Faction Family Trees - A DotS Preview

[Cyprian2]

Nice Norwegian line, Raz, and thanks for keeping us tantalized. +rep

(Are the pics of the male ancestors taken from their actual tombs/death-masks?)

EDIT. Meh, that was a dumb question; it's obvious they're not. still, why the praying hands?

Oh, yeah. They're the dead guys. Never noticed those in vanilla before. I've got a feeling I'll be paying better attention to family trees in DotS than I did before.

[Hengest]

"Trivia question... How many different dynastic bloodlines are in this strand?"

I don't even think I know that actually!

[raziel_eire]

Trivia question answered... see first post for details

Also, finished the ingame Norway build, preview to come in the following days... it's a biggie... phew!

[Pope_Fred_I]

Can't wait for the next preview!

[knin]

In the Scotland family tree, how did you guys manage to change the last names between generations? For example, the son of King Mael Coluim is (as it should be) Donnchad mac Mael Coluim and his son would be Uilliam mac Donnchada, but in vanilla, the last name is kept through the generations, is it not?

[motyc]

I think that the answer is simple - This is the predefined list at the start of the game. Next names in tree will be created by vanila rules...

[raziel_eire]

@knin

As motyc has said, it's a predefined list at the start of the game, and then from the start date in the mod the surnames of the future children will match that of their father.

The way its done when building a tree is a son displays his fathers defined surname and not what surname is defined for him. This can be tricky to code/keep track of as the names displayed ingame do not match-up with those you coded! Good notes & organised code is key!

So if you have a family tree that you want displayed as below:

Sigurd Halvdansson (Syr)
|
Harald Siggurdsson (Hardrada)
|
Olav Haraldsson (Kyrre)

...you have to define the characters with their inherited parents surnames, so the 3 examples above are actually coded as:

Sigurd Siggurdsson (Syr - inherits his fathers surname which masks his defined surname)
|
Harald Haraldsson (Hardrada - inherits "Siggurdsson" which masks his defined surname)
|
Olav Olavsson (Kyrre - inherits "Haraldsson" surname)

Olav Kyrre's defined surname as "Olavsson" will be passed on to his children if they are defined in the code at the game start (which he is, Magnus Barefoot) but will not be passed on to children that are born after the game has started.
The game defaults to a parents displayed name for all children once the game has started.

An issue with this is that it can lead to player confusion/historical inaccuracy for the player when patronym's are no longer used despite being shown in our historical family tree. We trying to mitigate this issue with a solution that still keeps historical immersion AND uses names that are still relevant as you spawn your new generations during the game.

[raziel_eire]

okay folks, for those interested... direct your eyes to the first page for the DotS Norway family tree

[Pope_Fred_I]

okay folks, for those interested... direct your eyes to the first page for the DotS Norway family tree

Holy dog ****. I think I'm in love.

[Pope_Fred_I]

Holy dog ****. I think I'm in love.

So by my count there are approx. 26 playable Norwegian characters at game start?!?!

[stratigos vasilios]

Amazingly impressive.

Question: The different portraits in the family tree, during the game will they be achieveable or will we be receiving the standard default ones that are in m2tw? Apologies if this has been answered before and/or is written somewhere in huge capital letters to stop people asking this question...

[Hengest]

Yes the current portraits in Raziel's family tree are for the wrong culture since we haven't coded the factions to cultures properly yet. Besides which I think those portraits are an older version, but I think they are the central european culture. Yes, these will be in game, we have completely replaced/removed vanilla portraits.

[Tomato_Sandwich]

That Norway tree is awesome raziel. you've totally out done me!

[mynameisowen]

Good work Raziel! Couple of questions:-
How do you manage to have so many alive people in the family tree when Norway has, what 2 regions or something, isn't the number of people you can have alive at once related to the number of regions you have? Or at least wont you stop getting any births/marriage requests?

[raziel_eire]

@ Pope_Fred_I

Not all will be playable Fred - in instances where another factions male character has married one of Norway's royal ladies at game start, they will both remain off_map and out of your control, having no children and just generally playing a silent part in the history you begin to write for Norway.

An example of this is Olaf I of Denmark or Oluf I Hunger, displayed in the Norwegian tree as Olav av Danmark (Olav of Denmark) who marries Norway's Ingjerd, daughter of Harald Hardrada.
Olaf is the King of Denmark at game start and so will not be useable by Norway for that, very important, reason.

I think the same applies to Hjalte av Danmark & Sunniva av Oppland to the far right of the tree, their place in history at game start was related to the Dane's and as such will not be useable by the Norway player.

These characters will be represented in their own faction however and fully controllable by them if historically appropriate at game start.

(In my family tree previews, 95% of "alive" characters are shown with small portraits which is due to them being off_map in the code and is done for the purpose of a quicker family tree build, in reality and when the mod is available, only the characters you cannot control will be displayed this way, so you will be able to recognize on your ingame family tree that the large portraits are your faction controllable characters and the small portraits are not)

@ mynameisowen

I'll be honest and say I can't answer that question with 100% accuracy Owen. I believe the game can handle and allows that many alive characters despite a small regions base, but it will reduce the number of adoption offers as they are not as necessary (I don't think these are ever eradicated though, especially if you are lacking an heir but still have lots of other blood-linked characters alive).
Whether it stops marriages and births I can't say, I certainly don't believe so, but it may slow them down somewhat as the urgency to have next of kin is not there in ingame terms.

Anyways, they're my beliefs from previous modding and gameplay experiences and not from my work on DotS itself, so as I say, I can't really answer with any accuracy or authority.

