Extended Cultures tutorials.

[Zarax]

This section is be dedicated to XC tutorials as well as explaining how the mod features works.
Please discuss the guides in a separate thread, off-topic posts will be deleted.

Index:
10 Things You Need to Know about Handling Your Dirty Minions

A tour of XC Economy

[Suppanut]

10 Things You Need to Known About Handling Your Dirty Minions...in XC4 Alpha-Gamma and ET3 For XGM

1) Faction Leader in XC has a lot of effect on all characters under him (except army captains). So you need to choose your faction leader wisely or he will lead your faction to downfall in the long term.

Faction Leader's attributes will effect on other characters as following:
- Command effects on troop morale of all generals and governors of barbarian factions.
- Management effects on corruption level of all your settlements under control of generals and governors.
- Influence effects on bribe resistance, loyalty/ambition (which will cause fake virtue in characters) of all characters.

If Faction leader's attribute is lower than 5 then it will give faction-wide negative bonus. But if attribute is higher than 5 then it will give positive bonuses faction-wide.

Some specific traits of faction leader will also give separate bonuses as well, while some vices also give penalty faction-wide. Faction leader's trait effect on their minions will not apply in ET3 for XGM.

So choosing your faction leader wisely as automatic choice (based on Influence) may not be your best choice to run your empire.

2) Beware of some nice general who become nice for no reason, as he may be just faking his publicity for greatness. This kind of behavior is developed by their low loyalty (or high ambition in terms of non-loyalty factions).

If this kind of faking-it general become faction leader, his pretending will soon be exposed and will give a huge penalty to the character as well as whole faction, which will doom your empire much faster.
This problem will be more and more severe as your empire becomes bigger.

To spot character's faking behaviors...
- Beware of characters with strange descriptions which sounds incredible for a normal basic virtue trait, as those are likely to be faking publicity.
- If Faction leader is a Spy Master then his spies will do his dirty job and report this foul behavior to you.
- If Faction leader is also Assassin Master as well as Spy Master, those kind of characters will get blackmailed and will be a bit more humble about their own position.

I promise that there will be more dirty ways to do this in future versions

To prevent this kind of behavior...
- Temple of law or governors are good for fighting against faking-it guys as they give boost on "Loyal" and "Upright" traits which either prevent or protect against faking behaviors.
- keep watching low loyalty and military achievements which are likely to lead to faking behaviors
- Try to keep character busy or stay in settlements with entertainment facilities so they will stop thinking about their ambition for a while.
- Don't allow character to have too high in Command and Influence or else they will not be satisfied with their own position.
- Give them some office ancillary to reward their dedication, so they will put down their ambition for a while.

3) Beware of the great one, as his greatness will soon doom his life. If characters have one of their major attributes at more than 8 or have too high military achievement, they will end up being narcissistic or over-spoiling themselves by developing their vices except if they have some kind of unselfish or humble personality.

To prevent your loved children from being spoiled...
- Don't try to make any character to become a second or third Alexander, this kind of lifestyle is dooming for the fate of people who pursue it.
- take away some bonus giving retinue from characters who have too high bonus and in some case, penalty retinue will help you.
- "Austere" or "Stoic" or "Cynic" behaviors/philosophy will give immunity to what dooms great persons.
- Don't give any character more than one office each time or they will be doomed by their over-greatness as well.
- Don't try to store money in treasury more than 60,000 at the end of turn if you don't want to turn them into prodigal son


4) Beware of your taxing behaviors, as too high or too low will cause character to develop vices.

This is always true to every era as too high tax and people will hate you as well as develop unpleasant behaviors in the eye of people below you. But if you tax too low, your boss will question your loyalty and suspect about where your populist behaviors lead to as character loyalty will be decreased.

Culture also influences on what taxing level lead to as well....
- Romans are immune to very high tax vices, as they see might is right in term of taxing. Kindness mean weakness for them.
- Carthage and GCS as well as other thalassocratic factions preferred low tax as their main income came from trade... free trade.
Their low tax will help characters develop economic skill as well.
- Bactria taxing effect will be varied by their religions.

