Family Tree Tutorial

[Gyrosmeister]

Hello everyone

this is a tutorial showing how to mod and create a custom family tree (historical or not, it is up to you!). All you need to make this work is the Assembly Kit.

1. Definitions

Before we start, we need to clarify a few things first. The most important is kinship by blood and kinship by marriage. Why is this important? If for example someone, who is not in the family by blood, but by marriage, loses his/her spouse will appear in the "other nobles" section instead. Now how do you know if someone is in the family by blood or by marriage? Simply look at the family tree and see which characters have their name below their portrait. Those whose name shows up are in the family by blood, those whose name does not show up are in the family by marriage.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The second important thing that we need to define is the "progenitor". The progenitor is the person that the family tree starts on, each family tree needs one progenitor.

2. Preperations

So now that we cleared some definitions, it is time to prepare the family tree. So do your historical research (if you want to make a historical family tree) or come up with your characters (if you want to make a fantasy family tree) and make somewhere a draft (a piece of paper will do just fine). Make sure to know which characters are in the family by marriage. It is also recommended in the faction that you are modding to have 0 characters, therefore having to create new ones, this will make searching for them in startpos_characters and startpos_family_relationships much much easier.

3. Modding
3.0 Creating a character

There are multiple ways to create a character, but the way I prefer to do that is by going on View > form_launcher > starting_positions, then selecting the campaign and to find the faction I want to edit the family tree. There click the "new" box, select the name on the respective bar. To make a female character, uncheck the "is male" box on the right. The reason I prefer this method is that on starting_positions, the names are sorted correctly compared to startpos_characters where it is a bit of a mess. If the character you just created will be dead in the family tree, leave his position X,Y as 0,0 and do not assign him to any settlement. If he is alive, then either assign him to a settlement as a politican, or give him a force to command, all up to you.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

3.1 Setting up a progenitor, dead characters

Now that we have plan on what we want to make, it is time to start by setting up a progenitor. For this, go to startpos_characters and find the character you want to have as a progenitor (ideally the first character you make). He should be around the bottom. Once you found him scroll to the right and change the value on the "progenitor" column for that character to true.
If the progenitor has already died, then this is no problem. To set up dead characters (this applies for everyone), go to the column "turns_died_before_start". Now this "turns" corresponds to 1 year, regardless of the calendar of the campaign you are modding. So 5 "turns" correspond to death 5 years before the start.It is also required to set a "death cause" on the "death_type" column, though the different options do not seem to make much of a difference. "Old age", "disease", "killed in action" all do just fine.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

3.2 Family Relations

This is the most important part of the family tree modding. For that go to startpos_family_relationships. On the right there is a column called "relationship". There are three options, "spouse", "child", "sibling". Needed are only the first two. To set up a parent-child relationship, put the child on the left column, the parent on the right and select "child" in the "relationship" column. For adopted or bastard children, tick the respective boxes on the right. For that, it is important to put as a parent the person who is in the family by blood. For the spouse relationship, choose the characters you want (in that case it is not imporant who is in the first column and who in the second) and select the "spouse" relationship.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As seen above, Autodikos is a son of Agathocles. Agathocles is in the family by blood, therefore we set him as the parent of Autodikos. Autodikos is as a result, also by blood in the family. His spouse (Achaia), is in the family by marriage. If we want Autodikos to have children, he will be set up as the father, as he is the one in the family by blood.

Once you are done, process startpos with BoB and add the .esf file generated in your mod pack
3.3 Advanced Techniques

As stated above, persons who are in the family by marriage will not appear in the family tree if their spouse dies. If we want them to appear regardless in the family tree, next to their dead spouse, we need to set them as "dead" as well.

These are the important things you need to know to mod the family tree. The best way to learn yourself is by trying it out. Good luck

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Altough i already know, how to make a working family tree this is a very good explanation! The progenitor box is really essential, because if it is unticked the wifes of your actual family leader will die within a few turns every time.

+ 1 rep for your effort.

[Gyrosmeister]

Altough i already know, how to make a working family tree this is a very good explanation! The progenitor box is really essential, because if it is unticked the wifes of your actual family leader will die within a few turns every time.

+ 1 rep for your effort.

