How to create an emerging faction with Barons Alliance script

[Polycarpe]

ok, this is a dumb question here, does shadow faction count towards the faction cap? if it does then why bother with it and not just a seperate emergent script? if it doesn't then... why the hell doesn't more people use it ?

Yes it does count as a faction. This script is mostly made for smaller scale mod, large scale such as SS will not really exploit all the advantage of that script.

[Gigantus]

The faction counts towards the total
It's a tricky set up - that's why everybody prefers a regular emergence with scripted conditions.

[Super-Soviet]

If you just add the faction on the campaign map at the beginning, will it still shadow?

[EmperorGurkiman]

sorry I know you might not read this its been a year but when I do it it says my turkish faction leader is on an incorrect tile no matter where I put him and when I roll back my changes to before this tutorial he works fine. Any ideas

[Jadli]

Was testing stuff (as usually)

Some things I noticed and didnt seem mentioned anywhere...

Firstly, in faction_emerge line the true/false part that decides whether there will be an event message announcing shadow fation. Though, I havent seen what the txt entries are mentioned anywhere, so there you go:
its "shadow_faction_appears" and "rebel_revolt_surpressed" in event_strings and event_titles (plus some other entries next to those). They are missing descriptions for other cultures than BA's for descriptions, so in case you wanna use it you gotta get there some txt, unless you have there the usual "NOT MEANT FOR THIS CULTURE" or stuff like this. Though it seems this message appars only for other factions than the target faction. Thought that might be happening only because at what point of turn does the mergence happen (if its end turn, I suppose it would not appear to you)

BTW, surpressed entry is for failure of the emergence, when no settlements have PO enough to revolt, thus the emergence doesnt happen (I tested that it can trully happen) which is good. Kinda comforting to know the game wouldnt crash or something because of unfulfilled conditions

Also, from what I can see, it seems to me, that the emergence is local in a sense, that when it happens, it basically happens in one settlement (the one with lowest PO likely), and then it checks the neighboring regions (and likely not neighboring regions of the neighboring regions), so the starting settlements of the emergent faction are always next to each other. So potentionally, the emergent faction can be very lucky or unlucky, depending on what settlement has the lowest PO. If its some island, or simply a region bordering high PO settlement, they get only one starting settlement. It seems that never they start with two regions no text to each other. So its hard for them to receive many settlements (which is kinda good). Though, I suppose that its better to set PO requirements pretty high, as the target faction cant loose many settlements anyway , if you dont want the emergent faction to likely start with only one settlement. Its probably good to pick a target settlement with via making sure PO is lowest in there (the best solution from other thread is likely adding negative PO efect line to the walls, and enable them by an event counter)

Though, does anyone have an idea what decides how many units do the rebelled settlements get? For one faction of mine, they always got relatively plenty, while the other doesnt receive anything... I assume its more question about what decides how many units do "normal" rebels towns get? I assume it could have something to do with descr_rebel_faction?

Also, interestingly it seems to me that no characters rebel from the target faction to the emerging faction at the turn of emergence. But of course they may revolt in the following turns, so not a big deal

BTW, if you want the emergent faction to have more settlements, you can just write the faction_emerge line multiple times, as it works een when the faction is already emerged. Or just repeat it a for a turn or two

And also a good note is that the faction_emerge works for any factions, not just shadow faction (works only for the same culture likely tho)... and since you can use for alive factions as well, you can use it to take away settlements from one faction to naother... or also to the rebels, if you wanted to simulate in civil wars or something (imho, thats all known, just summarizing additional info for this guide)

EDIT

It seems that If a settlement is given to other faction that doesnt have stuff in common with the target faction, the settlement doesnt have a garison, so perhaps the reason why my faction dont get new garisons but empty cities (while the other faction does) is because there is missing connection... though they fations are shadowing each other, have the same roster, culture, religion etc so not sure...

EDIT2

Nvm, about garissons, it depends on religion to some extent (so also on unrest, and thus on descr_rebel_factions indeed)

[Gigantus]

Units may depend on whether the receiving faction can recruit them in that settlement.

[Jadli]

Hm...

