Faction Standing Problem

Hello.

Someone might remember seeing me asking a nearly identical question a couple of months ago. Indeed, in the previous occasion I was given a solution that I was too busy to test at the time and soon forgot to do until the post was forgotten. Now I have looked back to it and attested that the proposed solution did not work.

Explaining myself, in the descr_strat file I've tried to establish starting diplomatic relations between the factions as any mods do, and verified in my campaign that most of the relations I wrote are featured correctly, but a sizeable minority of cases exist in which the relations return as neutral (called "Reasonable" by the game) even though I have established that the two factions should hate each other. I have been unable to detect any typo or other element to explain why the game ignores some relation lines but not others.

Following advice (I think from Gigantus), I deleted everything from the descr_faction_standing file in order to make sure that the starting relations were not being altered by said file, and in doing so I verified that nothing changes. The error persists.

Giving an example, in my descr_strat I have:

Quote:

---

faction_standings france, -1.0 england
faction_standings england, -1.0 france

---

Nonetheless, france and england start the game with "Reasonable" relations instead of "Abysmal".

I remember vaguely that the same problem sometimes occurred in RTW, in regards to starting alliances and wars.

Is it possible that I really am the only player who frequently bumps into this problem? Doesn't anyone know what causes this? Probably some rule regarding how the descr_strat file is read by the game.

Any chance of duplicated entries in descr_strat? Simply test by only having those two lines in the descr_strat plus your 'empty' descr_faction_standings file.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gigantus

Any chance of duplicated entries in descr_strat? Simply test by only having those two lines in the descr_strat plus your 'empty' descr_faction_standings file.

---

Is the effect cancelled if the same line appears twice? I don't think I've repeated anything, but I'll do as you suggest just in case.

Update 1: I've removed all relations lines except those two, and the result is that the two factions now start with "Terrible" relations instead of "Reasonable". Still not sure why the change happened, and why their relations are not "Abysmal" as I think they should be.

Update 2: Common sense had led me to believe that "Reasonable" relations correspond to neutral (value 0), but my faction now has "Amiable" relations with all the other factions which are not england, which leads me to believe that "Amiable" is what truly corresponds to neutral. Let's add yet this other point to the confusion.

Update 3: To test your theory about duplicates and see if I could "strengthen" the desired effect by repeating the same line twice, I did just that and now france and england start with "Abysmal" relations instead of "Terrible". Moreover, now their relations with other factions do indeed start as "Reasonable" rather than "Amiable". Someone please tell me what the hell is happening lol.

I think having a really bad relationship with one faction puts a damper on how other factions see\treat you. Didn't expect that to be hard coded if you have blanked the descr_faction_standing file as suggested.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gigantus

I think having a really bad relationship with one faction puts a damper on how other factions see\treat you. Didn't expect that to be hard coded if you have blanked the descr_faction_standing file as suggested.

---

Yeah, apparently that is hardcoded. At least some bit of it.

But it doesn't totally solve the problem. What I'm getting is the game overlooking some of the relations established in a seemingly arbitrary manner. I still get the same faction to have very good relations with some and terrible with others.

Update: Considering the (so far apparent) lack of solutions, I've thought of trying a different approach. Could I theoretically edit the descr_faction_standing file to set the starting relations the way I want them to be?

For example, could I make an entry that makes england hate france for no other reason than the turn has started? And then have this trigger stop working for the future turns? I know almost nothing about editting descr_faction_standing...

Try giving every relation its own line.

So instead of

Code:

---

faction_standings        hre,        -1.00            england, france, slave

---

do this:

Code:

---

faction_standings        hre,        -1.00            england
faction_standings        hre,        -1.00            france
faction_standings        hre,        -1.00            slave

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Serious Potato

Try giving every relation its own line.

So instead of

Code:

---

faction_standings        hre,        -1.00            england, france, slave

---

do this:

Code:

---

faction_standings        hre,        -1.00            england
faction_standings        hre,        -1.00            france
faction_standings        hre,        -1.00            slave

---

---

An interesting alternative. I'll try it out.

Update: It worked! Thanks very much for this suggestion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by es157

Update: It worked! Thanks very much for this suggestion.

---

cool finding - rep for the potato