Courting and Relationships; anyone modding it?

[MagicJuggler]

Hello there. Awhile back there was an old thread in the Privy council titled Mount&Marriage. (http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,36965.0.html); the entire premise was the addition of courtship and assorted relationship variants.

My question is whether there has been any attempt at modding such relationships prior to me posting? I saw that the 1300 AD mod might experiment with it, but aside from that I see most mods as new items, variants on kingdom management, and copy-pasting prior modifications into.

 

[Berserker Pride]

There is a mod called the Wedding Dance.  You can get married in that one.  I'm not sure how complicated the courting system is.

 

[NaglFaar]

If I'm not wrong, the expansion will have this.
It will also have kingdom management etc.

 

[SoTAL]

It doesn't seem like the expansion will have much more than what is already available through mods.... Except for the multiplayer of course.

 

[Darwin]

Except for the multiplayer of course.

no, thats in a mod, too: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,53898.0.html

It doesn't seem like the expansion will have much more than what is already available through mods...

maybe not, but these features will (hopefully) be better than in the mods

 

[NaglFaar]

The expansion will include mirage and more diplomacy options etc.
However...

Is someone modding this to V 1.011?
Yes!
Even heirs?
Yes!
Who?
Confidential!

But it is being done.

 

[MagicJuggler]

Really, it's the prospect of expanded diplomacy that has me less than energetic about actually modding at the moment. That and other duties, and a crapware computer have meant that it'll probably be until 2010 that I become serious with actually modding this game, as opposed to fooling around.

In the meantime, what I am interested in is the following:

1) What would it take to create an arraylist of relationship options. As in (person1, person2, relation)? Perhaps as a modification to the current friend-vs-enemy sliding scale? (Sanjar Khan, Lady Aneth, Owner) vs. (Lady Aneth, Sanjar Khan, Concubine)? Or is this beyond the M&B modding capabilities?
2) I have a general idea how dialog options work, and have created new menus, etc. yet am still somewhat stuck on the scripting. Are there more up-to-date tutorials beyond those Armagan has posted? Such as how the heck the card mod got made or so?
3) Likewise, is it possible to create a "noncombatant" section for parties? So you have "Party" "Prisoners" and "Escorting?" Because it seems a bit silly to shove the "Kidnapped Girl" in front of enemy arrows...or is it? Hmm...

 

[kt0]

Really, it's the prospect of expanded diplomacy that has me less than energetic about actually modding at the moment. That and other duties, and a crapware computer have meant that it'll probably be until 2010 that I become serious with actually modding this game, as opposed to fooling around.

Eh, look at it as "warmup for the real thing" if that makes you feel better.  That way you can hit the ground running when the new module system is released.  If I'm still around when the expansion is released, I fully intend to spend a couple days just diffing the module system code between the new version and 1.010 to see what's changed.

1) What would it take to create an arraylist of relationship options. As in (person1, person2, relation)? Perhaps as a modification to the current friend-vs-enemy sliding scale? (Sanjar Khan, Lady Aneth, Owner) vs. (Lady Aneth, Sanjar Khan, Concubine)? Or is this beyond the M&B modding capabilities?

Probably best achieved as new slot values on troops.  Otherwise you can create placeholder factions/troops/parties/whatevers and store slots on those.  Doing anything more than a handful of those per troop would probably be overkill.  If you dig around a bit, you'll find some relationship stuff in the code existing in various states of commented-out-edness.  If I'm not mistaken, SoD has a proper line of succession feature which might be enlightening.

The module system is pretty flexible.  There are just a lot of rules you have to know.

2) I have a general idea how dialog options work, and have created new menus, etc. yet am still somewhat stuck on the scripting. Are there more up-to-date tutorials beyond those Armagan has posted? Such as how the heck the card mod got made or so?

The best way to learn scripting is by doing a bunch of it.  It's no different than any other language.  All of the possible operations are laid out for you in header_operations.py with varying degrees of documentation.  All of the existing scripts are laid out for you in ID_scripts.py as well.  If you've done any assembly coding, it'll be pretty familiar territory. 

3) Likewise, is it possible to create a "noncombatant" section for parties? So you have "Party" "Prisoners" and "Escorting?" Because it seems a bit silly to shove the "Kidnapped Girl" in front of enemy arrows...or is it? Hmm...

There's probably some trickery that could be done with parties and such.  I haven't had to wrestle with such a thing so beyond some hand waving I can't give any real advice.

 

[jik]

To answer a few of these questions, I have worked a bit on family and marriage.  It's on hold now, but I'm sure I can get it to work.  The game can handle more in depth arrays, but be sure you're not making extra work for yourself.  If there is no real affect in the game (probably why that stuff is commented out right now) then it's not really worth it.  I intent to have generations flow through my mod.  The player himself should run through several generations of his own blood line to get near finishing the main story.

As to who shows up in battle, I have already made a system for NaglFaar's zombie mod that controls who participates in battles, as well as a new heal/death system and upgrade system.  They all work together (and I just finished the troop to hero upgrade system that I was designing for my mod as well).

If you haven't yet, look at my sig for an updated tutorial.  Going through it may give you a better understanding of what you are doing.

 

[MagicJuggler]

Wow. Thanks everyone; the header_operations has been really enlightening and reminds me a bit of my old MASM class.

Now I realize I have coder's block. I figure here are a few things I would like to implement:

-Your odds of earning the initial favor of a Lord or Lady (before being allowed to request their blessing at the upcoming tournament, etc) would be dependent upon both Renown and a prior relationship. This should be easy enough to adapt from the "I wish to become a vassal" dialogue lines.
-More complicated, I would wish for there to be a system for you to request a good word with other Lords, using one lord who is friends with the rest. Conversely, for one lady to provide a good word with others, or for enemies to sabotage each other by sending each other's respective champions against each other.

On another note, this is more a design issue but as to practical benefits of marriage, what would they include?
1) The simplest route would be to make your spouse a hero who never asks for pay, or a reputation bonus based off her beauty&grace.
2) The more complicated route would be to use her as a specialized town manager. In your absence she controls the demense; an option could be to leave her in a castle/town and from the camp menu use her to adjust taxes/raise armies/etc which would make it easier to acquire reinforcements without having to journey all the way from halfway across the map.
3) Morale bonuses (nudge-nudge...wink-wink).
4) Anything else?

 

[jik]

in my mod, I was going to remove the leveling system as much as possible.  The reason to "procreate" is to gain a heir for when you die (and you will die).  The stats of your heir would be dependant on those of your current character and his wife (as well as choices made while he grows up).

Another issue, to complicate the web of families, is the joining of 2 houses by marriage.  This was also a concept I was looking into.  My mod is a battle between 6 or so houses to gain control of the suddenly empty thrown.  Diplomacy and Deception will all play a part.

Just be careful, there will be many places you will need to encorperate this kind of code if you want it to work right.  Have a solid model on paper before starting.

 

[MagicJuggler]

I wasn't a fan of the Rome: Total War system though; looking through the txtfiles for the game, it showed that there was a trait called "Arse" (rooted for the other team) and among the many conditions that could trigger this included spending too much time in a city with a theatre-improvement...

Of course I'm also interested in playing the lifestyle of a single person and not a dynasty I guess. Oh well, to each their own...That said and done, I like the idea of noble houses; the Rhodok political system of ruling by election would be most intrigue-laden with attempts to wheedle favors out of everyone else; marrying into a noble family could be most devious to say the least.

But I digress...thanks again for the general advice and I'll see what I can plan out before committing. There are so many ideas...out there...