Quick Questions/Quick Answers (Unofficial 'Ask Questions Here' Q&A Thread)

[Cowpuncher]

<snip>

Alright, nevermind the aiming high thing for a sec, how about this. I got about 30-40, mostly A5 crossbowmen in an army size of 90. They usually will not kill a single little unshielded I1 target before their infantry line reaches mine.

From what I've read of other peoples experiences, that seems .... atypical. But you seem to know a lot, so does that sound similar to your experiences?

 

[Michiko]

Not at all. In fact the opposite seems to be true for me and other people who have refuted this unusual bug like Leifdin. For me, crossbowmen are the most brutal killing machines especially when using volley fire. I've quite easily destroyed an army of 800 men out in the field using only 80 Crossbowmen and 40 or so infantry to protect them, without any of the enemy actually reaching my line. And this is using the A3 and A4 crossbowmen of the mercs.

I'm not doubting it's happening on your end though. I mean if you're sure this is a repeatable observation then I'm sure you're on to something. It may be caused by something, but I'm not sure what. I'm just sure it isn't missile speed or accuracy settings in the mod as some people think it is, because the missile speeds are actually very very close to Native (some are exactly the same as Native, and the others are within ~5 or so difference only), and the accuracy is set to 100 just like in Native. So if this "bug" isn't happening to you in Native but only in Floris for some reason, I have no idea what's going on with your game.

 

[kiros_harlequin]

Just one quick question. i really like the size of the map on sword of damocles but i don't like anything else about the mod it self, i personally think floris should be brought buy taleworlds and integrated into the vanilla game but thats not the point, the point is; how hard would it be to take the map from sword of damocles and put it into the floris mod. Obviously this would be just for my self to use and probably my friend as well. anyway if its too hard is to hard otherwise it would be nice to have a much larger area to pillage and plunder.

Adding the map in would be easy.  That's just replacing the map.txt file.  It's making it work correctly from that point forward that would become quite a bit of work, but doable.

You'd need to move around the coordinates for every village, castle, town and any unique locations (training areas) to fit the new landscape.  You would need to create additional locations unless you want that very large map to feel rather sparse.  There are editors that would let you see the items you're moving around (Swyter's Cartographer program or Morph's party editor).  Then you'd have to decide whether to keep the native six factions or add on with the extra space you'd have available.

If you're comfortable learning the basics of the module system, and there are numerous tutorials in the forge forums, then it is a workable idea and not that difficult to learn.  Mostly it is just tedious work (editing coordinates) vs. scripting with the module system.

thank you very much for the help. Ive been looking though the tutorials and guides and digging through the code over the last few days and i think it will end up being fairly damn easy but chock-full of tedium

 

[Michael1]

What do I need to do to get the other kings to acknowledge me as a king,as they seem rather reluctant to do so. Admittedly my kingdom is small currently and I only have 3 vassals as I refuse to recruit crap lords as the hassle is not worth it,but I see them signing up alliances with each other frequently,and I'd like to be able to at least attempt to get one with them,as that would benefit me greatly. I do have decent relations with the Rhodoks,but they don't seem to want to acknowledge me as a king. Maybe it's my honour as it's low currently,as I attacked a caravan initially to take my first castle and declared war on the Sarranids to take a town from them,and repairing it takes time.

 

[Michiko]

What's your Right to Rule at? It should be at least 50 to be considered as kingly material.

 

[Michael1]

It's currently sitting at 51 but seeing the other kings won't agree to anything I propose treaty-wise and I have all the companions I want for now,getting it higher seems to be rather difficult at the moment,I seem to be out of options in this regard.

 

[Michiko]

I checked module_dialogs.py just to be sure, and apparently there are a bunch of factors that are important for forming an alliance. Obviously you should not be at war with them, and they don't want to be at war with you (territorial and political disputes). For best results, aim for a faction that's far away from yours, who have common enemies.

Good examples at the start of the game are Nords + Sarranids, Vaegir + Rhodoks, Khergit + Rhodoks. As the territories get changed around, factions like the Khergits and Vaegirs might be able to form an alliance if Swadia or some other faction takes the territory in between them.

Other than that, here are the other things checked:

Spoiler: The Actual Calculations

Relation is the first thing checked, and they make a random number between 20 and 95, meaning if you have less than 20 relation with them they'll never accept an alliance. If you have 95 relation or more, you will get a 100% chance to go to the next check. Even if you have 52 relation, you still have about a 50% chance to fail this check.

The next check is player "honour". I guess AI rulers don't like dishonorable dudes that might break treaties. Anyway the random value is rolled between 5-75. So if you have less than 5 honour, you have a 0% chance to pass to the next check, and if you have 75 or more you get a guaranteed pass.

