Fantastic faction change possibilities!!!

[SaigonSaddler]

Having enquired about the possibility of changing factions mid-game and reading the guide by Hax:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?127712-Hax-s-Great-Guide-to-Civil-War

I tried it out in my current campaign. As Roma 244 BC I had conquered Italy and all of Greece, the Hellenes in the south had been extinguished a few seasons ago, leaving Epiros clinging on in the North and Byzantion. Also spreading West, I had finally captured Massila and was poised to launch into more of Gaul. No war with Carthage yet, but things looking comfortable in the Rome.

Then I used the script change to alter the faction - as (Thrace) Epiros and......Wow! It works! :idea2:

At first I coudn't get the build or recruit feature to work, but a bit of clicking around and it was available. Deleted a load of 'froth' units (mostly spammed skirmishers) and injected a bit of much needed cash using add_money cheat. Captured Serdike and now have 3 cities, losing 2000 a season, but nothing outrageous. Sent a spy down into Greece (it was still partly orange) but once there I took a look at all the Roman units and characters I know so well! It's all still there as I left the Roman campaign, although the AI has moved them around a bit and is building ships.

A healthy influx of new adoptions and marriages has increased my character pool, the Romans asked for truce and suddenly it's rosy in the Epirote garden. It will be wonderful to 1) Survive and 2) consolidate before 3) reconquering Greece and expelling the Romans and sacking Rome, although this is far from certain as I know just how many armies I had pumped into the region and how healthy their building rosta is. They also have loads of spare cash and I have little room to manoever.

Of course this opens all kinds of new and exciting opportunities in future games.

I've already thought of choosing 2 factions in 272BC, say Rome and Carthage and have them battle to the death, alternating every few years. Imagine the damaging raids, the destruction of vital recruitment buildings, the desperate sieges and battles as time runs out, leaving the current faction in as healthy a state as possible before I take the reigns of opposing force and try and stamp out the enemy. The AI becomes less important as essentially I will be fighting against myself, sensible defence forces, intelligent building types, spare cash for mercenaries. Naturally the AI will still fight clumsily at times, but any mistake could be critical.

This the ultimate! Brilliant! I throughly recommend it for a fresh challenge!!!

[QuintusSertorius]

How stable is this script? As in does it make the game more crash-prone?

I'd love to make use of this in my games, to ensure the AI factions expand in the correct directions (no more Hayasdan domination of the steppes...), to fix their armies when they churn out rubbish, to make them go to war with the factions they should be warring, and to rescue those who are in a hole.

[SaigonSaddler]

Went a few turns just re-organising, then attacked a neutral settlement. No problem, no crashes. I think you must reload anew after each faction change though, because I recall EB will crash if it ever has to cope with 2 factions (tried this a while back with just the create battles in single player where it dumped me out every time).

I'll begin a double campaign tomoz and see what happens!

[Hax]

Whoa, that's been a little while.


How stable is this script? As in does it make the game more crash-prone?

I don't think there's that much to suggest that it makes the game any more crash-prone. I've heard rumours that state that a faction behaves erratically if you take control of it and then take control of your old faction again, but I've not seen really that much evidence of it all.

RTW is a harsh mistress though, and she doesn't really like excessive use of that kind of stuff, so use this feature sparingly. But there shouldn't be anything to screw up your game.

[QuintusSertorius]

Could it be a way to navigate away from game-ending CTDs that happen on the AI turn? I've got the Romans taking the Eleutheroi capital in my game, which crashes regardless of what I do.

[SaigonSaddler]

Well, to change the faction is literary one line of code. But it's wise to save and exit, change code, reload and then play on with the new faction and save/exit again for another change etc.

It will load up as the last faction you were using, when you activate the EB script it will change to the new faction. I'm using Fog of War on, so Epirote had discovered bog all in 244BC so I had to create a load of spies. You get commanders with loads of command stars! But armies in all sorts of weird locations and compositions. Also strange building types, and they don't delete other faction conscription buildings.

One question though - when I took over the Epirotes they were 16000 in debt. Is there any effect for the player to be in such debt and how far can you get? I quickly deleted units and faction buildings and used the add money cheat, so things stabilised.

[Biowulf]

The only effect is that you can't develop quickly or build armies to defend yourself. Oh and I reached -80k once as the Lusos :D

[SaigonSaddler]

-80K!!! Cheers for the info.

Currently building up as Casse on H, VH. Now 263BC and have 5 settlements. Started a bit badly with a disasterous battle and two generals dead. Now have 4 leaders and settling down well. However, I'll now become the Sweboz for a bit with the ultimate aim of mutual destruction. 9 full years with the Casse, maybe have 5 each from now on!

