[question] How to change a faction's starting provinces?

[Dresden]

I made a mod to allow the player to gain Libya and Nova Carthago on the first turn through confederation. You have to cancel your client state status first.

Here it is:

Qart-Hadast Mod


The only problem so far is that you don't have garrisons in your newly acquired regions on the first turn.

Also, I have no idea how to get the AI to take advantage of this so it sadly only works for the player as Carthage right now.

[Dunadd]

I made a mod to allow the player to gain Libya and Nova Carthago on the first turn through confederation. You have to cancel your client state status first.

Here it is:

Qart-Hadast Mod


The only problem so far is that you don't have garrisons in your newly acquired regions on the first turn.

Also, I have no idea how to get the AI to take advantage of this so it sadly only works for the player as Carthage right now.

still pretty damn good - thank you!

[Dresden]

I am working on editing the startpos.esf file to make it so that Carthage and Libya/Nova Carthago don't start as client states. I am hoping that by doing this, the AI may immediately make a confederation when they have the opportunity (could be a pipe dream).

So far I have changed the values under each faction so that they start as neutral. I am editing the DIPLOMACY_MANAGER/DIPLOMACY_RELATIONSHIPS for all 3 factions under the FACTION_ARRAY/FACTION table. However, there must be other values governing starting diplomatic status because it is currently causing an issue. On the initial diplomacy screen on the first turn, it shows the client state icon next to their name. However, as Carthage when I initiate diplomacy with Libya it doesn't show Libya as a client state and there is no option to cancel client state status. Also, I can't ask them to Join Confederation either. I am trying to figure out what else might govern the initial diplomatic relationships.

Edit: Going to take this post over to the mod's thread so I don't hijack this original thread's intent. Being able to change starting region control is still a must, hopefully it gets figured out.

[Dunadd]

I am working on editing the startpos.esf file to make it so that Carthage and Libya/Nova Carthago don't start as client states. I am hoping that by doing this, the AI may immediately make a confederation when they have the opportunity (could be a pipe dream).

So far I have changed the values under each faction so that they start as neutral. I am editing the DIPLOMACY_MANAGER/DIPLOMACY_RELATIONSHIPS for all 3 factions under the FACTION_ARRAY/FACTION table. However, there must be other values governing starting diplomatic status because it is currently causing an issue. On the initial diplomacy screen on the first turn, it shows the client state icon next to their name. However, as Carthage when I initiate diplomacy with Libya it doesn't show Libya as a client state and there is no option to cancel client state status. Also, I can't ask them to Join Confederation either. I am trying to figure out what else might govern the initial diplomatic relationships.

Edit: Going to take this post over to the mod's thread so I don't hijack this original thread's intent. Being able to change starting region control is still a must, hopefully it gets figured out.

Confederation worked fine with your mod for me. I offered Libya a trade agreement to get them more friendly before cancelling client state and offering confederation - they an CN both accepted. Unfortunately the 'Issue edict' button for the Africa province remained greyed out - and since i installed patch 3 beta i can't recruit armies or fleets in Carthage or Lilybauem - weird

[Dresden]

Confederation worked fine with your mod for me. I offered Libya a trade agreement to get them more friendly before cancelling client state and offering confederation - they an CN both accepted. Unfortunately the 'Issue edict' button for the Africa province remained greyed out - and since i installed patch 3 beta i can't recruit armies or fleets in Carthage or Lilybauem - weird

This is odd, because I can issue edicts in Africa after cancelling client state and confederating with Libya. I can also recruit units, I will look into it.

Edit: I just tested it again, and I could issue edicts and recruit after confederating. I have patch 3 beta. I am not sure what the difference is, unless there are some mod conflicts going on.

[Dunadd]

This is odd, because I can issue edicts in Africa after cancelling client state and confederating with Libya. I can also recruit units, I will look into it.

Edit: I just tested it again, and I could issue edicts and recruit after confederating. I have patch 3 beta. I am not sure what the difference is, unless there are some mod conflicts going on.

maybe it's because i'd also edited the province and region arrays to put in 3 for Carthage for ownership before that - maybe if i set them back to the numbers for Libya and Nova Carthago it'll work then. Though i don't understand why that would affect army and fleet recruitment in the original Carthage province (zeugitania or something) - maybe changing the province array does

Edit : will try removing all other mod packs from my data folder too - i have some that show up in mod manager and others that don't - i thought i'd run it with the ones that showed up unticked but can't remember (yours doesn't show up in mod manager for me but still seems to work so maybe others are too)

Edit : just realised i don't know what the original values for province array 0 and province array 1 for Africa, Magna Graecia , Carthaginensis were - doh - may have to reinstall

[Dresden]

Here is a vanilla startpos for patch 3 beta. http://www.mediafire.com/download/3b...w/startpos.esf

[Anaxamander]

Here is a vanilla startpos for patch 3 beta. http://www.mediafire.com/download/3b...w/startpos.esf

Edit: never mind.

