Modders: Family tree - Is this feasible?

[Foe]

Apologies if this isn't quite the right forum for this - but I didn't want to clutter up the mod threads (which are mostly full of actual mods) with an inane questions. Moderators feel free to move as needed - I won't be offended.

Would any attempt at resurrecting the family tree and the superbly interesting traits generals and family members would acquire (like in Rome I, or especially in Stainless Steel or Lusted's mod for Medieval II) be something that's within the realm of possibility?

I'm really hoping someone can bring this element back into the game, because given the political event/choice model already in place, I think these features could really make the game shine - especially on top of the really great stuff modders and CA are working on already.


The old trait system was so interesting: your family members and generals might get bonuses (to anything, really) for becoming popular at court, getting an honorable reputation, being fair-minded, being popular among the commonfolk, and so on. They also might become drunkards, gamblers, be rumored to be pedophiles, especially cruel, and get appropriate penalties. This stuff happens to a very limited extent in Rome II, but you don't have any incentive to pay attention to it since general quality is by and large meaningless as is, and you have a near never-ending supply of them.

The trait system was more meaningful before, because you had a limited supply of family members. You could adopt new ones, but it couldn't be done reliably if your legacy had begun to drop like flies. So, if you had a horrible, lecherous drunkard of a cousin who was diddling little boys and burning peasants alive for fun you had to choose: Send him off to die in battle and keep your legacy respectable but endure the loss of one more precious Lord (you never had enough), or let him live because you might need him someday, and run the risk that his children (who often shared traits with their parents) would come back to exacerbate the problem in later turns.

Is any of this even remotely possible given the architecture of the game?

[mephhhh]

no

[stackero]

This is the main underlining problem with R2 that most people don't understand. The basic game design, unlike other TW titles, is so bad that it will take major upgrades and outright redesigning to advance the gameplay much farther.

Patching will help some things, but is not going to save this game alone. Question now; do you believe CA will do all that to save the game? Patching yes, but the other?

[SamueleD]

Right now they seem to be concentrating on patching performance issues, balancing, bugs, crashes, and major gameplay flaws (read: features that don't work). Once those priorities are out of the way they'll either abandon the game as they did with ETW or keep on patching "secondary" issues, like adding family trees, filling gaps in unit rosters, etc.

Since they have already dropped hints that they might re-introduce family trees with a patch or free-DLC, I'm hopeful that this time around, while repeating past mistakes with release, they might end up patching them for good and actually finish the game. In the meantime, I'll keep giving them feedback on beta patches and telling them what I'd like to see changed or added.

My major concern right now is the AI, you can mod a lot of things into the game, but there is only so much you can do with the AI and if it stays as broken as it is, no mod will ever be able to make the game enjoyable.

[stackero]

[QUOTE=SamueleD;13264086
My major concern right now is the AI, you can mod a lot of things into the game, but there is only so much you can do with the AI and if it stays as broken as it is, no mod will ever be able to make the game enjoyable.[/QUOTE]



There you have my friend. No matter how much they do to repair the game, the AI, I fear, will be last on CA's list. I'm very pessimistic about it all, and very untrusting of CA. But maybe they'll surprise me.

[VINC.XXIII]

Thats shamefull they just missed the old Rome and MTW2 family tree and ancillary system. Actually, that side of the game is quite empty...no faction chiefs, no governor titles, hem...its surrealistic
Seriously, I don't take care about their actual system of ancillary and traits, because its just unreadable and boring.
After fixing annoying things(bugs...performances...etc), to bring the Roman Cursus Honorum is from my point a high priority, and eventually it could be used as template for other factions.
And to bring as well the Roman Senate, and use it as template for other factions(tribal elders assembly, Council of Ancients, or whatever)

[kujirakira]

Thats shamefull they just missed the old Rome and MTW2 family tree and ancillary system. Actually, that side of the game is quite empty...no faction chiefs, no governor titles, hem...its surrealistic
Seriously, I don't take care about their actual system of ancillary and traits, because its just unreadable and boring.
After fixing annoying things(bugs...performances...etc), to bring the Roman Cursus Honorum is from my point a high priority, and eventually it could be used as template for other factions.
And to bring as well the Roman Senate, and use it as template for other factions(tribal elders assembly, Council of Ancients, or whatever)

The entire character system is lacking in my opinion.
There are actually "titles" per se, but they're hidden behind the useless political system. It doesn't matter what you do with politics, a Civil War is as inevitable as Realm Divide in S2. But the gains for the few ranks I've looked at as Sparta are all related to tax rates in "current province". That's an extremely useless benefit as I only have a limited number of armies and they're always on campaign. A high ranking general capable of attaining that kind of rank will never be anywhere near a fully developed economic province. It's simply poorly thought out. It seems to me the people developing this political aspect didn't talk to the people developing the military structure.
On the other hand we have 3 agent types. Spies are always useful, but Dignitaries seem to be essentially just for spreading culture, and the only real use for Heroes I've found is to power-level them to 4+ and embed them into an Army to increase unit experience every turn and give a little more movement range.

In R1 you had a plethora of characters and were expected to have a Governor in almost every province. But you can't even stick a Dignitary, which has some civil benefit options, in a city. At most you can have them sit in the middle of nowhere with that lower left button pressed. Functionally, it's the same. But in terms of enjoyment... it's just not. It'd be so much more meaningful if you could place them in a province Capitol as a governor.

It also seems odd to me that we have all this stuff about Roman politics and such, but Generals stay in the field indefinitely and such. Very few Roman generals held imperium for a lifetime... it'd make more sense to have the General / Governor situation as in Rome1. Where the character pool of Roman politicians could be recruited to lead Armies with imperium *or* recruited by themselves as a dignitary capable of acting as a governor (such as Cato going to Cyprus). This seems like better gameplay and more historically accurate to me.

