Should factions ever get destroyed?

[Aio]

I hope this mod will change the way most factions evolve while the game progresses:

- Why do factions get destroyed? In a historically accurate mod like DotS, they shouldn't. In fact only a few got wiped out of history, like the Crusader States, the Byzantine or the Kwarezmian Empire. It's all wrong to see HRE disappearing from Central Europe, choped to pieces by its neighbours or Lithuania strangled to death between Poland and Novgorod. Maybe a vassality system (so common in those ages) could chill things down a bit...

- Why does David play Goliath? Should Venice own more land on the continent than Hungary, or even HRE? Should Aragon conquer the southern half of France, Lombardy and the northern shores of Africa? Should Lithuania take both Novgorod and Kiev as if Peter the Great got born half of milennium earlier?
I mean every faction should know its place (small or big) in the picture and act accordingly. Well balanced, this should stop you from fighting wars that never happened in a fantasy medieval world, without killing off all of the unexpected that makes this game fun.

[Mads]

Allow me to reply your question(s),

Although I'm not an admin or one of the developers on DotS, I'm very certain that the fact that Lithuania could have colonies in Africa is the reason people played MTW2 or many of the total war games. To create an Empire and change the course of history. Maybe the realism will vanish at some point but that’s what appeal to a lot of people, who doesn’t like to se the banners of they're own country all across Europe?

The other extreme would be that you'd have to do everything perfectly correct to not alter history which seems very boring to me. It's a balance that developers on all sorts of games, have to work out. Authenticity vs. well, things that are not real but would improve game play.

peace

[Walkman810i]

You have to understand one simple thing my friend, it's just a game and as such it has some (in fact a lot) of limitations. Some things can be prevented and some cannot. Destroying nations is not one of them I think.

And as Mads said, it would be pretty boring to not alter history at all or only to very limited extend. Tell me why I should even bother with playing when everything was prepared for me before I even start the game? Why should I bother clicking on something that I can't change in any way?

[Copperknickers II]

I hope this mod will change the way most factions evolve while the game progresses:

- Why do factions get destroyed? In a historically accurate mod like DotS, they shouldn't. In fact only a few got wiped out of history, like the Crusader States, the Byzantine or the Kwarezmian Empire. It's all wrong to see HRE disappearing from Central Europe, choped to pieces by its neighbours or Lithuania strangled to death between Poland and Novgorod. Maybe a vassality system (so common in those ages) could chill things down a bit...

- Why does David play Goliath? Should Venice own more land on the continent than Hungary, or even HRE? Should Aragon conquer the southern half of France, Lombardy and the northern shores of Africa? Should Lithuania take both Novgorod and Kiev as if Peter the Great got born half of milennium earlier?
I mean every faction should know its place (small or big) in the picture and act accordingly. Well balanced, this should stop you from fighting wars that never happened in a fantasy medieval world, without killing off all of the unexpected that makes this game fun.

Anything can happen in history. As you said, the Byzantines, the Khwarezmians, the Syrians, all of these were destroyed. If these can be so, then theoretically any faction could be destroyed given bad luck or an expansionistic neighbour.

DotS is historically accurate in the sense that in 1080, the campaign map will be as it was in 1080AD. Some things that could not be prevented, like the Black Death will be inclued, things that did happen like Saladin's invasion of Egypt to create the Ayyubids will be possible. But other than that, DotS is an alternate history, taking it from 1080 and then seeing what happens.

That's where the whole fun of Total War lies for me.

[Dea Paladin]

Maybe it would be possible to do an Empire Total War thing? How the faction is destroyed but they can come back as rebels

[Resurrection]

Maybe it would be possible to do an Empire Total War thing? How the faction is destroyed but they can come back as rebels

That's a Medieval Total War thing... ETW just reused the same feature. Anyway, as sumskilz says, it is possible in M2TW, but only for first 10 factions.

