Recommended changes to usurpation

[VineFynn]

Okie dokie, I've finished the balance changes I'd make to usurpations. You can change paste the code over the existing stuff in blocks, starting with the first trigger in the entry and ending with the second, as I've inserted any new entries in the middle of the blocks of code. I'll cover what I discovered about how the system was designed in the second post, when I have a little more time. Tw centre is being a little funny about me copy pasting large blocks of text into messages (understandably), so I'm forced to put the relevant text in files for download by dropbox.

First block:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kd39cx8fm9...block.txt?dl=0

Second block:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p24ygvsjb7...block.txt?dl=0

Also, please increase the Posible_Heir level of the Factionleader trait's authority to 4. As it stands the game often picks regents over legitimate, completely acceptable children of the king because blood doesn't play a big enough part in the equation. This should only really happen when the regent in question is either godlike, so the nobility would force him onto the throne, or he is at least a little cannier than the heirs and is actually plotting to take the throne.

The essential changes I've made:

I've added comments where relevant, but the jist of what I've done is tie the strength of a usurper to their authority instead of their Dread, and make it so that regencies don't force loyal, chivalrous characters to become usurpers by chance. In other words, during a regency, more dreadful characters are more likely to plot, but are no more likely to be strong usurpers if they take the throne (unless dread-related traits increase their authority) than chivalrous characters. This is done with the intention of, well, making the system make a bit more sense. This way the usurpers that do end up on the throne also tend to be the strongest candidate out of all the usurpers in terms of authority, which again, makes sense *to the player* (because it's how this kind of thing would transpire in real life, more or less) and as a consequence of the rest of SS being designed fairly sensibly, is also more balanced (which is more important anyway).

Tl;dr Dreadful characters still the ones likely to do the usurping, but being chivalrous doesn't weaken a usurper. The plotters who end up usurping tend to be the ones who can usurp the strongest.

I'll definitely be considering further changes, but those I think will be less necessary than these ones. At any rate, this should clean up the confusion on the front end and with the other fixes I sent to Jurand hopefully reduce the suffering of the AI to unnecessary usurpations and regencies.

[VineFynn]

Compilation of all the triggers associated with usurpation and stuff, with commentary. They are unedited from vanilla SSHIP in this file.

Some preliminary observations regarding the design of the system in general- a lot of key traits are allocated by triggers that only check once- usually when they become faction leader or heir. So whatever strength a usurpation is assigned will remain until the character dies or the usurpation succeeds. Same with the "offensive to nobles" trait, at least where the authority checks are concerned.

Speaking of which, interesting observation: the check if a usurpation succeeds or not has nothing to do with the strength of the usurper- rather, the game simply checks if you have a usurper every turn, and if you do, it starts a civil war which scales eith your faction size. The civil war lasts for at most 25 turns- the game has a list of factions that it runs down each turn, one at a time. Each turn it checks the next faction on the list and ends any ongoing civil war and starts a new royal dynasty with the current FL. When it reaches the bottom of the list it wheels around and starts with the first faction on the list again.

[VineFynn]

I have a saying: real life is balanced. I think this shines through in pretty much any modding I do anywhere, and even if it isn't necessarily everyone's cup of tea, I personally think it makes for interesting gameplay. So, for my next trick- the more optional changes.

In the spirit of making the system more balanced (and doing so in a way that is intuitive) I've tuned down the authority gains and mali of most trait levels, with traits that do grant authority granting them usually less and only at the higher levels (think the Smart trait only granting authority at Genius, and Drink only really mattering at "Paralytic"). The end result of this is that a) average authority hasn't changed, and is actually a little more consistent and b) succession makes a fair bit more sense, since being a "Famous Racer" historically would not have given you a stronger claim to the throne, even if it would've made sense given the description of "Authority" we get. This is all with the end of making usurpations and civil wars more logical, mind (and easier for the ai to handle). Recall also that SS very sensibly has triggers that increase Authority over time, which nicely flows over here, as "he's always been our king" played an enormous part in one's legitimacy with both the peasantry and nobility (imagine serving under a ruler who had been around when your dad was born :o) and helps make succession a little more meaningful.

