[AUGUST 2015 EDIT: corrected the definition of stable to the one that was actually used in the list]
[OCTOBER 2012 EDIT: The definition of a stable party has been changed. This has led to new (generally smaller) stable parties. The strictly stable parties have been unchanged. Post #1 gives the definitions and shows the source data, post #2 will list the general largest stable parties and post #3 will give the largest stable raiding parties. ]
Designing the largest possible stable companion parties is a nice little mini game in Warband. The game has an elegant system of limiting the number of heroes (=npcs) present in the player’s party: the heroes do not get along with all the other heroes which means that the player has to make choices about whom to include in the party. The choices depend partly on how stable the player wants the party to be, i.e. how resistant the party is to low morale.
We start by giving some definitions:
a stable party is group where all members either
[list type=decimal]
[*]have no unwelcome[/u] persons in the group, or
[*]have at most one unwelcome person in the group while also having a person that they like
[/list]
where unwelcome means any person who is either disliked by or who dislikes the member in question.
Any party that is not stable is called unstable. A strictly stable party is a stable party whose members have no one they dislike in the group (equal to condition 1 of stable party).
A strictly stable party has the best resistance against low morale and the fastest speed on campaign map. A stable party that is not strictly stable is not quite as resistant against low morale but is still quite acceptable. Unstable parties are also possible to keep together but are much more fragile when faced with adverse morale effects, with unhappy members often trying to leave the party. Since they tend to have lower morale they also suffer from slower campaign map speed.
Even strictly stable parties are not all equivalent when it comes to party morale. The absolute best in terms of morale are those who have most members with morale bonus from having a friend.
Any subgroups of the stable groups are not necessarily stable themselves; this is because you might need to have all the members before the necessary friendships exist. This behavior differs from the strictly stable groups: any subgroup of a strictly stable group is itself strictly stable, so they are easier to build as you don’t need to worry about members leaving before you find the yet missing members.
In regular Warband dislikes and likes were mutual, i.e. if A liked B then B liked A back. While this is not the case in Brytenwalda, it has been discovered that the penalties arising from dislikes are actually mutual even if the disliked person doesn’t complain herself (i.e. they are de facto mutual). This led to the current definition of a stable party. It has not been tested yet whether liking is also mutual so they are still considered to be non-reciprocal, just to be on the safe side.
The method and the source data
I wrote a short program that reads in the relationships between the different heroes and then finds the largest stable parties.
The source data fed to program is the relationship matrix discovered in xyp's seminal work. Since the Brytenwalda team has now released the module system they have been directly verified from the source code:
[OCTOBER 2012 EDIT: The definition of a stable party has been changed. This has led to new (generally smaller) stable parties. The strictly stable parties have been unchanged. Post #1 gives the definitions and shows the source data, post #2 will list the general largest stable parties and post #3 will give the largest stable raiding parties. ]
Designing the largest possible stable companion parties is a nice little mini game in Warband. The game has an elegant system of limiting the number of heroes (=npcs) present in the player’s party: the heroes do not get along with all the other heroes which means that the player has to make choices about whom to include in the party. The choices depend partly on how stable the player wants the party to be, i.e. how resistant the party is to low morale.
We start by giving some definitions:
a stable party is group where all members either
[list type=decimal]
[*]have no unwelcome[/u] persons in the group, or
[*]have at most one unwelcome person in the group while also having a person that they like
[/list]
where unwelcome means any person who is either disliked by or who dislikes the member in question.
Any party that is not stable is called unstable. A strictly stable party is a stable party whose members have no one they dislike in the group (equal to condition 1 of stable party).
A strictly stable party has the best resistance against low morale and the fastest speed on campaign map. A stable party that is not strictly stable is not quite as resistant against low morale but is still quite acceptable. Unstable parties are also possible to keep together but are much more fragile when faced with adverse morale effects, with unhappy members often trying to leave the party. Since they tend to have lower morale they also suffer from slower campaign map speed.
Even strictly stable parties are not all equivalent when it comes to party morale. The absolute best in terms of morale are those who have most members with morale bonus from having a friend.
Any subgroups of the stable groups are not necessarily stable themselves; this is because you might need to have all the members before the necessary friendships exist. This behavior differs from the strictly stable groups: any subgroup of a strictly stable group is itself strictly stable, so they are easier to build as you don’t need to worry about members leaving before you find the yet missing members.
In regular Warband dislikes and likes were mutual, i.e. if A liked B then B liked A back. While this is not the case in Brytenwalda, it has been discovered that the penalties arising from dislikes are actually mutual even if the disliked person doesn’t complain herself (i.e. they are de facto mutual). This led to the current definition of a stable party. It has not been tested yet whether liking is also mutual so they are still considered to be non-reciprocal, just to be on the safe side.
The method and the source data
I wrote a short program that reads in the relationships between the different heroes and then finds the largest stable parties.
The source data fed to program is the relationship matrix discovered in xyp's seminal work. Since the Brytenwalda team has now released the module system they have been directly verified from the source code:
name | likes | dislike 1 | dislike 2 |
Aedh | Bridei | Agasicles | Osmund |
Agasicles | Brian | Aedh | Orosio |
Aleifr | Osmund | Frioc | Lothar |
Athrwys ap Gwawrddur | Frioc | Ceawlin | Bridei |
Bodero | Orosio | Gwenllian | Liuva |
Brian | Agasicles | Eithne | Ceawlin |
Bridei | Aedh | Osmund | Athrwys ap Gwawrddur |
Ceawlin | Gwenllian | Athrwys ap Gwawrddur | Brian |
Ciniod | Onuist | Gwenllian | Agasicles |
Clovis | Connor mac Odhrain | Matui Turthail | Eadfrith Cearling |
Connor mac Odhrain | Matui Turthail | Clovis | Ultan |
Eadfrith Cearling | Inka | Ultan | Matui Turthail |
Eadwin | Inka | Mihael Ap Cadwalladr | Eadfrith Cearling |
Eithne | Lothar | Brian | Siwi |
Frioc | Athrwys ap Gwawrddur | Aleifr | Gwenllian |
Gwenllian | Ceawlin | Bodero | Frioc |
Inka | Eadfrith Cearling | Ciniod | Onuist |
Liuva | Siwi | Lothar | Bodero |
Lothar | Eithne | Liuva | Aleifr |
Matui Turthail | Eadfrith Cearling | Clovis | Connor mac Odhrain |
Mihael Ap Cadwalladr | Inka | Eadwin | Eadfrith Cearling |
Onuist | Ciniod | Orosio | Bridei |
Orosio | Bodero | Siwi | Agasicles |
Osmund | Aleifr | Bridei | Aedh |
Siwi | Liuva | Orosio | Eithne |
Ultan | Inka | Onuist | Eadfrith Cearling |