Succession

[Spurius Brontosaurus]

Hi guys: Have been following this mod keenly from before Rome:TW was released, and am getting excited that you are getting closer to release. I had a question on civil wars/succession (which I posted earlier, but the post was deleted - not entirely sure why since I searched the FAQ and previous threads, and did not find anything directly addressing it).

The question is this: can we use traits/scripts to simulate the delicate situation that typically succeeded a transition of faction leadership? For example, a weak ruler succeeding the seleucids or ptolemies may cause rebellion, and a particularly strong/weak 'leader' for the Carthaginians or Romans may prompt the same. This could be simulated by much higher unrest for a certain number of turns after the succession

[Thaatu]

I think there was some thread like this somewhere, but it was too optimistic and died. My opinion is, for what it's worth, that there should definitely be some script to simulate internal struggle accompanying succession of power. Just some script, almost any script is better than nothing. Just as long as there is something...

[Spurius Brontosaurus]

@ Thaatu: Yes, I remember several threads debating scripted historical rebellions (which are not part of EBs philosophy), rebellions based on complex triggers like lack of payment to mercenaries or social conditions (which are near impossible to do) and the spawning of specific 'pretender' rebel armies (not sure how this one panned out).

More than likely the 'unrest' approach I suggested is too naive (I freely admit that as far as scripting and traiting goes, I am completely unencumbered by the facts).

Perhaps we could tag potentially contentious leaders with a trait (for example those who are too powerful, too weak, or those whose ethnicity or family background could cause discontent).

If a character with such a trait then became a faction leader, we would trigger increased unrest (either through placement of unrest related buildings, award of unrest related traits to other faction characters, or other brilliant approaches that the scripting could come up with)

That would be cool indeed

[Teleklos Archelaou]

How do you script a rebellion (not talking about one city, but in cities dependent upon these factors for any faction in any province)? Causing unrest in cities and such is quite difficult. I don't know that this sort of thing can easily occur in RTW. I think in MTW2 it is easier but from what I've seen it is not a simple script or process to implement.

[Imperator]

Maybe a "Weak Ruler" trait that increased unrest...by a lot. That way if you have a weak ruler in a city more rebels would pop up and the whole city might revolt from you.

[Kralizec]

I made a similar suggestion in this thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1439703#post1439703):


Is it possible to add a trait file that each family member gets when a new faction leader takes the trone, wich causes a +1 or +2 unrest penalty? The trait would represent the difficulties associated with a new monarch/princeps/whatever being accepted as the new king. The trait would be temporary, of course. Say, 4-6 seasons.
Something like:

Restless people
The new Basileus isn't hailed equally by all his subjects. Some of the more discontent members of the upper strata are probing the water for a chance to rebel. It will be some time before the Basileus' authority is truly consolidated.
Game effects: +2 unrest

decrease in cost of bribe would also make sense, I think.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Can you give traits to all generals when a new faction leader takes the throne? I don't think we have any currently like that - which makes me think it's not possible, though I certainly am no trait expert.

[The_Mark]

Can you give traits to all generals when a new faction leader takes the throne? I don't think we have any currently like that - which makes me think it's not possible, though I certainly am no trait expert.
We could write a script that'd deal out the trait to each and every possible general there can possibly be when there is a change in rulers. That'd be one monitor with gazillion console_command give_traits.

[blacksnail]

Ugh, weak sauce. That's all kinds of work for marginal gain. There has to be a better way.

[mlp071]

I think it is compared to how MTW and M2TW rulers are affecting generals there . But that is , mostly,influenced by rulers Piety/Dread and Loyalty lvls in those games.

I don't think that we have something like that in place in RTW or EB , or i am wrong ?

[blacksnail]

If you run it through RTW/BI, I believe Loyalty can come into play, but as we do not make EB for BI we don't include Loyalty modification traits.

That Sounds Like A Great Idea For A Mini-Mod.

Cough, ahem.

[Thaatu]

You could train a monkey to type, but that would be considered cruel.

[BozosLiveHere]

Can you give traits to all generals when a new faction leader takes the throne? I don't think we have any currently like that - which makes me think it's not possible, though I certainly am no trait expert.


We could write a script that'd deal out the trait to each and every possible general there can possibly be when there is a change in rulers. That'd be one monitor with gazillion console_command give_traits.

