How To: The Ancillary Guide

[Titus le Chmakus]

Well I'm into creating governor titles for the Faerun mod I'm working in. Thanks for the type tip ! I had not seen the interest of it, but now I see it !

Can you simply create any type or does it have to be listed somewhere ? I intend to use 3 types as we need Royal Insigna for the faction leader, then Government title for the factions important characters and finally the Governor title, for each settlement. So can I list them in : king, government, court ? king and court already exist, but government does not ... Will it work ?

Will this work :

Ancillary spokesman_of_bryn_shanders
Type court
Transferable 1
Image placeholder.tga
ExcludedAncillaries spokesman_of_bryn_shanders, {.... all the regions of the map}
Description spokesman_of_bryn_shanders_desc
EffectsDescription spokesman_of_bryn_shanders_effects_desc
Effect Loyalty 1

;------------------------------------------
Trigger spokesman_of_bryn_shanders
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition EndedInSettlement
and SettlementName Settlement_001
and not I_WorldwideAncillaryExists spokesman_of_bryn_shanders
and IsGeneral
and not HasANCType court

AcquireAncillary spokesman_of_bryn_shanders


I hope it is fine ... And my only problem is : what if a region is given by a faction to another ... The previous governor will keep his title until he dies ... Is there any way to remove it ?

[Gigantus]

Look at it this way - titles were usually life long and often there were several claimants to it. I would replace the Worldwide condition with Factionwide to mimic that - when the settlement gets lost to another faction the governor of that faction will hold that title now as well.

Removing ancillaries is difficult - unlike traits it requires a selecting of the character to execute the command, and the selecting has it's coding challenges.

Edit: I vaguely recall that Rome Total Realism had something worked out where 'slot reservation' was concerned as they required one slot for the promotions (Tribune, Senator etc) - they also had a script in place on how to remove\replace that promotional ancillary.

[Titus le Chmakus]

Look at it this way - titles were usually life long and often there were several claimants to it. I would replace the Worldwide condition with Factionwide to mimic that - when the settlement gets lost to another faction the governor of that faction will hold that title now as well.

Removing ancillaries is difficult - unlike traits it requires a selecting of the character to execute the command, and the selecting has it's coding challenges.

Edit: I vaguely recall that Rome Total Realism had something worked out where 'slot reservation' was concerned as they required one slot for the promotions (Tribune, Senator etc) - they also had a script in place on how to remove\replace that promotional ancillary.

I see what you mean but this means if a settlement is taken by a faction, the governor of the previous faction will keep the ancillary despite not beign the governor anymore ?! And I want the ancillary to be transferable (not like IRL). The faction leader can decide to transfer the governorship to another character (easily done by Transferable 0 or 1)

And the same will happen if you give the region to another faction won't it ?

How about when a character becomes faction leader and already has 8 ancillaries ?

[Withwnar]

Can you simply create any type ... ?

Yes, I said that earlier. If you wish to use a new "government" one then simply say "Type government". It doesn't need defining anywhere.

And it's HasAncType not HasANCType. Pretty sure the misspelling (capitals) would cause an error.

[Titus le Chmakus]

Yes, I said that earlier. If you wish to use a new "government" one then simply say "Type government". It doesn't need defining anywhere.

And it's HasAncType not HasANCType. Pretty sure the misspelling (capitals) would cause an error.

Thanks for that.

[Gigantus]

In RL the previous governor will still claim that he is 'the rightful' governor even though the title has now been assumed by the new faction's character. To actually remove the ancillary would require a test of settlement ownership against the faction type of the 'wearer' of that ancillary. Followed by selection of the character to remove the ancillary. It's feasible with a small number of ancillaries - but if you want to do that for every settlement you end up with a minimum of 200 monitors per faction and that will put a sizeable dent into your script processing time as you cannot remove the ancillary via EDCT triggers.

Transferable means that the ancillary can be physically transferred by the player via a drag\drop action. The action cannot be scripted, only a removal and new issue is possible.

[Titus le Chmakus]

Yup, I know about the drag and drop, that was my goal as we consider the Governor titles to be passable to another (a faction leader can nominate who he wants).

What are the monitors ? I never heared of that. Is it compulsory for the ancillaries to work ? I had thought I only had to modify the EDA, EA and EDAenums. And if I understand what you say, it might be too long to go to the next turn with so many things to test. So if the previous governor keeps his anc., then it is not a too big problem, we can survive that.

To remove the anc. we might try another solution that could be also handy : do you think it is possible to sell some anc. ? A system based on a level of market built in the cities that would allow anc. to be sold. It could be linked to the Type as I could create some levels of items. For example, in a minor city, the market level should be 3, so in this market the player could sell max level 3 items (we have 5 levels of items in our mod). As we intend to use only our ancillaries and not reuse any from the vanilla, do you think it is possible ? This would allow free space and it is very much in the lore of our mod (based on the RPG D&D3.5/Neverwinter Nights/Baldur's Gate).

[Withwnar]

Monitors are in campaign_script.txt, the script. If you want ancillaries removed then you'll need some script, if you don't then you don't need to involve the script file.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...illary-mission

To remove the anc. we might try another solution that could be also handy : do you think it is possible to sell some anc. ?

You still have the problem of how to technically remove them. It will be difficult. I'd first be deciding on whether to bother, before thinking of ways to initiate the removals.

[Titus le Chmakus]

Well, as we intend to give that bit of D&D RPG in our mod, I think it is worth trying to create that selling function of items. It could be fun to be able to get some items after a battle, on the body of the dead generals, same as you loot in D&D/Neverwinter/Baldur's Gate (dunno if you have ever played it once ?) and then sell them on the market !
Do you think it is feasable ? If we create a script that would apply to all the anc. Type items (and not the governor anc.) ... I think we would need to use your Character Selected event, as it is the only way to do it. We will need it for all the characters, during the whole game, so labeled or unique named characters is not possible.

[Withwnar]

Feasible, yes, but still involved. If you need help with it, i.e. discussion, then it would be better to start your own thread.

[Titus le Chmakus]

If I give an anc. Effect Attack 4, who will it affect ? The general only ? Him+his bodyguards or Him+his entire army ?

[Withwnar]

It increases his Command when it's him who initiates the battle, by +4 in your case.

[Titus le Chmakus]

Arf su*** I wanted to increase the attack of him+his bodyguards, not his command ability. Just like if he had a bronze sword due to the Swordsmith guild.

Is there any way of doing it ? And the same for the defence ?

[Titus le Chmakus]

Any idea on Effects that could improve attack ?

[Titus le Chmakus]

And another question : if an army has more than one general, does anyone know if the second general can loot ancillaries or is only the 1st general tested for PostBattle ?

[Gigantus]

I seem to recall that postbattle only applies to the leading general, but can't confirm it. That would require a test with simple conditions that easily apply to both generals.

[Titus le Chmakus]

Thanks, how about the Effects, is there any way of increasing bodyguards attack or defense with an anc. ?

[Titus le Chmakus]

Can I set 2 triggers for the same anc. ? I mean, I would like to do have two different conditions that could activate a trigger.

I would like to have one when a general kills another one in a battle (and wins the battle) and another one, when a general takes an ennemy settlement. These two triggers would be for acquiering the same anc.

[Withwnar]

Yes. Or as many as you like.

Thanks, how about the Effects, is there any way of increasing bodyguards attack or defense with an anc. ?

No. HitPoints is the only 'stat' Effect available (traits or ancs). I thought that was said already; another thread maybe.

[Titus le Chmakus]

Ok thanks mate ! And as far as I've seen, for the 2 triggers applying to the same anc., they have to have a different name ?!