Scripted Independant cities faction.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

While lamenting the sorry state faction wise an idea occurred to me. I am unsure to what extent it is implementable due to the limitations of the game and it's scripting but here goes.

Every single city that is not part of a proper faction would be handed over to the independent cities faction. Like with the rebels the independent cities faction does not engage in any diplomacy of it's own. But unlike the rebels it is automatically both at peace and has trade rights with every faction in the game.

The other AIs can go to war quite fine with the independent cities faction, which will defend itself normally with armies and such. There is a script however that triggers if for 5 turns a faction has been at war with the independent cities faction and yet has not besieged any cities belonging to that faction. It restores peace and trade right between that faction and the independent cities.

I recommend sacrificing the Britons in order to establish this independent cities faction given that the Britons would be more realistically represented precisely by this faction.


To be more ambitious one would set it so that rebellions defect to the independent cities. This would function according to a script attached to the Rebels. This script would hand over control of the rebel city to the independent cities, if the rebel city has not been besieged for 5 turns. This raises an interesting question though.

Would the city then be entirely empty of troops and thus completely vulnerable to attack by any force in the game. If a bunch of appropriate troops cannot be added by a script as soon as an independant city finds itself empty, then I can think of a clever workaround that might work.

Every faction in BI can have a Anti-Faction. The clever plan then would involve having the new empty independent city rebel to an identical anti-faction called "rebel independent cities". Given that Anti-Factions can presumably have revolts themselves which will restore control to the original faction it could then happen that after X amount of time the city revolts again and returns to the independent cities proper. However because they are identical, it wouldn't really matter much I suppose.

The independant cities faction would ideally be able to construct every single unit in the game and build every single building in the game. I am not sure how this would work out with culture though.

[Caesar Augustus]

Dude, I like the idea. I think Quinn and co are implementing a similar kind of thing with "superfactions". There's talk of there being 3 of them, to cover different areas that are grouped by culture ie a barbarian superfaction, a greek colonial faction, and I think an African one.

I'm sure that someone who knows a bit more will be able to post a more coherent explanation as I don't know the ins and outs. Should be able to find more info around here though.

[Carados]

Yep. A similar thing like this will appear in the next version at the expense of the Illyrians and Britons, and possibly the Numidians. They will be split into cultures. One being "barbarian", another being "greek". The last one will probably be "eastern", though I do believe it possible to add in a 7th culture. If we can do that viably then it's an option.

This basically works exactly as you've described it but they aren't all over the place. You'll only find them in particular locations. If you look at the Greek Cities faction currently, you will notice that they have Syracuse, cities in Greece, a settlement in Crete and a couple around the Black Sea (and maybe one or two others that I've forget exist). The Greek superfaction is going to be like this, but with less settlements in Greece (currently, they'll get only Anatolia). The idea is that the superfaction will provide the player (and computer) the chance of competing against local "minifactions". Because the faction will be so spread out, they will only be able to use what they have locally to fight.

To further use the Greeks...

Currently I have their settlements as thus:
Argigento + Syracuse
Thermon
Pergamon + Abdyos (Kingdom of Pergamon)
Heracleia + Sinope
Theodosia + Phanagoria (Bosporan Kingdom)

Each of those pairs (and Thermon) are effectively a faction in of themselves. Why? They are completely isolated from the other pairings. So with the one faction slot, we actually give people the opportunity of playing as several different peoples. These settlements will have to make do with AOR troops (there might be a few generalised faction troops (elite hoplites, siege weapons etc.)), as such they will look slightly different from one another too!

Spoiler for but??: 

The astute among you will notice that Abdyos and Heracleia are seperated by one province. This is actually a serious barrier, because the Galatians are going to seperate the two as easily as 3 or 4 seperate provinces or the sea ever will.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

Yep. A similar thing like this will appear in the next version at the expense of the Illyrians and Britons, and possibly the Numidians. They will be split into cultures. One being "barbarian", another being "greek". The last one will probably be "eastern", though I do believe it possible to add in a 7th culture. If we can do that viably then it's an option.

