Superfaction in BI?

[Makanyane]

I'd like to get a non expansionist faction like the senate in a BI game. BI will run RTW so the engine shouldn't make difference. However attempting to add superfaction line to any faction in the normal BI descr_strat seems to result in a CTD at the end of the loading bar.

Experimenting with a RTW descr_strat run on -mod through the BI.exe it seems that I can add superfaction line for other factions e.g.
Quote:
faction gauls, religious smith
superfaction britons
game accepts this so long as senate faction exists in strat. Removing senate and having superfaction line brings back CTD (I can successfully remove senate if I don't have superfaction line so problem is not in way I achieved that).

This leads me to believe that to get superfaction working in BI strat I would have to internally re-name one of my spare faction slots to romans_senate and have them die off on first turn, or be dead_until_resurrected.

As that would also then give any roman faction senate missions and the senate tab, offices button etc, I'd also have to add a new culture with a different name (haven't yet so there is space) as a duplicate of roman for my romans to use. I'd also possibly need a spare dead_until_resurrected or dying at start faction that stayed as roman to 'recieve' the mission messages, with the superfaction line in for another faction the Romans seem to keep recieving messages even after senate is dead!

Does anyone that's fiddled with this think my assessment is correct - or am I missing some simpler way of doing it? Also is there anything else it would require if I did add the senate? I'm not sure if there is any other hard-coded stuff, I think possibly names of cities for first missions have to be in and I'm not sure if there is something pre-set about Romans_Julii needing to be roman and hence also perhaps included?

thanks

[Dol Guldur]

I've not really looked into this but I certainly have had a roman and non-roman faction in BI 1.6 (modfolder) with the superfaction line under both entries in DS without any problems (except all that darn senate stuff popping up).

The senate stuff appears (and the block on attacking an ally) with the roman factions but not with the non-roman faction.

My own interest lay simply in a way to stop the Rohirrim and Gondorians from attacking each other (at least early on in the game).

Some factions seem naturally not to expand (or do so very very weakly) - can you not so set one up to so act or even block them off on the map of you have to - depends on what you are really trying to achieve I guess.

EB have elminated the senate I beleive and internally assigned the SABA faction to that tag - they may be able to help.

[Makanyane]

I've not really looked into this but I certainly have had a roman and non-roman faction in BI 1.6 (modfolder) with the superfaction line under both entries in DS without any problems (except all that darn senate stuff popping up).

I assume from way you described that you meant without having romans_senate modded in? Apparently my hypothesis about needing them may be wrong. But in that case I can't understand my results in RTW under BI.exe.

I tried again later in vanilla BI and that would accept lines

faction empire_west, fortified caesar
superfaction empire_east

and launch game but it didn't appear to have any effect (no senate tabs etc), not sure if other factors, non-expansion, fixed alliance etc worked or not.
Tried same lines again in my mods modfolder and got crash again, brief moment of inspiration as was using empire_east etc. (which aren't shadowed in mod) I re-instated the rebelling characters active line and it loaded once, but going back to exact same situation it now won't work. Have tried applying line to other combinations of factions, shifting culture designations around, deleting or not map.rwm and changing or deleting diplomacy settings but nothing is letting a variation of the mod descr_strat with 'superfaction...' line in it load reliably.

As to what I'm trying to do, I just want a faction to act as guardian for one particular city. It will have superior units so I don't want it to move out and mug everyone else - but I do want other factions to be able to get to it later in the game, so it can't practically (or historically) be inaccessible. Saw someone (seasoned alcoholic?) post that you could do

faction egypt, fortified caesar
superfaction egypt

to effectively stop faction moving so wanted to experiment with that, but as can't currently get superfaction in mod at all, I'm not getting very far!

I think I'm having one of those 'unique' moments....

[wlesmana]

My own interest lay simply in a way to stop the Rohirrim and Gondorians from attacking each other (at least early on in the game).

Have you tried using the "ai_do_not_attack_faction" line? It seems to work for RTW:A based but I have not confirm this for 1.5 or BI. The line would go like this:

faction carthage, craftsman stalin
ai_do_not_attack_faction gauls, germans
denari 5000

So in my case, Gondor won't attack Rohan or Free-peoples as AI.

[Dol Guldur]

Unfortunately that caused a CTD with no error message when the campaign loads and therefore I must assume to be Alexander-specific. A feature I was not aware of!

Makanyane, if you still have CI installed try it in there - you should be able to make a superfaction for 2 of the factions. Make sure one is the empire_east and then play as them - you will see that they will not be able to attack the other faction (unless first attacked). There are no senate tabs but you do still get senate messages/events. I can't understand why you'd get a crash.

[Makanyane]

Dol Guldur, thanks for idea, yep it seems to work in CI, I did
faction sassanids, sailor napoleon
superfaction empire_east
loaded OK and I got shared line of sight, haven't tested other functions, but
put exactly same in my mod (they are amongst our factions, and still same cultures) and 'hello desktop my old friend' at end of campaign map loading bar.

At least that gives me something else to compare against

Unfortunately that caused a CTD with no error message when the campaign loads and therefore I must assume to be Alexander-specific. A feature I was not aware of!

got excited for a minute as
ai_do_not_attack_faction empire_east
did seem to load but it just acts as a break in descr_strat, i.e. all factions etc below it are lost so only loads if you go in as faction above it.

[Makanyane]

Haven't resolved why superfaction doesn't want to work in my mod but does in vanilla / CI. Basic changes in strat to align them didn't work - could take rest of mod apart to find out why but after testing effects in vanilla I'm not sure it actually achieves what I want anyway ( & senate messages would be pain). Looks like most promising option is the non-playable, non-expansionist, faction's characters getting traits with
Effect MovementPoints -100
For duration that you can prevent any armies with captains being generated (or released on death) that seems to work to keep spare AI faction in place as defensive garrison. (so far, so good anyway)

[Dol Guldur]

Rebels are non-expansionist - anyway you can use them or does it not fit the storyline for them to be popping up in rebellions across the map?

Yeah, I think the senate route is too much of a pain. Hope you sort it to your satisfaction!

EDIT: Superfaction and shadowing feature are incompatible in BI and will result in a ctd on campaign load. You will have to choose between one or the other. May also apply to spawn on revolt etc.