5) Imperial title give faction leader an immense power but it also gives player a huge responsibility as well.
Imperial title will be given to a faction leader once the faction achieved their territorial conditions along with getting rid of all possible pretenders who would claimed the same thing as your leaders. Once you get imperial reward and start Imperial era, Doomed of Empire's Time-bomb will start ticking.

Doom will be always imminent to the fate of factions which are rule by a leader with imperial title. This kind of system emulates how Roman Empire fell in history. Doomed level of empire will accumulate in each character at different levels. If the faction leader accumulated too much, new characters that you could gain will be worse and worse in quality and vices will be developed more easily than before. Doomed level could be reduced by leader behaviors as well as individual behaviors which will effect on their sons or all characters if that individual has been crowned as imperial leader.
But faction leader's level of doomed will still near very much base-line as level of individuals base as it will try to to reach leader's level if individual have no good personality to counter this doomed attempt.

Each Imperial titles will have their own effect of doom like Buddhist's Chakravatin will doom characters in empire to be softer and softer, etc.

Severity of of the Doomed of Empire also up to size of their territory as well as money in treasury.

6) Send Family Members' children to schooling abroad a much as possible so they would come of age with skills and attributes that are far better than normal way of upbringing.

If characters have traits called "Educator Father" or "Over-spoiling Father" and not ignorant person then it is the right time to send them to some schools for their children by move character to the exact settlements with special school and stay there for a few of turns or until they get new trait that tell he will send children to study there. His children will get additional traits and retinues when they coming of ages. Character could change the schools for their children by move to other settlements which also has special schools and stay for a few of turns.

There are 10 settlements in XC that have special schools for studying aboard.

Civilized only Schools
- Taxila:
Great school in eastern religions and philosophy as well as 18 arts of Indian kings.
Its function will stop if Learning Center building had been destroyed.

- Alexandria:
Great school in Mediterranean, famous for mathematics, and administration.
Its function will stop if its Great Library building had been destroyed.

- Pergamum:
Rival of Alexandria who was more dedicated to war and arts.
Its function will stop if its Great Library building had been destroyed.

- Athens:
Old classic school which dedicated mainly on politics and all philosophy schools.
Its function will stop if its Special Academy of Athens building had been destroyed.

- Istakhr:
Old Persepolis which still teach about nobility and administrative art of Achmeneid as well as Zoroastrianism.
Its function will stop if its Persepolis building had been destroyed.

- Rhodes:
Famous schools on Art and Rhetoric.

- Syracuse:
Famous schools on mathematics, mechanics and siege-craft.

For both civilized and barbarians
Carthage:
Famous school in Western Mediterranean which teaches mainly on trade, craft, and finances.
Special attribute of this school is its automatic functioning if character is "Anti-Barcid" or Spain characters when faction is at peace with Carthage.

For barbarian only
Sarmizegetusa:
Learning center under supervision of Zalmoxis cults, character who graduates here will have chance to become Priest of Zalmoxis.
Its function will stop if its Kogaionon building had been destroyed.

Cenabum:
Great druid conclaves which specialized in administration and philosophy.
Characters who graduate here will have chance to become Druid.
Its function will stop if its Druid Conclaves building had been destroyed.

Mona:
Great druid conclaves which specialized in art of war and and trade craft.
Characters who graduated here will have chance to become Druid.
Its function will stop if its Druid Conclaves building had been destroyed.

There will be more schools to choose in future version.

7) Character could get a sickness, some of them are acute, some are chronic, and some are deadly latent and usually appear when character is old enough. Character will likely to get disease if they stay in settlement that not good hygiene enough.

Medical retinue will help you cure character diseases.
Some diseases will have some severe effect if not treated fast enough.

In case you could not find any doctor, stay in settlement with healing sanctuary or hospital related buildings would also help (especially on Gonorrhea and body consumption phase of Tuberculosis).

Some disease that you need to known.
- Tuberculosis, usually in latent state when infected but it has deadly effect of gradually reducing character's hitpoints permanently when character health is not in good state.
- Gonorrhea, this kind of disease related to behaviors and could infect on both characters and their wives (which also related to third person, like her lover, etc.).
This disease could cause character to become sterile if not cured fast enough.
- Leper, this disease give doomed effect and could not be cured, but doctor nearby could slow its process.
- Alcoholic Disease, this chronic illness could not be cured but could give character a good moral lesson to be a better man.
- Dementia, This doom will turn a once great man into a clown.
Prepare some aspirin if faction leader suffers from this, perhaps you may need him to do some heroic sacrifice for next generation or make him die in the same way to keep him still in good legend.