Anyways, I might have figured out what does the parameter "max_order_dropoff" in faction_emerge line does! It seems that it affects how many neighboring regions (to the source settlement) joins the rebellion. For lower values less settlements join than with higher values... The max value is probably 1.0 (in BA script they used only 0.85 and 0.9), as increasing over 1.0 doesnt seem add more settlements. I assume it might be some kinda of percentage by which the PO of neighboring settlements can be higher than the source settlement's PO. Somehow in combination with the "max_order_threshold_surrounding" (that might affect just the selection of the source settlements and not whether they join), neverthless, when increased to 0.99/1.0, it doesnt seem to rebel all neighboring settlements, so there is some threshold over which it cant go I suppose.

[Jadli]

Well, found one issue, trying to solve it...

Im using some of the shadow factions as starting factions regularly (so both, "shadowed_by" and "shadowing" factions are in game), however there seems to be a CTD, when you play as the shadowing faction and you directly destroy the "shadowed_by" faction. When you kill the faction via console (when playing as the "shadowing" faction) or when the faction dies and you are playing as completely different faction, there doesnt seems to be a CTD, so trying to figure out the cause... (unless someone perhaps have an experience with this? )

[Jadli]

Actually, it always destroy the shadowing factions (when the "Shadowed_by" faction is destroyed)... the difference is you can continue the game if you are not the shadowing faction. I was not precise before, there is no CTDD when you play as the shadowing faction in the moment of destroy the shadow_faction, but.... the game first takes a few seconds to figure out what to do, then it seemingly gives everything you own to the destroyed "shadowed_by" faction and tells you that you failed winning conditions... I tried this also in brtitannia DLC as Barons Alliance, and the result is the same....

So, does anyone know how to have actual playable shadowing factions?

[Jadli]

Figured it out!

The Solution is to not use "shadowed_by factionname" parameter in descr_sm_factions at all, its behind this big bug. From my tests, I dont recommend anyone to use it under any circumstances, because as I said, destruction of such faction seems to always lead to destruction of shadowing faction as well.

Honestly, not even sure what is the shadowed_by parameter supposed to be doing, seems everything is done by "shadowing" parameter instead - emergence, characters/settlement rebelling to the shadowing faction, re emergence etc. You can also use it for factions to shadow each other, by giving the parameter to both factions, so the characters/settlements can rebel to both sides ( shadowed_by doesnt do the rebelling)... Seems the only thing shadowed_by is doing (except the bug) is that when a shadowing faction destroys the shadowed_by faction, there is the scroll saying "Old Order Collapses"... with using only shadowing parameters, there is only the "Revolt Surpressed" scrolls, but thats really just a minor thing... you can easily edit it or make your own scrolls...

BTW, if anyone wants to create a re-emerging starting (playable) faction, its extremely easy. Just add "shadowing factionname" parameter into descr_sm_factions, and "re-emergent" into the faction's header in descr_strat, and its done

[Callistonian]

@Jadli - Good information. Thank you for posting all your findings here. I have a few questions.

1) Can you explain why regions in Eastern England revolt to Wales in the Britannia campaign? I like raiding as Norway, sacking these settlements and moving on, and I've noticed that they revolt to Wales. Wales overran England long ago, so all these regions are mostly Welsh culture (religion). That's the only reason I can think of that they would revolt to Wales instead of England or rebels (the England faction is still alive as well). I haven't extracted Britannia's descr_sm_factions file, but I'm guessing Wales isn't shadowing Norway or England and since Wales is still alive, there can't be faction_emerge at play here.

2) I don't fully understand your proposal for using shadow factions and re_emergent for reviving a dead faction. How would you ensure that the faction only revives in their original regions? Wouldn't they emerge at whatever settlements have low public order (below a threshold) owned by the faction they're shadowing? Is it possible for a faction to shadow multiple factions? Even if that is possible, emerging the dead faction at a random settlement on the map with low public order doesn't seem very desirable.

[Jadli]

1) Very interesting, well, it must be due to the religion (perhaps somehow combined with they fact they owned it before you) as you say. Rebel factions (in descr_rebel_factions) are creating (religious?) unrest (the "chance" is creating it), at least the "peasant_revolt" type, so there are is definitely something going on. Generally, settlements that rebel dontalways go to "home faction" (the faction the region is loyal to, set in descr_regions), so there are definitely some calculations based on religon or something like that going, deciding about to whom it goes. But very interesting is this situation with Wales, do you happen to know much religion did they in the settlements when it rebelled?

I checked the files, of course Wales aint shadowing and Eastern England settlement are loyal to England... Britannia changed a lot stuff with rebellions and and religion conversion (they enabled governor conversion for example, not sure if its in other dlcs), so i asume that helped Wales.

