EB and the MTW2 heir system

[BozosLiveHere]

Oh, I see now. Hmm. I'm not very familiar with it, but I thought all GUIs were controlled by mtw2.lnt.

[absinthia]

mtw2-int seem to deal with the start menu. lots of references to choosing faction, setting up custom battle and such stuff.
i also had a look at /preferences/keys.dat. although the data was terribly mangled by being opened in notepad, it did contain references to battle_ui and strat_ui. impossible to decipher what the file actually does/contain without a formated version of some kind...

[Tellos Athenaios]

Yes the lnt files appear to concern the 'central' menu's only; not the stratmap (or battlemap for that matter) itself.

[absinthia]

i noticed this entry in start.txt.strings:
{SMT_SET_HEIR}Set faction heir
could this be used in a script or some thing like it?

[Tellos Athenaios]

No that's just the text which is displayed at the appropiate UI item.

[absinthia]

yes, i thought that was the case. as the file had the same look as other files in the text folder. with the brackets and all.
but what i really would like to know is how one should go about to envoke the UI item in question?
or how would one make the game behave like the UI item has been activated. can one f.ex. press the join crusade button via the command line, or have the faction scroll open at every turn start via a script/trigger/event or some of the kind? does the item even have to be visible for the game to execute what ever it does when one presses a button?
i suppose i am barking up some sort of a three, so please say if i am spamming the thread with useless questions...

[BozosLiveHere]

No, your questions are not spamming the thread. We're investigating the possibility of using a scripting route, similar to what you suggested. Hopefully it will work.

[Xtiaan72]

yes, i thought that was the case. as the file had the same look as other files in the text folder. with the brackets and all.
but what i really would like to know is how one should go about to envoke the UI item in question?
or how would one make the game behave like the UI item has been activated. can one f.ex. press the join crusade button via the command line, or have the faction scroll open at every turn start via a script/trigger/event or some of the kind? does the item even have to be visible for the game to execute what ever it does when one presses a button?
i suppose i am barking up some sort of a three, so please say if i am spamming the thread with useless questions...

Yes you can do stuff like that. They do in Deus Lo Vult. I really think it's possible. Some kind of pop-up event screen with a script that will change the heir. Perhaps you guys could talk to 'Repman' and see if he will help. I know he's pretty hesitant to share his work but if you pool the resources between the mods, perhaps both mods could benefit. Both mods are really popular so maybe he would be more likely to pitch in with you guys then he would for other mods.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Bozos had a cunning plan a few days ago and the script department should be trying to implement it like right now ...

[Xtiaan72]

Sweetness!

[Perturabo]

I have only one objection to the manual selection of faction heirs. I am a great fan of the RTW style of heirs, however am aware that in MTW2 it can be abused (or could be if manually selectable).
That is in marriage alliances. The AI always agrees to marriages to the crown prince in my experience, no matter how much it hates you or would like your land. I suspect this is intentional as if your faction dies out it has the potential to gain parts of the land.

However, imagine me playing Macedonia. I am at war with the Silver Death and Rome. I am losing and neither side is interested in diplomacy as my forces have been repeatedly beaten and are weak...
Pertuarbo has a brilliant idea I change my faction heir to a young, unmarried family member and ask for the hand in marriage of a Selucid princess.. they agree of course and instantly become allies... Pertuarbo, then changes faction heir again to another young unmarried family member.. and repeats with Rome..
Having several other unmarried FM's, Pertuarbo then says, Hmmm, who else do I want as a friend with a stronger than usual diplomatic relationship..?

Ok, having said that I would trust the majority of EB players to be sensible about it as I suspect most are roleplayers to one extent or another. But that is basically my theory as to why selectable factions heirs were not implemented.

Something to keep in mind, but would hardly be game breaking (particularly after RTW where cheating i.e. forced diplomacy, is essential to have a moderately historical game.

I am not 100% sure that it is possible to marry into the family of a warring faction, however it certainly is possible to marry into one of their allies family and thus gain a ceasefire. Then it would be possible to change faction heir and marry into previous enemy family.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Yes, though the point of re-inventing the manual-selection wheel in M2TW isn't about enabling others to abuse it; it's mostly an offer to role-players who actually care about who's next in charge.

