View Full Version : EB and the MTW2 heir system
Xtiaan72
07-26-2008, 03:38
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
07-26-2008, 09:50
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...
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.
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
07-27-2008, 23:12
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
07-28-2008, 03:33
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
07-28-2008, 07:52
Yea, can't believe they did that....
Reno Melitensis
07-29-2008, 17:00
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
07-29-2008, 17:11
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
07-29-2008, 17:42
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
07-29-2008, 19:59
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.....:inquisitive:
It's absolutely one of the lamest game mechanics in MTW2..
General Appo
07-30-2008, 07:15
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
07-30-2008, 07:33
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...
in some sort of way its more realistic... isnt it? sometimes there were really awful kings - or roman emperors...- <.<
satalexton
07-30-2008, 10:02
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
07-30-2008, 10:24
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!
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
07-30-2008, 13:47
I totally agree. I started the thread so some creative ideas about it could be brainstormed...
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 :drama2:
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
07-31-2008, 18:01
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
07-31-2008, 19:04
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? :idea2:
satalexton
07-31-2008, 19:11
OR we could simply learn from the AI when dealing with 'excess' (excess being more than one) family members:
GLORY CHARGE!!!!
Xtiaan72
08-01-2008, 00:03
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:smash:
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
08-06-2008, 09:02
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
08-06-2008, 15:24
That is interesting, go on...
Xtiaan72
08-06-2008, 19:51
that does sound promising!
Megas Methuselah
08-07-2008, 02:16
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!
:beam:
absinthia
08-07-2008, 22:28
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
08-08-2008, 00:56
These tga's can be found in the ui\southern_european\interface folder.
absinthia
08-08-2008, 08:21
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.
BozosLiveHere
08-08-2008, 14:11
Oh, I see now. Hmm. I'm not very familiar with it, but I thought all GUIs were controlled by mtw2.lnt.
absinthia
08-12-2008, 11:47
mtw2-int seem to deal with the start menu. lots of references to choosing faction, setting up custom battle and such stuff.
i also had a look at /preferences/keys.dat. although the data was terribly mangled by being opened in notepad, it did contain references to battle_ui and strat_ui. impossible to decipher what the file actually does/contain without a formated version of some kind...
Tellos Athenaios
08-12-2008, 19:48
Yes the lnt files appear to concern the 'central' menu's only; not the stratmap (or battlemap for that matter) itself.
absinthia
08-13-2008, 19:25
i noticed this entry in start.txt.strings:
{SMT_SET_HEIR}Set faction heir
could this be used in a script or some thing like it?
Tellos Athenaios
08-13-2008, 20:43
No that's just the text which is displayed at the appropiate UI item.
absinthia
08-14-2008, 00:14
yes, i thought that was the case. as the file had the same look as other files in the text folder. with the brackets and all.
but what i really would like to know is how one should go about to envoke the UI item in question?
or how would one make the game behave like the UI item has been activated. can one f.ex. press the join crusade button via the command line, or have the faction scroll open at every turn start via a script/trigger/event or some of the kind? does the item even have to be visible for the game to execute what ever it does when one presses a button?
i suppose i am barking up some sort of a three, so please say if i am spamming the thread with useless questions...
BozosLiveHere
08-14-2008, 02:15
No, your questions are not spamming the thread. We're investigating the possibility of using a scripting route, similar to what you suggested. Hopefully it will work.
Xtiaan72
08-14-2008, 03:38
yes, i thought that was the case. as the file had the same look as other files in the text folder. with the brackets and all.
but what i really would like to know is how one should go about to envoke the UI item in question?
or how would one make the game behave like the UI item has been activated. can one f.ex. press the join crusade button via the command line, or have the faction scroll open at every turn start via a script/trigger/event or some of the kind? does the item even have to be visible for the game to execute what ever it does when one presses a button?
i suppose i am barking up some sort of a three, so please say if i am spamming the thread with useless questions...
Yes you can do stuff like that. They do in Deus Lo Vult. I really think it's possible. Some kind of pop-up event screen with a script that will change the heir. Perhaps you guys could talk to 'Repman' and see if he will help. I know he's pretty hesitant to share his work but if you pool the resources between the mods, perhaps both mods could benefit. Both mods are really popular so maybe he would be more likely to pitch in with you guys then he would for other mods.
Tellos Athenaios
08-14-2008, 15:39
Bozos had a cunning plan a few days ago and the script department should be trying to implement it like right now ...
Xtiaan72
08-14-2008, 17:10
Sweetness!
Perturabo
08-16-2008, 11:28
I have only one objection to the manual selection of faction heirs. I am a great fan of the RTW style of heirs, however am aware that in MTW2 it can be abused (or could be if manually selectable).