I don't like the getting rid of the Illyrians or the Numidians precisely because they were Kingdoms, not groups of Kingdoms. I suggest we 'get rid' of faction that already in effect represent the equivalent of the Independant Cities factions.

We need the following independent factions. Each belongs to one of the 5 cultures in the game.

Free Italian Cities (Roman Culture)
Independent African Kingdoms (Carthaginian Culture).
Free Greek Cities (Greek Culture)
Independent Tribes (Barbarian Culture)
Independent Eastern Kingdoms (Eastern Culture)

To to this we need to find factions that represent not a unified dynasty or were particularly aggressive towards other people's or are so small and also were never particularly aggressive. As such Illyria should NOT be eliminated because Illyria was a large Kingdom in it's own right. The rules of the game should be small petty kingdoms/republics with no unity beyond the scale of one province but who may be allied with others and which historically did not expand greatly. The rule of the thumb should be that if you can't be the leader of something, you should be an independent faction member. Thus the following factions I propose eliminating to yield a independants factions for each of the five cultures in the game.

Britons.
Sarmatians.
Greek Cities (aren't really being eliminated at all).
Iberians.
Germans.

The Gauls should remain, but should only represent the Gauls of northern Italy, the one's who at one point invaded the rest of Italy and actually ransomed Rome at one point. But generally speaking as long the Independant factions bit is done properly I will not cry because that is a more realistic description of their nature.

I would however cry if Illyria was eliminated. The reason was simply that Illyria was a large Kingdom with a King, a King that had dealings with others. Much as with Dacia. Yes they didn't go on a massive warmongering conquest spree historically, but they had the infrastructure of what would be a faction in game terms.

All the factions that should be eliminated are factions which only ever came together (sort of) to oppose foreign invasion by the major empires. Some did so more successfully than others but at the end of the day they weren't at the game factions a single country with a leader, let alone an expanding Empire.

There is justification whatsoever for not eliminating say the Germans and eliminating the Numidians and Illyrians since these were actual unified Kingdoms with actual dynasties in charge of them.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

Carados the independant factions are simply each cultures 'superfaction'. There needs to be one for every faction because the character graphics and the building build-able are determined by culture.

I was just taking a look at the prospects of creating a independent faction for each culture and there are huge issues. I started off with the Italian free cities because on paper that is easy. They would control only three cities/regions.

Etruria ('capital' prob), Bruttium (to the south) and Ariminum (east of Etruria). This bit is easy, the trouble then comes when you consider that all of Italy with the exception of Latium (Rome itself) should declare themselves independent from Rome if they rebel and become Italian cities. So far so good.

Problem is that Sicily and Sardinia. They are presently Carthaginian in culture but should they become 'African Kingdoms' if they rebel or 'Italian Cities'? This brings about a basic problem, the population of those places are probably no more akin culturally to the inhabitants of Carthage than they are to Gaul. It's just a minority of settlers make up the cultural elite of the province make up it's city.

This makes for an interesting problem. Should we base things upon the actual province majority population in which case those provinces would be 'Italian cities', assuming the basic population have not changed a great deal over the Centuries (apparently the Sicilian form of Italian is the closest Italian dialect to Latin).

It occurs to me that we need a major overhaul of the culture system. Partly we need a renaming. Roman should be renamed Italian and Carthaginian African of course. That way we divorce the vague cultural concepts directly from factional identifiers. This makes sense in the way that they are used.

This would be based upon three indestructible cultural buildings. One of these represents the culture of the peasantry, the second that of the common urban people and the third that of the aristocracy of the province.

Different factions incur different penalties for ruling over different provinces based upon the factors already mentioned. The penalties predictably enough are penalties to public order.

The third building, that of the aristocracy is the nastiest, however the aristocracy can be relatively easily replaced. The second building, that of the urban people is moderately nasty, but can only be replaced at huge cost. The third building, that of the peasantry is pretty mild, but you cannot get change the peasants to change except at massive cost and difficulty.

The Romans have a Latin culture. This culture is compatible with the Italian culture, so Romans only receive a small penalty from other Italian culture buildings. In Rome itself, there is a Latin Aristocracy, a Latin urban population and a Latin peasantry.

