Different types of family tree

[es157]

Hello.

Could anyone please enlighten me about the differences between "Yes", "No", and "Teutonic" types of family tree in descr_sm_factions? I would like to remove the family tree button from all factions because my campaign is limited in timespan to about five years, making royal births and marriages mostly irrelevant. However I don't know whether to use "No" or "Teutonic" as the setting, and I don't know of the consequences of choosing each and whether or not there is a risk of my game becoming unstable and crashing from it.

Also related to this, I wonder whether or not the line can_have_princess can remain "Yes" while the faction has no family tree, and what consequence there is to setting it to "No". For instance, can I still assign a princess to the faction in descr_strat even though no new princesses will spawn later? Can my characters get seduced by foreign princesses?

I'd appreciate some general guidance on this. Thanks in advance.

[Gigantus]

Yes - regular family tree
No - no family tree, faction can't be killed (slave, pope) by killing everyone and\or capturing all settlements
teutonic - has only leader and heir, no family as such, successors are chosen by attribute levels

I believe 'No' will not make the button available, not sure with 'teutonic'.

no princess - female children of the leader will not become princesses, they remain 'regular' female family members. Seduction by other princesses still works.

[es157]

Yes - regular family tree
No - no family tree, faction can't be killed (slave, pope) by killing everyone and\or capturing all settlements
teutonic - has only leader and heir, no family as such, successors are chosen by attribute levels

I believe 'No' will not make the button available, not sure with 'teutonic'.

no princess - female children of the leader will not become princesses, they remain 'regular' female family members. Seduction by other princesses still works.

Thanks for this.

As of now I can attest that "Teutonic" removes the family tree button. I'm going to test with "No". But I'm left to wonder whether the "No" factions are mostly immortal, or if they still need leaders. If they do need leaders, I still fail to see what differentiates them from the "Teutonic" factions.

[Gigantus]

Afaik (never played a faction with NO) any named character automatically becomes faction leader, at least that's what happens with the slave faction. And the pope is also faction leader, which is confirmed if you do a conditional script based on that.
There actually was a recent test that confirmed it by spawning a named character as the school of cardinals was disabled - he became pope.

The NO faction is immortal in the way that it always remains on the diplomacy screen and that any spawn will revive it if it is out of characxters and settlements, which does happen with the pope quite frequently.

[Jadli]

Even an admiral can literally become a FL for such a faction

[Callistonian]

A "yes" family tree faction has more family members in addition to the leader and heir - all named characters. The next heir is chosen based on the character's authority attribute (many mods have a "next heir ancillary" feature where adding a particular ancillary with accompanying 10 authority trait ensures that the character will become the next heir when the current leader dies). The aliveness condition for a "yes" faction is that it has a leader on or off map. The faction will survive with no named characters on the map and only a leader or heir (who becomes leader) off map. The faction will not survive if it only has off map family members who are neither leader nor heir. A "yes" faction will survive if the leader and heir die simultaneously as long as there are additional family members on the map who can immediately succeed to the leadership (will not work if these family members are off map). If the "yes" faction is a non-horde, there is an additional aliveness condition that they must have at least 1 settlement under their control at the start of their turn. Aliveness of a "yes" faction can be tested using I_FactionLeaderAttribute faction_name Command < 999 (assuming you never set Command higher than 999).

A "teutonic" faction is essentially a "yes" faction where the tree consists of only the leader and heir and the family tree button is removed from the UI. This means that if the leader and heir die simultaneously, there will be no other family members to succeed to the leadership and the faction will be instantly destroyed (an event referred to as "regicide"). As with "yes" factions, the next heir is chosen based on authority attribute. The aliveness condition for a "teutonic" faction is the same as for a "yes" faction and can be tested in the same way.