2)Well, there are always pros and cons in medieval, nothing ever works 100% the way you would want it to . Im not saying it should be used for every faction (but it could). Of course, you first have to look at situation in your mod/lore and for what is it possibly sensible to do it. In my mod, Im currently using this for three couples of shadowing factions, and these factions in each couple are moreless part of the same realm, often in civil war fighting for the the crown, etc. So for that it is perfect. Based on my recent experience, Im probably going to expand it to more factions soon. For me the most sexy part is the shadowing, that the generals from each side can "rebel" to the other side, mostly based on authorities of leaders of each faction (you can play with the values in descr_campaign_db), one of the most interesting mechanics in the whole game in my opinion, the re-emerge is "just a bonus" , but as it seems, it might turn out even better after all.

-Location: Well you cant directly, (btw, if only a general would revolt, without a settlement, there would be no emergence ofc, as the faction uses the normal family tree, etc) but you can do a lot. Firstly, descr_rebel_factions can do a lot, because the "chance" increases the unrest (each point is 5%) for every owner except the "original one". Then slightly increasing revolt chances in descr_campaign_db perhaps. And increase disloyalty for governors of those settlements, and more importantly perhaps give them some traits hugely increasing unrest, etc and you have it. A few simple triggers would do it (for example based on kings authority, or whenever there is a new leader, etc)... and stuff like that.
You dont necessarily have to do that, again depends on what kind of factions would you be using this for, for some factions it wouldnt be a big issue where they emerge, for some yes. And also of course depends on the map... whether the original faction has lands somewhere by the edge of map, and where does the faction generally expand. You cant fully stop the shadowing rebellions to rarely happen exactly where you want, but generally its pretty rare that settlements actually revolt (generals do, but that doesnt cause the emergence), so based on the suggestions I wrote above I would say it can be pretty safe and much simpler than making complex script with "faction_emerge" etc.
- Threshold - Im not exactly sure what you mean, but I have a feeling you are talking about the faction_emerge public order threshold? If yes, then I have not been clear enough. The beauty of this is, you dont need complex "faction_emerge" scripts, its just a matter of changing a few lines (two is the minimum - "shadowing" and "re_emergent"). Though you could of course use it all together, to create even more interesting and dynamic campaigns. If you meant simply the settlements that revolt, then I covered that before.
- Multiple shadowing - Yes, multiple factions can shadow multiple factions. selviue covered some of this stuff in his guide, but its unfortunately very hard to make sense of, and he was wrong about a few details it seems...

Neverthless what he was somehow coming at is that if you use multiple shadowing, then you can probably somehow affect which faction emerge and when/where, combined with "home regions" and stuff like that (perhaps the religion actually plays the dominant part... it also affects what and how many units the revolt receive I believe, at least for the shadowing faction emergence, combined with availiblity in the settlement as Gig said). The factions can also shadow rebels of course, I have been planning to test this stuff.... I think that if there are multiple shadowing factions to a faction, it should logically then mainly depend on the home regions and religion, but I need to to test this properly.

The most perfect situation would be, where all the factions would be shadowed by rebels, and then also their neighbor factions, and assuming the religions are local, it could work pretty well for every bunch of factions of the same religion/culture (which Im likely gonna end up doing in my mod). Though, thats settlements, no idea how would that work for generals... perhaps the shadowing factions with greatest authority of their FL in the moment would be getting them? It also depends on distance to the shadowing faction, or also if the general is inside their territory... increasing those values in descr_campaign_db could somehow adress that to make them rebel to the "closest" shadowing faction. There are some constraints for shadowing regarding culture because of portaits or bodyguards of the generals I read somewhere, though not sure, its probably not something that cant be adressed as well.

Also, regarding my testing, I found out some other pleasant things.
- If the shadowing re emergent faction is dead in the moment, you are able to fulfill your victory conditions (if your task is to kill them)
- Every settlement that rebels to a shadowing faction seems to receive a new general (and in case thats their "first" settlement and they have no other generals, he obviously becomes a FL), and if I remember correctly they are also always family members
- When the shadowing faction is dead, they are removed from diplomacy screen (until they are back), and when they come back, they are at war with the shadowed faction and rebels if I remember correctly
- And combined with the info from the thread, I suppose I could summarize that there are 3 (6) main possible ways of how to have shadowing factions in a mod:
a) Its a starting (playable) faction, either with or without re_emergent. So you can have it be dead for good once its destroyed, or come back when there is a settlement revolt, possibly affected by the things I mentioned
b) use dead_until_emerged (in descr_strat). The faction doesnt emerge on their own, but you have to script the initial rebellion (via faction_emerge I suppose), afterwards then you can again either use or not re_emergent
c) dead dead_until_resurected (descr_strat as well). There you dont have to script anything (but you can) and the faction will be brought back on the first settlement rebellion. Thugh didnt not if they would if they had no re emergent line.
d) the stuff with multiple shadowing that Im gonna test (but in any case it would basically the same three ways as above I suppose)

Also just got a crazy idea to test making shadowing faction a horde as well I suppose that should bring the horde back every time a general rebels and give them probably even more troops.