Down in Capua however, there is only a Latin Aristocracy, the Urban population and the Peasantry are 'Italian' (or whatever particular Italian population they would be), while elsewhere there isn't even a Latin Aristocracy. The Italian culture is a Independent culture, only the Free Italian Cities faction receives no penalties from it. However they get on far better with the Latins than they do with say the Carthaginians/Punic culture (as Hannibal found out perhaps).

If it is possible it could be determined that the independent faction or even faction a rebel city would then defect too would be decided by what is the highest ranked different culture building in the province to the factions culture(s). The rank obviously goes Aristocracy, Urban, Peasant.

If Capua in my example successfully rebelled against the Romans, then the lowest ranked non-Latin culture would be the urban population which is Italian. Therefore the rebel controlled city would go to the Italian Cities independent faction. If the city rebelled against the rule of the Epirot invaders, the Latin Aristocracy would make the rebel city go back to Rome.

The way to script this would be to have a building which is destroyed and created by script (but ordinarily indestructible) that represents control of the province by a particular faction. When the building falls into the hands of the rebels, a script fires and hands over the city to the appropriate faction depending upon what is the highest ranked different culture to the control building's culture according to the formula already discussed.

[Carados]

Can you explain to me what regions these independant factions would get, and the justification for it?

I'm not sure I totally understand what you mean by these independent factions.

[Caligula Caesar]

Let's just note that Illyria was not a particularly large kingdom, and was actually called the Ardiae Kingdom (the Ardiae being a tribe in southern Illyria, i.e. Skhodra). I don't see that it makes such a big difference that they were a kingdom, though, since so were a lot of states back then. Many tribes had hereditary chiefs, who can also be called Kings. So did Pergamon, and Bithynia, and Nabataea, and Atropatene, and for that matter probably the Alans and Massagetae. (on the other hand, Rome didn't, and nor did Carthage...)

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

Let's just note that Illyria was not a particularly large kingdom, and was actually called the Ardiae Kingdom (the Ardiae being a tribe in southern Illyria, i.e. Skhodra). I don't see that it makes such a big difference that they were a kingdom, though, since so were a lot of states back then. Many tribes had hereditary chiefs, who can also be called Kings. So did Pergamon, and Bithynia, and Nabataea, and Atropatene, and for that matter probably the Alans and Massagetae. (on the other hand, Rome didn't, and nor did Carthage...)

Yes there was, but the fact that there was a Kingdom called Illyria or Skhodra or Ardiae or whatever makes them have a better claim to exist as a full faction than say the Germans. Because if you've got a King that you've got the whole basic paraphernalia of the faction leader, his heir and so on, basically the base game family system.

Ahhhh. Well since the Italians are difficult, how about you tell me what settlements the independent tribes would get instead? Being the barbarian culture, I'm intrigued as to what settlements they are going to get. Especially with the Britons, Sarmatians, Germans and Iberians being removed under your proposals.

(am I right in assuming that the rebels are going to be removed completely for the most part?)

The Italians per say are not 'difficult', they are easy. They would only control 3 provinces at the game start, because that is the number of rebel cities there are (actually Bruttium is Roman but it 'should' be rebel) of 'Roman' culture. Same with the Independant Tribes, they would have at the start all the provinces that are not owned by any faction at all save the rebels. This means all of Iberia, all of Germany, all of Britain, all of Gaul (only northern Italy belongs to the Gaul faction), all of Sarmatia. In other words a massive number of provinces too many for me to name (indeed that is why I chose Italy).

The difficulty was never with the initial part of my proposal but the more ambitious plan to remove the rebels except for bandits, pirates, raiders and for a short period after a province has revolted away from the control of a faction. With the existence of rebel anti-factions for each faction (not yet implemented I think judging from my recent messing around with rebellions) and the introduction of the Independant factions there is now no reason to have the rebels any more in any major way.

The problem comes with what independent faction different cities in the world presently owned by major factions would defect to if they rebelled. Cities also rebel automatically if the last leader of the faction they are part of dies. This has never made complete sense, because if the present 'leader of the senate' dies then they will simply elect another one indefinitely until such a time as Rome itself falls and the Roman elite doing the electing is itself enslaved/massacred/subjugated.