[Dunadd]

Here is a vanilla startpos for patch 3 beta. http://www.mediafire.com/download/3b...w/startpos.esf

Thanks! I'll make a back up copy this time if i try any more changes to it

[Lord Mongsworth]

Does anyone know how we can edit the system byte entry in province array that shows the number of regions each faction holds in each province?

Also is it possible to entirely remove a faction from the game?

If both of these were possible I don't see why the edicts wouldn't work.

[Caki]

None are still doable
We need a tool from CA so we can edit the ownership

[Spmon]

There has to more to this than simply editing the regions in the province_manager array. If that were the case simple region switches should work out, where you change all managed regions of a province from one faction to another:

I tried allocating Cosentia and Brundisium to Epirus (for a more entertaining Rome start), which should work out reasonably right? Changing region flags, culture, building type and so on as well as switching the faction management of Magna Graecia from Rome to Epirus. I also moved the Roman general from Cosentia to Rome.

I did not touch the garrisons as they appear to be recalculated/reset each turn, after which field battles against Epirus/Cosentia works fine. Garrisons seem ok in the savegame.

• Testing as Epirus: full ownership as expected, I could raise armies, recruit mercenaries and so on in Brundisium. However the AI *still* ninja-builds stuff in MG. A Roman general also keeps trying to leisurely enter Brundisium - but I get not trespass notice, hmm...

• Testing as Rome: Epirus looses its greek provinces in a couple of turns. However Epirus attempts no construction or action in MG. When Sparta attempts a move in on Brundisium their fleet gets stuck in a loop nearby, and keeps trying to attack over and over. After 10 turns of this I declare war on Sparta, and the next turn they conquer Brundisium and Cosentia without issue. Double hmm...

I also tried switching Ibossim and Quart Hadasht between Carthage and Carthago nova. Same issue (AI will not build in its new region, while spending resources on its old region). Changing the management settings will however prevent the AI from raising armies in its old region seemingly.

Anyway to cut a long story short: how do we find which AI settings to change - assuming we can?

Is it even worth trying? Right now using console commands [assuming the exist] seems the simplest way to change the campaign without messing everything up utterly.

[Dresden]

There has to more to this than simply editing the regions in the province_manager array. If that were the case simple region switches should work out, where you change all managed regions of a province from one faction to another:

I tried allocating Cosentia and Brundisium to Epirus (for a more entertaining Rome start), which should work out reasonably right? Changing region flags, culture, building type and so on as well as switching the faction management of Magna Graecia from Rome to Epirus. I also moved the Roman general from Cosentia to Rome.

I did not touch the garrisons as they appear to be recalculated/reset each turn, after which field battles against Epirus/Cosentia works fine. Garrisons seem ok in the savegame.

• Testing as Epirus: full ownership as expected, I could raise armies, recruit mercenaries and so on in Brundisium. However the AI *still* ninja-builds stuff in MG. A Roman general also keeps trying to leisurely enter Brundisium - but I get not trespass notice, hmm...

• Testing as Rome: Epirus looses its greek provinces in a couple of turns. However Epirus attempts no construction or action in MG. When Sparta attempts a move in on Brundisium their fleet gets stuck in a loop nearby, and keeps trying to attack over and over. After 10 turns of this I declare war on Sparta, and the next turn they conquer Brundisium and Cosentia without issue. Double hmm...

I also tried switching Ibossim and Quart Hadasht between Carthage and Carthago nova. Same issue (AI will not build in its new region, while spending resources on its old region). Changing the management settings will however prevent the AI from raising armies in its old region seemingly.

Anyway to cut a long story short: how do we find which AI settings to change - assuming we can?

Is it even worth trying? Right now using console commands [assuming the exist] seems the simplest way to change the campaign without messing everything up utterly.

There is a specific System Byte entry under the Province Array that can't be edited with current tools apparently. So, until that changes this seems to be problematic.

