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You know, if we go ahead with officer blocks, the ruler should be able to give sub-block rewards; presumably that would involve giving Mi Zhu a horse and a little note thanking him for assisting Liu Bei. Doing so would make him more loyal to Liu Bei AND make Liu Bei should also be a bit more loyal to you. Remember, officer blocks aren't necessarily bad!
The officer block's only dangerous if the player lets it get too strong. Yeah, some officers will likely start up some blocks, but only a careless player will let them get too big!
Also Jin Xuan has 37 charisma; it's Lu Bu who only has 15 charisma!
And yes, the player loses a little control, but keep in mind that having an officer block can arguably be beneficial; those officers Liu Bei recruits form outside the force are additions to your army, and as long as you keep Liu Bei loyal he'll keep his block loyal!
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Surname suggestions should also include entries for:
(1) The family name of the force leader
(2) The family name the province governor
(3) The family name of a randomly chosen officer in the province (reject if no stats >80)
That said, the family surnames as of the Liu Song dynasty (420-479) are at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Family_Surnames and should be fairly similar in the han dynasty.
They should also be usable for given names; double-character names are much less common for given names, but they do exist (for example, Xi Zhicai and both of Huangfu Song's sons, Huangfu Jianshuo & Huangfu Shuxian). Technically they were banned, but seeing as the banner was the infamous Wang Mang (best known for interrupting the han dynasty 9-23 AD), the elected officials would look the other way.
For the list of all given names in RoTK2, see http://pastebin.com/66YW7jTf — typos have been corrected, but a few non-RoTK2 names (such as Zhou) are missing. Non-chinese names are also missing.
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Now, all we need to do is to peel some people off of John Boehner's block… :Þ
RULE OF THUMB: The block leader is essentially a mini-ruler that serves the actual ruler. Things that would annoy another force would usually annoy the block leader, but then again, you can always reward the block leader.
Also, I somehow left off the most important officer block of all… the Sima Yi/etc. block.
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Presumably, the block (or clique, if you prefer) is loyal to Liu Bei, not to Yuan Shao. So if Liu Bei is recruited, everyone in the block (or almost everyone) would follow him.
Any officers who don't follow Liu Bei would be reassigned loyalty to Yuan Shao, which would presumably be higher than loyalty to Liu Bei.
If Cao Cao recruits Guan Ping from the block, Liu Bei and Yuan Shao shouldn't be having a falling-out… unless Yuan Shao ALSO has a Cao Cao block. ;)
If Liu Bei gets killed and the block has a strong heir, such as Guan Yu (speaking of which, we need to revamp the inheritance system), the block should be completely or almost completely intact… although it may cause tension between the block leader and the ruler. But if there's no clear heir (such as the Lu Bu block), the block could easily "lose" (to Lu Bu's boss) many members or even stop existing.
Each officer has a compatibility rating; familiarity lists probably aren't needed.
Serving in the same province is probably the norm; scattering the block across your various provinces too much may cause tension between the block leader and the ruler.
Combat shouldn't affect block loyalty. Of course, if Lu Bu is bribed in combat, a large portion of the block may also switch sides!
For a block to weaken or fall apart, the only things I can see affecting it are outside pressure and the death/capture of the block leader.
For a block to form, presumably you need someone with a desire to rule (the block leader, if the RNG wills it) and at least two officers who have (1) low loyalty and (2) better compatibility with the future block leader than the ruler.
If an officer has low loyalty and better compatibility with the force leader (or the rival block leader, if they're in a different block), the block leader may try and recruit them into their block.
Finally, as a block gets too strong, I can see then doing these things five things (in increasing block strength):
(1) Humbly requesting that the ruler not do (anti-block action)
(2) Strongly suggestion that the ruler not do (anti-block action)
(3) Outright vetoing (anti-block action) — which will completely prevent (anti-block action) and/or cause trouble if you [try to] do it anyway.
(4) Claiming independence based on their strength (unless the block leader has high loyalty)
(5a) Outright deposing the ruler based on their strength (unless the block leader has high loyalty)
(5b) Becoming the heir, even though someone else should rightfully be the heir.
No sensible ruler will let the block get strong enough for 5, 4, or even 3, but obviously some rulers DID let them happen.
Also, I somehow left off the most important officer block of all… the Sima Yi/etc. block.
As for stats, they probably won't DIRECTLY affect things, but if you have only 15 charisma, expect to have officers with low enough loyalty that the block leader can start handing out invitations…
(and psst: Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu didn't actually have an issue; that was novel-only!)
EDIT: To clarify, here are the block level descriptions and examples:
(1) The block is so weak you'd barely notice if they revolted (You have 1000 soldiers, 50 of them loyal to Liu Bei)
(2) It would annoy you if the block revolted, but the outcome is never in doubt (You have 1000 soldiers, 150 of them loyal to Liu Bei)
(3) You can crush the block if they revolt, but it requires a major operation (You have 1000 soldiers, 300 of them loyal to Liu Bei)
(4) If the block revolts, they're nearly as strong as you are! Tread carefully… (You have 1000 soldiers, 500 of them loyal to Liu Bei)
(5) Sorry, Liu Pan; the block's now stronger than you! (You have 1000 soldiers, 700 of them loyal to Liu Bei)
The numbers aren't set in stone, but…
Ugh.