However it does make sense that the death of everyone of note would be a signal that Rome as a Imperial power is finished and the various provinces might well seize their freedom, but Rome itself would not cease to exist as a faction nor would it magically find that it's enemies decide not to take Rome for themselves. However every nation on Earth would not automatically and eternally cut off all trade links and send armies to conquer Rome either.

Very simply what would happen is that upon gaining independence as rebels, all rebel units in the city would be script bribed to join the correct faction. The problem of what is the 'correct' faction then gets rather knotty. It becomes clear that we need to make buildings to represent the culture of the various social groups in the province. This is so that we can realistically model which faction a province would defect to if it rebelled. I think the BI engine already has a script to randomly create a new leader for a newly emerged faction since I've seen them use it with the Anti-Factions in vanilla Barbarian Invasion.

Based upon whom the province is rebelling against one might realistically expect a difficult outcome because the core of the rebellion would come from a different social strata, a rebellion in say Tarentum if launched against the Romans would probably be of the greek colony for independence from the rule of the Romans, thus the city would go over to the Greek Cities. However once they have already become independent, the revolt would then be of the non-greek rural population against the Greek colony itself, so the city would go over to the Italian Cities.

The culture system would be modeled by adding three non-destructible 'buildings' to each province with variable effects on public order depending upon what faction owns them. These are the aristocracy, plebeians and peasantry. Each faction has it's own particular culture, which determines what cities will defect to it if they rebel. Tarentum would have the following culture buildings at the beginning of the game I suspect unless my understand of history is a bit wonky.

Greek Aristocracy (Greek Cities).
Greek Plebeians (Greek Cities).
Italian Peasantry (Italian Cities).

A script runs that records which faction controls the province at the moment. Tarentum falls into the hands of the Romans. It rebels against the control of the Romans. Because the Aristocracy and Plebeians of the province are Greek and they both outrank the Peasantry the outcome is that Tarentum defects to the Greek Cities as they 'own' the Greek culture.

This is because the province rebelling doesn't remove the control script for the former owner, it remembers whom they are rebelling against. A script then fires for the rebel controlled city that checks the culture buildings of the province against that of the former owner. If they are incompatible the province defects over to the faction whose culture is represented by the highest ranked incompatible social group in the province. In this case it is independent Greek cities.

The culture of the Romans is Latin. In Rome the culture buildings look like this.

Latin Aristocracy (Roman Republic).
Latin Plebeians (Roman Republic).
Latin Peasantry (Roman Republic).

If Rome itself rebels, then the script will find no incompatible cultures. In which case the province defects back to it's original owners, with a new script, the rebel controlled script. This script fires ASAP and triggers an Anti-Faction revolt, creating or increasing the domain of the Roman Rebels faction.

[Carados]

Ahhhh. Well since the Italians are difficult, how about you tell me what settlements the independent tribes would get instead? Being the barbarian culture, I'm intrigued as to what settlements they are going to get. Especially with the Britons, Sarmatians, Germans and Iberians being removed under your proposals.

(am I right in assuming that the rebels are going to be removed completely for the most part?)

[Carados]

And this...

Same with the Independant Tribes, they would have at the start all the provinces that are not owned by any faction at all save the rebels. This means all of Iberia, all of Germany, all of Britain, all of Gaul (only northern Italy belongs to the Gaul faction), all of Sarmatia. In other words a massive number of provinces too many for me to name (indeed that is why I chose Italy).

...is exactly what I wanted you to say.

There is NO way this is going to happen. There is not a jot of realism in this, nor does it work with gameplay either and these are the two most important things. Have you ever played RTR? If you have, think of the black/blue death (if you haven't you should go search the RTR forums for pictures) - multiple it by 3, and have them at game start. No. No no no. The reason why the huge number of provinces works with rebels is that they can't work together effectively at all and they don't generate trade. If you give these independent factions the same number of provinces, they are in effect "super" factions (not superfactions). That is, they generate so much money and can produce so many stacks that they will steamroll any and everything - except another super faction.