The reason these changes make sense (and it wouldn't otherwise) is because I've actually relocalised Authority as "Legitimacy", along with accompanying changes to the level descriptions, which I've tried very hard to keep in the spirit and proportion of the original descriptions. The idea behind this one is that it actually doesn't matter how ruler-like or authoritative a person is per-se when it comes to succession- what matters is how *worthy* people think a person is for a position. History has seen a lot of rulers, especially those in western europe, who were basically by med2 standards, but who didn't experience the problems they would in Med2 (civil war and stuff) because their lack of "Authority" simply meant those *actually* in charge were different people, not that there was some sort of anarchy. Civil wars typically occurred as a result of succession disputes, where folks would argue that someone had basically stolen the throne from someone else, which is less a question of how good that person is at ruling (most usurpers were, by default, at least average at politicking/Authority). This is less true in the ERE, but I'll get to that in a later post. The other instance where rulers were seen as illegitimate (for our purposes, tbh this stuff is very complicated) was when their personal vices were too obvious to hide in public, which is when public opinion starts to matter w.r.t. legitimacy, as opposed to the more pragmatic courtly approach to stuff like that.

So, here are the more optional changes I'd recommend:

Here's the changes to the flavour (keep in mind these are existing entries that need to be replaced with what's below)-
In tooltips.txt:

{TMT_AUTHORITY_LEVEL_0}No serious argument exists in favour of this man's leadership 
{TMT_AUTHORITY_LEVEL_1}His own family question why he is on the throne
{TMT_AUTHORITY_LEVEL_2}Whatever it is that permits this man to lead, it is not the opinion of his subjects
{TMT_AUTHORITY_LEVEL_3}He has the support of significant circles, however tenuous
{TMT_AUTHORITY_LEVEL_4}Though there are rivals to his leadership, he is secure enough in his position
{TMT_AUTHORITY_LEVEL_5}There is a general acceptance that his majesty should remain in charge
{TMT_AUTHORITY_LEVEL_6}His court argues honestly in favour of his incumbency
{TMT_AUTHORITY_LEVEL_7}There are few points against this man keeping office
{TMT_AUTHORITY_LEVEL_8}Opposition to his tenure comes as a great shock to anyone asking around
{TMT_AUTHORITY_LEVEL_9}Holds a claim to power that would survive famine, bankruptcy and invasion
{TMT_AUTHORITY_LEVEL_10}His people consider his reign nothing less than divinely mandated
{TMT_NEGATIVE_AUTHORITY}It is a miracle that this man is even nominally considered leader

And in shared.txt:

{ST_AUTHORITY}Legitimacy

So, same deal as before with dropbox, but with the first block being this small, I'll just leave it here, for replacing the original with in export_descr_character_traits.txt:

;--------------------------------------------
Trait GreedyRuler 
Characters family
 NoGoingBackLevel 1


 Level Greedy_Ruler
   Description Greedy_Ruler_desc
   EffectsDescription Greedy_Ruler_effects_desc
   GainMessage Greedy_Ruler_desc
   Epithet Greedy_Ruler_epithet_desc
   Threshold 3
 
   Effect LocalPopularity -3
   Effect TaxCollection 35
   Effect Chivalry -2
   Effect Piety -2
 
;------------------------------------------
Trait GreedyRulerGeneral
 Characters family


 Level Greedy_Ruler_General
   Description Greedy_Ruler_General_desc
   EffectsDescription Greedy_Ruler_General_effects_desc
   Threshold 1 
 
   Effect LocalPopularity -2
   Effect TaxCollection 30
   Effect Chivalry -1


;------------------------------------------

First big block:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pojxh0y45v...anges.txt?dl=0

Second big block:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gnbfqb1jcr...anges.txt?dl=0

(oh, small warning, this doesn't include any changes to trait descriptions, for flavour and the new authority numbers. that's a fairly easy replace function job in Notepad++, but I can't really do it for the team since I have no idea what the devbuild export_vnvs.txt looks like. there are some small compensating changes where I thought they were appropriate for like, troopmorale and stuff, but that stuff never shows up in the UI so I don't think it matters terribly.)

