[Preview] Houses and tribes

[PrometheusTWC]

Here`s just a small preview of a new system which we decided to add to make tribal politics more interesting:



We decided to use the in-game classification of generals in family- and non-family members to add a house/tribe system via character traits. It works like that: The generals in the family tree will get a "Royal bloodline" trait (House of Sasan for the Sassanids, Bucinobantes for the Alamans....) and your faction leader a "King" trait. The non-family members will come from different royal houses or tribes belonging to your faction. For the factions done so far it looks like this:


Danes/Geats/Jutes:
The Nordic factions consist of different tribes, with your non-family generals being a Karl from either a warlike, agricultural or ancient tribe. Depending on their tribe, those generals will play differently. Warlike Karls will be good leaders in battle, but bad for your economy and diplomatic standing, Karls from ancient tribes will be deeply rooted in the old ways and will bring religious conflict, and so on…

When you establish your kingdom and conquer new lands, new tribes will slowly emerge and change your faction's composition. Whenever those generals rank up and gain fame, they have the chance to become the Jarl of their tribe, or even get crowned a rival king. If they become Jarl, it can be quite beneficial for you, but a rival king means serious problems.

Small hint: Beware of the ancient tribes, they will not take a religious change lightly…



The Sassanids:
The Sassanids are ruled by the Shanhanshah from the House of Sasan, and your non-family generals will hail from one of the Seven Great Parthian Houses. Again, those can have different ranks in their respective House (1. Member 2. Shahrdar 3. Powerful Shahrdar). With each level your general gains, there is a chance for him to gain a new rank in his house.

The politics for the Sassanids are different from the Danes; they are all about influence. A general with the highest level of his house gives strong bonuses, but he also gains influence really fast, so you have to make sure that your Shanhanshah has more influence. A weak king of kings can mean very serious trouble, because he will lose influence constantly, whereas his opponents build their power...




The Alamans:
The changes to the Alamans accentuate that they are a confederacy of different tribes. Different reguli ("petty kings") rule over their smaller kingdoms (regna). The reges excelsiores ante alios ("paramount kings") are a kind of president of the confederacy. There can be more than one paramount king at a time, like Chnodomar and Westralp in 357.

The Alamans are split into five tribes: the Brisgavi, Raetovari, Juthungi, Lentienses, and the player`s tribe, the Bucinobantes.

The Bucinobantes replace the royal family from the other factions. The faction leader starts off as regulus of the Bucinobantes, and can become a rex excelsior ante alios; the rest of the family are simple tribal members.

Generals from the other tribes start off as member of their tribe, and can become reguli and reges excelsiores ante alios by leveling up.

So it can happen that a non-family member actually has a higher rank than your "faction leader." In the end, if you play the Alamans, it should play out in a way that you feel like the Bucinobantes are in the middle of the politics of the Alamannic confederacy.





What`s next?
We plan on adding historic houses and tribes for every faction in the GC and are making good progress so far

[lilalex20]

I know this was from a year ago but is there any plans for something like this being added to the mod? I think it's a really cool concept that adds more rp possibilities to the game

[Augustusng]

Everything in that post is already in the mod, but I'm sad to say we haven't made much progress since that point, in terms of adding this feature to more factions. A few others use this feature, like the Lakhmids, but we haven't added it for all the playables yet.