superfactions

[General_Someone]

In the camaign's descr_strat file all the romans have something called "superfaction senate". So, what is a superfaction? Thanks in advance



-Chris

[mrdun]

Someone will probably give you a better definition but her goes.

A superfaction is a faction which controls three others, like the Senate. The superfaction tag can, I think, be added to any four factions but i'm not sure if missions are still handed out. I don't think they are but you get the unbreakable alliances. :2thumbsup:

[Monkwarrior]

In fact superfactions are more complicated than expected.

In principle you can assign this role to any faction, and (as the senate) it will be no expansionist at all.
It is not necessary that one superfaction is over three other factions. Even it is possible that one faction is superfaction of itself.

Missions are hardcoded to roman factions, and hence if a non-roman faction is included in the superfaction system, this faction won't receive missions.

I must say that using superfaction system with non-roman factions makes the game rather unstable, and CTDs can occur quite often. Because of that we reduced this system to the minimum to modulate the agressive character of some factions.

[lt1956]

Interesting, I would have never thought that the Superfaction setting affected the Stance of a nation. Off hand what is the limit on the number of superfactions? Hence I imagine you can assign to all of them this setting.

Also are you sure the ctds are caused from the setting? or is it random? This could be useful to make Nations not expand, and yet the Senate will expand if they get another province besides the starting one?

Lt

[Red Spot]

Senate doesnt expand ... at least in my game they have 5 settlements and simply build a HUGE army that needs slaughtering before you can take Rome(and win the game), but they never become an expanding faction (they do cross into allies terf. when reinforcements could be usefull though, wich makes them into a very potent ally as long as you can keep their borders safe)


G

[Monkwarrior]

Interesting, I would have never thought that the Superfaction setting affected the Stance of a nation. Off hand what is the limit on the number of superfactions? Hence I imagine you can assign to all of them this setting.

Also are you sure the ctds are caused from the setting? or is it random? This could be useful to make Nations not expand, and yet the Senate will expand if they get another province besides the starting one?

Lt
In principle there is no limit for the number of superfactions.
We were using at least 5-6 in one campaign.
The objective was, not only to prevent their expansion, but also to force the diplomacy between the superfaction and its "underfactions". The behavior in that case was similiar to that of senate and other roman factions in peaceful times.

This system worked quite well for some turns, and the results were as described by Red Spot: huge armies, not expansion, and probably the method to upkeep this is... tricky (we all know that senate does not follow the same rules as the other factions, don't we :inquisitive: ).

Regarding CTDs, I'm quite sure that the origin was this. I think it is the problem of outlawed factions, or things like that, because they were designed for romans, and are hardcoded. In fact, even if senate was not present, I received the message "julii have been outlawed" early in the game. I imagine this is due to the fact that the game detects the superfaction present (although in another faction) and senate is not... ergo romans (the only were julii) have been responsible for this. :juggle2:

Now we have restricted to the minimum the amount of superfactions, and the campaigns are much more stable. Unluckily, the factions don`t behave as we wanted but....

[lt1956]

So you last part of your post, do you mean the ones that are superfactions arent doing what you want? Please specify? I am curious myself to test this but as you know testing takes alot of time which I would hate to waste. lol

[lt1956]

Good news I tested this out with SPQR and added it to all but 3 factions and it worked perfect. What is more it I didnt have ONE CTD. :-) I played -ai down to 120BC or so and will do further tested but overall I plan to allow SPQR players to download it and test out as you get the best results of many people playing it.

BTW I gave you a Nod to this thread for the Idea and Help Monkwarrior. You made my day with this side effect. Who ever knew back then it was as easy as that. lol all this time...... :wall:

Lt1956

Good news is I think the CTDs you had werent caused by the Changes, but then who knows how hEAVY SCRIPTING may effect things, the only scripts I use is the 4TPY and Garrsion scripts.

[Monkwarrior]

Good news I tested this out with SPQR and added it to all but 3 factions and it worked perfect. What is more it I didnt have ONE CTD. :-) I played -ai down to 120BC or so and will do further tested but overall I plan to allow SPQR players to download it and test out as you get the best results of many people playing it.

