Regent problem SOLVED

[baniwel]

EDIT by JoC: In June 2023 version this issue has been solved through the introduction of the NextHeir mechanics.

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

Hello.

Im 190 turns in Aragon campaign (after crashes with mongols, that Jurand help me fixing, thanks!!). But now i have all the regions to be crowned, but my last 3 or 4 FL have been regent. How can I have a FL that is not regent? I tried to kill every one, but every time goes to another FL that is a regent. He has to be aragonese blood I suppose, but how can a lord that is not faction heir take it... I know that this is a stupid thing, but i have been the last year waiting to be crowned and now that im very near i cannot... Sorry for my english!!

Thanks everyone!!

[Jurand of Cracow]

Blood is not needed, but the trait regents must go. I haven't fixed it yet, I admit. It is difficult because a regent must first become an usurper (well, otherwise he doesn't want the crown, does he), and then establish a new house (sometimes this involves a civil war), and only then be crowned.
I need to review this mechanism, for now it seems waiting for a heir to get on the throne is the way out.

[baniwel]

Blood is not needed, but the trait regents must go. I haven't fixed it yet, I admit. It is difficult because a regent must first become an usurper (well, otherwise he doesn't want the crown, does he), and then establish a new house (sometimes this involves a civil war), and only then be crowned.
I need to review this mechanism, for now it seems waiting for a heir to get on the throne is the way out.

Okidoki. So i need to wait..what a pity. The regent i dont remember if they were usurpers, but i dont think it. They are waiting for the heir to have the age... Is weird. Because I kill them to try to put another one, and has the regent trait. Complicated. jeje

[Jurand of Cracow]

Don't kill generals, this is bad for role-playing and also the game engine has triggers to punish it. IIRC, there must be time passed until a usurper turns into a new legitimate ruler. And there're triggers (just saw them preparing to answer you) that turn a a regent into usurper.
So take your time, build up your realm, deal with the problems of loyalty and wait until you'll be able to reap the benefits of the crown, that I sow in the code constantly

;==================================================================================================================================
;===================   Hansa 5 (Holsteintor - in Lubeck)  =========================================================================
;==================================================================================================================================                
        hansa5_holsteintor requires event_counter HANSEATIC_COG 1 and hidden_resource hanse and hidden_resource hre and hidden_resource poland
        {
            convert_to 1
            capability
            {
            
; H4 - CAPABILITIES            
                trade_base_income_bonus bonus 8    requires not event_counter world_is_round 1
                trade_base_income_bonus bonus 10 requires event_counter world_is_round 1
                population_growth_bonus bonus 3
                navy_bonus 3


                happiness_bonus bonus -2 requires factions { hre, } and not event_counter merchant_skills 1 and not event_counter FL_is_crowned_ruler 1    
                happiness_bonus bonus 2 requires factions { hre, } and event_counter merchant_skills 1 
                
                happiness_bonus bonus -4 requires factions { norway, denmark, england, scotland, france, jerusalem, } and not event_counter merchant_skills 1 and not event_counter FL_is_crowned_ruler 1    
                happiness_bonus bonus -2 requires factions { norway, denmark, england, scotland, france, jerusalem, } and event_counter merchant_skills 1 and not event_counter FL_is_crowned_ruler 1
                happiness_bonus bonus -2 requires factions { norway, denmark, england, scotland, france, jerusalem, } and not event_counter merchant_skills 1 and event_counter FL_is_crowned_ruler 1
                
                happiness_bonus bonus -4 requires factions { southern_european, eastern_european, greek, middle_eastern, } and not event_counter merchant_skills 1 and not event_counter FL_is_crowned_ruler 1
                happiness_bonus bonus -2 requires factions { southern_european, eastern_european, greek, middle_eastern, } and event_counter merchant_skills 1 and not event_counter FL_is_crowned_ruler 1
                happiness_bonus bonus -2 requires factions { southern_european, eastern_european, greek, middle_eastern, } and not event_counter merchant_skills 1 and event_counter FL_is_crowned_ruler 1


; H4 - AGENTS
                agent merchant  0
                agent_limit merchant 2


; H4 - UNITS    
                recruit_pool "Lettish Crossbowmen"  1   0.13   3  4  requires factions { all, } and not event_counter MATCHLOCK 1 
                recruit_pool "Lettish Crossbowmen"  1   0.17   3  4  requires factions { all, } and event_counter MATCHLOCK 1


                recruit_pool "Arbalesters"        1   0.07   3  0  requires factions { all, } and event_counter PAVISE_SHIELDS 1 and not event_counter FULL_PLATE_ARMOR 1
                recruit_pool "Arbalesters"        1   0.13   3  0  requires factions { all, } and event_counter FULL_PLATE_ARMOR 1
                
                recruit_pool "Latin Handgunners"    1   0.09   3  0  requires factions { byzantium, } and event_counter first_watch 1    
                
;---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; UPKEEP/INCOME        
            income_bonus bonus 400                
            }
            material stone
            construction  15
            cost  15000 
            settlement_min city
            upgrades
            {
            }
        }

[baniwel]

I was killing them to see if that works, i usually play with home rules too... But it was fustrating after 190 turns and with everything done, that my king and heir are not fit for the crown jejej. I will wait.