[SaigonSaddler]

12 seasons with the Sweboz, pretty healthy with 9 settlements. Disbanded a load of units to make them profitable and raking it in now. Just reached the Belgian coast. Back to the Casse for 12 seasons.

[Ludens]

I am not a scripter, but I am pretty sure this will mess up the EB script. At the start of a campaign, the start-up script places homeland & expansion markers based on what faction you have selected. These markers are not relevant for the A.I. factions, as the A.I. has its governments placed automatically by the script. However, if you change faction that can mean one of two things. One: the script will continue to treat your starting faction as the player's faction. This means they don't get their governments placed automatically. As the A.I. rarely builds governments out of its own volition, the faction's expansion is essentially crippled. However, if the script does recognize the player has changed faction, then it won't place governments for your new faction. Which is a problem, because the homeland & expansion markers are based on your former faction: you can build the governments in the places were you should.

There are probably consequences for other parts of the script as well.

[SaigonSaddler]

Working beautifully so far.

Changed to Epirios from Rome and changed from Casse to Sweboz to Casse and back again.

No crashes as yet. Currently doing 12 turns each. Sweboz much richer and more potential, but if I can get in a good attack with Casse first - who knows!

I'll let you know if it crashes, but hopefully not. The IA just seems to get on with it quite happily until I come back.

[Lysimachos]

SaigonSaddler, since you are obviously doing this a lot at the moment, can you tell us anything about the issue Ludens brought up, regarding the Homeland/Expasion/Subjugation markers? Are the markers still those of the starting faction or do you get new ones for the loaded faction?
I have used faction switch myself, but only for few adjustments and then back to my original faction in the same turn, so I don't know much about possible side-effects.

[bobbin]

The government markers are placed by the campaign script which only runs once at the start of a new game, this means that if you change faction your options for building governments will still be those of the faction you started the game with.

As for the placing of AI faction gov buildings, this is done by the EB script which runs all the time and so would work as normal.

[Lysimachos]

The government markers are placed by the campaign script which only runs once at the start of a new game, this means that if you change faction your options for building governments will still be those of the faction you started the game with.

As for the placing of AI faction gov buildings, this is done by the EB script which runs all the time and so would work as normal.

Thanks for the info. So it's probably the best to change player faction only for specific tasks, unless, of course, you want to switch homelands...

[SaigonSaddler]

Hmmm. Haven't come across this yet. One thing I did notice is that all spies disappear and the three dipolmats I trained for the Sweboz were reduced to one. Also all the land I explored east of Greece was no longer explored when I returned. I'm sure there will be other oddments, but no crashes yet.

[SaigonSaddler]

OK, just continued the campaign I began as Casse, within which I've been switching to Sweboz.

Went over to Saka for a few turns but I am unfamiliar with their building roster so then exited and continued as Macedon. Captured Pella and Pergamon. Repaired the class 1 Macedon homeland in Pella and had a choice of class 2 or 3 in Pergamon, both Macedon greek (or western Greek as I believe it is).

Strangely the visual effect of the menu bar was still arranged for Saka, but buildings/units therein were Macedon.

My experience with EB extends to one long Macedon campaign, and a recent Roman campaign so not a lot really. Best thing to do is try it out and see. It is literally one single line of text and changeable word to alter faction, and if I can do it - anyone can.

[SaigonSaddler]

Update - Germany is full of 'allied states' (class 3 or 4) for the Sweboz. There are some 'homelands' available in Belgium, which would point to it being a Casse setup. I can only build class 3 or 4 in these German areas, but the AI has built class 1 in Germany and associated recruitment buildings. Not sure if it can recruit any heavy infantry or cavalry, but I can't, despite them being listed as available. Best available are swordsmen, pikemen and naked fanatics. The Sweboz missing diplomats turned up (back to three).

[Rahl]

The heavy infantry and cavalry of the Sweboz become avaible after their military reforms.

I wanted to test the faction switching for a long time now. After reading this thread I remembered that and changed from Casse to Seleukids to rebuild the crumbling empire (they lost Babylon, Seleukeia and all northeastern provinces). I saw only one bug until now, when winning a battle I can't choose to go on and kill the routers, the end screen with the battle statistics is shown as if I had chosen to leave the battlefield. Though that adds some new experience to the battles and I don't want to go on with that campaign for a longer time. (no CTDs until now after about 10 seasons and several battles)