[VineFynn]

So, the ERE changes- basically the changes I make here are making usurpation more likely- but also less painful than normal. I see this as both a balancing measure and a way of making the ERE an interesting play. Since the ERE followed the traditions of their forebears in constantly fighting over the throne without much heed for lineage but rather offices and honours, I have granted a small authority boost to most court office ancillaries, and tweaked the (admittedly somewhat redundant?) CBUR ancillaries. Changes are a little more piecemeal this time so inserting them is just a entry-by-entry thing instead of by blocks. This is the last of my recommendations, barring any brainwaves I have. Those don't sound very healthy, do they?

The ERE changes:

These are the court ancs I changed:

;------------------------------------------ 
Ancillary chancellor_greek 
 Type office
 Transferable 1
 Image tokus_chancellor.tga
 Description chancellor_greek_desc
 EffectsDescription chancellor_greek_effects_desc
 Effect Authority 1
 Effect Law 1
;------------------------------------------ 
Ancillary kings_treasurer_greek 
 Type office
 Transferable 1
 Image tokus_kings_treasurer.tga
 Description kings_treasurer_greek_desc
 EffectsDescription kings_treasurer_greek_effects_desc
 Effect TaxCollection 5
 Effect BribeResistance -5
 Effect Piety -1
 Effect Authority 1
;------------------------------------------ 
Ancillary marshall_greek 
 Type office
 Transferable 1
 Image tokus_marshall.tga
 Description marshall_greek_desc
 EffectsDescription marshall_greek_effects_desc
 Effect TrainingUnits 1
 Effect InfantryCommand 1
 Effect Authority 1
;------------------------------------------ 
Ancillary steward_greek 
 Type office
 Transferable 1
 Image tokus_steward.tga
 Description steward_greek_desc
 EffectsDescription steward_greek_effects_desc
 Effect Loyalty 2
 Effect Authority 1
;------------------------------------------ 
Ancillary chamberlain_greek 
 Type office
 Transferable 0
 Image tokus_chamberlain.tga
 Description chamberlain_greek_desc
 EffectsDescription chamberlain_greek_effects_desc
 Effect Authority 1
;------------------------------------------

These are the CBUR titles I tweaked:

;------------------------------------------
Ancillary Stratopedarches
 Type office
 Transferable 1 
 Image warrior_captain.tga
 Description Stratopedarches_desc
 EffectsDescription Stratopedarches_effects_desc
 Effect TrainingUnits 2 
 Effect LocalPopularity 1
;------------------------------------------
Ancillary Megas_Primikerios
 Type office
 Transferable 0 
 Image warrior_captain.tga
 Description Megas_Primikerios_desc
 EffectsDescription Megas_Primikerios_effects_desc
 Effect Authority 1 
 Effect TroopMorale 1
 Effect LocalPopularity 1
;------------------------------------------
Ancillary Megas_Kontostablos
 Type office
 Transferable 0 
 Image warrior_captain.tga
 Description Megas_Kontostablos_desc
 EffectsDescription Megas_Kontostablos_effects_desc
 Effect Authority 1 
 Effect Looting 30
;------------------------------------------
Ancillary Protalagator 
 Type office
 Transferable 1 
 Image warrior_captain.tga
 Description Protalagator_desc
 EffectsDescription Protalagator_effects_desc
 Effect CavalryCommand 1
 Effect LocalPopularity 1 
;------------------------------------------
Ancillary Protospatharios
 Type office
 Transferable 0 
 Image warrior_naval.tga
 Description Protospatharios_desc
 EffectsDescription Protospatharios_effects_desc
 Effect LocalPopularity 1
 Effect Authority 1
;------------------------------------------
Ancillary emperors_seal 
 Type byzantine_seal
 Transferable 1
 Image privy.tga
 ExcludeCultures middle_eastern, northern_european, southern_european, eastern_european
 Description emperors_seal_desc
 EffectsDescription emperors_seal_effects_desc
 Effect Loyalty 1
 Effect Authority 1
 Effect Piety 1
;---Carrer---------------------------------
Ancillary Domestikos_ton_Scholon_of_east
 Type office_01
 Transferable 0
 Image Domestikos_ton_Scholon.tga
 ExcludeCultures middle_eastern, northern_european, southern_european, eastern_european
 Description Domestikos_ton_Scholon_of_east_desc
 EffectsDescription Domestikos_ton_Scholon_of_east_effects_desc


