Fluff Based Missions

Can council of nobles missions be tailored to specific factions, or are they all part of a pool that every faction uses?

I ask this question because editing the text for missions could be an easy way to give the game a Warhammer atmosphere. For example, a potential mission for the Empire could be:

"Terrible news, mein Emperor! A cousin to the count Elector of Middeland has been ambushed and captured while patroling the highway to Skavenblight. The Elector demands that an army set forth immediantly and free his blood relative before it is too late.

This could then be modified for the Dwarves, for example:

"Thunderblast! A travesty so profound I can hardly dare to believe it has occured, O' King. Twenty barrels of Bugman's Brew, fresh from the brewery itself no less, have been forcibly taken while en route to quench the thirst of our miners. Our tavern spies have warned us that they were taken to Skavenblight. The drinkers of the kingdom will toast your name aloud if this wrong were to be addressed immediantly."

Obviously this would not work if all Kingdoms use the same mission statements. I think this would be a great way to add cheesy Warhammer based fluff to the game, and can be started straight away.

I'm guessing, because I haven't really dug into this enough to know, but I would assume they are culture related. A Muslim faction should get different missions to a Christian one. If it is possible to link the missions to a race, then I agree...this would be a good way to drive a campaign.

It is something we need to look at and could be very handy.

Missions look to be global, the test describing them is culture related

Thats too bad, I imagine trying to change that programming would be a nightmare. If only there was a way to limit the 'pool' of missions available to each faction.

Are the number of cultures in the game (is it 4 or 5?) hard coded? There is such a variety of mission types in MTW2, with lots of possible effects, that it seems such a shame to not use them. I realise people are discussing right now how to divide the cultures appropriately.

Global misisons just wouldnt work, and would have to be as bland as possible to make sense. Jousting for any faction other than the Empire and Brettonia just wouldn't work, unless it was creatively changed. It could then be a drinking competition for the dwarves, dwarf throwing competitions for orcs, or a Wood Elf Great Hunt for orcs.

The Tomb Kings could get a message that the Death Magic Wind has turned, and they can raise extra undead for a price. Skaven could have a mission to find some much needed warpstone, while the Vampire Count could get a mission to increase the number of 'souls' available by attacking a village.

If someone could look into a way of implementing this I think it would be great, especially as they are only small ideas that everyone on this board can contribute too.

Well, stuff like this is a good bit down the road, it'll be looked at all right, but not soon.

I agree, missions are definetly a low, non-crucial game priority. Sort of like titles, traits and ancillaries. The game can still be played without them, but it can still be fun to generate ideas, and it doesnt need to take away any of Bwian's time.

Someone here may know if another mod has already cracked the problem, or we can find out after a little research. If the number of mission pools directly relates to the number of cultures, then it it may play an influence on the future cultural decisions, and as such the more infromation discovered now the better.

If we know that faction specific missions can be implemented, then the non-programmers on this forum can come up with ideas for missions without hampering the game progress one bit. It would be easy for people to contribute, and the only requirement is about 50 words of text per mission. When it comes time to add missions for the game, all someone has to do is copy and paste the work done here.

Bwian also mentioned missions "driving a campaign". If this means that missions are more than just a random series of events strung together, and actualy approximatie a pseudo-storline, then the sooner this is tackled the better.

I dont think thats what he means, a story driven campaign isn't possible and I dont think it'd fit to well with the game. As for coming up with ideas, feel free to contribute whatever comes into your head, but if you're looking to write something specific you'll have to wait till we know what we want. We'll look at the mission mechanics when theres time to but theres far more important prioritys at the mo.

It was my mistake to use the word storyline, but I tried to explain it by placing the word psuedo in front of it. Obviously MTW2 can't handle character driven 12 part story arcs, what I simply mean is the implementation of missions that one tier above being completley random.

For example, in a Dwarf Campaign:

The Dwarves start the game from turn 1 with a mission to take Karak-Zarn (or whetever the appropriate city is), which was invaded by orcs/skaven hundreads of years ago. You could ensure this mission is given straight away by giving it an immense priority stat, and having no minimun turn to start. The duration would be 50-100 year, and the payment would be lots of cash and the trait Defender of Karak-Zarn, as well as a nice in-game text message about how the dwarves celebrate.

The player doesnt have to do the mission, or they may attack Karak-Zarn for their own reasons, but the point is that the mission is a deliberate part of the Warhammer world fabric, as opposed to being completley random. There arnt that many possibilities available with the game engine, maybe lots of assasinate missions for Skaven and Dark Elf, lots of attacking missions for orcs, and maybe more diplomatic missions for the Empire (forge an alliance with Bretonnia, Dwarves and High Elves?). I forget if there are missions that involve merchant trade items, but that could be used by Skaven to take a particular warpstone site, Undead to take back a pyrimad etc.