That is in marriage alliances. The AI always agrees to marriages to the crown prince in my experience, no matter how much it hates you or would like your land. I suspect this is intentional as if your faction dies out it has the potential to gain parts of the land.
However, imagine me playing Macedonia. I am at war with the Silver Death and Rome. I am losing and neither side is interested in diplomacy as my forces have been repeatedly beaten and are weak...
Pertuarbo has a brilliant idea :idea2: I change my faction heir to a young, unmarried family member and ask for the hand in marriage of a Selucid princess.. they agree of course and instantly become allies... Pertuarbo, then changes faction heir again to another young unmarried family member.. and repeats with Rome..
Having several other unmarried FM's, Pertuarbo then says, Hmmm, who else do I want as a friend with a stronger than usual diplomatic relationship..?
Ok, having said that I would trust the majority of EB players to be sensible about it as I suspect most are roleplayers to one extent or another. But that is basically my theory as to why selectable factions heirs were not implemented.
Something to keep in mind, but would hardly be game breaking (particularly after RTW where cheating i.e. forced diplomacy, is essential to have a moderately historical game.
I am not 100% sure that it is possible to marry into the family of a warring faction, however it certainly is possible to marry into one of their allies family and thus gain a ceasefire. Then it would be possible to change faction heir and marry into previous enemy family.
Tellos Athenaios
08-16-2008, 11:51
Yes, though the point of re-inventing the manual-selection wheel in M2TW isn't about enabling others to abuse it; it's mostly an offer to role-players who actually care about who's next in charge.
Xtiaan72
08-16-2008, 17:41
Easy solution. Don't use princess agents in EBII. Instead use a trait script. If your relations with another faction are at a certain positive level then there is a chance lets say as Hellenes that you get the trait "Wife is Macedonian"..the children would get the "Macedonian Ties" trait.( Positive and negative effects). Just as you get the wife is "robust" trait ect....in current version or the " Foreign friends' type traits.
I don't think the princess agent is a very good playing piece in general for this era. think of all those princess characters clogging up the map. Pain in the ass. I like the merchants agents and think they could work well. Although I think it's silly that merchants are allowed to trade in enemy territory. Illogical.
Perturabo
08-17-2008, 06:59
I believe that Princess Agents have a place in EBII personally.. think of Seleucia/Ptolemoi relationships. They were used in this period in such a fashion, and if you don't care for them, easy to ignore...
Can also be used very handily to bolster the loyalty of generals going overseas on military campaingns.
Of course this is up to Foot et al.
Atraphoenix
08-18-2008, 10:16
I don't think the princess agent is a very good playing piece in general for this era. think of all those princess characters clogging up the map. Pain in the ass. I like the merchants agents and think they could work well. Although I think it's silly that merchants are allowed to trade in enemy territory. Illogical.
For me not; long live smuggling :focus:
After all the team of 1066: Conquests may have fund the solution for faction heir problem.
It some work maybe this can solve the problem.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=185973
BozosLiveHere
08-19-2008, 15:58
After all the team of 1066: Conquests may have fund the solution for faction heir problem.
It some work maybe this can solve the problem.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=185973
They haven't. That is not a way to change faction heirs, it is a clever way to assign Titles without having to use ancillaries. We will have a similar system, though not with these exact mechanics.
Atraphoenix
08-21-2008, 18:56
so EB team could enable assigning heirs?
plz do not play with my feelings I want to cry because of joy! ~:mecry:
I remembered my old days that I was coding more than 20 offices to make a cabinet in MTW...
It was good days...
I still miss faction re-emerges ~:mecry:
we dont know yet if we can.
Foot
Atraphoenix
08-22-2008, 09:52
do not worry I have plan B :
"death ships" :hmg:
I used to use them to slaugher pagan generals to prevent riots in Eastern Empire by playing IB.
I do not think that CA can prevent it :laugh4:
Easy solution. Don't use princess agents in EBII. Instead use a trait script. If your relations with another faction are at a certain positive level then there is a chance lets say as Hellenes that you get the trait "Wife is Macedonian"..the children would get the "Macedonian Ties" trait.( Positive and negative effects). Just as you get the wife is "robust" trait ect....in current version or the " Foreign friends' type traits.
I don't think the princess agent is a very good playing piece in general for this era. think of all those princess characters clogging up the map. Pain in the ass. I like the merchants agents and think they could work well. Although I think it's silly that merchants are allowed to trade in enemy territory. Illogical.
if it's possible to do so set it so the longer they stay in enemy territory the worse there security gets, to the point where they losse 99% of there personal security or something.
Olaf The Great
08-14-2010, 19:16
How about we give a trait that gives very good bonuses that's added to what you -want- your faction leader/heir to be, and just ignore the "real" king/prince. Think how when you conquer Emain-Macha and the character becomes King of the city, whether or not he's the faction leader or heir of your actual faction.