 Effect TroopMorale 2
 Effect Authority 1

;------------------------------------------
Ancillary Domestikos_ton_Scholon_of_west
 Type office_01
 Transferable 0
 Image Domestikos_ton_Scholon.tga
 ExcludeCultures middle_eastern, northern_european, southern_european, eastern_european
 Description Domestikos_ton_Scholon_of_west_desc
 EffectsDescription Domestikos_ton_Scholon_of_west_effects_desc


 Effect TroopMorale 2
 Effect Authority 1
;------------------------------------------
Ancillary Megas_Domestikos
 Type office_01
 Transferable 0
 Image Megas_Domestikos.tga
 ExcludeCultures middle_eastern, northern_european, southern_european, eastern_european
 Description Megas_Domestikos_desc
 EffectsDescription Megas_Domestikos_effects_desc


 Effect TroopMorale 3
 Effect Authority 2
;---Banners--------------------------------
Ancillary High_officer_scepter
 Type byz_banner
 Transferable 0
 Image scepter.tga
 ExcludeCultures middle_eastern, northern_european, southern_european, eastern_european
 Description High_officer_scepter_desc
 EffectsDescription High_officer_scepter_effects_desc


 Effect TroopMorale 1
 Effect Authority 1
;------------------------------------------

[VineFynn]

Ugh, this ddos protection thing is infuriating. Here are the last of the changes.

Hope this helped yall! I hope to see most, if not all of these changes in a release of SSHIP one day

[Jurand of Cracow]

Ugh, this ddos protection thing is infuriating. Here are the last of the changes.

Hope this helped yall! I hope to see most, if not all of these changes in a release of SSHIP one day

Yes, I know this feeling. You've just seen how much effort I had to put into publishing all my coding on the TWC webpage ;-)
Thanks for all your work, I think it's going to be very useful.

[VineFynn]

Yes, I know this feeling. You've just seen how much effort I had to put into publishing all my coding on the TWC webpage ;-)
Thanks for all your work, I think it's going to be very useful.

Ugh, yeah. I can't imagine doing this on a regular basis, it's more work than the modding..

No problem at all! Thanks for being so receptive. Even if my specific changes aren't implemented, hopefully the documentation I've done will make the system more accessible to you all and it'll be easier to make the changes you want to see.

[VineFynn]

I might look at the loyalty trigger in question.

[Alavaria]

I might look at the loyalty trigger in question.

It should be something to do with the DiscontentGeneral (and anti-trait). I think you can't get disloyal traits while the general is content or whatever, and they can be kept content by sitting in a large city+, or winning battles. And it's possible in SSHIP to endlessly win battles over and over and over until the general literally dies from old age.

For instance, Alavaria hinted once that due to one Loyalty trigger the whole system of generals-losing-loyalty-away-from-home is not working in certain situations (it's perhaps in his Pisa victory campaign thread). I wonder if without this issue he would be able to conquer the whole map, as he did.

It isn't in the thread, because it's a thing that just never appears so there's never a reason to bring it up. Actually, it's exactly conquering that causes the issue though (specifically conquering quickly enough with only a few generals).

If you had to deal with it, eh I guess you could still push in two directions at once... ie: the Faction Leader in one direction, and regular general(s) in the direction where you keep moving the capital.

[Lifthrasir]

By increasing the cost of moving your capital can limit that fact?

