Why not add princesses?

[ooji]

I do remember reading that it is EB team's stance to not add merchants, priests, and princesses somewhere on this forum. The former two don't really have much significance, I understand that. But having a princess, from my short experience of M2TW, makes marriages infinitely more interesting. Playing as Parthia in EB2, I get asked if I want to bless a marriage of certain nobles for example. It really doesn't have any meaning to me since women in EB2 are just pictures with age written on them. The only significance of agreeing or disagreeing to 'bless' such marriages that I can think of is that I can deny a general from having children by not agreeing to have them marry.

Having a princess makes it much more interesting to marry generals in my experience. If you marry your general with a princess with bad traits which are usually acquired through your choice to wander her around, the general suffers negative traits. On the contrary, a princess with good traits helps the general as well. The important point I want to emphasize is that YOU get to control what happens to the princesses and that gives roleplay elements. Those princesses aren't just pictures you don't care about. Instead, they're actual family members that travel around conducting diplomacy affairs or marrying.

While I realize that princesses are not 'essential' per se in the game, they can add more immersion elements to the game. Isn't immersion a trait that EB2 developers are looking for? What are your thoughts on this? At the very least, I think it'd be nice if someone came with a submod that adds princesses. I'm guessing it's not too hard considering it's already in the M2TW engine.

[MarkusAntonius]

Indeed i totaly agree with you. If the game engine has it, why not add it ?. With this princess we could have or imagine our own " Cleopatra, Atia, Drusilla, lucilla, Zenobia, Boudica, etc... " you know the powerfull women of the old world. The priests could be usefull too like Druids, Greek, Roman, even jewish priests, all those kind who could convert people or insite a rebellion. I'm unofficially trying to change some things here in my EB 2 myself, i've already changed some things, I've been thinking about it and i shall try this soon.

[Rad]

This is my 6 AM opinion of your idea.

NO.

[Petite Wolf]

I believe they didn't add them in for, among other reasons, their ability to randomly steal a faction's general when they marry them. I'm sure there are other reasons, but I'm unsure what they are.

[ooji]

Indeed i totaly agree with you. If the game engine has it, why not add it ?. With this princess we could have or imagine our own " Cleopatra, Atia, Drusilla, lucilla, Zenobia, Boudica, etc... " you know the powerfull women of the old world. The priests could be usefull too like Druids, Greek, Roman, even jewish priests, all those kind who could convert people or insite a rebellion. I'm unofficially trying to change some things here in my EB 2 myself, i've already changed some things, I've been thinking about it and i shall try this soon.

Indeed. I am not sure about priests though. Since EB2 team replaced religion with culture, having priests would mean spreading culture faster. And that's not what EB2 team wants I'm guessing.

This is my 6 AM opinion of your idea.

NO.

It'd be nice if you gave a proper explanation instead of a rude comment.

I believe they didn't add them in for, among other reasons, their ability to randomly steal a faction's general when they marry them. I'm sure there are other reasons, but I'm unsure what they are.

Well I've never seen AI steal my generals with their princesses. I don't know much about modding, but isn't there a way to prevent that from happening? What are some of the other reasons?

[Abdülmecid I]

I guess they did it for historical reasons. There were marriages between dynasties, like the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, but that wouldn't justify a potentially absurd generalization, like Parthian princesses marrying Epirote generals. Actually, I'd like them, despte being inaccurate, but EB is a mod dedicated to history, so I respect their decision.

[KEA]

I guess they did it for historical reasons. There were marriages between dynasties, like the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, but that wouldn't justify a potentially absurd generalization, like Parthian princesses marrying Epirote generals.

You can limit them to certain factions, like the Hellenic monarchies, that way avoiding from said absurdities.

[Hummer]

You can limit them to certain factions, like the Hellenic monarchies, that way avoiding from said absurdities.

That wouldn't stop an AI Hellenic princess from trying to marry a barbarian FM.

[Rad]

It'd be nice if you gave a proper explanation instead of a rude comment.

Not possible without my morning coffee
Relax, I was just trolling around in the morning... grumpily, I admit.

However, my answer is still no. That mechanic never really worked well in vanilla, and even if it were to be tweaked to a decent state, it doesn't have much sense in the timeframe of the mod. Also, yeah, losing an FM to some foreign harlot isn't a fun event, given the fact that they are kind of slow to get and train...