[Xtiaan72]

Easy solution. Don't use princess agents in EBII. Instead use a trait script. If your relations with another faction are at a certain positive level then there is a chance lets say as Hellenes that you get the trait "Wife is Macedonian"..the children would get the "Macedonian Ties" trait.( Positive and negative effects). Just as you get the wife is "robust" trait ect....in current version or the " Foreign friends' type traits.

I don't think the princess agent is a very good playing piece in general for this era. think of all those princess characters clogging up the map. Pain in the ass. I like the merchants agents and think they could work well. Although I think it's silly that merchants are allowed to trade in enemy territory. Illogical.

[Perturabo]

I believe that Princess Agents have a place in EBII personally.. think of Seleucia/Ptolemoi relationships. They were used in this period in such a fashion, and if you don't care for them, easy to ignore...
Can also be used very handily to bolster the loyalty of generals going overseas on military campaingns.
Of course this is up to Foot et al.

[Atraphoenix]

I don't think the princess agent is a very good playing piece in general for this era. think of all those princess characters clogging up the map. Pain in the ass. I like the merchants agents and think they could work well. Although I think it's silly that merchants are allowed to trade in enemy territory. Illogical.

For me not; long live smuggling

[Kepper]

After all the team of 1066: Conquests may have fund the solution for faction heir problem.
It some work maybe this can solve the problem.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=185973

[BozosLiveHere]

After all the team of 1066: Conquests may have fund the solution for faction heir problem.
It some work maybe this can solve the problem.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=185973

They haven't. That is not a way to change faction heirs, it is a clever way to assign Titles without having to use ancillaries. We will have a similar system, though not with these exact mechanics.

[Atraphoenix]

so EB team could enable assigning heirs?

plz do not play with my feelings I want to cry because of joy!

I remembered my old days that I was coding more than 20 offices to make a cabinet in MTW...

It was good days...

I still miss faction re-emerges

[Foot]

we dont know yet if we can.

Foot

[Atraphoenix]

do not worry I have plan B :

"death ships"

I used to use them to slaugher pagan generals to prevent riots in Eastern Empire by playing IB.

I do not think that CA can prevent it

[Balbor]

Easy solution. Don't use princess agents in EBII. Instead use a trait script. If your relations with another faction are at a certain positive level then there is a chance lets say as Hellenes that you get the trait "Wife is Macedonian"..the children would get the "Macedonian Ties" trait.( Positive and negative effects). Just as you get the wife is "robust" trait ect....in current version or the " Foreign friends' type traits.

I don't think the princess agent is a very good playing piece in general for this era. think of all those princess characters clogging up the map. Pain in the ass. I like the merchants agents and think they could work well. Although I think it's silly that merchants are allowed to trade in enemy territory. Illogical.

if it's possible to do so set it so the longer they stay in enemy territory the worse there security gets, to the point where they losse 99% of there personal security or something.

[Olaf The Great]

How about we give a trait that gives very good bonuses that's added to what you -want- your faction leader/heir to be, and just ignore the "real" king/prince. Think how when you conquer Emain-Macha and the character becomes King of the city, whether or not he's the faction leader or heir of your actual faction.

[bobbin]

The ability to designate the next faction heir has been available for quite a while now and EBII uses it.

[seienchin]

The ability to designate the next faction heir has been available for quite a while now and EBII uses it.

I liked that feature... Wasnt it realisitc for many factions?

[bobbin]

I liked that feature... Wasnt it realisitc for many factions?

I don't think I'm understanding your post correctly, I said the feature will be in EBII.

[seienchin]

Sorry, I meant the feature of not beeing able to choose^^

[bobbin]

Oh ok, well you still have that, the faction heir thing is run via a scripted event, you will have the choice to reject it and let the sucession run how it does in vanilla M2TW.

[seienchin]

Oh ok, well you still have that, the faction heir thing is run via a scripted event, you will have the choice to reject it and let the sucession run how it does in vanilla M2TW.

Awesome. :)
Too good to be true^^. Nice work. I am always impressed with the EBII details I hear.

[Paltmull]

The ability to designate the next faction heir has been available for quite a while now and EBII uses it.

Just a question: Does your system allow the player to choose faction heir, or only to choose the next faction heir? In other words; will you be able to change your current heir?

[Atilius]

Does your system allow the player to choose faction heir, or only to choose the next faction heir?

The next one. There is no mechanism for changing the current heir.