[Callistonian]

But very interesting is this situation with Wales, do you happen to know much religion did they in the settlements when it rebelled?

Probably more than 95%. They controlled the region long enough for it to be 100% but the game never really gets to that point, there always seems to be a few percentage points left over from any other religions that every existed in the settlement. So ya, around 90-100%. As I said, I haven't unpacked any of the Britannia files so I can't check if there's a script involved, what the descr_rebel_factions looks like, or anything else. I want to say that I've seen this type of result elsewhere, possibly in the vanilla campaign. But I'm not sure how it would work if the dominant religion is, for example, islam and there are multiple islam factions on the map - which faction does the region rebel to? Maybe, as you said, it also has to do with the faction that formerly owned the region, not just their religion, but the example in the Britannia campaign is insufficient to know this since each faction has their own religion in that campaign (which could actually have something to do with it).

I checked the files, of course Wales aint shadowing and Eastern England settlement are loyal to England... Britannia changed a lot stuff with rebellions and and religion conversion (they enabled governor conversion for example, not sure if its in other dlcs), so i asume that helped Wales.

Just as I thought. It must be something to do with the religion or else the game is somehow tracking each faction's "legacy" in every region in addition to religion percentages.

Another possibility is that the region revolved to slave and Wales immediately captured it and I just didn't notice. I don't think this is possible though - don't the revolts happen on the slave faction's turn at the end of the turn cycle? If so, Wales wouldn't have been able to capture it before the start of my next turn. I'll try to reproduce it to be 100% sure.

the "chance" increases the unrest (each point is 5%) for every owner except the "original one"

The "original one" being the faction specified in descr_regions, or the faction_creator specified in descr_strat?

so based on the suggestions I wrote above I would say it can be pretty safe and much simpler than making complex script with "faction_emerge" etc.

It's definitely much simpler than the faction_emerge scripts which still seem to be pretty popular around here. But the fact that I can't control the location still bothers me. Have you seen this?

- Threshold - Im not exactly sure what you mean, but I have a feeling you are talking about the faction_emerge public order threshold? If yes, then I have not been clear enough. The beauty of this is, you dont need complex "faction_emerge" scripts, its just a matter of changing a few lines (two is the minimum - "shadowing" and "re_emergent"). Though you could of course use it all together, to create even more interesting and dynamic campaigns. If you meant simply the settlements that revolt, then I covered that before.

What I meant was what you said just before this: there is a chance of the settlement revoling which has modifiers in descr_rebel_factions, descr_campaign_db, and I guess is also affected by the governor loyalty and leader authority. I've currently set my base chance for named characters revolting to practically 0 because I have several factions that start the campaign with no leaders and hence no authority. But this fortunately doesn't prevent settlements with low public order from revolting.

Though, thats settlements, no idea how would that work for generals... perhaps the shadowing factions with greatest authority of their FL in the moment would be getting them? It also depends on distance to the shadowing faction, or also if the general is inside their territory... increasing those values in descr_campaign_db could somehow adress that to make them rebel to the "closest" shadowing faction. There are some constraints for shadowing regarding culture because of portaits or bodyguards of the generals I read somewhere, though not sure, its probably not something that cant be adressed as well.

I was going to ask which shadow faction a general goes to. It seems quite complicated and I'm amazed CA wrote code to account for all this.

Also just got a crazy idea to test making shadowing faction a horde as well I suppose that should bring the horde back every time a general rebels and give them probably even more troops.

Excellent idea.


I'm ultimately trying to figure out a way to re-emerge dead factions in their home regions such that they can be intentionally emerged by the player or 'revolt into emergence'.

