Why not add princesses?

[Nightsh4de]

Come on boyz Rad did say it was a 6am post, and apologized, give the guy a break (and some coffee!)

anyway, I´d welcome trying the princesses idea out, after all this is a mod in progress, some features can be added and if they don't work well, they can be taken out (I may be minimizing the complexity but I can´t fathom its difficulty, so I´ll voice the idea and let a techie thumb it).

Actually, using a select-your-options prelaunch tool, such as the one in Stainless Steel, could cater to both sides of the isle, letting the player play EB2 strictly or with a few liberties (such as including princesses, and cultural influence agents etc). IDK how hard it is to do this but maybe for the future it is something to keep in mind???

[Abdülmecid I]

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

Reread my post. I said that marriages between different factions happened, but that didn't include all of them, like the Gaulish tribes, for example.

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

Actually you're right. The princesses souldn't marry Muslim or pagan family members, so I stand corrected.

[Mementomoridc]

Reread my post. I said that marriages between different factions happened, but that didn't include all of them, like the Gaulish tribes, for example. Actually you're right. The princesses souldn't marry Muslim or pagan family members, so I stand corrected.

Are you sure cause outside of the Greeks who would marry anything with legs the "barbarians" seem like the most likely to intermingle with each other in marital affairs. Romans political marriages sure, but not with anyone not roman.

[spanish_emperor]

I'm not part of the EB team but i can imagine the reason being that many factions present were not monarchies and so it would be inaccurate to have the "faction leader" of the Romans offer his daughter in marriage to the "faction leader" of the Carthaginians and thus establish an alliance. The reason being in real life marrying the daughter of the consul or suffix would not mean that all other senators would suddenly agree to some sort of alliance. Furthermore, the purpose of the daughters is to claim the nation in case the king should die and certainly it would be bizarre to suddenly see all of Carthage become Roman the turn after the Carthaginian "faction leader" dies.

[KEA]

I'm not part of the EB team but i can imagine the reason being that many factions present were not monarchies and so it would be inaccurate to have the "faction leader" of the Romans offer his daughter in marriage to the "faction leader" of the Carthaginians and thus establish an alliance.

To clear this up: the mechanisms of princesses have to be enabled faction by faction. So when you have princesses being enabled for Hellenic factions only those can have and marry princesses: a Ptolemaic princess can marry a Seleucide charatcer but not a Roman one. Nor do Romans or any others that you didn't specify to have princesses spawn them in campaign.

[Noviomagus]

I'm not against having princesses in EB2 but wouldn't the whole "Princess/Daughter traveling the world, being a diplomat"-thing be kind of ahistorical?

[Dago Red]

I'm not against having princesses in EB2 but wouldn't the whole "Princess/Daughter traveling the world, being a diplomat"-thing be kind of ahistorical?

If you think of it as a single young girl, alone, aged 16, with a red cone on her head wandering the wilderness between visits to royal courts and the occaisinal tryst on a mountain road with an influential rival general, then yes. Thing is, the princess is representative of a whole diplomatic host either traveling to diplomatic appointments to other factions cities or staying local, at home at court where the young princess is bettering herself to make a fitting companion to a man you deem worthy/or need to improve.

Women traveled, and they had major influence, just not on the field of battle. Leaving such a ready-made feature out (albeit one that needs some modding/tweaking) is a lost opportunity -- not only for gameplay, but for some added realism depth.

[Armaneus]

First reaction to having princesses: Yes! I like being able to marry princesses to non-family members, and cementing their ties to my lineage (it would give more of a reason to have hero-of-the-hour generals). Even if it was limited to just within faction, or within the same culture, it could add a lot.

Second reaction: Blasted princesses. Two turns after she shows up, she already has a yappy dog and a secret lover. How do I even improve her traits? She seems perfectly willing to normalize to zero charm. To the convent she goes (or an unfortunate enemy heir so he gets "wife is terrible").

So.... I would like them, but they may need some sort of overhaul, and if there were a way to have princesses only be able to marry within their own culture, that may be good.

[Hummer]

Yup. In vanilla they caused all sorts of bad traits. Also never had kids because they never like their spouse...
Overall I have a negative impression of princesses due to seemingly more negative factors than positive ones.

[ooji]

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.

Fully agreed. Actually, I think it'd be better to make it so that princesses can only marry within one's own faction if that is possible through modding. That way, every faction, not just Hellenisitc factions, can have princesses of their own. And I really don't think it'd too hard to add princesses since princesses are in M2TW engine as I said before.

Blasted princesses. Two turns after she shows up, she already has a yappy dog and a secret lover. How do I even improve her traits? She seems perfectly willing to normalize to zero charm. To the convent she goes (or an unfortunate enemy heir so he gets "wife is terrible").

Easy fix. All EB2 team needs to do is change the traits princesses can acquire and the problem is solved.

[Trax]

I would love to have them. For Hellenistic monarchies only of course. Severely limit their movement so that they don't wander far from home most of the time.

People seem to hate them but I don't really understand why. They are very useful. You can boost loyalty with them; add generals to the family tree; make strong, lasting alliances and create a properly inbred Hellenistic dynasty. They add something to do during peacetime. The battles are fun until the stack spam makes them dull but in the end it's the depth of the strategy map play that keeps you clicking end turn button. The strat map game in EBII is already far more engaging then was possible in RTW but it could be much more.

