[Stellaris] How the heck do heir portraits work?

[Synthesis]

It's exactly what the title suggests--in Stellaris, considering pointing a species portrait mod to rulers, generals, admirals, scientists, or the general pop is so easy, how the hell is it so hard to actually get the configuration file to use a proper (ruler) portrait for a ruler's heir, instead of just the generic species portrait. 

 

(Honestly, I can't figure out why for the life of me Stellaris didn't just make rulers and ruler heirs the same thing.) 

 

I've asked the same question in my own mod release thread, but I want to create a separate topic just in case this is more noticeable. I apologize for that. Here's what I have:

 

game_setup = {

#For Rulers. Do not use these same portraits in the leader or pop section, otherwise you'll 

#see duplicate portraits of your chosen character as AI govenors, military leaders, etc.!

add = {

trigger = {

ruler = { gender = male }

}

portraits = {

male1

male2

male3

}

}

add = {

trigger = {

ruler = { gender = female }

}

portraits = {

female1

female2

female3

}

}

 

Okay, that makes sense (as cumbersome as it is). And more importantly, it works. Ruler selection works so well, I regularly use it to test new portraits for the other portrait pools. And here's what my heir configuration line is.

 

ruler = {

set = {

trigger = {

gender = male

}

portraits = {

male4

male5

}

}

set = {

trigger = {

gender = female

}

portraits = {

female4

female5

}

}

 

In other words, it's a "set" (even though I've yet to see an explanation for the magical difference between "Set" and "Add", except that using the wrong one breaks everything god help you. I've been told you can't use the same portraits in the heir pool (which strikes me as mind-numbingly stupid), so the portraits for heirs are completely unique and not used in any other roles.

 

And for some reason it will not work. The game will chose the generic species portrait no matter what. After a few hours fumbling with it, I have no idea what could be broken. Aside from editing my mod with a warning ("Don't use monarchial governments with this, sorry"), it would be really nice to fix this, and any help would be greatly appreciated. 

[ReMeDy]

Okay, I have the issue isolated to the "leader = {" block in your gfx\portraits\portraits\07_remedy_portraits.txt file. It seems Stellaris doesn't like your triggers for "leader_class = x". In fact, if you just comment out each "leader_class = x" line, you'll fix your heir issue. Of course, then you're breaking your leader_class code, meaning scientist-looking portraits may be leading armies and what not.

 

This would explain why my original mod works and yours doesn't, because you introduce leader_class = x code, whereas my mod didn't have this.

 

Anyways, that's the most I can do to help in regards to Stellaris. Perhaps Stellaris wasn't designed for leader_class and heirs to get along? Is it a bug? I don't know. I never did the research into leader_class coding to know for sure, as I hadn't made it that far into the mod's development.

[ReMeDy]

I noticed this reddit topic, but funny thing is it never mentions the heir issue. I think what's happening is people aren't noticing the heir issue, so there's not as much documentation on it. Some people who make custom portrait mods prefer species portraits using a single portrait for men and a single portrait for women, so almost all their portraits look the same, in which case they don't even need to use leader_class code. Others are content with just random portraits for any position, because some species you can't tell if they're scientist-types or leader-types just by looking at their appearance anyways, so they don't bother.

I would ask on the official Paradox Stellaris forum user mod section. If that doesn't work, if you find a portrait mod on Steam Workshop that has working heirs WITH portraits divided into leader roles, then shoot them a message on Steam and see if they reply back.

[Synthesis]

God damn it. I had a horrible pit feeling in my stomach that was it. So basically, if you want to categorize leader portraits by occupation--you know, like the game does, you break the succession portrait mechanic. Because Paradox has to make sure their code is at least somewhat of a pain in the ass.

 

And the thing is, it's not even remotely equivalent. Every empire in the game uses occupation portraits. Meanwhile, only "Imperial" governments (by the way, that's stupid--the word you're looking for is hereditary or monarchial you dinguses, multiple Imperial governments didn't have hereditary succession) use successors, and they only use it after the initial leader dies (let's assume the glitch persists after the fact). 