Another question Jurand, how did you make yesterday to pass my mongols crash? I dont know how did you make that happen.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Another question Jurand, how did you make yesterday to pass my mongols crash? I dont know how did you make that happen.

Nothing. Literally, nothing. Just run your save - and it worked.

[baniwel]

ouh...thanks!! i dont know what happens...but a vey thanks.

[shadowtwinz]

Jurand can you explain Regent Feature in precise detail ? How it works. Outcomes and consequences. How it affects family tree. How it plays out for AI ?

[Jurand of Cracow]

Frankly speaking, I haven't yet delved into the intricacies of how it works. I had the problem of the regent and civil wars in the Broken Crescent and I know the system from that mod, but in the SSHIP I haven't experienced it. It is in the shape left by MWY for v. 092. I'll write explanations once I get to that aspect.

[zoran93]

How to lose usurper trait as king? Im in civil war for a long time and my king has max authority? Will it go away, or must I wait for next king to be legitimate one?

[zoran93]

I got it finally, pop up of civil war ends, and now my king is no longer usurper and he is founder of new royal dynasty, very nice. But it lasted for too long, and he became totally senile in the meantime and can't be crowned king. Nice mechanic, adds flavour to the campaign, although hard to understand exactly how it works without reading the code.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I got it finally, pop up of civil war ends, and now my king is no longer usurper and he is founder of new royal dynasty, very nice. But it lasted for too long, and he became totally senile in the meantime and can't be crowned king. Nice mechanic, adds flavour to the campaign, although hard to understand exactly how it works without reading the code.

I want it to be told loud and clear for the future questions about the civil war mechanism:

pop up of civil war ends, and now my king is no longer usurper and he is founder of new royal dynasty

I find it ok because getting legitimization for your rule was a very long process in the MA. We can say that very often only the next generation (ie the son of a regent who ascended to the throne) would get full recognition among the elites.

[Macaras]

However, I have some very negative experiences with the Regent mechanism, for me its one of the biggest "fun killers" in our mod, why do I say this:

1. The Regent most of the time doesn't come with the civil war but because the king dies and his son is not yet old enough to be the heir. The player has completely no control over it.
2. Even if the usurper finally establishes a dynasty it happens what zoran93 described - its too late.
3. Even if the regent dies and the rightful heir becomes the FL, he receives a 'regent' trait (even though he is a son of a king, just was too young when his father died) and the whole story starts from the beginning.
4. Its very very difficult to have any control over what happens, the kings die early, the grandsons are too young to become heir, their uncles or other FM becomes heir and the player is screwed for another 50 years or so, in the never ending 'regent' trait.
5. The players mostly have no idea why their FL is not crowned, and its not easy to understand it
6. Did I mention that most of the time the player has no control over it? One cannot send a princess to marry the king or heir, and has to wait for the game to propose it or find a faction that may and want to be intermarried (happens rarely). And I play almost always having much more settlements than generals to make sure that the FL and FH have children, but still many, many times the children are too young when their grandpa (FL) dies - so the regent nightmare starts. No civil war, its just 'regent' trait passed from one to another with a logic difficult to understand.
7. What the player can do - make the FL go to the crusades, put him in a good, developed city, make him win heroic victories- this things should have some influence on the regent system, otherwise its just waiting..
8. Anyway, I use remove trait to get rid of this.

Please, guys, share what is your experience with it..

[nvm]

It appears to be a mechanic built around the fact that a player can easily make their king charge some pikes if they don't like him. I know it depends on authority, a 8-10 authority regent that turns usurper is able to resolve the things in 2-3 turns. I could have sworn the new division of claim strength between biological sons would eliminate the problem, but I guess it's not working somehow?

Anyway, number 1 way to avoid this is kill off all non-claimants and don't adopt anyone. Which is weird as I'd presume adopted sons of the king to have at least some legitimacy to get the throne if there's no one better.

[stefdim7]

My only problem with the regencies is that the character becoming regent is often quite remotely related to the late Facyion Leader and he does not have any convincing positive traits either...
He should actually be a close relative and also one of the same generation! (Sometimes the regency passes to the next generation for no reason; I had a regent being 16 years old playing as Byzantium... Crazy!)
I often marry daughters of remotely related regents/usurpers (if allowed by the degrees of kinship, i.e. not being second cousins or closer in the case of Byzantium, haha) to the lawful heir to make sure that my ruling family will come back to power, but in general I struggle with the crazy mechanism of the game that sometimes seems to have no logic!

