Roving Buildings

[GrnEyedDvl]

This script has two new buildings that randomly move around the map. I am currently using a bard and a merchant, but you can use whatever buildings you like and assign whatever bonuses you wish. You can even then script events around them using the BuildingExists condition, or traits and ancillaries. I didnt make new building images so it just shows the RTW barracks for the building, but the text descriptions are correct.
Currently this is only setup for the 7 settlements in England, I want some input from people before I expand it to include all vanilla settlements. Those of you creating a new mod would have to change all the settlement names anyways:

London
Caernarvon
Dublin
Inverness
Edinburgh
York
Nottingham

The bard/merchant is placed in two settlements at the beginning of the game. You can increase the number of bards/merchants by changing one line in the script, and it is possible to have multiple bards or merchants in the same settlement, which doubles the bonuses. I ran some tests with 7 and it works fine, but with only 7 settlements sometimes one settlement will have a ton of them. On a map with lots of regions it shouldnt happen that often.

When the building is created in a settlement owned by the player, an event pops up to notify you. This can easily be disabled by commenting out the historic_event lines in the script. The buildings cannot be destroyed, which is useful if you want to have a building that has penalties instead of bonuses.
The buildings will move under these conditions:

high_taxes - 50% chance
extortionate_taxes - 70% chance
rioting - 60% chance
revolting - 80% chance
plague - 100% chance
under_siege - 100% chance, note this one only works if there is a named character in the settlement
25% chance of moving if all other conditions are false

DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS SCRIPT IF YOU ARE NEW TO MODDING, THIS IS THE BETA VERSION!
This script is fairly long and complicated compared to some of the other stuff I have released, and if you cant follow it and you try to make changes you will break it.

To install:
Copy the contents of the included text files into your current text files. Do not just replace your files with mine. Remember to delete the strings.bin files.

[SigniferOne]

Just fyi, you don't need to delete strings.bin, the game just writes over them.

[GrnEyedDvl]

You sure about that? I seem to remember having a CTD on a map that had missing region info because I didnt delete the strings.bin file. Maybe I am misremembering lol

[SigniferOne]

Wait... the regions strings.bin maybe. I never have to deal with it so I don't know. Every other one, export_buildings.txt, quotes.txt, what have you, the .strings.bin is generated automatically.

[Gigantus]

Never had any problems with the string.bin files. Whenever the txt file was of a newer date the bin got created automatically. That's why I only include the txt files when I upload something from the data\txt folder, even the imperial_regions.......

[Rorarii]

GRnEyedDvl .. I'm a little lost on the benefit of a moving building, say compared to a traits on a moving character?

R

[Gigantus]

A roving building will affect a settlement if it has the right conditions. It should be of great interest to players that are more into the RPG side of the game or are trying to play a peaceful game with attention to infrastructure.

[GrnEyedDvl]

There are several. The most important being that the player doesnt control where the building goes, its random. I like this as so many things are beyond the control of the government even today.

As Gigantus said, it can affect the settlement depending on the building traits you use. You can assign bonuses/penalties to growth, income, health, whatever. I actually use something similar to represent crime and crime rates, with penalties.

You could use it to recruit a rare mercenary, or other units.

You could use it for some trait/ancillary stuff.

You can use it just for flavor, so every city is not exactly the same.

You can use it to represent a person, not a building. We cant create new character types, but we can create new building types and move them around the map like they are characters.

I thought of this when I was doing some stuff on my Wheel of Time mod. There are lots of transient people in the novels.

Tinkers, they are like gypsies. You never know when a group will show up.
Smugglers, they go where the trade is, and you can assign income and law penalties.
Hunters for the Horn, call the Hunt event and they start appearing at random.


Or create an informer, then use the reveal_tile console command on certain events to get a peek behind the fog of war.

Or use them to actually spawn a new character on the strat map. If building X exists in settlement Y and Z condition is met, spawn new general for whatever faction owns the settlement. You could do the same with an emergent faction.

Probably lots of other stuff I havent thought of yet.

[Furin]

There are several. The most important being that the player doesnt control where the building goes, its random. I like this as so many things are beyond the control of the government even today.

As Gigantus said, it can affect the settlement depending on the building traits you use. You can assign bonuses/penalties to growth, income, health, whatever. I actually use something similar to represent crime and crime rates, with penalties.

You could use it to recruit a rare mercenary, or other units.

