Ranks & Bonds [RELEASED]

**Viking1978** · August 21, 2015, 08:10 AM

Starting ranks, rank an bond traits, and a council meeting

Another mod based on lua-scripting and elaborating on the starting ranks. Now we have starting ranks with consequences and a trait representing a character's bond with his leader, resulting in 2 permanent traits which will make the game a whole new experience.

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HOW DOES IT WORK - WHAT HAS CHANGED?

First of all, there are the ranks. Every officer now already starts with some experience (which may result in rank increase – read here) and from now on with every rank there will be military drawbacks or benefits. Ranks 1-3 will give drawbacks, 4 is neutral, and everything above will give slight benefits. The idea is that a higher ranked officer will be of more value and you will think twice before killing him or sending him to his death. Battles will be also more decisive because of the drawbacks for lower ranks.

Every faction leader has a permanent trait. The base income is now less than in vanilla, 2000 (instead of 3000), and it is explained as a personal contribution of your faction leader every month (he still has personal property, right?). He also pays 25% of his personal army from personal funds.
From now on your subjects (military leaders, statesmen, wives) pay their taxes as well, which is 2% faction-wide.

Statesmen and military leaders will have a bond with their faction leader, which can increase or decrease with every new council / senate meeting, which is held every 3 years in Spring (4 TPY) or every new year (12 TPY).The characters then gain a temporary trait of council member or member of the senate. If your treasury is below 1000 at this moment a contribution is demanded and their bonds may have had a slightly bigger chance to decrease.

There are 3 categories of bonds, positive, neutral, and negative. If a character has the trait Close, a player knows that he will have 36 turns of the benefits. Apart from the loyalty, the benefits are the same in every category.

Bonds with the faction leader (pos → neg):
-Close +3 loyalty, -5% upkeep costs, +5% tax
-Friendly +2 loyalty, -5% upkeep costs, +5% tax
-Supportive +1loyalty, -5% upkeep costs, +5% tax
-Neutral +2% tax
-Irritated -1 loyalty
-Hostile -2 loyalty
-Rival -3 loyalty

There is also a sworn brother trait. It is supposed to be rare, but you have a small chance to get it during a council or senate meeting when having high loyalty and a positive bond. When being a sworn brother, you can still have your bond change, but it will be hard to get a low loyalty as it gives a +5 bonus. The thought is that even blood brothers can change their minds about liking a person or not, but they still have made a pact. It gives higher bonuses also.

A sworn enemy, also rare, will give a character with low loyalty and a bad bond trait an extra -5 loyalty penalty. As it is a permanent trait as well, with this character you will have some trouble sooner rather than later.

One more remark. As the way has changed how a player's income is calculated, in the first turn you will have to click on the treasury first to know your exact income... This is only in the first turn and if you forget to do this your income is still calculated correctly. If you press on this button to go to your finance panel, you will see that the number of income for your next turn will go up with a few 100s.

Extra info:

This mod should be compatible with most mods. It has the Starting Ranks mod included in the package.

Please report any bugs you encounter that you think are caused by the mod or any other feedback. It is possible that characters will start with less of the other starting traits, but together with Prometheus I'm making a decent overhaul of that part which will probably be released in the near future - cheerS!

Thanks to Prometheus & Magnar for inspiration and help.

EDIT: Something I forgot to mention: characters who have a father (so most family members unless they married into the family) can NOT be sworn brothers / enemies. As they are already family members it would be weird to become a sworn brother, sworn enemy could be theoretically, but well... Maybe I will change that later and give them a trait called trusted instead...

Updated 20-09 for new DLC
-Replaced council traits with council events every 12th turn for playable factions (culture specific, extra penalties for "hectic council/senate meeting")
-Made everything compatible for Belisarius campaign
-Added "Trusted" trait as an alternative for "Sworn Brothers" trait for family members

**RockRebel** · August 21, 2015, 01:15 PM

This is bond to make the campaign a lot more entertaining!

Sorry, that was terrible, I know

**Viking1978** · August 21, 2015, 01:26 PM

Glad that you like it... It's not making the game any easier, maybe I had to mention that somewhere.

What was terrible? Think I am missing something... But yes, it is the intention to make the player a bit more involved... To make some more differentiation in characters, etc. It's one of many optional mods that can give the game a different flavour.

**RockRebel** · August 21, 2015, 01:45 PM

The pun was terrible (bond as in "Ranks & Bonds")

The mod is very cool and it does make the player feel a lot more involved!

**Viking1978** · August 21, 2015, 06:23 PM

Thanks, good to hear. Bound - Yeah, get it now, didn't even think of a pun.

**Viking1978** · August 22, 2015, 11:32 AM

Bug fixed: the added info texts about the council to "January" (12TPY) / "Spring" (4TPY) overlapped in the objectives whenever they were used. Now the info has been added to the leader's trait instead, although no specification (January/Spring) is given anymore. I just said 'on a regular basis he holds a meeting." This should do until I found out how to trigger or script such events.

**Viking1978** · August 23, 2015, 04:23 PM

Just added more descriptive texts for the ranks thanks to Prometheus.

**Son of the Morrigan** · August 25, 2015, 01:40 PM

Very good idea Sir Viking, it make the campaign a lot more immersive and I'm sure the "family tree" part of the game will now be less boring and more dynamic. Too bad such things wasn't in the game in the first place. I raise my drinking horn to you, SKOLL!