BTW I gave you a Nod to this thread for the Idea and Help Monkwarrior. You made my day with this side effect. Who ever knew back then it was as easy as that. lol all this time...... :wall:

Lt1956

Good news is I think the CTDs you had werent caused by the Changes, but then who knows how hEAVY SCRIPTING may effect things, the only scripts I use is the 4TPY and Garrsion scripts.
Glad to be of help.:2thumbsup:

Probably you are right, and the superfaction system is only buggy when using a long heavy script. :inquisitive:

How did you implement?
I mean, there are two possibilities:
- Classical: one faction, let's say armenia, is superfaction for another, e.g. carthage. Thus armenia will stay peaceful, fortified and strong. That means that they won't attack the neighbours but they will be difficult to defeat.
Carthage and armenia will be in peace and ally until some moment, probably when carthage is strong enough to be a menace to armenia. I thought this was one critical moment of the campaign, when outlaw problems, mainly if any other faction is included in the superfaction system. For this I would recommend some testing with human player, as we don't know (at least I don't know) what is the mechanics of superfaction in -ai game.
- Selfsuper: the faction (armenia) is superfaction of itself. In this case you have only the first part of the effect (strong defensive faction) but without interferences from other factions. I think this is more stable, as the faction is never a menace for itself (unless a crazy man becomes a king ~D ).

You can find more details about our goals and findings on this subject here:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=63614

[lt1956]

I set all factions other than Romans, senate, roman rebels, rebels. gauls and carthage to Superfaction itself. ei: Superfaction Armenia for Armenia.

Gaul I did Superfaction Germans which prevents them from attaching them and it worked. Watching the AI for all those turns was interested to say the least Gaul attacked Romans and rebels but not Germany, when they got a province next to Dacia or Macedon they attacked them. BUt all the other factions STAYED in their PLace which was great really.

-ai should work fine as all that is missing is the players moves, but all the triggers for this should be there.

The only question I have is does this make it too easy for the player since Macedon will NOT attack them unless they TAKE their land. Hence the player knowing this doesnt have to worry until the invasion. But its nice to see that the player can take over all the different factions without issues. Also how does diplomacy play into this? If 2 factions are allied and both use the superfaction attribute, if the player attacks one faction will the other attack them because of an ally? That would be interesting to see. in theory they should but who knows.

This is the kind of testing I PLAN to do as I think over all that setting works fine.

[Monkwarrior]

-ai should work fine as all that is missing is the players moves, but all the triggers for this should be there.
I agree with you except in this point. The game is unbalanced because of the "everybody-against-the-human" policy. This is the point I refer when saying that the tests with -ai may not be representative of a normal campaign.

This would be your case with gauls and germans, and perhaps some "manual" tests with these two factions would be advisable.

Moreover, the superfaction method was initially designed for a non-playable faction (senate) and I'm not sure if a human player playing with a superfaction may produce some "strange effect".

Anyway, please let us informed of your progress. :2thumbsup:

[lt1956]

Yes I am hoping the attacking of the player will work if so it will make this even more perfect for my use, as that would mean the player would still be threatened if near the AI faction where other AI factions are safe. Also the ALLY hardcode will be interesting to test and see if attacking an Ally of the AI faction will cause them to attack you also.

I am hoping many SPQR players will test this addon so I can see different results. As for playing other factions SPQR is mainly geared for Rome, but thats a valid point. There are alot of little tests that have to be done manually. But the LONG campaign PEACE was unbelievable! None of the other tweaks ever worked to allow ALL the factions to stay in place, plus having all those Armies in the provinces means it will be Harder for the player to take a province without Several Legions of their own. lol :2thumbsup:

Over all this seems a wonderful discovery and I am sure ALL of us thank you and your team for sharing this, somethign like this should be posted on Wiki or atleast in the tutorial sections is that much of a breakthrough since Loyalty and reimmerging factions were found out possible in 1.5 RTW.