The last check is player Right to Rule, which is rolled between 5 and 50. Anything above 50 RtR is considered to be royalty by a lot of people already (random fact, AI default rulers seem to have 75 RtR). Less than 5 RtR and of course you get a guaranteed fail. If you had 27 RtR you still have about a 50% chance to fail even if you passed all the previous checks.

So there's some randomness involved, but it seems to be theoretically possible for the player to get a 100% chance to form alliances, provided they don't have disputes with the other faction.

 

[Michael1]

OK thanks for that. It's very helpful. Just one more question: I've been hanging around Rhodok Territory assisting them in their fights to gain relations as I want an alliance with them against the nords until I'm stronger as I can't deal with a 500+ man army at this point. However it's a slow process and I need to pick my fights wisely so I don't get destroyed. The exact details on how to best farm relations seem to be somewhat sparse in exact details,but when they offered me a non-aggression treaty which I accepted it seemed to improve them. Is there a quicker way of improving them,or is assisting them in battles the easiest way?

 

[Michiko]

Pay attention to their lords that have been held captive, especially those held prisoner in castles since you can rescue them without going to war with the faction. Lord rescues really help a lot, but they're not so common so yeah.

Help out farmers and caravans from bandits and other enemies too, but you've probably already been doing that.

If you haven't yet, send gifts to their faction via your Minister. It helps but is very expensive.

Other than that there are no fairly certain ways that I'm aware of. Everything else is either a gamble or too uncommon to be reliable.

 

[Michael1]

Thanks for your help.

 

[Michael1]

I know you must be getting tired of me,but I'd like to ask one more question,if I may. I'd like to hold a feast to bring my vassals reputation with me up,but it's my understanding that I need to marry someone to do so,and if I marry I effectively hand over control of my fledging kingdom to my husband,which I'd prefer not doing,if this is correct,as the AI could destroy everything I've built up. Is there a way to hold a feast without being married?

 

[Michiko]

You don't need to marry in order to hold a feast. You just need a real minister (as opposed to the generic one that gets assigned to you). You can assign one of your companions as a minister. It causes the companion to leave your party though, so pick somebody you don't really need for anything else (or you don't like too much, like the guy who argues with your favorite companions).

I will say this on feasts though. It's almost not worth the effort. You'll need several hundreds of units of every kind of food as much as possible, into the thousands total. After the feast it often does not even have a good effect. In fact I have yet to hold a feast that had a positive effect on my game. Because of all the trouble I stopped doing it after a while. Three stacks of each food item does not seem to be enough lol.

 

[Michael1]

In that case how do you avoid your vassals getting annoyed with you and defecting? In my case I have Floris,a Good-natured vassal and a Martial,in addition to a Pitiless vassal that defected to me with a fair chunk of Sarranid territory, I need to keep them all happy,and I'd like to give more territory to my good vassals which annoys the rest. I don't want to risk having one of them defect and take a castle with him..

 

[Michiko]

Sadly there's no way to keep opposite personality lords all happy, except if you claim all the land for yourself before bringing them on, which makes it difficult obviously. Giving land is one of the main things that piss lords off, because there's a lot of factors. If you give it to one of their rivals, or you give it to somebody other than who they want, etc. If you don't pay attention, some lords might actually not have any income (castles don't generate income) and you keep giving the villages (which do generate income) to other lords.

Good-natured and upstanding lords tend to have rivals among the pitiless and quarrelsome lords. The quarrelsome lords tend to dislike when anybody gets more land than them. Pitiless lords also get mad, but I feel like it's a bit less than quarrelsome.

That said, building and maintaining a kingdom of mostly quarrelsome and pitiless lords is hard mode. Good-natured and upstanding lords is easy mode. Martial and cunning lords are the middle ground. They tend to care less about land and stuff and more about the military aspects, though of course giving them land also makes them happy.

 

[Michael1]

Yeah I've been trying to get more good-natured and Upstanding lords but it's not easy. Claiming all the land for myself is something I'd rather not do,as it's a hassle I can do without,and my income would take a hit due to tax efficiency. I was hoping I could grab a few decent lords,give them the territory I can't handle and leave them to build a force so I can go vs the bigger kingdoms when it comes to it. I'm looking at using companions for lords now,as that seems like  a decent secondary option.

 

[Michiko]

Actually companion-vassals will also argue amongst each other. They get assigned personalities like the other lords when you turn them into vassals. Even worse is if some of them are noble and some aren't. Actually the fallout for that is mostly on the player instead of amongst themselves, but it does add complication.

 

[Tsubodai]

Hi, has the source code been released for this mod?

 

[Michiko]

Yes. When you install the game you get the option to install something called the "Dev Suite". That contains all the source files.

 

[Tsubodai]

Ah great, thanks.

 

[Anonemuss]

No matter what I set the arena as in a town, whenever I enter it it's always an open field with everyone spawning right next to each other. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a way to fix this?