[Spmon]

There is a specific System Byte entry under the Province Array that can't be edited with current tools apparently. So, until that changes this seems to be problematic.

Yep, and above I tried to get around that by switching the province array ownership entirely between two factions - and it works fine for a human player as one would expect. But the AI still goes nuts as there must be other flags that tie faction AI:s to provinces. I have found several suspects in the CAI section, but haven't had time to RE those references yet.

[Lord Mongsworth]

On the other hand I've managed to give Carthage all it's provinces and it is entirely in control of recruiting and building... It's two protectorates have ceased to exist as diplomatic entities, but their armies are still present on the map. I know they can be removed but would that cause a CTD? Is there any way to completely remove a faction?

[Lord Mongsworth]

How could you edit the system byte entry that dictates how many regions in a province a particular faction owns? It's not possible with the current ESF editor? Switching ownership isn't the issue, the system byte entry is the crucial factor. As you probably know deleting a faction from a province causes a CTD...

[Spmon]

How could you edit the system byte entry that dictates how many regions in a province a particular faction owns? It's not possible with the current ESF editor? Switching ownership isn't the issue, the system byte entry is the crucial factor. As you probably know deleting a faction from a province causes a CTD...

We can't edit the region contents of a province management object, but like others tried earlier in this thread I attempted to change ownership of the management object itself. So for Carthaginensis I switched management objects between Carthago Nova and Carthage - after changing the respective region array properties of course. For Magna Graecia I changed management and region ownership entirely from Rome to Epirus.

This seems to work fine for the human player when playing as Carthage or Epirus, so I don't think it breaks anything obvious, but the AI *still* treats the settlements as if they belonged to the previous owner despite the System.byte values having new ownership - this includes building stuff and deciding where to [attempt] an attack. So there is more to this than simply changing that array.

[Lord Mongsworth]

We can't edit the region contents of a province management object, but like others tried earlier in this thread I attempted to change ownership of the management object itself. So for Carthaginensis I switched management objects between Carthago Nova and Carthage - after changing the respective region array properties of course. For Magna Graecia I changed management and region ownership entirely from Rome to Epirus.

This seems to work fine for the human player when playing as Carthage or Epirus, so I don't think it breaks anything obvious, but the AI *still* treats the settlements as if they belonged to the previous owner despite the System.byte values having new ownership - this includes building stuff and deciding where to [attempt] an attack. So there is more to this than simply changing that array.

Yes you have changed the faction number but you HAVEN'T changed the actual system byte entry... it's still left there saying that the province is essentially split in two and therefore one faction does not own it and cannot issue edicts.

General WVPM if you manage to change the system byte entry in the startpos file and nothing changes then i'll believe you. Until then we're all just making educated guesses. You can't definitively say that the system__byte entry should NOT be the problem. Unless you know something we don't?

You'll notice under Egypt's entry that the system byte number corresponds correctly and there is only ONE faction entry for the province, hence edicts can be issued.

Take Africa for example. If you could delete Libya's entry and change Carthage's system byte entry to 4 instead of 1 I would be interested to see the result.

There is also an entry in the faction array corresponding to the total amount of provinces owned by the faction and another specifying the capital. Sadly changing them has no effect...

[Lord Mongsworth]

I managed to stop the phantom construction and made the AI recognise I fully control three provinces, yet I still can't issue edicts...

I might try destroying the armies of Libya and Nova Carthago and see what happens.

[Spmon]

I managed to stop the phantom construction and made the AI recognise I fully control three provinces, yet I still can't issue edicts...

I might try destroying the armies of Libya and Nova Carthago and see what happens.

How did you stop the phantom construction by the AI? I have had zero success with this.

Regarding edicts, they work fine if one just switches the management ownership, but that forces us to work within the confines of already existing ownership setups:
- Change ownership of the Brundisium and Cosentia regions from Rome to Epirus. Including culture etc. I switched the ionian sea region as well in this case.
- Edit the Faction_Province_Manager_Array for Magna Graecia belonging to Rome so that Epirus owns it instead, and vice versa.
This makes edicts possible in MG playing as Epirus after conquering sicily. Same works when switching ownership between factions within one province. It does kind of prove that editing the System.byte entry in province management is required for custom changes.

But in the above example the AI is still messed up refusing to attack Epirus in MG and keeps building stuff and so on, how did you solve that bit? I've messed around in the CAI section but that changes nothing at all.