I promise that there will be more diseases in next version for players to have fun with


8) Mentor system, retinues are also able to teach characters the skills as well.
With the right set of retinues, they will help character to perpetuate skills related to them that they already have. They could give new skills as well but at very rare chance.

Some retinues contradicts each other, which will made character unable to get skills you want.

Here are the skill axis.
-- Theological - Non-Theological Moral
-- Pleasure - Strain Leaned Western Philosophy
-- Persian - Indian Leaned Eastern Philosophy
-- Public - Enigmatic Based Politic
-- Cavalry - Infantry Oriented Militarism

Each non-office retinues will shift character's skill axis in different way.

9) Retinues also have their own hidden effects...
- Each retinue have its weight at different level, once character's retinue weight reach its limit, character will stop spawning new retinues before reaching the hard-coded limited of 8.
Limit could expand by being faction leader or after marian reforms.
Character will still be able to get new retinues by transferring them from other characters thus reaching the hard-coded limit.
- Most slave retinues will not be so loyal to character when character fights with slave rebel faction.
Character will get -1 command for each slave retinue when fighting rebels (but some kind of slaves will not give this penalty if they represent loyal or willful slaves)
- Office retinues give a character a huge boost of stats and loyalty but you must not give any character more than one office no matter what or else they will end up narcissistic about their authority and greatness.

10) Strategic system based on traits.
- Factions' policies, each factions will have their own policies that could implement on settlement with governors, which will give bonus in different way.
- People in some cultural area could hate some general if they enslaved or exterminated people with the same culture as them.
They would also love conquering heroes as well if he was seen as liberator. This feature does not apply to ET3 for XGM.
- Supply system is the system that will apply to player only, ai character will still kept counting but will have no effect on them. The more you fight far from home territory will made your soldier tired and made future fight harder unless you allowed them to rest for 1-2 turns in settlement. But you must not kept character in settlement for too long as they may turn wild from too much vacant as well.
- Battle Exhaustion, don't let's your general's army fight to many time in one turn, as his soldiers will get tired if fight too much, especially reduced healing recovery and troop morale of your general's army.
- Prepared defense, if you general's movement point at the end of turn is more than 40% and not in settlement, your general will automatically look for safe place and prepare defensive positions for his army, thus give +1 command when defending until start of next turn.

Strategic Effect will be more pronounced in future version of XC.

[DarthLazy]

^Im playing XC Gammav2 no senate; Where exactly is the option to send kids to school?

--

Good Job

[Zarax]

Make character with "educator" or "overspoiling" father traits visit one of the settlements in the list for a few turns, you should see a "children will study in" trait appearing.

[Diomede]

Currently in my first campaign with the senate on, it's helping quite a bit. thanks Sup.
I'm slightly confused though, how do you control what offices a general is given?

[Zarax]

Offices are represented by ancillaries.

[DarthLazy]

I still dont get how to "give" ancillaries. Can you link to the file which deals with these traits?

[Zarax]

You just need to drag them from one character to the other exactly like in vanilla

[TM Is Back]

These posts are also of good use:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...99#post7368299

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...65#post7371065

[airborne guy]

6) Send Family Members' children to schooling abroad a much as possible so they would come of age with skills and attributes that are far better than normal way of upbringing.

How do I do that?

[Zarax]

Send your FM to one of the cities listed Suppanut's post and wait until they get the "studied in xxxx" trait.

[debux]

Sorry for the necro'ing, but are these guides still valid for the newer versions of XC? Do they have the same fundamentals? I'm just worried that the guides haven't been updated for years, and I can't seem to find anything that says that they're still valid.

BTW, great mod, although I still feel find of lost within it. The trait system is so deep! I do kind of get the feeling that I've gotten in the EU games that characters are real people, that don't necessarily do what you want them to do.

[Zarax]

Yes, the basic principles still apply.