[History_Buff]

Maybe it would be possible to do an Empire Total War thing? How the faction is destroyed but they can come back as rebels

I for one always HATED that feature in the original Medieval Total War. It was so annoying. You are fighting someone and all of a sudden, without any warning, a faction you defeated 20 years ago suddenly decides it wants to magically reappear. To make matters worse, the requirement was that a junior member of the faction survived his factions destruction, something you have no way of telling has happened. Also, if you do not put down the revolt ASAP, it can happen again. The biggest annoyance was the inability to destroy the Papal States. I doubt the Pope would revolt if Rome or his lands had a full army parked in his old lands. If they are weakly held, I could see him taking his chance, but not otherwise. Empire Total war does a better job, as you can somewhat tell when it is going to happen, as the lands will be rebellious already. Medieval Total War allowed a completely peaceful region to suddenly rebel.

[sumskilz]

I hope this mod will change the way most factions evolve while the game progresses:

- Why do factions get destroyed? In a historically accurate mod like DotS, they shouldn't. In fact only a few got wiped out of history, like the Crusader States, the Byzantine or the Kwarezmian Empire. It's all wrong to see HRE disappearing from Central Europe, choped to pieces by its neighbours or Lithuania strangled to death between Poland and Novgorod. Maybe a vassality system (so common in those ages) could chill things down a bit...

- Why does David play Goliath? Should Venice own more land on the continent than Hungary, or even HRE? Should Aragon conquer the southern half of France, Lombardy and the northern shores of Africa? Should Lithuania take both Novgorod and Kiev as if Peter the Great got born half of milennium earlier?
I mean every faction should know its place (small or big) in the picture and act accordingly. Well balanced, this should stop you from fighting wars that never happened in a fantasy medieval world, without killing off all of the unexpected that makes this game fun.

I think others are disagreeing with you on a very specific point (the title of your post), but in general the type of gameplay you are describing fits with our vision for the mod. No, we shouldn't make it totally impossible for factions to be destroyed, but it should be historically feasible. For example, it should be very difficult for Venice to be a serious threat to the HRE, but a lot can happen in 400 years of alternate history. I mean it's not totally unreasonable that a city in Italy governed by a republic could, given enough time, build a vast empire.

Maybe it would be possible to do an Empire Total War thing? How the faction is destroyed but they can come back as rebels.

We can, but there is a limit to the number of factions we can do this with.

[JorisofHolland]

Why? I thought this is usually done by a script. Conditions are that the faction is defeated, and that is't capital isn't held by a friendly power. At certain times, those conditions are checked. When both are matched, an army will spawn and re-take the capital (unless they are defeated, of course).

Maybe we are talking of two different things?

[sumskilz]

Why? I thought this is usually done by a script. Conditions are that the faction is defeated, and that is't capital isn't held by a friendly power. At certain times, those conditions are checked. When both are matched, an army will spawn and re-take the capital (unless they are defeated, of course).

Maybe we are talking of two different things?

To allow an army to spawn after the faction has been destroyed, the faction has to be set to "hording". However, this will only work for the first ten entries. It's apparently a hard-coded limit (I've tested it myself). The Mongols must be hording so that leaves nine.

The only other way to keep factions alive is to make them shadow factions, but then all rebellions of one faction will go to its particular shadow faction. This wouldn't make sense in most cases.

[JorisofHolland]

To allow an army to spawn after the faction has been destroyed, the faction has to be set to "hording". However, this will only work for the first ten entries. It's apparently a hard-coded limit (I've tested it myself). The Mongols must be hording so that leaves nine.

But it's possible to spawn an army sieging, with artillery, and have it assault straightforward?

The only other way to keep factions alive is to make them shadow factions, but then all rebellions of one faction will go to its particular shadow faction. This wouldn't make sense in most cases.

That I do know, and I agree it wouldn't make sense.

[sumskilz]

But it's possible to spawn an army sieging, with artillery, and have it assault straightforward?

That I do know, and I agree it wouldn't make sense.

Controlling it's the behavior of the re-emerged faction will take some testing. The other option is a rebellion similar to the way that it works for the rebel faction in Vanilla. For example, say Venice has been destroyed as a faction and the HRE controls the city of Venice. When public order is low (or whatever conditions we decide on), the HRE's garrison in Venice is expelled from the city and a Venetian army is spawned there. Just because a faction is set to horde doesn't mean it has to re-emerge as a horde.