A "no" faction has a leader and heir and the next heir will be chosen based on normal succession mechanics, but the faction has no aliveness condition and so will survive with no named characters on the map and none off map and no regions (regardless of whether the faction is a horde or not). As with a "teutonic" faction, the family tree button is removed from the UI. The only way to kill a "no" faction is by using the kill_faction command in script and hence the only way to test aliveness is by keeping track of when this command is issued using a counter or other means. If the leader and heir are killed, and there are no other named characters, the "no" faction will continue with no leader or heir. Any character spawned using spawn_army will become the leader and this includes non-named characters (priests, admirals, captains, etc.). Any subsequent spawned characters will not become heirs. For example, if you retire all named characters for a "no" faction, then spawn character A, A will be the new faction leader. Then you spawn character B, B will be a regular general (not heir), then kill character A, B will still just be a general (he will not become leader because the "no" faction has no succession to the heirship), you can then spawn character C and C will immediately become the new leader. The "no" type is usually reserved for the slave_faction and papal_faction, but everything I have described here works independently of those tags (those tags do unrelated things for the faction).


The "no" faction is essentially the most pure type of faction - no aliveness conditions so it always exists unless you kill it in script. The "teutonic" faction is the next step up where we add the leader on/off map aliveness condition and potentially the 1 settlement condition if it's a non-horde. Then the "yes" faction is the most complex where we've added a special character designation for named characters who are also family members and can succeed to the heirship immediately. There is no risk of the game crashing as a result of using any of these three family tree types - vanilla uses all three. "Unstable" usually just means people are encountering frequent or unpredictable crashes that they don't know how to diagnose.


Enabling princesses in descr_sm_factions allows daughters of the faction leader to turn into princess agents and enables marriages. If you disable princesses, they can still be spawned in script (for "yes", "no", and "teutonic" factions) but they won't be able to marry anyone (marriage mission is disabled). Foreign princesses can still marry your generals though.

[es157]

A "yes" family tree faction has more family members in addition to the leader and heir - all named characters. The next heir is chosen based on the character's authority attribute (many mods have a "next heir ancillary" feature where adding a particular ancillary with accompanying 10 authority trait ensures that the character will become the next heir when the current leader dies). The aliveness condition for a "yes" faction is that it has a leader on or off map. The faction will survive with no named characters on the map and only a leader or heir (who becomes leader) off map. The faction will not survive if it only has off map family members who are neither leader nor heir. A "yes" faction will survive if the leader and heir die simultaneously as long as there are additional family members on the map who can immediately succeed to the leadership (will not work if these family members are off map). If the "yes" faction is a non-horde, there is an additional aliveness condition that they must have at least 1 settlement under their control at the start of their turn. Aliveness of a "yes" faction can be tested using I_FactionLeaderAttribute faction_name Command < 999 (assuming you never set Command higher than 999).

A "teutonic" faction is essentially a "yes" faction where the tree consists of only the leader and heir and the family tree button is removed from the UI. This means that if the leader and heir die simultaneously, there will be no other family members to succeed to the leadership and the faction will be instantly destroyed (an event referred to as "regicide"). As with "yes" factions, the next heir is chosen based on authority attribute. The aliveness condition for a "teutonic" faction is the same as for a "yes" faction and can be tested in the same way.

A "no" faction has a leader and heir and the next heir will be chosen based on normal succession mechanics, but the faction has no aliveness condition and so will survive with no named characters on the map and none off map and no regions (regardless of whether the faction is a horde or not). As with a "teutonic" faction, the family tree button is removed from the UI. The only way to kill a "no" faction is by using the kill_faction command in script and hence the only way to test aliveness is by keeping track of when this command is issued using a counter or other means. If the leader and heir are killed, and there are no other named characters, the "no" faction will continue with no leader or heir. Any character spawned using spawn_army will become the leader and this includes non-named characters (priests, admirals, captains, etc.). Any subsequent spawned characters will not become heirs. For example, if you retire all named characters for a "no" faction, then spawn character A, A will be the new faction leader. Then you spawn character B, B will be a regular general (not heir), then kill character A, B will still just be a general (he will not become leader because the "no" faction has no succession to the heirship), you can then spawn character C and C will immediately become the new leader. The "no" type is usually reserved for the slave_faction and papal_faction, but everything I have described here works independently of those tags (those tags do unrelated things for the faction).