An interesting question is whether the completion of one type of mission can be set as the starting condition for another mission. If so, then it would be possible to have a string of missions that related to each other, and that you attempted one at a time, in a sort of a pseudo-storyline. This part I dont know about and doubt, but would be great, otherwise you could give these individual story missions staggered minimun start dates so that they happened over time.

I found a great guide by DarkKnight at Total War Center that disucusses editing missions. I can't link to it, but it has some theories about how how missions operate.

Quote:

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A mission is issued according to its score. The mannor in which it is, is not documented. Therefore we don't really know when or how a mission is issued. However, I have my theories. My leading theory is that each supported mission type has a formula to calculate its score based on the parameters. At the start of every factions turn the game calculates the score of each mission, if the faction currently has no current missions issued already (excluding crusades). Then the game selects and issues the mission that has the highest score. However, in play testing I found that when you eliminated all missions except the Gift mission and eliminated the exclude duration that the mission wasn't issued every turn. Sometimes it would be issued back to back, sometimes even three turns in a row. Then other times it would be issued every other turn. There even were some gaps lasting 10 turns without the mission being issued. When I turned on the exclude duration, the mission appeared much less frequently. It rarely appeared twice within 10 turns.

This leads me to believe that not only does it take the highest score, but that score also has to exceed a certain threshold. In order for that to work, the score would have to be calculated and added to the previous turns score every turn. And in the end, I am still really confused on how exactly missions are issued based on the score. The only known right now is that higher score means higher chance of being issued.

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Regular missions can have a score modifier of .5 or .25, while special ones can have a really low number like .05, and a huge exclude duration value, so huge that they will hopefully never appear again. The exclude duration lengthens the time between when the mission is given, so hopefully this will make it possible to have a special mission appear once and never do so again.

Heres an example of how these two types of missions can be done using Bretonnia:

Bretonnia can have random missions involving knights questing for the grail. I dont know what the price would be, other than a deduction of gold, but the benefit would be a percent chance of getting a new questing knight unit using a modified best_buildable_unit script. This is just a an easy random quest that relates to Bretonnia, and will pop up every once in a while.

Now, there could be a single special mission inserted into Bretonnia's quest pool that is THE actual Grail Quest. it would have a low score value and minimun turn appearance, so it takes a while to show up, and a massive exclude duration so it only appears once, and 80-90% chance of success. The text could be identical to the other grail quests, and the player would never know exactly when it will appear. Winning the quest would give them the actual Grail, which they can bring to battle and would give a huge morale bonus, like the Christian cross or Milanese wagon. Woe be to any Bretonnian army that loses the Grail in combat however, I dont see how they would deserve to get a second chance at retriving it :skull: .

There may be better ways to implement the Grail into the game for Bretonnia, if at all, and is just an example of random missions versus special ones.

Crusades could be made into errantry wars for Brettonia. I guess...

If you read Bwian's comments in other threads, it seems likely that Crusades are out, along with the Pope and the papal states. I wonder if papal missions could still be butchered somehow to not depend on the presence of a pope, as there are a lot of papal misisons that could be used to the mods benefit.

Whats to stop the orcs from getting the quest for the grail mission?

Iv'e been trying to explore that very question, Casuir. Different factions sharing global missions wouldn't make sense, and would be pointless.

I asked Mirage41, part of the impressive looking Broken Crescent mod, if he knew how to do it, and he had no idea. He then asked me if I knew how to expand the number of cultures in the game, obviously which I dont, so it looks thats not an option either.

He did give me a link to a Guide to editing Guild missions:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=77577

Which gave me an idea. What if you could trick the computer into thinking every faction had an invisible guild attached to it? You could do this by creating a series of guilds such as the Waaaghh Council for Orcs, Phoenix Chamber for High Elves etc. and then giving each faction the max number of points for their respective guild. It would have to be possible to tell the computer that a guild existed, even if it was not built on the map. Or maybe the capitol city of each faction would house the Guild HQ. Either way, they will have the sole relationship with the guild, and would be the only ones who could recieve its missions.

The possible missions for guilds are:

Take Settlement, Recruit Assassin, Recruit Spy, Recruit Merchant, Recruit Priest, Acquisition, Trade Agreement, Build Church.

The guide doesnt say how much these missions can be modified, but if they can changed to the same extent as the council of nobles missions using the null edit script, then it would offer tremendous mission possiblities.

