Revised Faction Traits

[Augustusng]

This is something I wanted to do ever since learning about the faction traits before Attila was released: to change some faction groups and traits. I've moved around a couple of factions into different groups, and I've changed several faction and faction group traits to be a little more historical/realistic. Yeah, some are still a bit out there, but that's why this mod is still WIP - because I'm not sure if I want to change any more traits... and also because I'm not sure that all my changes work. I've added a few new traits and changed how some work; it's possible that my new traits don't work at all or that my changes don't behave the way I'd like them to. I've decided to post the mod here in an early state for any intrepid volunteers to try out and see if my changes do actually work, and also to hear suggestions for additions/changes from the community.

Of course, the balance is also in an early state. Maybe some bonuses are too strong/weak. Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions.

So, the list of changes (I'm only going to list current/planned changes. If something isn't listed, I've left it unchanged):

Factions moved to different Faction Groups:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Saxons - Norsemen

Alans - Nomadic Tribes

Vandals - no change for now, but I'm debating moving them into Barbarian Kingdoms so that the "Great Migrators" group becomes a Gothic faction group. Maybe then I can add that growth bonus as a Vandal faction trait.

Faction Group Traits:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Nomadic Tribes - "Scourge of God" replaced by "Born in the Saddle" - No post-battle casualties for retreating cavalry and -10% cavalry upkeep costs.

Roman Empire - In addition to the existing trait, Roman generals now have -1 Loyalty. Also, Roman factions pay 3/4 the regular cost to colonize desolate regions.

Norsemen - In addition to the existing trait, all Norse factions are immune to High Seas and Winter attrition. I'm thinking of possibly reducing the immunity to Winter attrition to just resistance, but that probably requires making another new effect.

Great Migrators - In addition to the existing trait, these factions can recruit Roman units from Roman buildings and have -10% upkeep in foreign territory.

Barbarian Kingdoms - In addition to the existing trait, these factions pay half the regular cost to colonize desolate regions.

Faction Traits:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Ostrogoths - "Survivors" - They still have their existing traits, but instead of having zero Public Order penalties after occupying Roman regions, the penalty is simply reduced by 50%. In addition, they have +10 morale against Nomadic tribes.

Franks - "Regnum Francorum" - Franks no longer have increased melee damage from taking casualties, but now they have a bonus to public order for each war with a neighboring faction and can recruit Roman units from Roman buildings.

Vandals - Vandals no longer have that line about superior naval units... which I don't think actually does anything. Can anyone correct me on that? But they now have that Ostrogoth reduction in conquest penalty for Roman cities, as well as a bonus to income from maritime commerce.

Danes - Danes still have their existing immunity to seasickness, but now also have "superior naval units" (again, not sure that actually does anything besides flavor), as well as a small diplomatic bonus with all factions and 10% increased wealth from maritime commerce to represent their trade and early contacts with other cultures over the sea.

Geats - Geats still have their +10 Morale bonus in Winter, but now also have +15 food in regions with poor fertility (Burgundian faction trait).

Alans - Alans still have their bonus to cavalry experience gain rate, but now also have a 10% reduction in cavalry fatigue rate. Maybe I'll add back in their growth bonus from being in the "Great Migrators" faction group. I just wish they had a better roster to use all their cavalry traits with...

Caledonians - Caledonians no longer have a bonus to agent success chance. I probably need to add something else to replace this.

Huns - The existing "conquest" bonus to growth from razing has been moved to "death." To replace that, they now have a "conquest" bonus income from the formation of tributary states (Visigoth trait). The "death" trait that stopped foreign replenishment is gone entirely.

Download Link:
Revised Faction Traits.7z

Update Log:
3/9/2015 - Winter attrition for Norse factions fixed. Attempted a quick-and-dirty fix for seasickness... I think I've failed. There's a table that seems to govern when seasickness should be applied (two actually, special_abilities_to_invalid_usage_flags and special_abilities_to_auto_deactivate_flags), but I can't find a place to add/define new values... this might have to wait until we get proper mod tools.
3/27/2015 - Updated for the Tin Isles patch, and made several changes.
4/16/2015 - More changes, including fixed Roman unit variants for those factions that can recruit Roman units (Franks, Vandals, Visigoths).
4/19/2015 - Fixed Hun traits.

Known Issues:

• That "can recruit Roman units" trait for several factions might not be working properly.
• I'm not sure if the Roman -1 Loyalty trait works. I might have the wrong scope for that effect.
• The new effects may not show up in non-English versions of the game.