A faction is a playable selection of people. It is not a kingdom. It is not a republic. It is not an empire. It is not a tribe. It is not anything - except a playable selection of people. The factors that determines whether we decide a people is to be represented as a faction are many. These include:

• Do we have enough historical information on them to viably represent them?
• Are they going to have enough unique units to make them an interesting faction to play?
• Did they actually do anything of note historically?
• Will they make a particualr area of the map more interesting?
• Will they balance out another faction in the immediate area and stop them from being too powerful?

Ultimately, most of it comes back to the Romans. Although there are lots of important nations and the like in this time period, it is the Romans who we should focus most on since it is these who had the most impact in the time period. If a faction had serious war with the Romans, then they are likely to be included. The Gauls are included because of Caesar's Gallic wars. The Germans are included because of the failed campaigns into Germanic territory. The Iberians are included because of the 2nd Punic war and the century of warfare with the Romans that followed. However, you need to remember about the other factors too. The prescence of the Germans prevents any of the other factions from taking those lands so easily. The Iberians prevent Carthage from taking all the lands so easily. The Dacians prevents Macedon from conquering everything. The Galatians prevent the Seleucids/Pontus from taking over Asia minor. The Galatians will also provide the player with an opportunity to play as a horde faction in the future. The Germans give the player the opportunity to play with hordes of lightly armoured missile infantry. The Iberians provide the player with a faction that is stong in infantry but is potentially weak against heavy cavalry. The Dacians provides the player a challenge in that they have units with high attack/low defence meaning plenty of casualties to both sides.

As for the rest of your post. If the scripting for it is even possible... the time it will take to accomplish it is just enourmous. We will also have to create those buildings which will take time as well. Ultimately, it just isn't feasible. Other problems with it are that there are actually 6 cultures, not 5. You forget the Egyptians. You can't put these as either Greek nor African. And to do so means I can viably argue that you can then put all the Barbarians and Romans and Greeks as being of European culture.

We are unfortunately serious hampered by hardcoded limits. The superfactions are the ultimate compromise (maybe). They provide a bit of trade to a region. They halt the advance of nearby factions. They introduce several minor people that have their own AOR armies which have a flavour of their own and will act independently. They cannot steamroll other factions. There are problems with names, granted, and the like, but we're working on it.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

And this...

...is exactly what I wanted you to say.

There is NO way this is going to happen. There is not a jot of realism in this, nor does it work with gameplay either and these are the two most important things. Have you ever played RTR? If you have, think of the black/blue death (if you haven't you should go search the RTR forums for pictures) - multiple it by 3, and have them at game start. No. No no no. The reason why the huge number of provinces works with rebels is that they can't work together effectively at all and they don't generate trade. If you give these independent factions the same number of provinces, they are in effect "super" factions (not superfactions). That is, they generate so much money and can produce so many stacks that they will steamroll any and everything - except another super faction.

Rebels generate trade with other rebels. But they suck completely and are utterly unrealistic.

You are forgetting that there is a script that force-peaces the super-factions every 5 turns. Therefore a player (or AI) does not have to fight a vast war against the whole world. It is only necessary that they win a local victory and slowly nibble away at the super-faction. It's a case of grab what you can and hold off the immediate counter-attack. Not conquer the whole super-faction in a single fell swoop.

They are not normal factions remember. They cannot engage in diplomacy (like going to war) and while they can be attacked, after 5 turns they are force-peaced by script. If I can grab a few towns and hold off the immediate reinforcements, then I get to keep my holdings. This is because the independent states are mainly concerned to stave off any threat from you to them.

I already know that scripts can be made to trigger diplomatic outcomes. The system is good, because it means that only those who are already vast empires with vast armies can pull off Julius Caesars conquest of Gaul. The independant cities factions cannot steamroll everyone, precisely because they are scripted to make peace automatically by event if they have defeated their immediate enemies.

A faction is a playable selection of people. It is not a kingdom. It is not a republic. It is not an empire. It is not a tribe. It is not anything - except a playable selection of people. The factors that determines whether we decide a people is to be represented as a faction are many. These include:

But we cannot represent every people that exists. It is just that "people's" without a central authority should not be represented the way they are at the moment. This is what the Independent factions are for, they represent a number of small political entities that lack any real unity among themselves.