[JorisofHolland]

I don't think I like the hording idea, it's not even necessary. It will make factions hard to destroy (that we want, I agree, but this is not the way) and is limitted to only 10. Why are you doing it that way? The rebellion thing doesn't require Venice to be a horde as you'll first give it the city and then an army, right?

[sumskilz]

I don't think I like the hording idea, it's not even necessary. It will make factions hard to destroy (that we want, I agree, but this is not the way) and is limitted to only 10. Why are you doing it that way? The rebellion thing doesn't require Venice to be a horde as you'll first give it the city and then an army, right?

The rebellion thing does require Venice to be a hording faction. It is a game mechanics issue. I faction without the horde ability (or designated shadow faction) will be permanently destroyed when they loose their last city. There is no other way to allow for a script to bring them back. Just because they have the horde ability doesn't mean that they will behave like the Mongols in vanilla. It can be set so that when their last city is taken it only spawns a couple units which could represent nobles who will not be welcome under the new regime fleeing the situation.

[VINC.XXIII]

The one solution is a more complex diplomacy,I explain:In the reality the lands are hard to occup entirely, the winner of the war prefer a vassal than a long conflict of guerilla.Instead of that in TW the possession of lands is decided in one or two battles.

@Sumskilz:in my personnal PDER 1.0 I have make the total factions hording.And again problems from AI,for exemple Georgia are forced to the exil by the mongol horde,they are located after in Constantinople region,they try to the conquest of the great City,defeat of this Kingdom in exil,the king and all his troops are killed, Georgia only survive with his patriarch.

[Xystophoroi]

What about the emergent factions from Barbarian Invasion?

Potentially on extermination of a faction a script could run that creates some rebel forces using faction specific troops, preferably spawning in permanent forts. Then implementing some sort of script that when a certain trigger fires (rebellion in last city owned by destroyed faction, or something) the emergent faction appears.

[Resurrection]

Guys, your constructions are interesting, but it is not possible. If faction gets destroyed, it cannot be revived in any way. Setting a faction to hording only allows the faction to exist even without settlements, but if it loses all of its armies as well, it is destroyed too (and cannot be revived). And hording can be enabled only for first 10 factions.

Any other solutions would use a faction slot, settlement slot etc. in order to keep factions in even after it was destroyed. And we are not spending those precious slots on that...

[JorisofHolland]

Divide and Conquer (a submod for Third Age) has done it, so it's certainly not impossible. Maybe you should ask them how they did it? For it's certainly an insteresting idea, but maybe not for the first release.

[sumskilz]

The one solution is a more complex diplomacy,I explain:In the reality the lands are hard to occup entirely, the winner of the war prefer a vassal than a long conflict of guerilla.

Yeah, it would be cool if we can get factions who are in a hopeless situation to accept vassalage rather than always fight to the death.

What about the emergent factions from Barbarian Invasion?

That's the hording feature we are discussing.

Divide and Conquer (a submod for Third Age) has done it, so it's certainly not impossible. Maybe you should ask them how they did it? For it's certainly an insteresting idea, but maybe not for the first release.

So maybe that's true, but I doubt it. Just because a mod claims it as a feature doesn't mean that it actually works for all the factions. It may appear to work because it does for ten of them, but every single faction has to be systematically tested to know that it does. So far every mod that has implemented this feature has used that same type of scripting that I have meticulously tested and found to be limited to ten factions. Testing is very time consuming however, so I can't test every mod that makes the claim and still have time to make units for DotS. If someone can prove me wrong on this, I will be pleasantly surprised because I'd love for us to be able to have all the factions be potentially reemergent.

[JorisofHolland]

Sound very bad. Luckily Empire has this thing a lot better done, and for MTW2 (and thus DotS) we can demand low public order, high unrest, a low garisson (that's already used in dHRR, but spawns a rebel army instead), immunity for certain factions, any other command available through scripting.