[Augustusng]

Update: Winter attrition for Norse factions fixed. Attempted a quick-and-dirty fix for seasickness... I think I've failed. There's a table that seems to govern when seasickness should be applied, but I can't find a place to add new values to it... I've even tried going through and deleting the seasickness entries in land_units_to_abilities, but I don't think that worked. In any case, this mod is now incompatible with some battle mods. Just delete my land_units_to_abilities table if you're using a battle mod. EDIT: land_units_to_abilities table removed from the mod as of 3/28/2015.

I could give the high-seas attrition bonus to the Norse factions instead. That would work, but I don't like that solution as much.

[nuker22110]

hello would you be able to add the ability for ostrogoths to either
1)build roman military units from existing barbarian building chain
2)build/upgrade roman military buildings

[Augustusng]

Both of those things are possible, but of course they have drawbacks. If I added something like that, the Ostrogoths could recruit Roman units (or build those buildings) in any province, not just Roman ones. You could migrate to Sarmatia if you wanted and get Roman units this way. I'd rather do this a little differently, and give more factions the ability to benefit from the existing Roman buildings, not just the Ostrogoths.

[Butan]

I really like your new traits ideas! Some vanilla traits seems weird or not really taking into account the most peculiar aspect of said faction group/faction, or at least not in a way that makes them interesting to play with, so there is a clear path for creative thinking.

[Oem]

Hello,

Any progress on "immune to seasickness" topic? I tried to change from_danes_faction to for example from_jutes_faction inspecial_ability_invalid_usage_flags table, but no luck. Resulted in CTD when starting game. Maybe this query is defined in some other place, who knows where. It could be an interesting base of some factionwide buffs if it somehow worked...

[Augustusng]

Yes, I think that's defined somewhere else. I haven't been able to find it, and it's possible we may have to wait until we get proper mod tools to be able to add new definitions.

Also this mod will need to be updated for the new DLC. I'll be working on that soon (have to update my other mods as well, and Urbes is going to take a little while), but I'm open to ideas for new faction traits there. Especially for the Caledonians, I'd like to nerf those agent bonuses or get rid of them entirely.

[Augustusng]

Updated for the new DLC. Nerfed the Caledonian faction trait by removing their bonus to agent success chance, because of course I did. Also, I've made several changes to other traits. Check it out. See if I've gone too far with the Roman recruitment thing... or if that even works for factions that aren't Ostrogoths. I think it might be more complicated to actually get that to work.

Oh, and this new version also includes UI changes that don't quite work yet (switched Norse and Barbarian icons). Forgot about that.

[Augustusng]

Update - Several changes. The UI changes are gone for now, as I don't know how to make them work properly. I've made several changes to faction traits, including removing the Huns' "death" trait - but I've reworked their traits slightly so they still have all four horsemen. I've also fixed the invisible units for those non-Roman factions able to recruit Roman units (Franks, Vandals, and Visigoths). I think this is actually a vanilla bug though; you'll notice that if you play as a different faction and make a Roman faction your client state, the units you levy may be invisible - this happens if you've levied a unit that has different variants for Eastern and Western Romans. Those units are all missing a generic variant for any other factions (except the Ostrogoths, and now those other three). If I can find a simple way to fix it, I'll go ahead and do it, but at the moment I think I'd have to add separate entries for all other factions. Anyway, this is really something CA should fix (assuming that it is a vanilla bug).

Almost forgot: big thanks to everyone in this thread, especially tullyccro for finding the solution.

[Augustusng]

Update - Fixed a mistake in the Hun traits.

[miTo82]

I Play with the german game Client and for me, some of the new faction traits are not shown / visible (Mod seems to work, the traits are in the game, but I cant see the text in the tooltips).

I am sure that this is not the "fault" of your mod, it is because of my Client language. But do you know how I can enable the english tooltips in the german game Client (they dont Need to be translated, I just want to Show them...)

[Augustusng]

Hmmm, yeah. I didn't think about that. I'm not sure how the localizations work, but I can look into it.

[miTo82]

Oh, that would be great. Only the new traits you added are not shown. The ones that you only change are displayed correctly. Because they are still in the game of course

[Augustusng]

Oh, that would be great. Only the new traits you added are not shown. The ones that you only change are displayed correctly. Because they are still in the game of course

So, I think I know how to do this... but I can't without the German text files. It's something you could fix yourself, if you don't want to wait for me. I think you'll have to make a small mod adding my new text entries, then load that before this mod. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that's how localization works with mods. But it may not be worth doing all this right now, since this mod is still very much a WIP. I'm not happy with several of the faction traits. Many of them are still very "gamey," and it's difficult to make each one unique, without them being too powerful or too weak, within the current limitations of the game (no mod tools yet).