The "no" faction is essentially the most pure type of faction - no aliveness conditions so it always exists unless you kill it in script. The "teutonic" faction is the next step up where we add the leader on/off map aliveness condition and potentially the 1 settlement condition if it's a non-horde. Then the "yes" faction is the most complex where we've added a special character designation for named characters who are also family members and can succeed to the heirship immediately. There is no risk of the game crashing as a result of using any of these three family tree types - vanilla uses all three. "Unstable" usually just means people are encountering frequent or unpredictable crashes that they don't know how to diagnose.


Enabling princesses in descr_sm_factions allows daughters of the faction leader to turn into princess agents and enables marriages. If you disable princesses, they can still be spawned in script (for "yes", "no", and "teutonic" factions) but they won't be able to marry anyone (marriage mission is disabled). Foreign princesses can still marry your generals though.

Thank you very much for the effort of writing this. It was very helpful.

For the purposes of my mod, I think making every faction either "No" or "Teutonic" will be ideal then. I want to allow princesses, but I don't want them to be able to seduce and propose marriages. I also want successions to happen, but I don't want family trees to be visible. This is all due to the limited timespan of my campaign and the fact that I allow female rulers (having a female ruler marrying another woman and having children is odd, to say the least).

I already managed to disable all regular marriages by changing a few numbers in descr_campaign_db. Just set the maximum nubile age to be less than the minimum nubile age, and no one will ever get married or have children. I'll leave this as a suggestion in case someone happens to be interested in doing the same, though I'm still waiting to see if any errors can result from this. So far none has.

Now the last thing I need to do is hide the age display. I have seen some mods do it, but I don't know how.

[Callistonian]

What I do in my mod for female rulers is set the faction to "teutonic" to hide the tree and set the character gender in descr_strat to "female". This prevents the female leader from getting marriage offers from women without having to disable marriage offers in general. But the character gender only controls marriages it seems, the name for the named character type is still pulled from the male names list (i.e. the agent type controls which names list is used, male or female, not the gender), so our female ruler's name must still be included in the list of potential male names for this faction.

Two things to note about this: 1) it only works for female leaders who start on the map in descr_strat as we can't spawn female named characters in campaign_script (game throws error). 2) We can't add female named characters (leader or otherwise) to the family tree (game throws error).

[es157]

What I do in my mod for female rulers is set the faction to "teutonic" to hide the tree and set the character gender in descr_strat to "female". This prevents the female leader from getting marriage offers from women without having to disable marriage offers in general. But the character gender only controls marriages it seems, the name for the named character type is still pulled from the male names list (i.e. the agent type controls which names list is used, male or female, not the gender), so our female ruler's name must still be included in the list of potential male names for this faction.

Two things to note about this: 1) it only works for female leaders who start on the map in descr_strat as we can't spawn female named characters in campaign_script (game throws error). 2) We can't add female named characters (leader or otherwise) to the family tree (game throws error).

For real? As far as my memory goes, trying to change the word "male" to "female" would never give anything but a crash or throw back to the main menu when I tried to do it in Rome TW. I never thought it was even worth it to try the same method in Medieval II. It sounds like the recipe for crashes...

By the way, I tried setting the "can_have_princess" to "no", but my starting princesses are still able to propose marriages all the same. The options in the diplomacy menu to marry the princess to the other faction's leader or heir are still there. Can't I possibly disable that option? Maybe if I make all leaders start married? I'm running out of extreme solutions to use lol.

Edit: Hold on. You mentioned that you use an alternative method so that you don't need to disable all marriages. But suppose one actually wanted to disable all marriages. Could you do it? I managed to disable most of them by changing the min and max nubile ages, but the princesses are still able to force some marriages through diplomacy. I just considered that maybe turning all the princesses into diplomats could be a solution, but I would like to learn about yours.

[Gigantus]

Even an admiral can literally become a FL for such a faction

Nope. Only named characters can become FL. I don't think he will remain in play if the usual defeat conditions are met. Requires some testing I guess.

[Jadli]

A spawned admiral I mean. And before you ask, yes, he remained a faction leader even after reloading or turn end if I remember correctly.

[Callistonian]

@es157 - Female named characters will not cause a crash. They just can't be spawned using spawn_army and can't be included in the family tree (unless they're the leader and only family member, they just can't be included in the family tree specifications in descr_strat).