Good that you mention that bug with the dead wives, one more reason to pay attention then

[makanyane]

That's a very useful tutorial - Gyromeister, I saw you added it to your wiki page - I've added it also to the RomeII Modding Index under Factions.

Feel free to add things to that page yourselves when you make or find new Tutorials or Resources!

[Starsmil]

If progenitor (set true) is your faction leader and he is alive, it necessary to make wife for him in Akit. If u don't do it, your new wifes will die in game very often as Morticia Iunia Bruti mentioned.

[L0n3w0lf9k]

Hey all,

I've been trying to add a working family tree to the etruscan faction. However, no luck. I've tried a miriad of character combinations, however all lead to the same result. My characters simply do not exist.

I have my main character as a progenitor and faction leader. At that point he exists but if I get a wife she'll die within' a few turns. (Need to create a wife for him perhaps)
If I set his political party to my rulling party. He disappears from the campaign.
I added one character per political party (3) and set each one to one of the parties. None exist in campaign and the political factions are instead populated by what I'm assuming to be placeholder characters.

I've checked the character's positions and they are all good (main character is supposed to be near Velathri, while the others have no position), there are no family relationships as of now since I only have one character per political party.

How do I make it so I can create a working family tree on a faction that was non-playable? Where did I go wrong?

[Gyrosmeister]

Do you have the political party in your movie pack that you use to process startpos or edited in the data rome2.pack if it is a custom made party?

[Bailey J. Pope]

I'm having the same issue as @L0n3w0lf9k here, I followed this tutorial as well as created an army for my faction leader and assigned him to that army (+ made him a wife and did everything needed in start_pos_family_relationships) - Both of which belong to the Cherusci ruling party. As L0n3w0lf9k implied, maybe for a faction that was non-playable there is an extra step? I've been told by different modders that after unlocking a faction you must create a family tree for it to be properly playable. The faction I made playable (Cherusci) is working but its family tree is wack, so I tried this tutorial and for some reason my characters won't show up.

Btw the political parties are in the same PACK file as everything else. They're both custom made since you have to do that for minor factions to become playable.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm new to the modding community and would appreciate any help I can get!

[Gyrosmeister]

I'm having the same issue as @L0n3w0lf9k here, I followed this tutorial as well as created an army for my faction leader and assigned him to that army (+ made him a wife and did everything needed in start_pos_family_relationships) - Both of which belong to the Cherusci ruling party. As L0n3w0lf9k implied, maybe for a faction that was non-playable there is an extra step? I've been told by different modders that after unlocking a faction you must create a family tree for it to be properly playable. The faction I made playable (Cherusci) is working but its family tree is wack, so I tried this tutorial and for some reason my characters won't show up.

Btw the political parties are in the same PACK file as everything else. They're both custom made since you have to do that for minor factions to become playable.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm new to the modding community and would appreciate any help I can get!

Do you have the new political parties inside a movie pack or in data_rome2.pack to process the startpos with your custom stuff?
Also make sure that you have assigned the parties to the faction in factions political parties junction or however that table is called

[Bailey J. Pope]

I did everything in Assembly Kit then exported, then placed my PACK file in Total War Rome II > data to make it available to use, if that answers your question. I did nothing else besides that after the export process, didn't know I had to. Maybe I should mention I used Commissar Caligula_'s mod ([Tutorial] How to Create A New Faction (from existing faction) Using the Assembly Kit and PFM (twcenter.net)) to unlock the faction + make the political parties then assigned them to my faction. THEN I deleted all my characters, made new ones, then followed your tutorial for the rest.

To be completely honest I have no idea what a movie pack is, and I assumed assembly kit uses the data_rome2.pack to generate new files. Maybe I'm wrong about that? There's a good chance I am lol

[Bailey J. Pope]

My political parties work, their names show up in the game at least. It's just my characters don't ever show up after I assign them to their political parties (either one). I have a progenitor and a wife as well, both of which belong to the ruling party too

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Starts the faction with more than two parties in vanilla, are this new characters? Then maybe you must delete the old characters in the startpos, they have replaced too.