[Mr Sneeze]

Hello!
I'm discovering this SSHIP mod: I must congratulate all the modders, the work put into it is unbelievable! I can't express how impressed I am so far. Bravo!

Here's some practical questions I'm faced with:

Currently playing with Aragon, early game (turn 30). Hard difficulty, Very Hard battle difficulty.

My current king is Rei Ramon, 32, and he has the trait 'Regent'. His uncle, Prencipe Garcia, 34, is 'Heir presumptive'. It says that Prenciper Garcia is the heir because the king doesn't have a son as heir. Rei Ramon does have a son, but he's 11. Maybe when that son comes to age things get cleared up?

For now, I just have a conflict of dynasty. But I'm not sure how to deal with it, I've just read how important it was to avoid getting usurpers etc. What would be your advice here?

Note that Rei Ramon (regent) has an authority of 4 (but likely to increase, as he's just recently become king, and he's on the frontline fighting battles).
And Prenciper Garcia has a loyalty of 6.

[kostic]

Hi @Mr Sneeze, the heirs are sometimes chosen in an illogical way in SSHIP (it's a question of putting back the mod which allows you to choose the heir yourself in the next version) and I don't know, at the moment, what advice would you give to avoid having a "regent" or "usurper" king...
Maybe another modder will have better advice.

[Mr Sneeze]

Well I got some update after having played 60 more turns.

The situation I described did turn out into a civil war, with the king becoming 'usurper' and most generals 'opposing the usurper', or becoming 'conspirator'. At that moment I saw all my generals losing loyalty, didn't know what to do, so I just suicided my king to solve the problem... It worked at the time : the new king was not an usurper. But he was a regent again, because the former king had a son.

Anyway, no issue for a while, until the new king (Prencipe Garcia then) became old: I guess the game assess that the succession gonna come and it triggers somethings. So then the new king became usurper for the end of his life, but this time only some (not all) of the generals started 'opposing the usurper', or becoming 'conspirator'. One of them had the trait 'oppose the usurper', bud still kept full loyalty up to the end of his life.
So I tried something else this time: I put all the disloyal generals in the capital with the king: this kept the generals in control (because they become 'courtier', increase their loyalty), and the proximity with the king gave them more loyalty.

Then that king died, and his adopted son (he didn't have a natural son, only daughters) succeeded: he was immediately considered an usurper (probably because he's NOT a natural son precisely), and I used the same technique trying to keep the disloyal generals in control.
This technique worked pretty well! The disloyal generals slowly became loyal again, and after a while they lose their plotting trait.

A civil war did erupt in my kingdom but it was very easy to deal with: just a few cities rebelling with easily defeated armies of rebels, nothing tough.

And after a while the king was not considered an usurper anymore, the civil war ended, and the loyalty was not an issue for most generals.

Still I had to be careful because some generals still developp the trait 'conspirator' (or they lose it at some point, then gain it back when I move them away from the capital): for those I brought them to the capital and in proximity with the king.

As my (now legitimate) king will die soon, we'll see what happens with his hair this time. But at least I know how to deal with that situation now! And actually, it's pretty realistic: the plotting generals have to be kept in court, or they have to be right under the eye of the king... Of course because of that it limits what you can do in your kingdom: you cannot use those disloyal generals for war, and you cannot let them administer some cities.
But that's good, because it really creates the tension of holding your kingdom together from internal conflicts, and it also made me much more aware of my generals and family tree (for instance I decided not to marry the son and daughter of the previous usurper king, as I thought that the existence of that line will keep creating dynastic conflicts).

Only drawback I see is that the 'conspirator' trait, or the 'opposes usurper' trait, are NOT signaled in the faction announcements. I had to regularly check my generals for the appearance / disappearance of those traits.

[kostic]

Thank you for this interesting report. I had never thought of rallying my disloyal generals to the king in the capital.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Guys,

@Macaras has brutally forced me to re-instate the Next Heir script. You'll be able to designate a new Faction Heir once he or the Faction Leader die. It should work, I've made a test at the beggining of the campaign by killing the heir, see test below. As with everything within the Medieval2 enegine - who knows what happens if the game is more advanced or circumstances are different. You'll be able to report (once we upload the next, June version ;-)

The Next Heir will limit (how decisivelly is to be seen in practice) the Regent and Usurper problem. It will probably limit / kill the Civil War system, also the problem with loyalty of the generals should be much smaller (the Heir comes with whopping +8 Authority). The current shape is a stop-gap solution untill I'd have time and will to review the system. Well, it may linger in the mod till the end of the days, who knows.