Or we could just create a hidden trait that's triggered with BecomesFactionLeader and is reset the following turn. Then all we'd need to do is trigger the unrest trait with a CharacterTurnEnd/Start event and a FactionLeaderTrait conditional. Pretty simple code actually.

[d'Arthez]

Some rulers were not that great. If the previous King was responsible for an incompetent managing of the economy, living an extravagant life, I doubt his departure would cause much grief by his subjects, especially if his successor is an economic wizard, who lives modestly, and has that reputation. People would get hope, that the new ruler would improve their lot.

You would even think that the extravagant drunkard faction leader would increase unrest in his empire as he lives.

Another issue to contend with is the size of the Empires. If the King dies in say Sardis, it would take a while for the people in Sind to know. And they would hardly give one iota about it, unless he were extraordinarily (in)ept at governing his empire. So the need for delays in these effects may need some consideration as well.

It seems to me that it is a bit more complicated than just adding unrest upon death of the faction leader.

[Zarax]

You can use the loyalty even in 1.5, the problem is that the rebels would defect only to the eleutheroi, it's potentially very buggy and unless you do lots of scripting behind it wouldn't add as much as many would think to the game...

[Foot]

You can use the loyalty even in 1.5, the problem is that the rebels would defect only to the eleutheroi, it's potentially very buggy and unless you do lots of scripting behind it wouldn't add as much as many would think to the game...

No, we've talked about this. You need to have a non-playable shadow faction for loyalty not to work. If you make the eleutheroi the shadow-faction then as soon as they are destroyed the game ctds (apparently).

Foot

[Geoffrey S]

Do you mean the game ctds when a regular faction of which the eleutheroi are the shadowfaction is destroyed, or when the eleutheroi is destroyed? I didn't even realise the latter was possible; isn't there that unreachable city in the south-west?

[Zarax]

You're right about the CTD, but AFAIK eleutheroi can't be destroied in EB (terrhazza isn't reachable by the player so that should take care of the problem).
The other side of the coin is that you can have maximum 2 factions with loyalty with that setup... Seleucids and Ptolemies could be good candidates but I'm sure that whatever the option you will make the best use of it.

[Pharnakes]

No, we've talked about this. You need to have a non-playable shadow faction for loyalty not to work. If you make the eleutheroi the shadow-faction then as soon as they are destroyed the game ctds (apparently).

Foot

Yeah, surely the shara province prevents the eluthoroi from ever being destroyed.

[Spurius Brontosaurus]

Or we could just create a hidden trait that's triggered with BecomesFactionLeader and is reset the following turn. Then all we'd need to do is trigger the unrest trait with a CharacterTurnEnd/Start event and a FactionLeaderTrait conditional. Pretty simple code actually.

Thats interesting. The challenge would be to trigger the trait only on certain conditionals. You would want unrest to go up more if you had a particularly weak successor (or a particularly strong one with Rome/Carthage). Can that be done?

The other possible approach is to use a script to place 'unrest buildings' in all faction owned cities. I'm not sure script conditionals allow this, and i'm not sure if there are any building slots left (Again, Truth in Advertising: I am unencumbered by the facts)

[mAIOR]

I sugested something like this in the sugestion thread after reading from the Epirote-Celtic alliance where an epirote army pops up. It'd be amusing to see the roman slave revolt or some armies appearing in AS after some conditions were met... I thing it'd be much entertaining. don't agree with the new leader trait thingy as it didn't ALWAYS happen. I think it should be based on other things like genreal happiness (like medieval 1 if people were lower than 100% happy there was a probability the province would rebel or a rebel army would pop up)...


Cheers...

[Zarax]

The simplest way would be to have it "active" only for player, meaning that the AI factions would get +8 to loyalty or so from the script preventing them to have rebellions.
This also helps to prevent some related CTDs.

A friendly advice: do not get too excited about it as the feature is very unlikely to be implemented by the EB team and it's quite a challenge to get it properly balanced in a way that is not frustrating for the player.
My posts simply points that it's something techically doable although quite effort intensive given the possible results, I am in no way saying that the EB team will or should implement that*... Let's just say that the door would be open for extra modding...

*BTW, I am in no way affiliated to the EB team.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

I just had an idea, and I wonder if that would be possible:

When a character is receiving the "Faction leader" trait, check out his influence and other abilities, and on that basis, give a certain chance that a rebel stack (preferably a big stack) with a character will appear near the capital.