There are days when I want to work on this, yet I *know* I won't be able to make any meaningful progress; this is one of them, I'm afraid. So all I can suggest is the idea of officer blocks (sub-forces). From my experience, there were four main officer blocks historically:
* Liu Bei (and Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, etc.)
* Sun Ce (and Zhou Yu, Huang Gai, etc.)
* Lu Bu (and Zhang Liao, Gao Shun, etc.)
* Emperor Xian (and the entire Han court)
Since we seem to be transitioning from "RoTK2" to "other Three Kingdoms game", it may make sense to make it harder for to split them up or remove their soldiers. Similarly, if you recruit Liu Bei, it makes sense for Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, etc. to follow him — after all, even though Liu Bei currently serves Tao Qian, they're loyal not to Tao Qian but to Liu Bei.
So how do you peel officers off of an officer block? I see three ways:
(1) You can always recruit them, but it's tricky. In 194, for example, we're not tracking Zhou Yu's loyalty to Yuan Shu, but his loyalty to Sun Ce. So this is rarely an option, but it worked for Xu Shu.
(2) If you defeat them in combat, you can snag them that way. Cao Cao had no problem temporarily getting Guan Yu!
(3) A ruler may be able to convince officers to leave an officer block serving them. Of course, if the block leader finds out, their loyalty is likely to drop…
So what other effects would an officer block have? I can see the following happen:
* The block leader is more likely to declare independence (Liu Bei, Sun Ce, and Lu Bu all did that!)
* Officers in the block are usually less likely to be recruited than if they were your direct subordinates.
* Block leaders may recruit enemy officers, even if they're not in force leader's province.
So think of them as a double-edged sword, and remember that the vanilla version had a bunch of forces that really should be officer blocks:
Scenario 1:
Sun Jian (Yuan Shu)
Scenario 2:
Sun Ce (Yuan Shu)
Scenario 3:
Liu Bei (Liu Biao)
Scenario 4:
Liu Bei (Liu Qi)
JIN XUAN, CONQUEROR OF WORLDS (Liu Qi)
Han Xuan (Liu Qi)
Liu Du (Liu Qi)
Zhao Fan (Liu Qi)
And yeah, we'd need slightly different rules for His Emperorness…
Be patient, young grasshopper!
Given the complexity of decoloring them — and how much of a pain it is — it'll probably take a week to finish 'em all. To be fair, a week from now you'll likely have five more free pics than you expected, so I'm sure you won't mind waiting! ;)
If I knew how much of a pain decoloring RoTK XI pics was, I'd offer you one pic, not five!
Apologies if this is not as good as the usual pics, but (2,304 -> 4 colors) isn't nearly as convenient as (16 -> 4 colors) or even (16 -> other 16 colors).
EDIT: Minor change to the pic.
Gah.
I was referring to how I already decolored/recolored a whole bunch of them (nearly all of the 64 gemfire dawn portraits were modded, some minor while others had full changes to clothing, hair color, and/or age), but seeing how poorly I phrased it it seems I'll be making a few more.
So name five RoTK XI portraits for me to recolor for you; I'll snag copies from kongming.net and work on them.
They're not home-made so much as recolored (decolored?) koei portraits (which I'm more than willing to do as well!)
For example, consider Zhuge Liang from the top of this page to his younger http://kongming.net/11/portraits/z.php portrait.
TP gain items are more than doable; just don't make them abusable. Some ideas:
* Include a holdable that raises an officer's gain-TP-on-defend.
* Include a holdable with a low (say, 1/4) chance of regaining 1 TP every turn in a castle battle.
* Include a holdable that provides some TP regain every time the officer KOs a non-force enemy.
* Include a holdable that lowers the price of every tactic by 1 TP.
* Include a holdable that regains 2 TP every time the unit is affected by an enemy tactic.
Who says they have to be consumables!?
Go with more than three layers. Yes, many of them are unused, but when we have tiles that bleed out, it'll be easier to give each terrain that bleeds out its own layer.
Well, for now we can use tiles that don't cross into other tiles; we can do more advanced stuff once we have things working.
Wesnoth has a lot of tiles that extend beyond the hexagon actually, due to terrain boundaries. If you have an ocean next to grasslands, the grasslands don't suddenly stop; they extend onto the water tile as a shoreline. When you get down to it, the only wesnoth tiels that don't involve extending to others or receiving extensions are houses completely surrounded by their matching terrain type… and even then, some of them are tall enough to extend upwards.
EDIT: Come to think of it, we'll need to decide which direction we'll make borders… and quite possibly extend in both directions.