[Jadli]

Alright, I have done some major testing and found out a lot of things:
- The thing I mentioned regarding that when a character from different culture/religion joins your faction via shadowing, there is zero issue.... He just receives new bodyguards, while he keeps his name and portrait. Units not belonging to your faction destroyed.
But mainly: (to make what I say clear, I intentionally use words "shadowing" and "shadowed_by/shadowed" in accordance with what is written in descr_sm_factions)

- What the other guy claimed in the other thread is completely untrue - Direct Multifaction shadowing doesnt work. I have tested for hours various combinations of multiple shadowing and shadowed_by factions, and the answer to how it works is very simple. If you write more than one "shadowing" or shadowed_by" behind a faction name in descr_sm_factions, the game simply sees only the first one (is it actually surprising?), and ignores anything you write behind it. I really tried completely different variations, such as various mixes of "shadowed_by" and "shadowing" and also using completely different factions/religions/cultures, behind a faction, but it simply always recognizes only the first one, so all rebellions go to the the shadowing/shadowed_by faction which is written first after faction name in desr_sm_factions. It basically replaces rebels for the shadowed faction, no way around that (no matter what religion/loyalaty, etc in the settlement is, it always rebels to the shadowing faction). Also tried various combinations with shadowing rebels, it doesnt do anything. I also tried setting all shadow rebellion modifiers in descr_campaign_db to 0, didnt change much (it just removed the rebellions due to shadowing, but when a "normal" rebellion happened, the general/settlement still went to the shadowing faction). Also tried giving slaves high authority leader, didnt change anything.

- Though, I also find out that shadowing doesnt seem to work purely only one way, to a small extent it works both way, but primarily the one you set it. What I mean is, that if I use britannia example (where in descr_sm england is shadowed_by barons_alliance and barons alliance is shadowing england), if Barons Alliance is shadowing england (as in the dlc) but England is not shadowed_by BA (or even if it is), when there is a rebellious settlement and general, it would always go to England anyway it seems. Presumably, I think its the same like setting shadow modifiers in descr_campaign_db to 0 as I talked about in previous parapgrah. The settlements/generals would still go to England but it wouldnt be because of shadowing effects (which increases the chances of rebellions greatly for shadowed factions, mainly due to authority), but only when a "normal" rebellion happened (regular low PO etc), as the shadowing rebellion chances/modifiers likely dont apply to BA in this setting. Or even when England is shadowed_by BA i believe (as shadowed_by doesnt do much as I have proven a few posts back, after all in britannia dlc BA generals/settlements very rarely rebel to England, etc) but if England was shadowing, the modifiers would affect BA rebellions.

- So the way I have been using it in my mod seems to be the best way (better than brittannia DLC, as if BA kills England they also kill themselves, due to shadowed_by, though perhaps that was intentional by the devs?), thus only using it for groups of 2 intervowen factions (factions in civil wars, part of the same realm, etc), as this way you can also let them effectively shadow each other (using only "shadowing" in descr_sm_factions for each faction, no shadowed_by as I talked before) which is more balanced and "fair" in my opinion, as rebellion chances of generals/settlements to the other faction are affected by the same modifiers (though, if in your setting one faction clearly is the "rebels" and the one is de iure "ruler" perhaps then using one way shadowing fits bettter, as brittania DLC, but without using shadowed_by).

- Though this actually still leaves some potentional space for indirect multiple shadowing, despite the singular shadowing/shadowed_by limit in decr_sm_factions... Because as I said, even if you use one way shadowing (like England vs BA), normal BA rebellions still go to England. Which means what you could for example do, is - BA is shadowing England, England is shadowing Wales and Wales is shadowing BA. So what would happen in this case if BA settlement/general rebelled, would he join either Wales or England based on whether he rebelled due to "normal" rebellion modifiers or due to shadow rebellion modifers, or would it always join Wales (becasue Wales is shadowing BA)? Will test that later. Perhaps also using rebels instead of Wales in this "circle" would give us your desired outcome in some way.