However there is assumed to exist alliances and diplomacy between the factions which mean that they will work together on a regional level to defend themselves against invaders up to a point.

As for the rest of your post. If the scripting for it is even possible... the time it will take to accomplish it is just enourmous. We will also have to create those buildings which will take time as well. Ultimately, it just isn't feasible. Other problems with it are that there are actually 6 cultures, not 5. You forget the Egyptians. You can't put these as either Greek nor African. And to do so means I can viably argue that you can then put all the Barbarians and Romans and Greeks as being of European culture.

We are unfortunately serious hampered by hardcoded limits. The superfactions are the ultimate compromise (maybe). They provide a bit of trade to a region. They halt the advance of nearby factions. They introduce several minor people that have their own AOR armies which have a flavour of their own and will act independently. They cannot steamroll other factions. There are problems with names, granted, and the like, but we're working on it.

Oh yes the Egyptians. Could be eliminate Bactria perhaps? Or Numidia? Or Illyria?

Yes it does take a lot of work. But a lot of work has already been done.

[Caligula Caesar]

Look, it's a decent idea, but it isn't going to happen. If a faction owned all the land in the northern half of the map, it would steamroll all other factions quite rapidly. Not to mention that the major flaw in your argument is that these people weren't united, and there was a huge number of tribes. Each of these had their own kings. The Lusitani had thgeir own kingdom, so did the Arevaci (Celtiberians), so did the Arverni, and all the other Gallic tribes, and so did all the barbarian tribes. It wasn't as if they were a group of anarchic people! They had as much claim to their land as the Seleucids did to Persia and the Greeks to Greece.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

Look, it's a decent idea, but it isn't going to happen. If a faction owned all the land in the northern half of the map, it would steamroll all other factions quite rapidly. Not to mention that the major flaw in your argument is that these people weren't united, and there was a huge number of tribes. Each of these had their own kings. The Lusitani had thgeir own kingdom, so did the Arevaci (Celtiberians), so did the Arverni, and all the other Gallic tribes, and so did all the barbarian tribes. It wasn't as if they were a group of anarchic people! They had as much claim to their land as the Seleucids did to Persia and the Greeks to Greece.

Caligula, that is my argument, not the flaw in my argument. My argument is simply that they were not united therefore their behavior should not be akin to that of the great empires. Can you point to any German, Gallic or Iberian Empire that historically expanded from a central point in the manner that those factions do in the game?

Thanks to the sucky and shortsighted decision of the original game makers the total number of factions in the game is limited. Therefore we have to find some abstracted way of dealing with the remaining factions which doesn't involve making them all rebels. Rebels is not a realistic way of dealing with it because as you so rightly put it, they weren't a bunch of anarchic people and the way rebels are depicted in the game is more akin to bandits/mafia than anything else.

The independant cities faction is not a full faction, it is not a normal faction. It is an abstracted way of dealing with the 101 petty tribes, kingdoms and cities that cannot unfortunately be represented properly and which does not represent them as simply a bunch of bandits and pirates.

This is very important, however big they make be they are not going to steamroll everyone because they are restricted by scripting and character traits from doing just that. Much as at the moment there are characters in all the independent settlements, these represent the rulers of those settlements. They are normally locked in place in their settlements along with their armies.

Each leader represents a petty ruler of an independent settlement. These would have character traits represents their relationship with other surrounding independent settlements. Depending upon the degree of complexity which the scripts allow, it could be made so that they will relieve their immediate neighbors if they are besieged by another faction. They would then be able to leave the settlement to go aid their immediate neighbors if they attacked or taken over by another faction.

The independent tribes faction may control most of northern and western Europe, but it's forces are scattered all over the place. Character traits and scripts keep them from moving freely about as they see fit and steamrolling everyone else. Troops in Germany would not immediately be sent forth to help beleaguered independents in Spain.

Also, if the Independent factions 'win', win being defined as not being besieged for 5 turns, then peace is declared and trade rights restored automatically by script. You fears about steamrolling are groundless.