I don't care for priests but I would very much like to see merchants. I think there is great potential there.

[Anubis88]

I can't comment on the princesses apart from that it's unlikely you will see them, but i can say that stack spamming is being work really hard on, to prevent megafactions arising making the campaing boring by playing 5 battles per turn in the lategame.

[Roma_Victrix]

Just admit it guys, there's only one pressing reason why you want princesses, and that is so you can all just stare at their plump virtual butts and bulbous honking breasts as they wander into your territory as eye candy.

I think princesses acting as diplomats and tools of marriage alliances is absolutely historically accurate and fitting for the medieval period. However, echoing the Spanish Emperor above, I don't think this to be the case with antiquity across all of these different cultures that were far more isolated from each other. Yes, the Hellenistic powers did seal marriage alliances, often to make a truce and peace treaty following a war. However, it would make no sense for republics like Rome and Carthage to do the same, since their elected leaders weren't monarchs, they had term limits, and such marriages would have been pointless beyond their tenure in office (let alone not recognized by their state). It would, however, make perfect sense to only allow a Roman princess to marry a Roman general that you want to bring into the family tree, since marriage alliances among the Roman clans were very common in order to build political alliances. For instance, Pompey Magnus married Julia Caesaris as his fourth wife, the daughter of Julius Caesar, in order to form an informal political alliance with his house.

If princesses are brought into EB II at all, they should idealistically follow that scheme, not the general rules of Medieval II princesses who could just wed any guy from any faction across all different cultures. A Ptolemaic princess randomly marrying a Celtic Brythonic general doesn't make any sense if we are to imitate history.

[Khysamgathys III]

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

Massilia was supposedly created by the marriage of a Celtic Princess to a Greek Explorer.

Sides in Med 2, some factions are barred from marrying princess from certain factions (i.e. Christians can never marry Muslim FM's).

I guess in EB it could make it so that some of the Factions that were historically related Monarchies can interbreed princesses around (i.e Hellenics, Those Hellonophile-Cultured Eastern Guys like Pontos)

[+Marius+]

Maybe the princess/priest should be replaced with something entirely different.
Like an agent supply wagon that gives certain modifiers to nearby armies?
Or an agent scout that gives additional movement to an army?
Or an agent engineer that gives more siege construction points or even produces certain pre-battle deployable stuff(like spikes, fences fort sections)?


Don't know, it just seems a shame to leave out a game feature.

[Anubis88]

Maybe the princess/priest should be replaced with something entirely different.
Like an agent supply wagon that gives certain modifiers to nearby armies?
Or an agent scout that gives additional movement to an army?
Or an agent engineer that gives more siege construction points or even produces certain pre-battle deployable stuff(like spikes, fences fort sections)?


Don't know, it just seems a shame to leave out a game feature.

I'll soon open up a thread for suggestions for future releases. I definetly think this one is interesting, so i'll definetly ask you to post it once more in that thread. Or i'll just copy/paste it myself

The problem might be if the AI would be able to use the agents in such a way. Maybe z3n knows. I'll ask around

[z3n]

Yes I am not entirely sure the ai would fully comprehend their use and although ive previously contemplated the concept I never tried it due to those concerns. In theory it should work to a degree. I can experiment with it later on but I should say we are limited by certain hard coded attributes and certain things may just be to amuse the player or it may not even work at all

[z3n]

I think it's hardcoded- as the only thing you can really change is probably just animations. Agents action themselves seem hardcoded- for example the UI isn't really accessible in terms of making new buttons for an agent actually work and I can't think of a way to replace a function with a new function if the only thing we can access is the animations part of agents. It's not exactly as if these things are xml files, so that limits things a bit to the code that the developers implemented directly into that specific text file. Since the exe is validating and parsing the specific code for specific text files. XML files pass through the xml validator within the exe which means it's more lenient since it's a non-validating xml check (Theres two types, validating and non-validating) implemented by the devs presumably to increase the ease they could change/experiment/add things.


edit: a small clarification here- for xml code, you can only work with (carefully) what the developers implemented. the actual programming itself behind the code is more complex and pertains to specific areas at times. Anotherwords if a command was designed for a specific thing, for example, artillery bombardment on a wall, it would not be a great idea to take that and implement it into another area even with new parameters because it was designed for a more specific thing.

[Trax]

I don't think this to be the case with antiquity across all of these different cultures that were far more isolated from each other. Yes, the Hellenistic powers did seal marriage alliances, often to make a truce and peace treaty following a war.

I don't think most people in this thread want them enabled for everybody.
Anyway, the team should concentrate on finishing the mod before thinking about adding new features to the current design.

[Larm]

I just did a quick test with Medieval total war Vanila. You can't marry A person from another religion (Christian with Islam). It say that there is 'no Unmarried general within range' even ir there in one. As Religon is Culture in EB2, is sounds like its possible to have for example only Hellenistic faction can Use them. Princesses can also be used as Diplomats of course. Altrough I am not sure if Princesses wil work properly in the EB 2 world.