Shadow Factions!

**dvk901** · June 02, 2007, 10:14 AM

OK, here's something you're gonna like a lot.

On a whim, since I play with the BI exe all the time, I decided to see if I could make an existing 'in-game' faction 'shadow' another in-game faction...just to see what would happen. So I made Parthia shadow Seleucid, started a campaign as Seleucid, took a bunch of troops out of cities and hit end turn.

Guess what? All the rioting regions went instantly over to Parthia!!

So apparently, if you just play with the BI.exe, this will work.

**tone** · June 02, 2007, 10:18 AM

So presumably you could make the slave faction or free peoples faction shadow all the others, depending on region? - if anywhere other than Greek go to slave, otherwise free peoples?

**dvk901** · June 02, 2007, 10:28 AM

Well, as Squid wanted, you could have the Free People shadow Greek factions, a faction shadow a 'specific' faction (like Parthia and Seleucid), and all others would be shadowed by the Slaves by default.

And here's another interesting thing....this must've been built into RTW patch v1.5, because it works whether you have BI or not!!
I just tried the same thing running normal RTW.exe....settlements defected to Parthia as before. Is that weird or what?

**Deus ret.** · June 02, 2007, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by dvk901

And here's another interesting thing....this must've been built into RTW patch v1.5, because it works whether you have BI or not!!
I just tried the same thing running normal RTW.exe....settlements defected to Parthia as before. Is that weird or what?

I suspect another cause. Many regions have something like an 'original_owner' spec, hidden resource, trait or whatever; this indicates whom it will rebel to if it does so. In RTR it was rather common to see Parthia owning Bostra/Arabia besides its starting provinces and Armenia getting a city in the Indus valley via a revolt there (and a bunch of darn cheap units

). The reason is that these settlements were taken by someone but revolted - and instead of going back to the rebels, they joined their 'original owner'. I'm not sure whether this was built-in deliberately or if it's just a game feature.....

**rory o'kane** · June 03, 2007, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by Deus ret.

I suspect another cause. Many regions have something like an 'original_owner' spec, hidden resource, trait or whatever; this indicates whom it will rebel to if it does so. In RTR it was rather common to see Parthia owning Bostra/Arabia besides its starting provinces and Armenia getting a city in the Indus valley via a revolt there (and a bunch of darn cheap units

). The reason is that these settlements were taken by someone but revolted - and instead of going back to the rebels, they joined their 'original owner'. I'm not sure whether this was built-in deliberately or if it's just a game feature.....

i vaguely remember in one of the older versions a bit of africa going to pergamum (cause it's replaced numidia), and someone hadnt taken away that hidden owner thing...

**cherryfunk** · June 02, 2007, 10:56 AM

Very cool -- this would allow us to do what Squid was intending with his loyalty idea, right? So if you capture Athens, and it rebels against you, it joins the 'Free Greek' faction. Very interesting.

As far as Parthia shadowing Seleucia, I'm not sure that's a good idea. What if a western Seleucid region rebels, like Ancara? It would be very odd for it to suddenly switch to Parthia, which might be a thousand miles away.

Now, the Seleucids being shadowed by the Free Greeks might work, since the Seleucids were a Greek culture. Same with the Bosporans.

**rory o'kane** · June 02, 2007, 11:03 AM

i think DVK meant the eastern regions of Seleucid territory- as he implies this can be done on a territory by territory basis (at least that's the impression i got of it) the western seleucid territories could be shadowed by the greeks, and the Parthians in the east.... or is it one shadow faction per faction, not per territory?

**dvk901** · June 02, 2007, 11:47 AM

No, you can't specify regions that will rebel, that would be WAY to intuitive for a CA game.

And Cherry, 'On a whim'...just means as an experiment. I didn't mean to imply that's the way it should be. (Although, if I had my way, since I despise the Seleucids as a wasted faction slot [that oughta start an arguement!

] I'd have them rebel to Pergamum the first turn!)

Just kidding.

**Squid** · June 02, 2007, 06:38 PM

You don't actually need the BI.exe for this.

**dvk901** · June 03, 2007, 04:09 PM

I know it's working because one of Seleucids regions defected to Parthia...in Anatolia! I think it was Cilicia, which by default was owned by Seleucid. My bubble kinda burst when Deus ret. mentioned the 'original_owner'...because that COULD be a cause. However, seeing that region go over to Parthia when it had no ownership or cultural presence there convinces me this works.

A good thing for Squid's plans.

rory o'kane, THAT was a 'faction_creator' issue, which I tried solving by removing 'numidia's' owenership of anything in Africa. However, Pergamum starts at war with the Free People, and I had witnessed them sending an army down there. I don't think it was 'rebelling' to them, I think the combination of being at war
with them, AND their 'ownership' of the region caused them to go take it.

**Angel** · June 04, 2007, 10:08 AM

Well this Shadow factions idea sounds great. Other mods are impenting them or already did. I believed RTR is and SPQR already done it. I cant wait this will make campiagns alot more interesting.

**dvk901** · June 20, 2007, 10:28 AM

Ok, now I feel like an absolute idiot, because I caused my own problem. I started having a persistant impassable CTD in 186BC and struggled to find out why I couldn't get past it. Blamed it on a lot of things, but the culprit turned out to be the shadow_faction statement I had inadvertently left in my game concerning Parthia. Once I played the same saved game in regular RTW (without BI), I got past the CTD and was notified that Parthia had been eliminated.

So this does not work, and actually, wouldn't function in any way we'd like anyway.

**cherryfunk** · June 20, 2007, 12:38 PM

Ah... see that's were resurgent factions would be cool... suddenly Parthia is ressurected!

**dvk901** · June 20, 2007, 01:15 PM

Originally Posted by cherryfunk

Ah... see that's were resurgent factions would be cool... suddenly Parthia is ressurected!

I know....too bad.

**cherryfunk** · June 20, 2007, 01:59 PM

Quick! Let's switch everything over to BI!

**dvk901** · June 20, 2007, 02:11 PM

Originally Posted by cherryfunk

Quick! Let's switch everything over to BI!

There may still be hope...as I was 'pondering' this problem, I remembered that BI has certain factions as 're-emergent'.......which may be the solution. And sure enough, the two shadow factions in BI, empire east and west rebels, not only shadow the east and west, but both are 're-emergent'. Duh! They would have to be, because if you killed them off, the next time a city rebelled it's supposed to go to them. I had not put this statement in descr_strat.txt, so it could well be that the reason it CTD'd was because they couldn't 're-emerge' as they would have to. So I'll give that a try.