Also, some more general stuff I found about rebellions when tested:
- Whether a rebellious settlement receives units seems to depend on religion indeed. Seems the breaking point is somewhere around 30%, if the receiving faction has less than cca the 30% the settlement is empty.
- Also have seen a curious thing. In one case the rebellled settlement received units (likely over 30%) but it wasnt the factions units but the generic brigand units (in the md we use "Bandits") who are supposed to belong only to the rebels... I suppose that might have been due to no barracks in the settlements, as what exact unit the receiving faction receives likely depends on availiblity in the settlement as Gig said

Probably more than 95%. They controlled the region long enough for it to be 100% but the game never really gets to that point, there always seems to be a few percentage points left over from any other religions that every existed in the settlement. So ya, around 90-100%. As I said, I haven't unpacked any of the Britannia files so I can't check if there's a script involved, what the descr_rebel_factions looks like, or anything else. I want to say that I've seen this type of result elsewhere, possibly in the vanilla campaign. But I'm not sure how it would work if the dominant religion is, for example, islam and there are multiple islam factions on the map - which faction does the region rebel to? Maybe, as you said, it also has to do with the faction that formerly owned the region, not just their religion, but the example in the Britannia campaign is insufficient to know this since each faction has their own religion in that campaign (which could actually have something to do with it).

Well, thats surely in accordance with my assumed 30% limit (I assume the settlements werent empty, right)? Though I was testing with shadowing factions, so cant confirm yet tho whom it would be rebel without shadowing, but very likely what we think here is true. There is no script, from what I have seen in the files. Though there is a script that changes AI faction labels when local factions comes close to fulfilling their VCs. The new AI label surely targets the human player more, though I doubt that affects revolts. There is no descr_rebel_factions, so it uses only vanilla rebel fations ...

Though in BA there is this for unrest:

<alternative_religious_unrest bool="true"/>         <!-- Are we using the Britannia unrest system? -->
      <!-- The values below are vanilla untested variables -->
      <alt_rel_gov_coefficient float="-0.2"/>             <!-- governors piety religion coefficient (how much people of the allied religions like us in the settlement) -->
      <alt_rel_allied_modifier float="0.5"/>              <!-- allied religion cumulative total modifier -->
      <alt_rel_gov_modifier_base float="1.0"/>            <!-- governors piety religion base modifier -->

Though that only affects the opposite thing, how much allied religions lower the unrest. But as I said, there are also the governor conversion rates etc, so that would explain how did Wales so quickly and easily become dominant religion in England (in the dlc, they actually use religion as cultures and vice versa)

The "original one" being the faction specified in descr_regions, or the faction_creator specified in descr_strat?

The one in descr_regions (plus, you gotta delete map.rwm for it to take effect). The one in descr_strat only affects starting settlement model, nothing to do with unrest etc

It's definitely much simpler than the faction_emerge scripts which still seem to be pretty popular around here. But the fact that I can't control the location still bothers me. Have you seen this?

Yes, thats pretty good as well. In case I would want to bring back any non shadowing factons, thats the probably the best way for normal playable factions

What I meant was what you said just before this: there is a chance of the settlement revoling which has modifiers in descr_rebel_factions, descr_campaign_db, and I guess is also affected by the governor loyalty and leader authority. I've currently set my base chance for named characters revolting to practically 0 because I have several factions that start the campaign with no leaders and hence no authority. But this fortunately doesn't prevent settlements with low public order from revolting.

Well, you could decrease max_revolt chance, or spread around some additional PO bonuses

<min_revolt_chance float="0.0"/>
      <max_revolt_chance float="80.0"/>

Also, wasnt sure in previous post, but now I checked and there are two types of unrest, religious one and a "normal one". I assume the rebel factions only affects the religious one. Not sure what the "normal" unrest exactly depends on, possibly the authority as you say combined with other factors, will check that more when I have time.

I was going to ask which shadow faction a general goes to. It seems quite complicated and I'm amazed CA wrote code to account for all this.

Well, seems they didnt as I found out . Just a misinformation spread around it seems.

I assume this also explains some false results that selviu received in the thread, as assuming I read it correctly he get some different results to whom a settlement rebelled when he was playing with shadowing factions. It simply always rebelled to the one he put as first.

I'm ultimately trying to figure out a way to re-emerge dead factions in their home regions such that they can be intentionally emerged by the player or 'revolt into emergence'.

Yea. I like using the shadowing version because I like the game to be more unpredictable and too many scripts always hurts (but of course, shadowing is suitable only for some factions).

BTW a guy in other thread gave me an idea how to partially bring the civil war feature from Med I. As when using EOP, you can change your faction to other faction during singleplayer campaign. So there could be made simple yes/no script for when the rebellion happens - either scripted rebellion/emergence, or the more "generic" one via shadowing, or for both (if you hit yes, you would be playing the rebellious faction)

[Callistonian]

He just receives new bodyguards, while he keeps his name and portrait. Units not belonging to your faction destroyed.