[Jurand of Cracow]

Loyalty - you, @Alavaria, have described it at one point, and I had changed the code for myself. I need to check in my files how does it work for me - it's related to the Provincial Titles, what I also hinted in the relevant thread (I hate game features that don't have much an impact on the gameplay, and I would also like to all the feature to be intertwined).

I'll give you know, @VineFynne, about it. Very valuable if you'd deal with it. Indeed, a thorough analysis and fixing of Loyalty would be welcome - to spot how the system works and might be (ab)used. As said - Alavaria's ingenuity in finding the tricks is invaluable ;-)

However, we also need to tell how we would the game to progress and to take shape. If you make the system to make problems at 10 or 15 settlements, then the 199-provinces Alavaria's style wouldn't be possible...

Moving capital - this is something that bothers me. I think it should be very much restricted to keep the flavor of the faction. Did you do it, @Alavaria, in your campaign? Me, I've never done it for the historical-role-playing reasons.

[Alavaria]

Moving capital - this is something that bothers me. I think it should be very much restricted to keep the flavor of the faction. Did you do it, @Alavaria, in your campaign? Me, I've never done it for the historical-role-playing reasons.

Er, twice I think. Once to Constantinople, sometime after already wiping out the faction (I was actually sort of role-playing anexxing the Byzantine "Greeks -they are in my story- rather than for mechanics reasons I think).

And then once more near the very end just because of public order in a couple cities in Armenia. The very last few cities would have caused problems but I had tons of stacks there to kill the invading mongols, so a stack+Dread general sat on them, and the mongols died before I needed to use the reinforcements.

[VineFynn]

As Alavaria says, it actually just seems that winning battles a *way* too high chance to make a general content. It's like, 75%. Personally don't see any reason for winning a battle making a general more content. I'd just delete that trigger tbh. It's "Loyalty_Check_WonBattle".

Distance from capital checks tend to start at "50" and "75". I have no idea what units of measurement those are.

[Alavaria]

Roma Surrectum (using RTW's Barbarian Invasion loyalty system) actually had it where scoring things like Heroic Victories would advance a trait like "Victor" or something which reduced loyalty, representing the successful general thinking they could take power - or something.

[VineFynn]

Unfortunately that doesn't really make much sense in a medieval context.

[Jurand of Cracow]

As Alavaria says, it actually just seems that winning battles a *way* too high chance to make a general content. It's like, 75%. Personally don't see any reason for winning a battle making a general more content. I'd just delete that trigger tbh. It's "Loyalty_Check_WonBattle".

Distance from capital checks tend to start at "50" and "75". I have no idea what units of measurement those are.

Roma Surrectum (using RTW's Barbarian Invasion loyalty system) actually had it where scoring things like Heroic Victories would advance a trait like "Victor" or something which reduced loyalty, representing the successful general thinking they could take power - or something.

Unfortunately that doesn't really make much sense in a medieval context.

I actually think that it does make some sense in the Medieval context. I admit that other sources of legitimacy (hereditary issues, social status) were more important than in the ancient times, but still, the martial legitimacy mattered a lot. Especially in Byzantium (many rebellions were instigated by the successful generals, especially if they're from the family), among the pagans (Cumans, Lithuanians), and I also among the Muslims, I suppose.

Overall, I think that winning the battles should not make a general more Loyal (so I agree with you, @VienFynn). If it doesn't make him not-Loyal, then it should add to his "usurping" tendencies (so I agree with you, @Alavaria).

I guess the 50, 75 are the distances of a FM from the capital, measured in tiles. I still need to check my triggers and ideas.

[Alavaria]

Maybe if being such a "heroic victor" made it possible or more likely to be a usuper. Then again, the character needs to become faction heir and then faction leader to actually usurp...

It also seems weird to have the heir be this usurper person when there are still legal children around... unless they've somehow got a great following among the people and/or military that they are effectively the successor.

-------

The general Loyalty system though, just makes the character turn into a rebel, which is different from being a usurper (who is still under the player's factional control)

[VineFynn]

Alavaria is right- the contentness thing has to do with generals turning into Rebels, not becoming usurpers.