The ability to designate the next faction heir has been available for quite a while now and EBII uses it.
seienchin
08-15-2010, 11:12
The ability to designate the next faction heir has been available for quite a while now and EBII uses it.
I liked that feature... Wasnt it realisitc for many factions?
I liked that feature... Wasnt it realisitc for many factions?
I don't think I'm understanding your post correctly, I said the feature will be in EBII.
seienchin
08-15-2010, 18:01
Sorry, I meant the feature of not beeing able to choose^^
Oh ok, well you still have that, the faction heir thing is run via a scripted event, you will have the choice to reject it and let the sucession run how it does in vanilla M2TW.
seienchin
08-16-2010, 11:34
Oh ok, well you still have that, the faction heir thing is run via a scripted event, you will have the choice to reject it and let the sucession run how it does in vanilla M2TW.
Awesome. :)
Too good to be true^^. Nice work. I am always impressed with the EBII details I hear.
Paltmull
08-20-2010, 22:13
The ability to designate the next faction heir has been available for quite a while now and EBII uses it.
Just a question: Does your system allow the player to choose faction heir, or only to choose the next faction heir? In other words; will you be able to change your current heir?
Does your system allow the player to choose faction heir, or only to choose the next faction heir?The next one. There is no mechanism for changing the current heir.
so when it's time to get a faction heir, instead of just being told who it is you get to choose them?
Paltmull
08-21-2010, 18:27
The next one. There is no mechanism for changing the current heir.
Ah, that's what I thought. Too bad. Still a lot better than nothing though.
so when it's time to get a faction heir, instead of just being told who it is you get to choose them?No. We allow you to choose the character who will likely succeed the current faction heir.
oh i think i get it, is it a ancillaries that you can pass on to who ever you want or a selection similar to RTW?
oh i think i get it, is it a ancillaries that you can pass on to who ever you want or a selection similar to RTW?
I haven't seen or used the script, but as I understand it: when the faction heir dies or becomes king, the engine makes the character with the most influence the new faction heir, regardless of family and other traits. The script EB plans to include allows you to designate a "heir" to the faction heir by giving that character a trait with an enormous influence bonus (presumably with non-influence penalties to counter this bonus). Whenever a new faction heir is selected, the script pops up to ask you to designate the new faction heir's successor. So no, you cannot do this at will: only when the faction heir dies or becomes king.
I haven't seen or used the script, but as I understand it: when the faction heir dies or becomes king, the engine makes the character with the most influence the new faction heir, regardless of family and other traits. The script EB plans to include allows you to designate a "heir" to the faction heir by giving that character a trait with an enormous influence bonus (presumably with non-influence penalties to counter this bonus). Whenever a new faction heir is selected, the script pops up to ask you to designate the new faction heir's successor. So no, you cannot do this at will: only when the faction heir dies or becomes king.
Almost, it's authority that controls who will be the next heir.
seienchin
08-23-2010, 11:21
You mean all my 1 Authority kings in Medival II were chosen, because the other generals had even less? :help:
Is it not tied to beeing a close relativ to the old king at all?:dizzy2:
SlickNicaG69
08-29-2010, 07:19
Well then, maybe the mod should be called, "Medieval Rome."
Authority...thats actually quite good because I don't think this stat affects anything until they actually become king (in which case the big bonus can be removed). Therefore We won't have super influence govenors for no reason. Nicely designed, although as bobbin said, its been around for a long time.
Captain Trek
08-31-2010, 03:36
Authority...thats actually quite good because I don't think this stat affects anything until they actually become king (in which case the big bonus can be removed). Therefore We won't have super influence govenors for no reason. Nicely designed, although as bobbin said, its been around for a long time.
I too highly approve of this workaround... It will also work quite well for the reason that, if I recall correctly, authority traits were very hard to come by indeed, which might explain why so many players has problems with having their great FMs skipped over for their crappy ones, because the crappy ones happened to have an authority boosting trait that the great FMs did not, or else the crappy and great FMs all had the same authority rating and the AI randomly selected the shittiest one or something like that...
I personally will wonder how this will work with the Teutonic Order family tree system that I believe has been said will be used for certain factions. You see the Teutons don't have a "family tree" in the traditional sense...
I personally will wonder how this will work with the Teutonic Order family tree system that I believe has been said will be used for certain factions. You see the Teutons don't have a "family tree" in the traditional sense...
I think that the new Hochmeister (or whatever) is selected from the dude with the highest command. So I know exactly how that will work then... Which means we need to use a +10 command stars trait to select the next general =P (woot!!!)
vBulletin® v3.7.1, Copyright ©2000-2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.