[Caligula Caesar]

I meant that the people who would be represented weren't led by one ruler.

Doesn't it occur to you that a faction that other factions rebel to, but doesn't attack, only defend, and is not coordinated ("Each leader represents a petty ruler of an independent settlement.") is exactly the same as the current rebel faction?

The other problem is the fact that this isn't actually possible to script. If you make them declare a ceasefire every five turns, the ceasefire will inevitably onlylast half a turn. Ceasefires never last long.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

I meant that the people who would be represented weren't led by one ruler.

Doesn't it occur to you that a faction that other factions rebel to, but doesn't attack, only defend, and is not coordinated ("Each leader represents a petty ruler of an independent settlement.") is exactly the same as the current rebel faction?

The other problem is the fact that this isn't actually possible to script. If you make them declare a ceasefire every five turns, the ceasefire will inevitably only last half a turn. Ceasefires never last long.

It's not the same as the current rebel faction because it is not automatically at war with everyone, can build buildings and troops, repair stuff, can trade with other factions and so on. Thus it is more realistic. But it is controlled a strong set of scripted limitations which limit it's ability to co-operate except under particular conditions.

However diplomatically it is similar to the rebel faction. It cannot declare war on other factions or engage in any diplomacy whatsoever. The peace-script is there because of this limitation which prevents the faction from taking advantage of it's vast power to conquer the rest of the world.

It can indeed be declared war upon, so what you say could be true but so what? Unlike rebels the independent factions *can* attack and besiege other settlements assuming that the movement restrictions of particular settlements have already been lifted by sufficient hostile action. But they lack the political will to make a prolonged campaign of conquest, if *they* are not under siege by a faction for 5 turns, they make peace. The can still steal a few settlements from a player.

The major faction can decide to declare war again if it wants, I fail to see the problem.

[Carados]

I do...

http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/2847/campaignun6.jpg
http://i529.photobucket.com/albums/d.../EXRM170BC.jpg
http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/1...ia235bczt9.png
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/1...mpaign4yf6.jpg
http://inlinethumb21.webshots.com/12...600x600Q85.jpg

It doesn't matter if you force a ceasefire after 5 turns. It only takes 3 turns for an army to besiege, attack and take a settlement. When you have that many stacks against you (and these factions WILL build that many stacks, even with the economy nerf), you can quite viably lose 3, 4 different settlements in that window.

People also enjoy playing as these "barbarians" too. They've been getting a lot more fleshed out down the years. I'm really enjoying playing as the Guals with the revised unit stats. It's challenging trying to hold an army together and it's nice having your nobles in the thick of it! The Dacians are also a lot of fun to play for much the same reasons, but they had a slightly different style with the proximity of the Sarmatians and their own lethal falx weapons.

Taking out 5 (6?) existing factions for so little gain is not the way to go. The Britons are going to make way for the barbarian superfaction, which will include the Illyrians. The Illyrians in the current format are going to make way for a more central Greek faction. The rebels that remain are just as susceptible to invasion to these superfactions as they are to more concentrated factions.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

I do...

http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/2847/campaignun6.jpg
http://i529.photobucket.com/albums/d.../EXRM170BC.jpg
http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/1...ia235bczt9.png
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http://inlinethumb21.webshots.com/12...600x600Q85.jpg

It doesn't matter if you force a ceasefire after 5 turns. It only takes 3 turns for an army to besiege, attack and take a settlement. When you have that many stacks against you (and these factions WILL build that many stacks, even with the economy nerf), you can quite viably lose 3, 4 different settlements in that window.

People also enjoy playing as these "barbarians" too. They've been getting a lot more fleshed out down the years. I'm really enjoying playing as the Guals with the revised unit stats. It's challenging trying to hold an army together and it's nice having your nobles in the thick of it! The Dacians are also a lot of fun to play for much the same reasons, but they had a slightly different style with the proximity of the Sarmatians and their own lethal falx weapons.

Taking out 5 (6?) existing factions for so little gain is not the way to go. The Britons are going to make way for the barbarian superfaction, which will include the Illyrians. The Illyrians in the current format are going to make way for a more central Greek faction. The rebels that remain are just as susceptible to invasion to these superfactions as they are to more concentrated factions.