I think a good idea about the missions and how we can use the crusades and prevent them from deleting are the campaings that Games Workshop creates like the the Nemesis Crown and many of them,we can raise up missions that ask all the factions to raise up an army for claiming a worthy object,and thinks like that.What you say? :egypt:

Crusades need a pope to call them, jihads need imams, unless you can work out a realistic way to include hose mechanics they're both out.

Jihads might be funny for Orcs & Goblins, that is - they could have 'Shamans' which issue Waaagh!!!s. It'd be a nice way for orc players to round up lotza boyz, and would certainly present a challenge to other factions.

Jihads for Orcs is awesome thinking, although there will be a limitation on which provinces the orc Shamans can select for a Jihad, as I think they first have to be lost to the enemy. Waaaghs are meant to be comprised of orc armies that delve deep into the heart of enemy territory, they are no just defensive measures within their own boundaries, and need something more aggresive inorder to feel right. I wonder if this can be solved by telling the computer right at the start of the campaign that cities like Altdorf, Bourdeleaux, Middenheim, Karaz -A- Karak etc. were once apon a time orc provinces. This could be a great way to have Waaaghs implemented.

If the Islam religion can be cloned, and two Jihad systems could run under different names at the same time without any interference with each other, then this same system could also be used for Chaos and its many invasions. It would almost be like Crusading, but without the limitations of the Pope. Naturally, I imagine having more than one Islamic nation will cause problems with the MTW2 engine.

Failing this, another method iv'e been trying to tinker with for Waaaghs is the "mission guild_take_settlement" Explorers Guild mission. You would take the Explorers Guild, rename it Waaagh Council, and make it only buildable by Orcs and Goblins. You could then play with "lower_diff_threshold", "upper_diff_threshold", "ratio_modifier", "no_garrison_modifier" and the "resource_type" paraemters to tailor the mission to the concept for a Waaaghh. For example, you place an invisible resource named "Waaagh" on every major city that the Orcs have traditionaly fought against, set "resource_type" to that resource, and then raised the the level of difficulty threshold. This way, the Waaagh Council would only send you to war against heavily defended capital cities, making each Waaagh the exciting challege they are meant to be.

A waaagh isnt called against a certain place, nor is it called by a shamen and theres most definitly nothing resembling a waagh council. A waaagh is basicly a strong orc leader gathering enough boys to go for a big long scrap, the closest thing to it ingame is the player him/herself.

You make a good point Casuir.

Just a reminder, my only intention with these suggestions is for players to have some in game goals that help make the experience more immersive. Since the MTW2 game system has the facility to give missions to take settlements, it made sense to me to dress it up with the trappings appropriate to each faction. In the case for orcs, an interesting aspect of their culture is Waaaggghs. Anyone can collect all their troops together and attack an enemy city at random, but it seems more exciting to me if your actions become the focal point of orc society, with a time limit to create increasing tension, and success bringing new units, prestige, glory, money, traits etc.

The title of Waaagggh Council was just off the top of my head, this could be changed to anything you want that is more Lore appropriate, even if it just a Bunch of Ladz Who Reckon Uze Should Attack Them Pointy Earz. Change the priest to a totem pole with zero movement, and all it does is sit in a city and talks to your orc leader through his dreams. It doesnt really matter, it can be dressed up creatively in anyway you like, but I think having it will help the player feel more involved in the game world, as opposed to playing a game of MTW2 with new fantasy graphics.

Aye well if we try to fit everything that bares a slight resemblance we're going to be left with mtw2 with fantasy units. Waaghs just dont match up with how jihads or missions work, no matter how you dress them.

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Originally Posted by Jargon

Can council of nobles missions be tailored to specific factions, or are they all part of a pool that every faction uses?

I ask this question because editing the text for missions could be an easy way to give the game a Warhammer atmosphere. For example, a potential mission for the Empire could be:

"Terrible news, mein Emperor! A cousin to the count Elector of Middeland has been ambushed and captured while patroling the highway to Skavenblight. The Elector demands that an army set forth immediantly and free his blood relative before it is too late.

This could then be modified for the Dwarves, for example:

"Thunderblast! A travesty so profound I can hardly dare to believe it has occured, O' King. Twenty barrels of Bugman's Brew, fresh from the brewery itself no less, have been forcibly taken while en route to quench the thirst of our miners. Our tavern spies have warned us that they were taken to Skavenblight. The drinkers of the kingdom will toast your name aloud if this wrong were to be addressed immediantly."

Obviously this would not work if all Kingdoms use the same mission statements. I think this would be a great way to add cheesy Warhammer based fluff to the game, and can be started straight away.

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you been thinkin about this for a while