[Gyrosmeister]

I did everything in Assembly Kit then exported, then placed my PACK file in Total War Rome II > data to make it available to use, if that answers your question. I did nothing else besides that after the export process, didn't know I had to. Maybe I should mention I used Commissar Caligula_'s mod ([Tutorial] How to Create A New Faction (from existing faction) Using the Assembly Kit and PFM (twcenter.net)) to unlock the faction + make the political parties then assigned them to my faction. THEN I deleted all my characters, made new ones, then followed your tutorial for the rest.

To be completely honest I have no idea what a movie pack is, and I assumed assembly kit uses the data_rome2.pack to generate new files. Maybe I'm wrong about that? There's a good chance I am lol

When you make custom new stuff, you need to either add them in data_rome2.pack or in a new pack that you only use for startpos and label it as a movie pack(this is a workaround to avoid messing around with your data_rome2 files). Also do not export the pack file with Assembly Kit, create a new pack file manually with PFM and add the files there manually. The tutorial you quote is perfectly fine

[Gyrosmeister]

Starts the faction with more than two parties in vanilla, are this new characters? Then maybe you must delete the old characters in the startpos, they have replaced too.

The Cherusci are a minor faction in vanilla.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Ah, i overlooked that it was the Cherusci faction.

Do it as Gyrosmeister said. Create the ESF with the Kit and add it via PFM/RPFM to a new created .pack.

I have made playable and added family trees to all minor factions, it works perfectly fine this way.

[Bailey J. Pope]

Yeah, I have no idea why I'm making it this hard guys lol but it didn't work.
Here's my process:
I click "export to binary" on AK, then after it exports I go into BOB and process campaign>main_rome>startpos, then I click all three boxes. Afterwards, I go into the newly created PACK file and rename it "movie.pack". Next I go into PFM and create a new mod pack. I right click on the new mod, select Add>From Pack then I select the newly created movie.pack, then I double-click every single file in that movie.pack (the startpos, the db, and the text) then I save the file into my Total War Rome II > data folder as a "Cherusci.pack", then I go into the Rome II launcher and only select that mod.

Again, the faction itself works as well as the political party names, but the characters don't appear and placeholder characters instead are there. And to answer Praeses question, I delete the old characters and create new ones from scratch using the form launcher on AK. It probably doesn't help I don't know what a movie pack is, I may have took that comment too literal as I literally just renamed it "movie.pack". I'm so sorry guys lol maybe I'm just misinterpreting what you're saying but all this stuff is so new to me

[Bailey J. Pope]

I've also created a new pack file with PFM, right-clicked on it then added a directory to the new startpos.esf in AK>working_data>campaigns>main_rome then saving it in the rome 2 data folder. THEN I tried the same thing except added the db and text files from the new PACK file after making a directory to the AK>working_data>campaigns>main_rome. That also didn't work. I'm slowly losing it here, but at least I now know the frustration of a typical Rome 2 modder lol

[Gyrosmeister]

Yeah, I have no idea why I'm making it this hard guys lol but it didn't work.
Here's my process:
I click "export to binary" on AK, then after it exports I go into BOB and process campaign>main_rome>startpos, then I click all three boxes. Afterwards, I go into the newly created PACK file and rename it "movie.pack". Next I go into PFM and create a new mod pack. I right click on the new mod, select Add>From Pack then I select the newly created movie.pack, then I double-click every single file in that movie.pack (the startpos, the db, and the text) then I save the file into my Total War Rome II > data folder as a "Cherusci.pack", then I go into the Rome II launcher and only select that mod.

Again, the faction itself works as well as the political party names, but the characters don't appear and placeholder characters instead are there. And to answer Praeses question, I delete the old characters and create new ones from scratch using the form launcher on AK. It probably doesn't help I don't know what a movie pack is, I may have took that comment too literal as I literally just renamed it "movie.pack". I'm so sorry guys lol maybe I'm just misinterpreting what you're saying but all this stuff is so new to me

Mate, as I said, do not have AK generate a pack file, do not tick that box. And you need to have the movie pack checked before you process startpos

[Bailey J. Pope]

Again, I've never heard of a "movie pack" before. I don't know what that part means and when I google it a bunch of TV providers pop up everywhere

[Gyrosmeister]

a "movie".pack is a type of .pack file in the game. It is a trick that is used to load custom stuff into startpos. Open PFM,go to the file drop down menu, and there you will find a "change pack type" option. For the .pack where all your custom stuff are, you need to change the type there to "movie"