So it's exactly the same as converting a named character by any other means (give_everything_to_faction, respawning with a new faction, revolting to slave_faction). That makes sense.

if BA kills England they also kill themselves, due to shadowed_by, though perhaps that was intentional by the devs?

This seems like a bug. My guess would be that they coded it so that the shadowing faction can't exist if the parent faction is dead in order to prevent the shadowing faction from ever possibly emerging on the map when their parent faction is dead (which would seem to be quite nonsensical). But they didn't account for the possibility that the shadowing faction would be the one to kill the parent faction and thus annihilate itself. The Britannia campaign is not balanced very well and Wales always seems to dominate England and BA, so I'm guessing the scenario where BA kills England never came up in their testing.

Your solution to just have the factions shadow each other with no use of shadowed_by seems like the best one.

- Though this actually still leaves some potentional space for indirect multiple shadowing, despite the singular shadowing/shadowed_by limit in decr_sm_factions... Because as I said, even if you use one way shadowing (like England vs BA), normal BA rebellions still go to England. Which means what you could for example do, is - BA is shadowing England, England is shadowing Wales and Wales is shadowing BA. So what would happen in this case if BA settlement/general rebelled, would he join either Wales or England based on whether he rebelled due to "normal" rebellion modifiers or due to shadow rebellion modifers, or would it always join Wales (becasue Wales is shadowing BA)? Will test that later. Perhaps also using rebels instead of Wales in this "circle" would give us your desired outcome in some way.

What if instead of a circle we have multiple factions shadowing the same faction? We have factions A, B, and C. Faction A isn't shadowing anyone. Factions B and C are both shadowing A. There is no use of shadowed_by. If one of A's generals revolts, does he go to faction B or C?

What section in descr_campaign_db does alternative_religious_unrest go under?

BTW a guy in other thread gave me an idea how to partially bring the civil war feature from Med I. As when using EOP, you can change your faction to other faction during singleplayer campaign. So there could be made simple yes/no script for when the rebellion happens - either scripted rebellion/emergence, or the more "generic" one via shadowing, or for both (if you hit yes, you would be playing the rebellious faction)

You can do this in hotseat by simply using the 'control' command. It can be used to take control of any emergent factions. You could have one "parent" faction that gives rise to multiple "child" factions and give the player the option to take control of them when they emerge. I don't know of any mods that use this feature so far (other than my own, of course ).

[Jadli]

What if instead of a circle we have multiple factions shadowing the same faction? We have factions A, B, and C. Faction A isn't shadowing anyone. Factions B and C are both shadowing A. There is no use of shadowed_by. If one of A's generals revolts, does he go to faction B or C?

I will try that when I have time. I tried the circle shortly just out of curiosity, but it seemed like the faction was effectively shadowed only by one faction, not by two.

Your idea seems more promising, will see

You can do this in hotseat by simply using the 'control' command. It can be used to take control of any emergent factions. You could have one "parent" faction that gives rise to multiple "child" factions and give the player the option to take control of them when they emerge. I don't know of any mods that use this feature so far (other than my own, of course ).

It fascinates me that you keep referencing hotseats . We have been doing dozens of normal, as well as pretty complex (in context of "rules", scripts, etc), hotseats in the TW hotseat community (+ discord now), not sure if you know about it, as I havent seen you around there. There have been created many mods/submods specifically for hotseats, and especially hotseat variants of campaigns (descr_strat+script).

Of course, modding in hotseats everything can be ten times easier, especially because you dont need complex scripts that have to account for every possibility to work properly, as most of stuff you can simply do yourself during the campaign. Of course, even stuff like rebellions, taking control of emerfent factions etc is stuff thats been done.

But 99% people dont do hotseats, and especially not as a way to play a mod directly when on their own (for obvious reasons - primarily you cant fight all the battles, etc), so its curious that you would mod a hotseat campaign as a way for people to play "SP campaign", if thats what you mean by your feature? Did you make a script specifically for a hotseat version of your SP campaign (to take control of the other factions), recommending people to try that in case they want to play as an emergent rebel faction?

What section in descr_campaign_db does alternative_religious_unrest go under?

You know what, below I attached my descr_campaign_db. Some time ago, I gathered in it all the new lines I could find in the 4 dlcs (plus the vanilla of course), so I suppose it should be like 99% complete, so probably very useful to every modder, so feel free to use it.

(BTW, dlcs add about 100 lines to the vanilla's cca 220, so lot of stuff...)