I'm also not sure everyone should have the same agent options. Romans would have "dignitaries" that can act as Governors increasing tax rates, decreasing corruption, improving efficiency, etc. Barbarians (and Greeks?) would have "champions" that can aid your empire as war heroes spreading culture, inspiring the commoners -> +happiness / order, and such. I find it rather humorous that I'm given Leonidas as a "Hero" in Sparta, but he's not capable of leading an army. Since we have this political milieu of random characters, what purpose is there at having a distinction between the "agent" character pool and the "politicians/generals" character pool ? In the real world, people switched between these kinds of roles throughout the duration of their life.

[JohnChurchill]

The entire character system is lacking in my opinion.
There are actually "titles" per se, but they're hidden behind the useless political system. It doesn't matter what you do with politics, a Civil War is as inevitable as Realm Divide in S2. But the gains for the few ranks I've looked at as Sparta are all related to tax rates in "current province". That's an extremely useless benefit as I only have a limited number of armies and they're always on campaign. A high ranking general capable of attaining that kind of rank will never be anywhere near a fully developed economic province. It's simply poorly thought out. It seems to me the people developing this political aspect didn't talk to the people developing the military structure.
On the other hand we have 3 agent types. Spies are always useful, but Dignitaries seem to be essentially just for spreading culture, and the only real use for Heroes I've found is to power-level them to 4+ and embed them into an Army to increase unit experience every turn and give a little more movement range.

In R1 you had a plethora of characters and were expected to have a Governor in almost every province. But you can't even stick a Dignitary, which has some civil benefit options, in a city. At most you can have them sit in the middle of nowhere with that lower left button pressed. Functionally, it's the same. But in terms of enjoyment... it's just not. It'd be so much more meaningful if you could place them in a province Capitol as a governor.

It also seems odd to me that we have all this stuff about Roman politics and such, but Generals stay in the field indefinitely and such. Very few Roman generals held imperium for a lifetime... it'd make more sense to have the General / Governor situation as in Rome1. Where the character pool of Roman politicians could be recruited to lead Armies with imperium *or* recruited by themselves as a dignitary capable of acting as a governor (such as Cato going to Cyprus). This seems like better gameplay and more historically accurate to me.

I'm also not sure everyone should have the same agent options. Romans would have "dignitaries" that can act as Governors increasing tax rates, decreasing corruption, improving efficiency, etc. Barbarians (and Greeks?) would have "champions" that can aid your empire as war heroes spreading culture, inspiring the commoners -> +happiness / order, and such. I find it rather humorous that I'm given Leonidas as a "Hero" in Sparta, but he's not capable of leading an army. Since we have this political milieu of random characters, what purpose is there at having a distinction between the "agent" character pool and the "politicians/generals" character pool ? In the real world, people switched between these kinds of roles throughout the duration of their life.

generals don't stay in the field.... there is an option to replace them and they become statesmen, and eventually consuls (trait permitting).

[Serbian Warrior]

I very like family trees in tw games and I think that rome 2 tw will be much better with family trees.

[Serbian Warrior]

I very like family trees in tw games and I think that rome 2 tw will be much better with family trees.

[Arius]

Rome 2 is the first TW with political intrigue between families (Julius, Junius and Cornelius), however it's the first TW with no family tree and with no surnames (Julius aren't named XXXXX Julius YYYYY).

Is this a joke?

Do you think that moders will find a solution to this absurd nonsense?

[cevap]

Rome 2 is the first TW with political intrigue between families (Julius, Junius and Cornelius), however it's the first TW with no family tree and with no surnames (Julius aren't named XXXXX Julius YYYYY).

Is this a joke?

Do you think that moders will find a solution to this absurd nonsense?

The first "political intrigue" between families yet the most barebones internal faction management to date and the most lifeless generals and faction leaders. As far as I know modders cant really mod that many systems into the game its up to CA but I think it would take an expansion pack or two.
What I miss as well is generals being born with some command skill and complex traits passed on by their parents. The retainers are a joke as well, I kinda liked them in Shogun 2 but even there it felt somewhat weird I could choose, here they are even weirder and give the game the feel its all about numbers and percentages instead of actual people with actual personalities.

[VINC.XXIII]

@Arius, modders can't modify the engine and core-features, its need that C.A implement it at least for one faction (I.E Roma with Cursus Honorum and Senate), and further, modders could extend it to other factions, renaming the contents according the culture. But its belong to C.A to make the template, the squeleton of this new feature, IF never they're willing to do so.

[Metallistic]

We still have not heard from CA regarding campaign gameplay and their plans for changes if any. So I would not jump to conclusions.

[chris10]

Only reintroducing a family tree wont save the game.
There are some major desgin flaws who break immersion considerably.
The game feels like a console title..arcadish..generic

[Arius]

OK, family tree can't be implemented...

However... Do Roman surnames could be corrected to maintain the same family surnames (nomen) at least?

[PietroMicca]

The family tree probably will come back with one of the next patches

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...l=1#post788538

[JohnChurchill]

Instead of moaning actually read guides on politics in Rome II and I think you ll be surprised. Family tree's are irrelevant for this period of history, consuls changed almost on a yearly basis. The current system used allows you to manage the entire faction and the destiny of Rome!

[Pnutmaster]

Instead of moaning actually read guides on politics in Rome II and I think you ll be surprised. Family tree's are irrelevant for this period of history, consuls changed almost on a yearly basis. The current system used allows you to manage the entire faction and the destiny of Rome!

Lack of family trees affects every non-Roman faction, too. Monarchies are built on dynasties. Ptolemaic Egyptian for example.

[Rasic]

nevermind