about.

[DarkKnight]

Heres the link to my guide:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=81256