You could use it for some trait/ancillary stuff.

You can use it just for flavor, so every city is not exactly the same.

You can use it to represent a person, not a building. We cant create new character types, but we can create new building types and move them around the map like they are characters.

I thought of this when I was doing some stuff on my Wheel of Time mod. There are lots of transient people in the novels.

Tinkers, they are like gypsies. You never know when a group will show up.
Smugglers, they go where the trade is, and you can assign income and law penalties.
Hunters for the Horn, call the Hunt event and they start appearing at random.


Or create an informer, then use the reveal_tile console command on certain events to get a peek behind the fog of war.

Or use them to actually spawn a new character on the strat map. If building X exists in settlement Y and Z condition is met, spawn new general for whatever faction owns the settlement. You could do the same with an emergent faction.

Probably lots of other stuff I havent thought of yet.

You could use it to simulate a temporary illness (neg health effects) like dysentery. You could even change the script a little bit and create a "spreading" illness travelling from region to region, maybe splitting up into different regions and then cooling down after a while.

Granted this can also be done with remove_population but with the building (for example hospital, dysentery quarantaine camp whatever) you can add a nice picture and a description.

I had that idea when I read the original thread about the gypsy camp.

Or you could use it to assign temporary traits together with the buildings effect. For example a relic that is handed from city to city, and the governor gets the "keeper of the relic" trait, and looses it once the "building" changes the settlement.

[Dimitri_Harkov]

Nice one! +rep

[SigniferOne]

GED, your latest batch of applications have really shown the excellence of this idea, so great job.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Those are good ideas too. +rep

There is another idea floating around out there that I cannot make public yet, but I will soon.

[Tilarium]

I really really like this idea, there's so much potential. Expanding on the merc idea, you can make a building that pops around the map and allows recruiting of forigen mercs. So the spanish one comes to the English and offers the services of his men. Now the English can hire some of the spanish troops to fight in his armies, Highlanders bouncing around the map hiring themselves out to the English and the French. Irish mercs willing to fight for your crown for the right price.

[Rorarii]

What I would like is moveable resources - ie cattle.

In a herding societies, stealing cattle and moving them to hidden locations is par-for the course. I was thinking of new units types - brigands, or raiders who would quickly move into a neighbouring territory, steal their cattle (if not being guarded by shepherds) and move them within their borders. Of course cattle need to be moved around to find new pasture so cannot stay hidden / safe forever.

I'm still deciding if Merchants could be Shepherds / brigands or create a new military unit?

R

[Gigantus]

I don't think you can script to move (delete\create) resources.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Hmmm...

I have a version of this that only moves to adjacent regions that might work for something like that. But its MUCH longer. Basically you have to script each settlement to have a choice for each region that borders it. You could use something like that for cattle herds if you wanted, then use the Spy to steal it, since the Spy is the only agent that can enter an enemy settlement.

[Augustus Lucifer]

I could see something like the cattle idea working. Except you'd need to make "cattle" a roving building also, give it bonuses to growth in the settlement or similar, and then make it so it moves on the conditions there's the roving building "Brigand" in the settlement. Using roving buildings to move roving buildings is the logical next step in this fluent interaction. I don't know how all the parameters work and such, but this should be possible, perhaps even more detailed along the lines of following another building.

Might it be possible to, after the game runs the check for whether or not the building will move, have it set a counter and wait a turn, then run a check for where the "Brigand" building is located, check the counter and then have it move to the city where the Brigand is. Needlessly complicated, but it seems possible at least in theory, and might achieve the end Rorarii is looking for. Even then it wouldn't be flawless though, you'd either need a building brigand1(only one) which affects cattle1(not limited to one) etc etc ad infinitum, or you'd have problems with multiple brigand buildings existing, effecting multiple cattle, and so it wouldn't be hidden in the place of the protagonist, but just any random place with a brigand.

It would also create a ripple effect, where the brigand just has a roving cattle horde following him every turn(though that's almost too hilarious to pass up!). This wouldn't be so terrible an effect if you wanted to have say a "Confucius" and "Disciple" set of roving buildings, and have all the disciples follow him around, so it's worth exploring anyways...

[Rorarii]

I might just place fixed herd animals close to borders, for herders/Brigands (merchants) to battle over.

thanks anyway.

R

Romulus served his apprenticeship as a brigand .. good training for becoming a ruler!