[Callistonian]

Yes, exactly - my mod was originally converted to hotseat mode to make use of the 'control' command. And now I'm a true believer in hotseat scripting and I think all mods should be designed natively in hotseat mode. It only offers advantages and practically no drawbacks. You can play hotseat in single player and, with the correct configs, you would never even know it was hotseat (aside from the camera snapping back to your capital every turn start, which I don't think is fixable).

Most mods in this community are not designed with hotseat in mind, so inevitably people come along and make "hotseat compatibility" submods that simply gut half the scripts. This is unnecessary. It is possible and very easy to design scripts that are hotseat compatible, you just have to have the idea of multiple human factions in mind when you write the script. I even developed a ranking system to describe different levels of "compatibility".

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

;#### Script Compatibility Ratings ####
; target for all scripts is an A, but we can accept anything better than an F

; F = script breaks if there is more than one human faction, all unrated scripts should be assumed to carry an F rating
; D = script disables itself when there is more than one human faction
; B = script functions basically as intended with multiple human factions but some features such as historic_events are disabled
; A = dynamic enough for multiple human factions, assumes no unanticipated control swaps
; AAA = dynamic enough for multiple human factions and unanticipated control swaps, not required

I prepared a document that covers all the benefits and drawbacks of modding in hotseat mode, explains the compatibility rankings in detail, and compares hotseat against normal scripting and batch files for "unification" scripts. I've been meaning to turn this into a post here on the forums but I've been holding off partly because there is still a nagging fear in the back of my mind that I'm going to hit some major roadblock with hotseat mode that makes the whole mod nonviable. But I haven't encountered anything like that yet and so far hotseat has been absolutely amazing, and I don't even play multiplayer campaigns!

I saw the hotseat subforum but it looks like it's mostly for people to find multiplayer campaigns, not relevant to modding. I will definitely advertise my mod to the hotseat community when it's finished.

[Jadli]

Very cool.

Have you fixed the issue when in hotseat you cant fight defensive battles against AI though? (which is the main obstacle in my eyes).

Well, also busy with other things right now, but will later get to you about this to perhaps exchang some hotseat scripting ideas.

Yea, such thread would be useful, I could get other hotseat admins/host to post some of their experience in it as well. Btw, I have been also considering making a thread with all Medieval bugs discovered in hotseating (as we play the game to the bone, looking for every edge)... lot of many broken things in the engine ... so not sure if its a good idea

Well, there are some guides and stuff in the subforum, you might be interested in checking the Accessories within it https://www.twcenter.net/forums/foru...at-Accessories

and especially the guides https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...t-Guides-Index (mainly check admin guide)

Some hotseat patches are listed here https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...es-amp-Submods though there is much. Especially there is a whole generation of Westeros TW (prior 1.0 release) submods (maybe even a dozen) that was made primarily or significantly for hotseat use. There is really long history of hotseats on TWC, lot of original stuff was created (lot of stuff is forgottn), and archiv has like a thousand finished hotseats

[Callistonian]

I've never had an issue fighting on the battle map against the AI in hotseat. It's just a matter of setting your configs correctly. In this video, the AI attacks me at a settlement and I'm able to fight normally on the battle map: https://youtu.be/N5uuxmu6Llk?t=724 I assume this is what you mean by fighting a defensive battle. There is another battle earlier in the video where the AI attacks me in the field and I'm able to fight that as well.

There are two main issues with fighting battles in hotseat: 1) if you fight against another human faction, your opponent's army will be controlled by the AI. My understanding is that this was one of the original issues youneouy was trying to address with his tool wherein it generates a historical battle using the involved armies so that both players can control their armies at a later time. And 2) if you use the 'control' command to take control of a faction, you can then resign on the battle map (at any time) and the game will give you the win. This is documented here and apparently still happens in single player campaigns as well (when the control command is enabled).

I will check all these threads. If you know of any game-breaking bugs specific to hotseat mode, please let me know.

[Jadli]

Well yea, though as you encourage players to play hotseats, I assume they are also encouraged to play mutiple factions. I should have been more specific. What happens is that if you have more factions played by player(s), A is first in turn order, B second, then A never gets to fight its defensive battles (unless you enforce turn order mid game somehow, but then B will not be able to play its ones. Because the game puts the starting controlled factions at the beginning of the turn order, Hence all the AI factions are after B).

No, the bugs are not specific to hotseat mod, its just that we try hard the game so much, we find things normal players wouldnt

Well, this topic deserves a thread of it own