Family Trees - submod for v. 097

[Macaras]

All right, got it. I will start working on it.

[RodriguesSting]

The issue of family management reminds me of something I thought as a way to possibly fix undesirable breeding, specially with locked marriage proposals. How about the FL having an ancillary that, like Ministerials, upon being given to a general excluding FH, would give a trait that would blast their fertility the lowest possible in the engine. Something like "monk". Basically you made the character a monk. He may get a bit of piety, and lower loyalty, and will be very unlikely to breed heirs and maybe hold offices and titles.

Sure, I understand, a medieval monk wouldn't be ruling over a city, leading an army, or whatever, but considering the VERY pressing issue of the hardcoded births, and obsessive marriage proposals, I think that would alleviate things for the player.

[RodriguesSting]

I had an idea that I think could make family management a bit more interesting. Of course, there's the hard limit of 4 children per general, with males becoming generals, and females, either princesses or just wives. But how about we use the trait systems to do something more?

A married general, depending on fertility, could have "non-notable" children that, upon growing up, could give interesting bonuses AND maluses to them. These wouldn't be marriable, and wouldn't become generals, which, sadly, means they also wouldn't be able to propagate the family tree on their own, but you could argue that the general just failed to spawn a notable enough heir to keep their line in the high echelons of politics of the realm.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Fertility is useless if you are not married. FL/FH won't get a spouse if there're more characters than settlements (with deviations). The engine is famously stubborn at chosing one character and keeping on offering him/her a spouse. So to manage your family tree (ie to prompt your FL/FH to have children) you need to 1. keep the number of family characters (generals, women, children) lower than the number of settlements, 2. marry off your FL/FH to princesses, 3. keep other generals un-married. The 4th point (make them feritile) plays only a marginal role.
The princesses provide (and will provide even more, after I'd come back to modify them) fertility to their husbands, so it should be enough even without implementing your idea, @Rodrigues. And the mod does provide many opportunities to marry princesses thanks to the Princess script - that's operational after turn 60 (or so).

[RodriguesSting]

It's mostly so you could marry off your generals without fear of their children cluttering the family tree (hidden or not) and thus leaving more space for the generals you actually want to have kids. But you're the boss.

[Jurand of Cracow]

It's mostly so you could marry off your generals without fear of their children cluttering the family tree (hidden or not) and thus leaving more space for the generals you actually want to have kids. But you're the boss.

Up to a point, yes. You should still restrict marriages of ordinary generals quite substantially, and you should pay attention to their age: you'd better ensure there's somebody in each generation so that there's no risk that they'd die off at the same moment while there're no children in the family tree. But yes, the lower retirement age of the women in the family tree does make you a bit more of a boss of what happens.

A married general, depending on fertility, could have "non-notable" children that, upon growing up, could give interesting bonuses AND maluses to them. These wouldn't be marriable, and wouldn't become generals, which, sadly, means they also wouldn't be able to propagate the family tree on their own, but you could argue that the general just failed to spawn a notable enough heir to keep their line in the high echelons of politics of the realm.

I don't see how it woulr work. Plus I think the modding time could have been used for other purposes. For instance, Script for annexing a faction by marriage ties - somebody could adopt it to the SSHIP.

[Macaras]

I finished the HRE family tree. What is in the files attached:

- Fixed the French, Venetian and German family trees,
- I changed a little bit the location of generals so the Habsburg is in Austria + lowered a little the authority of the current German emperor and of course the names of family members,
- the princesses and the female characters in the family trees of all the factions- who are alive- are all 35 or younger.

The files work with 0.97 patch G and KCC 0.95, I am not sure if they work correctly without the KCC because of some changes in descr_strat.txt (the kings and heirs battle models and maybe more).

To install - just unpack the data.zip and copy everything inside data folder.
Just remember to delete the name.txt.strings.bin file that is in ...\mods\ss6.3\data\text folder and then restart the game.

If somebody would like to test this minimod please share your observations..Thanks in advance !!!

[RodriguesSting]

I checked the french family tree. Looks much more extensive than before, which is nice, but I couldn't help but notice two generals are still outside of it. Any particular reason for that? I thought the main goal of this submod was to put EVERYONE that could breed at least in the family tree for easier realm management.

[Nemesis2345]

I checked the french family tree. Looks much more extensive than before, which is nice, but I couldn't help but notice two generals are still outside of it. Any particular reason for that? I thought the main goal of this submod was to put EVERYONE that could breed at least in the family tree for easier realm management.

No,some factions have Generals ,which are Army Leaders but not family members. You can lose the game if your family members are dead , even if those generals are still alive. The goal of this mod is to lower the inconsistencies in the family trees and stop the impossible and unavoidable civil wars from happening and ruining your games.

[Macaras]

No,some factions have Generals ,which are Army Leaders but not family members. You can lose the game if your family members are dead , even if those generals are still alive. The goal of this mod is to lower the inconsistencies in the family trees and stop the impossible and unavoidable civil wars from happening and ruining your games.

Exactly, I didn't want to change too much at once, whatever was there for some reason and worked I tried to keep (like numbers of active family members and the numbers of generals). What I am doing is mostly to remove the separate family trees that are invisible for the player.

[RodriguesSting]

Interesting, I just wasn't aware there were mechanical differences between generals and family members.