@ Everyone else

I appreciate the nice comments, just glad to be contributing in a useful way to make DotS as good as it can be.
Apologies once again for the very poor text display, I think I will review this over the weekend and re-publish the image with more clarity/definition in the text.

[Pope_Fred_I]

@ Pope_Fred_I

Not all will be playable Fred - in instances where another factions male character has married one of Norway's royal ladies at game start, they will both remain off_map and out of your control, having no children and just generally playing a silent part in the history you begin to write for Norway.

An example of this is Olaf I of Denmark or Oluf I Hunger, displayed in the Norwegian tree as Olav av Danmark (Olav of Denmark) who marries Norway's Ingjerd, daughter of Harald Hardrada.
Olaf is the King of Denmark at game start and so will not be useable by Norway for that, very important, reason.

I think the same applies to Hjalte av Danmark & Sunniva av Oppland to the far right of the tree, their place in history at game start was related to the Dane's and as such will not be useable by the Norway player.

These characters will be represented in their own faction however and fully controllable by them if historically appropriate at game start.

(In my family tree previews, 95% of "alive" characters are shown with small portraits which is due to them being off_map in the code and is done for the purpose of a quicker family tree build, in reality and when the mod is available, only the characters you cannot control will be displayed this way, so you will be able to recognize on your ingame family tree that the large portraits are your faction controllable characters and the small portraits are not)

I sort of assumed as much. Any idea how many will be playable? That's still a ton of folks running around on the map. I like it. A lot.

[mynameisowen]

@ mynameisowen

I'll be honest and say I can't answer that question with 100% accuracy Owen. I believe the game can handle and allows that many alive characters despite a small regions base, but it will reduce the number of adoption offers as they are not as necessary (I don't think these are ever eradicated though, especially if you are lacking an heir but still have lots of other blood-linked characters alive).
Whether it stops marriages and births I can't say, I certainly don't believe so, but it may slow them down somewhat as the urgency to have next of kin is not there in ingame terms.

Anyways, they're my beliefs from previous modding and gameplay experiences and not from my work on DotS itself, so as I say, I can't really answer with any accuracy or authority.

I see what you mean. I just hate it when, say for example, your King has no heirs and is no spring chicken; you want him to have a son to continue the family line, however, when he dies the heir(dom?) will pass to some bloody random adopted guy. And all this because the engine thought you had too many characters when in fact half of them are 60 year old men! Also you end up sending unwanted heirs on suicide missions to clear them off the family tree so someone more worthy can take the crown! (I do always feel bad doing this )

(again this experience comes from playing vanilla and Stainless Steel so DoTS may be better)

Maybe this could be remedied by using an heir ancillary (like in a particular submod for SS). I havn't used it though and I don't know if it evens works.

Lets hope you guys can sort it (or better yet, that its not a problem)!

[Tomato_Sandwich]

I see what you mean. I just hate it when, say for example, your King has no heirs and is no spring chicken; you want him to have a son to continue the family line, however, when he dies the heir(dom?) will pass to some bloody random adopted guy. And all this because the engine thought you had too many characters when in fact half of them are 60 year old men! Also you end up sending unwanted heirs on suicide missions to clear them off the family tree so someone more worthy can take the crown! (I do always feel bad doing this )

(again this experience comes from playing vanilla and Stainless Steel so DoTS may be better)

Maybe this could be remedied by using an heir ancillary (like in a particular submod for SS). I havn't used it though and I don't know if it evens works.

Lets hope you guys can sort it (or better yet, that its not a problem)!

Adoption in Dots will probably be very minimal. Almost every faction has a large amount of living family members compared to regions at the start date, especially smaller factions like Armenia, Syria, Aragon and the like. and these families will only grow as the game progresses. Also expansion will be slow with Dots so the number of regions is unlikely to massively outnumber family members. and the amount of Generals (rather than actual family member characters) will reduce casualties from within the family tree during the game. So in all adoption offers will probably be very minimal.

Though like raziel i'm only postulating.

[mynameisowen]

Adoption in Dots will probably be very minimal. Almost every faction has a large amount of living family members compared to regions at the start date, especially smaller factions like Armenia, Syria, Aragon and the like. and these families will only grow as the game progresses. Also expansion will be slow with Dots so the number of regions is unlikely to massively outnumber family members. and the amount of Generals (rather than actual family member characters) will reduce casualties from within the family tree during the game. So in all adoption offers will probably be very minimal.

Though like raziel i'm only postulating.

My worries are not with lack of adoption (which I never do), its not getting marriage proposals or new children being born. This is a big problem in mods thats I've played (although thier rate of expansion is probably much bigger than DoTS). I always end up having to inbreed my princesses just so that my characters can have kids

[Tomato_Sandwich]

My worries are not with lack of adoption (which I never do), its not getting marriage proposals or new children being born. This is a big problem in mods thats I've played (although thier rate of expansion is probably much bigger than DoTS). I always end up having to inbreed my princesses just so that my characters can have kids

Ah right. raziel is probably right, it will definitely be lessened. how much though we'll only know after testing.
As far as i'm aware the ratio between regions and birthrate rate isn't modable. For the larger factions with a tree, like the Seljuks, this shouldn't be a problem. but for smaller factions that have more than 20 starting characters and only a couple of regions, like Norway and Syria, this could be a problem.
The trees are all but done, raziel only has a few more to do i think, so i intended to start testing how they evolved in game soon. I'll keep this in mind and let you know!