[wakain]

Haven't yet been able to play EBII but in EBI there were faction specific culture traits that influenced the acquisition of traits and especially the amount of influence a character could acquire. Disregard this if this feature isn't present in EBII but I would say marrying (or stealing) FM's of another nonculture-related faction would result in very weird and inaccurate traits for such FM's. Think of a wildly influential and powerful barbaric general in an hellenic kingdom because he is of the blood of the main tribe in his original faction (a background that would naturally be frowned upon by any selfrespecting member of said hellenic nation's elite).

[Floren d'Asteneuz]

I guess they did it for historical reasons. There were marriages between dynasties, like the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, but that wouldn't justify a potentially absurd generalization, like Parthian princesses marrying Epirote generals. Actually, I'd like them, despte being inaccurate, but EB is a mod dedicated to history, so I respect their decision.

You sir, talk about something all right, but not about history.

The married women as diplomatic relations between two different factions were often a great part in history.

Roman, Parthians, Greeks... All written history books have a good place for them.

[KEA]

That wouldn't stop an AI Hellenic princess from trying to marry a barbarian FM.

It most certainly would: you can only marry your princess to characters from factions that have princesses to.

[alex86]

The princess mechanic was a poor one and I'm not sorry that it hasn't been included.

Actually, I'm not a huge fan of agents in general.

[Mementomoridc]

I can not find the post I made with this as a side question in it, but it is indead their choice to not have them because of the stealing generals thing. I also had brought up the point of limiting it to factions it makes more sense for and while the team member who responded said they had thought of that it still would cause as some1 said earlier in this thread stealing generals from nations not suppose to be affected by it.

EDIT: One side question though, qould it be possible to get rid of the ability to marry outside your own faction? this would get rid of the ability to create marriage alliances but would allow some use of them without stealing generals.

Hope that helps and if I can find the response i'm semi quoting I will post it here, but that may take awhile my internet has been crap lately so I am having problems searching.

[ooji]

EDIT: One side question though, qould it be possible to get rid of the ability to marry outside your own faction? this would get rid of the ability to create marriage alliances but would allow some use of them without stealing generals.

That's what I've been wondering as well. I'm guessing it's either not possible or too complicated that EB2 team does not want to mess with it.

[Petite Wolf]

The entire point of a Princess in Medieval 2 was to use her as a diplomat and be able to marry her off to someone else for other things such as trade, an alliance, etc. What would be the point if they were only limited to marrying within your faction? Then they'd serve the exact same purpose as female family members do now, except take up space on the map and do exactly the same thing as what a diplomat already does.

Princesses were a badly implemented feature and I personally think the mod's better off without them.

[Mementomoridc]

The entire point of a Princess in Medieval 2 was to use her as a diplomat and be able to marry her off to someone else for other things such as trade, an alliance, etc. What would be the point if they were only limited to marrying within your faction? Then they'd serve the exact same purpose as female family members do now, except take up space on the map and do exactly the same thing as what a diplomat already does.

Princesses were a badly implemented feature and I personally think the mod's better off without them.

unlike the current female characters you would be able to see her stats before hand and match good wives with good husbands, where now its random.

[kingman1337]

Well it would make things like a marriage alliance between Seleucids and Makedon far more interesting. And of course, taking generals from other factions. Rivalry in that sense between all the successor states makes it fun.

We'd just have to make it Diadochi only, considering how the Koinon Hellenon does not have a family tree.

[Dago Red]

I fully agree princesses should be included, albeit tweaked a little bit (and not all factions should get them).

As others have pointed out/debunked, there aren't very good reasons to omit them. All they need is a couple tweaks (and campaign models) and bam, another feature for the mod. One already built into the engine for them, no less.

An opportunity to create more depth should always be taken. If you're a player who just doesn't care, or actively dislikes doing things on the campaign map, it's pretty damn easy just to leave them in a city and do nothing with them. Also, you're playing the wrong mod.

[Achilles Lacedaemon]

Not possible without my morning coffee
Relax, I was just trolling around in the morning... grumpily, I admit.

However, my answer is still no. That mechanic never really worked well in vanilla, and even if it were to be tweaked to a decent state, it doesn't have much sense in the timeframe of the mod. Also, yeah, losing an FM to some foreign harlot isn't a fun event, given the fact that they are kind of slow to get and train...

It DID'NT worked well in vanilla!? You know what also does not work well? EB 2.

Simply because of the lack of features resulting in boredom, among other issues.


But relax, I'm also just trolling around in whatever timeframe it is now. Grumpily, I admit.