Hide faction (and symbols) from diplomacy and turn processing sequence

[Razor]

I've been looking everywhere but I couldn't find it, but I could have sworn that there is a possibility (in campaign_script.txt I believe) to hide faction symbols in diplomacy options and when you hit next turn, making the faction really hidden. I thought I saw it somewhere related to the Aztecs faction, but I can't find it anywhere. Am I a crazy person? If somebody could help, I'd appreciate it a lot.

[Razor]

Ok, I guess I must have seen this in the docudemons.

Identifier:         set_faction_undiscovered
Parameters:         faction [true/false]
Description:        Set faction undiscovered status
Sample use:         set_faction_undiscovered aztecs false
Class:              SET_FACTION_UNDISCOVERED
Implemented:        Yes
Author:             Grig

This seems to do the job. A follow-up question is: what makes the aztecs in vanilla M2TW invisible? I can't see anything related to making the aztecs undiscovered or hidden as a faction that also makes the symbols hidden and prevents to view them in the diplomacy scroll.

[Withwnar]

This I rekon:

descr_strat:

faction	aztecs, balanced smith
ai_label		default
undiscovered

script also has this but I doubt that's doing it:
freeze_faction_ai aztecs

[Razor]

Ah yes, that was the one! A pretty obvious one too, but something I totally overlooked. Thanks a lot!

Nah, freeze_faction_ai aztecs only freezes the ai for the aztecs. The script in M2TW unfreezes them once they get descovered by a European faction. That's all.

[Gigantus]

The 'undiscovered' principle withwnar describes only works right from the start via descr_strat - I have never tried to use the script command you describe as it doesn't have much use during on going game play - either hide a faction from start or not. Hiding a faction that you have already met but are not immediate neighbor to is highly confusing unless given some sort of explanation, eg tribe went back to atlantis to return one day. But the practicality of making this work properly (how do you get rid of agents\named characters created during play?) makes this a difficult affair.
Note: a discovered faction will become known to every other faction, regardless which faction made the discovery, making this even more difficult to implement.

'script' factions - only used for the weird stuff withwnar has come up with so far, like custom character names - do not show up in diplomacy either, very likely because they cease to exist as soon as they get created.

Related: setting the family tree to 'no' has the opposite effect - the faction will never disappear from diplomacy, even after defeat.

Edit: Possible use - two named characters of a horde (script to ensure continuity of faction if one dies) that exists from the game start, banished to an inaccessible portion of the map, moved to fixed positions and used as 'messenger'. Then moved back to their little patch and made 'undiscovered'. If one uses level traits that would give 10 distinctively different messengers per agent to choose from, a fairly rich pool.
Not sure if TATW used that complete set of principles in their scripted 'brotherhood of the ring' campaign. Might have been a frozen faction instead for those question and explanation mark skinned agents they were popping up and removing during that campaign.

[Razor]

The 'undiscovered' principle withwnar describes only works right from the start via descr_strat - I have never tried to use the script command you describe as it doesn't have much use during on going game play - either hide a faction from start or not. Hiding a faction that you have already met but are not immediate neighbor to is highly confusing unless given some sort of explanation, eg tribe went back to atlantis to return one day. But the practicality of making this work properly (how do you get rid of agents\named characters created during play?) makes this a difficult affair.
Note: a discovered faction will become known to every other faction, regardless which faction made the discovery, making this even more difficult to implement.

'script' factions - only used for the weird stuff withwnar has come up with so far, like custom character names - do not show up in diplomacy either, very likely because they cease to exist as soon as they get created.

Related: setting the family tree to 'no' has the opposite effect - the faction will never disappear from diplomacy, even after defeat.

Edit: Possible use - two named characters of a horde (script to ensure continuity of faction if one dies) that exists from the game start, banished to an inaccessible portion of the map, moved to fixed positions and used as 'messenger'. Then moved back to their little patch and made 'undiscovered'. If one uses level traits that would give 10 distinctively different messengers per agent to choose from, a fairly rich pool.
Not sure if TATW used that complete set of principles in their scripted 'brotherhood of the ring' campaign. Might have been a frozen faction instead for those question and explanation mark skinned agents they were popping up and removing during that campaign.

I was going to use this to hide the papal states faction in my Sengoku mod, in which the papal states faction is located on an isolated part of the map, thus preventing any diplomatic interaction between factions and the pope/"Imperial Court". The papal states faction is merely there to allow the pope mechanics to be present.

[Gigantus]

I am not sure that will work with regards to the undiscovered mechanics (interaction like crusade calling\requesting and school of cardinals will most likely cancel the undiscovered status), but it certainly is worth a try.

[Razor]

Hah, I was under the impression the Aztecs in M2TW were set to "discovered" through script, but looking at the script I'm probably wrong. Gotta check in a future test if any interaction with the papal states (like calling crusades, checking the college of cardinals) nullifies the undiscovered state, otherwise this effort is rather pointless indeed. Good point!

[Gigantus]

There is a script section 'aztecs discovered' that kind of explains the mechanic, you must mix this up with the 'AI unfreezing' of them which is solely via script command.