Heretics, Witches, and the Baron's alliance

[Carle]

So I'm going to replace religion with "social class" i.e. merchants, and heresy will be rebels/revolutionaries. I'm contemplating a Baron's alliance dynastic struggle with spawned "witches" becoming faction leaders/heirs, but I'm not sure on the specifics.
My main gripe is a rather hazy understanding of Germanicus* (?) script for "labeling" characters via a placeholder, non-existent faction, which would then hand everything over to another faction ("giver_everything_to_faction) which came up in reference to his character labeling script for TATW/Medieval II...?

anyway, "witches" (usurpers) would spawn in rebellious provinces, and (if ignored/left to their own devices) could sway generals to their cause. If/when a BA shadow faction emerges, the Usurper would, ideally, be the faction leader. I'm thinking about labeling all regions with "no_brigands" so that heretics/rebels spawn via the scripted placeholder faction; this would give control over traits/names etc and possibly have a counter to control which "faction leader" emerges.

So how would this work, if at all?

Also is it possible to have a "dynastic struggle" within a specific faction (I want to have a "proving/coronation" event where if the new leader doesn't win a battle/bribe his nobles/win over the people etc. a "worthy" successor would try to take his place) using a BA script? Is it possible to have a player side against the king, i.e. join the rebels? Maybe with a give everything to faction, i.e. the human becomes the "rebels", then a BA script spawning the "loyalists" faction and/or the original kingdom under the previous king.

*IIRC the script was Germanicus' Interactive Gameplay, but it might have been a post/discussion on a relevant thread...

[Withwnar]

To my knowledge Germanicu5's submod is not using that spawn-from-another-faction technique. Is this the one you mean?

EDIT:
As far as I know Witches and Heretics can only be spawned for the slave faction.
I just tried it: works fine. So long as the faction has strat models assigned for them. Inquisitors work too.

[Carle]

Witches/Heretics can be spawned for any faction?
Cool. In any event, it was only a minor gripe.
Yes, that thread was what I was referring to. Is it necessary to use the faction emerge script though?

[Withwnar]

I am currently writing a tutorial for that spawn-from-another-faction technique. But I don't think that you need it now that I reread your OP...

I would have thought that only named characters (generals) can be faction leaders. If you want them to appear as witches/heretics then you could simply use witch/heretic strat models and portraits for these particular generals. And because they are not agents you can use labels for controlling them.

EDIT:
Here's the tutorial in case you need it: [Tutorial] Unique Names (and avoiding labels)

[Carle]

I want "witches" to be usurpers- full refit, witches and heretics have new names/portraits/models etc. An unnescesary buy IMO beneficial effect would have the "usurper" respawn as a faction leader/general if/when the rebellion occurs. IE if the player doesn't dispose of them quickly enough.
So even in reverse, changing models/portraits isn't really getting me anywhere regarding the script, though it would be a simple and effective means of visally completing the effect.
In retrospect, you might be right about not needing the convoluted name script- witches are unique characters, with presumably unique names?
The leader would be spawned to a different BA faction regardless. Unless of course, the secessionist player "give_everything_to_faction" command + "faction_emerge" "respawning" the old kingdom (and king, probably... though how would the king "desert" and go back to the original rebel kingdom? Is there a way to get the "deserted" label on a character portrait via script?) and tat most likely would use the name script, but the fact that it's always the referring to the king and/or heir would make things a lot easier.

[Withwnar]

I had to read up on Baron's Alliance emergence.

Let's see if I have this right:

• Witches still belong to the slave faction but spawned only by your script, not the game
• When an emergence happens the witch is killed and a general is spawned into the emergent faction and is made the faction leader
• That general has the same name as the witch (?)

The faction leader is whoever you name in the faction_emerge command. What I don't know is: should this character be in the emerged-from faction prior to the faction_emerge, and if so how do you know that he will shift to the emerged faction? (faction_emerge only talks about settlements shifting, not generals). Or can you faction_emerge naming Bob as the leader and then spawn Bob? Somehow I doubt it but I have never made an emerging faction before (apart from the Unique Names thing but that's different).

That aside, if you need the leader to have the same name as the witch then ordinarily that name would need to be in the emerging faction's name list, so you can spawn him with that name.

BUT, if it's in the list then there's nothing to stop the game from spawning other characters with that name for that faction. Which means that if your script needs to control/access the leader in any way then there's a risk that it will be doing it with the wrong character.

However, given that this general is one of the (if not the very) first character spawned under this new faction then it's probably safe. Earliest-created characters seem to take precedence when there's a name clash.

And given that witches are only spawned by your script there is no risk that there is more than one witch on the map with the same name (unless you do that accidentally).

So, as I see it, there is probably no need for a Unique Names spawning faction.

By the way, I have heard that only one shadow faction can be defined. Meaning that only one of your factions could possibly "go rebel" like this; the same faction, every campaign. I couldn't tell if you knew this, so mentioning it just in case.

[Carle]

That... sounds bad.

Where did you hear that? I assumed that it was possible for as many shadow/regular factions as possible..
Also t3eh BA script allows yopu to name/define the FL and his traits.

[Withwnar]

I only heard it secondhand so I could be wrong. We were discussing it in a Third Age TW development group: more than one person said that it wasn't possible to add a shadow faction because it already has one. Maybe someone else could confirm/refute this.

Can you elaborate on the faction leader definition? When, where?