If I spawn a princess into the family tree with can_have_princess set to "yes" for the faction, the princess will be able to undertake marriage missions. If all I do is set can_have_princess to "no", she will no longer be able to undertake marriage missions. This leads me to believe that, in addition to determining whether or not daughters of the faction leader become princess agents, the can_have_princess param also controls whether or not princesses in the family tree can perform marriage missions. But I'm not 100% sure about this since I'm not seeing the marriage options in the diplomacy scroll and princesses outside of the family tree don't have the marriage mission option. It seems like there are other factors at play here which are specific to my mod.

Another possible solution (untested) for removing the marriage proposals from the diplomacy scroll is to remove those options in descr_diplomacy.txt (they seem to still be present in my mod and yet I don't get those options in the diplomacy scroll).

My alternative method to prevent female characters from getting marriage offers from women is to set these characters to "female" in descr_strat. If I were trying to prevent all marriages of all types, I would probably do the same as you and set daughters_age_of_consent to a higher value than max_age_for_marriage_for_female, or something to that effect in descr_campaign_db.



@Jadli & Gigantus - The admiral is an interesting choice of leader using spawn_army with a "no" family tree faction. Admirals are normally spawned using spawn_army and they can be given ships as their "bodyguard" so that they should survive reloads. This makes admirals very viable faction leaders for "no" factions. I wonder what happens if you spawn an admiral on land with a non-ship BG unit?

[es157]

@es157 - Female named characters will not cause a crash. They just can't be spawned using spawn_army and can't be included in the family tree (unless they're the leader and only family member, they just can't be included in the family tree specifications in descr_strat).

I will definitely test this method, so thanks for the tip. I'd never heard of it in all these years of TW.

[Gigantus]

I wonder what happens if you spawn an admiral on land with a non-ship BG unit?

You'll have a totally immobile (irreversible) character due to the 'admiral' category. Could be an option for a permanent garrison commander, give him a level trait that changes his description (and model) and you're set.
Not sure how that will work out when it comes to battle, or if battle can be joined outside a fort\settlement (army can't attack ship but it can attack settlement). After all he has no 'battle' lines in descr_characters.

My guess would be that he dies immediately at a siege battle start due to lack of army leader (general\captain) model.

[Jadli]

Well, I spawn the admirals with spawn_army ofc

The kind of weird stuff I came across when trying to spawn a sea horde

[Callistonian]

I knew that admirals could be spawned on land (Withwnar uses this for his executioner script), but I wasn't sure what would happen spawning them with a non-ship BG unit. They're still immobile (even seemingly immune to move_character when land tiles are given) and they can't be attacked by enemy armies or engage in diplomacy with foreign diplomats or be bypassed by foreign agents. They're an unmovable wall on a land tile. The non-ship units that came with the spawn are treated as ships (shown in the Fleet tab instead of the Army tab) and can be disbanded, but if you move any other units into the fleet (Army tab) then the ship units can't be disbanded (saying that they can only be disbanded in port). The create_unit command doesn't work for the admiral when non-ship units are given.

What's really trippy is that we can spawn admirals with non-ship units on the water (or spawn them on land and move them onto water) and these fleets can merge with regular ship fleets, and they can engage enemy fleets! When you engage the enemy, the pre-battle scroll shows that you have 0 soldiers but you still get a balance of power ratio that makes... I guess some sort of sense. And the auto-resolve outcome also makes some sort of sense... I guess. Ships and non-ships have the same EDU stats, but since my soldiers get set to 0 I'm losing these battles against regular ships.

Gigantus, how are you getting them into residence given that they're immobile? Spawning on the same tile as the residence doesn't work (they slide off to the south) and spawning at the same coordinates in descr_strat puts them on top of the settlement but not inside (bugged with no way of interacting with the admiral).

[Gigantus]

Gigantus, how are you getting them into residence given that they're immobile? Spawning on the same tile as the residence doesn't work (they slide off to the south) and spawning at the same coordinates in descr_strat puts them on top of the settlement but not inside (bugged with no way of interacting with the admiral).

Good point, I was theorizing and hadn't taken that into consideration. While spawning via script directly into a settlement never works (needs 'move' after spawn) I would have thought descr_strat placement (garrison) was possible.