Why do we need a Barbarian superfaction? Why do need a faction that is just like any other faction with no special rules and no real realistic basis for being. Why shouldn't the whole of Europe be the superfaction? Because it would make them too powerful, probably. The only appeal to having a super-faction is that it gets rid of the rebels.

So what is the criteria for what is going to be in a super-faction and what is going to the rebels? Why should we get rid of the Illyrians (which I love) and the Britons just so some cities in the map that are no different from the other 'rebel' cities can go over to some abstracted super-faction.

Why can't you seem to read my posts ever! I said that the troops are locked in place, except when there is a war, in which case the individual city-armies and their leaders can move in a scripted fashion which will be explained. The AI doesn't know that it's forces are locked in place, consequently it will not build forces specially in particular places, taking advantage of all that income. Instead it will be forces all over the place, so the costs are just are dispersed as the income.

Why do you imagine then massive armies marching across the map destroying all in their path? The independent cities factions will simply not be allowed to do that. They are restricted from doing that by a version of the unmovable character trait that locks the independent cities armies in place along with their leaders. The end result is a lot like the rebels except that they can trade with people, do stuff and aren't automatically at permanent war (it also means that otherwise busy factions won't send armies off to conquer rebel cities and allow their capital to be occupied by actual players).

The independent cities leaders every perhaps third turn are set to patrol up and down the roads in their immediate area with their armies as much as they can within a single turns movement, before returning to their city (next turn they are of course unmovable again). This is so they can attempt to lift whatever sieges that they have been placed under and clear brigands (or marauding hostile players) from those roads.

If they survive a battle, regardless of the outcome, then they acquire an at war with faction X trait. This gives them a command boost, allowing them to override any other leader's claim to command and stops them from becoming unmovable. They are then unlocked. The other way to unlock an army is simply to kill all it's leaders. If it is possible, the trait should infect characters that are in the same city as the character.

If they move into another settlement, because they outrank everyone else there due to their command, they can if they move into another independent settlement and gather up whatever forces they need from the settlement, because they are not unmovable unlike the local ruler.

They can also besiege the enemy factions settlements as well and possibly take them over. However this is okay, because they are only at most 1 full army with whatever if that (maybe be whatever troops they have recruited since they were unlocked), not some unstoppable horde from the whole of Europe. And it all depends upon the local ruler surviving the initial assault of the faction which led to him becoming "at war" in the first place.

As soon as the Independents are peace-scripted, then the at war with X faction script is removed. This being so, the moment the leader steps back inside a settlement, they will be relocked in place.

The only motion that would normally occur would be the migration of newly came of age surplus leaders with their bodyguards once the city garrison is filled up (which is essential to restore locking to settlements whose own leaders have dies anyway) and a similar movement of small numbers of again surplus warriors away from full-up settlements (representing the movement of mercenary bands).

The only real limitation is that in settlements without leaders to lock them in place, the armies might be able to move freely. However this is realistic because if the ruling line dies out, then there are a lot of people who are "displaced" by the in-fighting within the province again as unemployed mercenaries.

[Quinn Inuit]

What you're describing is impossible in most of its key elements. You cannot lock down an army in a city, only a character. There's no way to keep an army from leaving a region, and the AI will do its best to keep fighting wars even with a peace script. The amount of scripting required would be simply immense, slow the game down a lot, and probably introduce new CTDs.

A superfaction/minifaction collection is the best chance we have to introduce as many minor power players as we can given our limitations. I think, and the vast majority of our forum-goers seem to agree, that the trade-off of a couple of faction slots is worth it if we can get the regions that were controlled by historical power players such as Syracuse, Pergamum, and the Insubres (and many more) to behave in a more realistic fashion and give a better challenge than the rebel faction.

I think this conversation has probably reached the end of its useful lifespan. IMO, you're not paying attention to the very good points Carados and CC (both of whom are quite skilled at modding) have been raising, and in your opinion, they're not paying attention to you. Therefore, to save everyone additional aggravation, I'm closing this thread.