It would be very easy to change the usurper triggers to act differently depending on the faction (and create new usurper triggers for different factions). That's what I did for the Byzantine usurper changes, I just know nothing about the non-Christian politics of the era, so I didn't touch them. Usurpers are not something that for the Catholic factions should run into very frequently imo (not nearly as frequently as the other factions, anyway). The Pope is one reason for this, so I actually think it wouldn't be a terrible idea for excommunication to have some sort of impact there. The only usurper-esque situation I can recall in this time period for a catholic country was the Anarchy in England.

When the new version comes out (whenever that is, still looking forward) I am going to replay Byzantium and start a new thing as a Catholic country (haven't done a catholic country in SSHIP yet), and then look at fine-tuning my recommendations.

Wrt the capital distance thing, 50 tiles would be like, the horizontal length of Greece and a bit, then? At any rate, the obvious solution to *any* balance problem there (and frankly this is a good method when dealing with most personality-related triggers) is to graduate the risk of disloyalty by creating more triggers, increasing the chance of discontentedness the further one is from the capital. The lack of this kind of graduation is endemic in SS, the modders probably (understandably) couldn't be bothered duplicating triggers.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Alavaria is right- the contentness thing has to do with generals turning into Rebels, not becoming usurpers.

I'm absolutely sure it's not the case for the Byzantium (usurpers would come from the side of successful military leaders and perhaps court officials), neither for the pagans (usurping took place against "weak" rulers). I'm not sure about the Muslims. It seems to me that having an office (ie ruling in a region) and being away from the centre of power would turn you rebel.
With the Catholic - let's sit back and think. I don't have a clear picture for now.

It would be very easy to change the usurper triggers to act differently depending on the faction (and create new usurper triggers for different factions). That's what I did for the Byzantine usurper changes, I just know nothing about the non-Christian politics of the era, so I didn't touch them. Usurpers are not something that for the Catholic factions should run into very frequently imo (not nearly as frequently as the other factions, anyway). The Pope is one reason for this, so I actually think it wouldn't be a terrible idea for excommunication to have some sort of impact there. The only usurper-esque situation I can recall in this time period for a catholic country was the Anarchy in England.

I'm not sure about it. Let us think and find examples.
For now I think that in the Catholic reality the inheritance issues played a big role and they're not well represented in the M2TW engine. I mean: marriages among factions should play a much bigger role in the usurping process as the usurpers very often would come with the support of a foreign faction. But there would be usurpers.

Wrt the capital distance thing, 50 tiles would be like, the horizontal length of Greece and a bit, then? At any rate, the obvious solution to *any* balance problem there (and frankly this is a good method when dealing with most personality-related triggers) is to graduate the risk of disloyalty by creating more triggers, increasing the chance of discontentedness the further one is from the capital. The lack of this kind of graduation is endemic in SS, the modders probably (understandably) couldn't be bothered duplicating triggers.

On one hand you're right. On the other: one has to be very careful with crafting it as it demands very good orientation and imagination on how the triggers would work in future. The botched up "Drunk" trait I've dealt with in the past shows one of the pitfalls. The other might be, for instance, the trait system for the princesses that doesn't work properly now due to the "NoGoingBack" bug, and requires much of work to operate in a reasonable way it has been fixed in Titanium).

[Lifthrasir]

For Muslims, that's quite "complex".
For Seljuks, the farer you were from the capital, the more the atabeg was independant from the central power.
On top of that, there were a lot of assassination during and for succession. For instance, a ruler had 3 sons. When he died, his sons were killing each other until only one last. If the son was young (under age to take the power), a kind of tutor was nominated to take care of the affairs and of the kid. Most of the time, the kid was killed and the tutor was becoming the new ruler. This point is also true for Fatimids and probably (need to be checked) for Rûm and Almoravids/Almohads as well. That's one of the reasons why Muslims were also considered as "barbarians" by the catholic Westerners.

So to be accurate for Muslim factions, the best option would be a mix between usurper trait and distance to capital for FM and "outsider" generals (hope I'm understable )