**Augustusng** · August 25, 2015, 02:05 PM

Sounds awesome! Great to have another layer to factional politics. So, the bonds are determined through the senate/council meetings, but is there a way to influence that between meetings? Maybe giving promotions and assigning someone as a governor/general could increase the chances of a positive bond developing?

**Viking1978** · August 25, 2015, 04:51 PM

Thanks, Son of Morrigan!

@ Augustusng... The way the bonds works is partly random...

But there are 2 kinds of council/senate meetings. There is always one or the other after 12 turns, so it takes a while before characters evolve... When you have less than 1000 in your treasury, you will get extra tax, but there is more chance of getting negative traits..
The way it works now in a normal council:

There are two rolls.. One for a positive and one for a negative evolution. In the first roll there is 35% chance for a positive evolution, the second roll 30% for a negative and if a character gets both or none of these traits in the two rolls he gets no evolution.
In a bad council that would make 40% negative chance, 30% positive, and both or none of them gives no evolution..

It is difficult to make something with the limited options we have that cannot be misused, that's why I prefer something like this... There is always a chance for characters who don't like a ruler in real life also... Not all characters will get affected every 12th turn, only a few. I thought of giving a bonus positive evolution when a character gets married, and a negative one when he is forced to divorce, but there is only the marriage trigger and the divorce trigger isn't there, so I let that plan go...

A positive evolution with every rank gained would also be over the top... Promotions would also be misused, so... It's better this way, I think... Makes it more exciting in the end.. I made sure that everybody leading an army starts with a positive bond to start with, so for those characters you already have 24 turns that you can use them without them having loyalty penalties.

**Augustusng** · August 25, 2015, 06:01 PM

Okay, sounds good. Of course, I didn't mean for a positive evolution with every promotion, just maybe an increase to that 35% chance.

What's the difference between the two types of council/senate meetings?

**Viking1978** · August 26, 2015, 12:26 AM

Well... 35% still means you have more chance in the long run and you will notice that eventually... Of course we didn't experiment with 12 turns, but with every 2 turns that there is a council and the bonds change, so that it goes a bit quicker... If it would give too often bad results I can still change the 35 to 40%, which I originally had. But the intention is that it goes up and down for some generals, not only up for everybody. Sometimes they will like their leader, sometimes they don't (and as it is a personal bond they have to meet him, so that's why I 'invented' the meeting). And then once in a while there is this guy who really adores or hates him...

About the difference in council meetings... Council / senate meetings are always held in January (12TPY) or every 3 years in Spring (4TPY). As I already explained, in one case of a council meeting you get more chance of positive evolutions of the bonds, in the other case (when your treasury is at this point below 1000) you will have more chance of negative evolutions. But it is always "dice-rolled" for each individual separately every 12 turns.
There is a small positive side to this last "emergency" council also, namely that for the price of more chances for bad evolutions your statesmen & military leaders will each pitch in 1% of tax income. So if you have 6 guys, together they will pitch in 6% extra. But the loss of a positive or neutral trait per guy is 5% (and -5% upkeep costs) and 2% respectively, so in the end it is a small recompensation.

Bear in mind that the newly introduced bonds don't interfere with other loyalty factors. A character can like his ruler, but still be arrogant and have foreign interests. On the other side he can hate his ruler, but love his country and after his pyrrhic victory be a humble person. Even a sworn brother can still start to hate his ruler after a while and have foreign interests and become arrogant, but the +5 loyalty he will keep as a base from then on so it will always be calculated with the rest from then on... At the point that a character becomes a sworn brother, he has at least 9 loyalty and a positive bond trait (only then he has a small chance of becoming a sworn brother after a council meeting), so it is highly unlikely to mess up that relationship, although it is possible.

Also the vanilla standards are kept: adoption will still have a -1 effect for other family members, changing heirs a negative effect for the previous heir, helping someone get a promotion can still have its +1 effect, etc. Those values are kept. The political options to raise loyalty still work as well, of course. The intention is also to have this system a bit more dynamic, to have it in some cases fluctuating, and in other cases a definitive negative or positive.

**Clg•Seed** · August 28, 2015, 01:38 AM

Is it possible to appease the one with the negative attitude towards the leader? do their hatred go away?

**Viking1978** · August 28, 2015, 02:06 AM

Yes, it will fluctuate, unless he is a sworn enemy, that trait won't disappear.

**Viking1978** · August 29, 2015, 05:10 AM

Something I forgot to mention: characters who have a father (so most family members unless they married into the family) can NOT be sworn brothers / enemies. As they are already family members it would be weird to become a sworn brother, sworn enemy could be theoretically, but well... Maybe I will change that later and give them a trait called trusted instead...

**Clg•Seed** · August 30, 2015, 12:13 AM

please do, will it be savegame compatible?

**Viking1978** · August 30, 2015, 03:12 AM

Yes, it will be, no problem there...

**Viking1978** · September 20, 2015, 06:04 PM

Just updated the steam version...

Updated 20-09 for new DLC
-Replaced council traits with council events every 12th turn for playable factions (culture specific, extra penalties for "hectic council/senate meeting")
-Made everything compatible for Belisarius campaign
-Added "Trusted" trait as an alternative for "Sworn Brothers" trait for family members