In that way succession troubles could be simulated. If a character has eg. influece 10, management 8, the chance could be very low that a rebel army would spawn. If said character has influence 3, management 5, chances could be 50% of 60%. If he has not one influence or management, chances of a rebel stack to spawn should be 99%.

I think that's quite realistic, and an easy way to implement that feature as well. What do you think?

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Come on, what do you think?

[Watchman]

Such uprisings usually happened out in the sticks though, didn't they ? The further a governor or whatever was physically removed from the eyes of the power center, the easier time he had building a personal powerbase - already because he largely had to deal with any local trouble more or less by himself, at least to begin with, as reinforcements from the center could take a while to arrive. An ambitious man could naturally try to use such a powerbase for a coup d'etat when the center was for one reason or another weak. The recurring satrapal revolts both the Achamenids and Seleucids had to deal with being a prime example; Baktria an extreme case. Diverse pretenders to power, or simply break-aways, weren't all that unusual in other realms either.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

That would be nice too.

A scripted "bribing" by Eleutheroi perhaps? Triggered by the acquisition of the Faction-Leader-Trait, the game could compare the influence of the new leader with the influence of the other characters. Then, if the difference is great enough, let the pretender get "bribed" by eleutheroi, included the spawning of a neat stack.

That would be awesome. I wonder if this could be possible.

[Redmeth]

I'm managing a huge Sauro empire in my ongoing campaign, from Opiana to Ak-Ink.
Right now (~165) I'm in the middle of a generation change. Lost of old governors (including my faction leader) dieing everywhere and most of them have a lot of influence so before I can plug the holes with my young pups or levies, I'm getting riots and revolts all over my empire.
So I don't think I need more scripted stuff or else I'd go nuts.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

When the leader of the Sarmatae dies, and his old generals as well, it would be quite normal when a lot of territories break away. It's just too easy in EB / RTW too maintain an empire. It's basically conquering, than it will be fine. No pretenders to the throne. No eager Satraps. No megalomaniac Proconsuls. No dear brothers who want to be king instead of you. I think this very important aspect of history needs to be represented in the game.

[Pharnakes]

I sincerely concur.

[mlp071]

When the leader of the Sarmatae dies, and his old generals as well, it would be quite normal when a lot of territories break away. It's just too easy in EB / RTW too maintain an empire. It's basically conquering, than it will be fine. No pretenders to the throne. No eager Satraps. No megalomaniac Proconsuls. No dear brothers who want to be king instead of you. I think this very important aspect of history needs to be represented in the game.

M2TW has all that availabe, so thats going to be fun in EB2:2thumbsup:

[Imperator]

For all factions?
So EB2 will be able to incorperate civil wars for ALL factions? Sweet!

[mlp071]

For all factions?
So EB2 will be able to incorperate civil wars for ALL factions? Sweet!

It is part of the traits system there , and could be also caused by your negligence to take care of your faction leader. Example, . if your faction leader has low influence , that can raise probability of generals/governors becoming disloyal and /or rebelious to the point of them starting civil war or just leaving your faction.Or your faction leader is far away from the Capital, or your economy is in red ...etc...It is vere modable , as it appears.

I do not know more details , since i didn't play M2TW to much (EB has priority over anything else in gaming for me att:help: )

Is it going to be incorporated in EB2 or can it be? I don't know , thats question for EB team:2thumbsup:

[Spurius Brontosaurus]

Not to flog a dead horse, but ....

Having a dramatic upsurge in unrest during certain leadership transitions could considerably enhance the historical immersion of the mod. Based on responses from the team, it appears that even if this can be agreed to in principle, there are two significant implementation challenges remaining. To wit,

1. It is difficult to ensure historically appropriate triggers, and

2. It is difficult to mod unrest (it was suggested, for example, that this would be hard to do unless every general in the faction was given traits that increased unrest)


In dealing with (2), how would an eleutheroi agent-based approach work?

Instread of using traits for family members, an 'unrest event' [e.g. a tricky succession] could trigger the script-based-placement of a considerable number of Eleutheroi spies, diplomats and/or assasins in the vicinity of a faction's provinces.

I don't know how practical this is (and it certainly doesn't address point #1, above). Thoughts?