captain - I think that was my test to see what happens if there wasn't a leader at game start when you spawn the 'family' guy. When repeating I noticed that it actually wasn't the captain, it was the family guy that became pope: without the spawn the proper election process starts immediately instead. Here is the script I used after removing the pope in vanilla descr_strat, leaving only 'generals'. Note: at 1.0 wait it's a 'new pope' event, at 5.0 the election starts but does not go beyond the college with the family guy becoming the pope (process gets terminated when the spawn happens, a matter of clicking faster in the election process I guess). Having a settlement or not does not make a difference in this set up (no named character at start, no tree).
Code:
monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType papal_states
snap_strat_camera 145, 90
wait 5.0
spawn_army
faction papal_states
character random_name, named character, age 24, x 145, y 90 , family
traits GoodCommander 1
unit SE Bodyguard exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
end
terminate_monitor
end_monitor
revolt\rebel without FL - it's pretty drastic if a character has no loyalty traits. The family guy I spawned before the election in half of the tests turned rebel as he didn't have any loyalty traits to start with, the other guys however stayed loyal without exception, having some level of loyalty.
Cross fingers for my tree test, eg killing the pope and spawning the family guy with a tree present.
Nope, 'victory conditions failed'.
Next one with an additional named character present at game start (in vanilla the pope is the only named character).
Nope, turning Guido from general to named character didn't help, making him official 'heir' did nothing either, still 'victory conditions failed'
Any family tree messes totally with the special faction setting, simply have to accept that. No settlement is instant 'victory conditions failed'.
And all of this doesn't help one bit with your set up. Well, apparently Edison found 150 ways how not to make a light bulb before he succeeded so I am still ahead