[Belovèse]

You can even recruit these general later in the game, when you have the right castle level, and marry them into family if you like.

[RodriguesSting]

That much I am aware of. But if generals don't start married there's really no reason to represent them in the family tree as they wouldn't reproduce. Anyway, playing a lot with France. Wonder if the Vermandois should get their own bloodline because they are Carlings.

[Jurand of Cracow]

That much I am aware of. But if generals don't start married there's really no reason to represent them in the family tree as they wouldn't reproduce. Anyway, playing a lot with France. Wonder if the Vermandois should get their own bloodline because they are Carlings.

I think @Nemesis is right to point out the gameplay problem: sometimes it's enough to kill like 2 generals for the faction to collapse because only two were in the family tree. I think we should ensure that for each faction there're like 4 FM at the beginning - to prevent it from dying out, and to make those small factions a bit more viable.
So if the generals are not in the family tree we need to either link them through unhistorical marriages, or add historical family members. For some factions we can go with only purely fictional people for we know nothing on the ruling (well, there's actually none) family in Lithuania in 1132.

Concerning the bloodlines, there're basically 1 for each faction (with the exception of Mamluk, but I haven't studied that one), and they regenerate after a usurper takes on the throne. It works differently than in couple of other mods.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I finished the HRE family tree. What is in the files attached:

- Fixed the French, Venetian and German family trees,
- I changed a little bit the location of generals so the Habsburg is in Austria + lowered a little the authority of the current German emperor and of course the names of family members,
- the princesses and the female characters in the family trees of all the factions- who are alive- are all 35 or younger.

The files work with 0.97 patch G and KCC 0.95, I am not sure if they work correctly without the KCC because of some changes in descr_strat.txt (the kings and heirs battle models and maybe more).

To install - just unpack the data.zip and copy everything inside data folder.
Just remember to delete the name.txt.strings.bin file that is in ...\mods\ss6.3\data\text folder and then restart the game.

If somebody would like to test this minimod please share your observations..Thanks in advance !!!

Hi Macaras,
again: congratulations on your changes. Keep it up!
I'm having a look and I have a few questions:
- as you write "the princesses and the female characters in the family trees of all the factions" - and I've seen changes in they Kypchak tree, I assume it means all 28 trees, not all three: FR, VEN, HRE? :-)
- can you tell me why do you need 3 different names for a few names, like Gertrude? Is it about the frequency of the names? Or the engine distinguishing characters having the same name?
{Gertrude}Gertrude
{GertrudeA}Gertrude
{GertrudeB}Gertrude

-------------

One answer to whoever would use your mod: your changes will work only with KCC 095, since one of the files was modified by kostic (so it's: 097G - kostic - macaras). It won't be compatible with my upload of 10.01.2021.

[Macaras]

Hi Jurand, so to answer your questions:
1. Correct, it means all 28 trees.
2. Yes, for the engine to distinguish between different Gertrudes, Heinrich etc. I have to check though because I might have declared more Gertrudes etc than I really used..
I will also include what you said about the 4 starting family members because indeed sometimes the crusader states or some small factions disappear only because of carelessly sending their generals to battles.

I have one question also: should I continue using the KCC 095 or should I switch to the basic 097G ? If you want to include KCC in the next release then I guess it makes sense for me to use it?

[Jurand of Cracow]

Hi Jurand, so to answer your questions:
1. Correct, it means all 28 trees.
2. Yes, for the engine to distinguish between different Gertrudes, Heinrich etc. I have to check though because I might have declared more Gertrudes etc than I really used..
I will also include what you said about the 4 starting family members because indeed sometimes the crusader states or some small factions disappear only because of carelessly sending their generals to battles.

I have one question also: should I continue using the KCC 095 or should I switch to the basic 097G ? If you want to include KCC in the next release then I guess it makes sense for me to use it?

Hi Macaras,
ad. 1 - great! This will enable lowering that retirement age to 35.
ad. 2 - the engine distinguishes between them by itself, there's not need to make more. One is enough. However, if you want a certain name appearing more frequently, you put is several times in the descr_names.txt (but not in the names.txt).
ad. 3 - great, just do it!
ad. 4 - continue with the version you're using: with KCC. Me and Belovese, we also work on this version for the KCC will be included in the SSHIP 098 (or will rather be the main part of that update).

[Macaras]

Thanks for the answer Jurand. Regarding the engine distinguishing the names by itself, to some degree its true, but sometimes when two names are in the same family line and the same last name I have to somehow distinguish them. I made an experiment and changed the name in french family - from LuisA Capet to just Luis Capet. That make two Luis's Capets, one is the son of the other. Anyway I get crash to menu and in the system.log:

Trying to set Roy Louis as the child of Roy Louis when they are already the child of Roy Louis

Anyway, I think the engine gets confused if there are two characters with the same first and last name. In the German family tree there are 3 Heinrich von Hohenstaufen, so I need to distinguish them as well. I look at some other mods and found that for example in EBII there is a similar system.

[Macaras]

Ok Jurand, I started working on it, I will include all your points..

[RodriguesSting]

Can't play this sub anymore. I installed the new version, but when I click to start a game with a faction, it just kicks me back to the main menu. Replacing all the files the submod changes fixes it, luckily.