 

[Takes a 10 minute break to swear up and down at this stupid situation.]

 

I tried the Steam approach, but the one example I found that maybe kind of seems to do it....looking at their code did not help even remotely, I can't even tell why sometimes it says "Sets" and other times it says "adds"--the only person who ever responded to my questions on Steam is, unsurprisingly, on these forum. I think that's a dead end. I'll ask on Paradox's forums (not optimistic about even getting a response) once it's done syncing my games, but I would not be remotely surprised if this is simply something the game engine doesn't allow for REASONS. 

 

I'm probably going to have to "disable" it. Honestly, the succession system kind of sucks in the sense that, even in the base game, heirs don't even remotely resemble their predecessors and there's zero acknowledgment of whether it's a descendant or just an adopted heir. That's a lot smaller of an issue than the alternative--honestly, I'm thinking about trying to add some custom traits that simply make the leader immortal or close to it (other mods have them) for certain circumstances. 

 

As always, thank you for your assistance ReMeDy. At least I'm (fairly) certain that I'm not completely out of my mind, and this is probably not fixable by design. Maybe I ought to try asking Reddit (though anywhere I have to share the actual mod itself...I may be out of luck). I have a feeling this is mostly going to play out by me asking the question, people being surprised, and then other people finding out, in fact, you can't do it...

[ReMeDy]

If you don't find a solution, one suggestion I have is to provide two versions of your mod: One version uses leader_class coding and is compatible with non-Imperials; the other version doesn't use leader_class coding but is compatible with Imperials.

 

This is not an unusual approach. Back in CKII's infancy when I first debuted custom portraits, I was providing as many as five download options based on how many portraits the user wanted to unlock. The more portraits they unlocked, the more they would have to restrict certain default CKII features. Not a single user here complained, nor could they -- it wasn't my fault Paradox made their system work that way, just like it's not your fault if this Stellaris heir issue is a bug.

 

Honestly, the succession system kind of sucks in the sense that, even in the base game, heirs don't even remotely resemble their predecessors and there's zero acknowledgment of whether it's a descendant or just an adopted heir.

 

And that's the main reason I dropped Stellaris. See you on CKII .

 

[Synthesis]

Yeah, but I hate high fantasy.

 

(This is not entirely untrue.)

 

Honestly, almost every aspect of Stellaris' leader PC sucks next to CKII (or Total War: Rome or Total War: Shogun II, which I'm more used to). But the setting is a lot more interesting to me personally, because of the space ships and lasers and pew-pew-pew. Before it becomes a damn slog through the mud because of having 400 ships in a fleet. 

 

Your point isn't wrong--down the line I may re-issue the mod specifically for Imperial dynasties, but in the meantime I'll table that (assuming there is no solution). 

[Synthesis]

So...I just made another distressing discovery: not only does the successor generation system not work (because Stellaris frustratingly will only lose one portrait), this somehow extends to when an existing leader (governor, general, etc.) ascends by election--their appearance changes to the generic species portrait, because Paradox saw fit to automatically make existing character portraits change for REASONS, rather than making optional. 

 

So, yeah, this is a fairly prevalent problem, thanks to Paradox's...curious....choice of coding. 

[zerosugar]

On 6/21/2017 at 9:35 AM, Synthesis said:

So...I just made another distressing discovery: not only does the successor generation system not work (because Stellaris frustratingly will only lose one portrait), this somehow extends to when an existing leader (governor, general, etc.) ascends by election--their appearance changes to the generic species portrait, because Paradox saw fit to automatically make existing character portraits change for REASONS, rather than making optional. 

 

So, yeah, this is a fairly prevalent problem, thanks to Paradox's...curious....choice of coding. 

Looks like it's late to do anything for you but for whom will somehow get to this post to solve it. this is how I dealt with that matter

 

 

 

                trigger = {
                    AND = {
                        gender = female
                        NOT = {
                            OR = {
                            leader_class = envoy
                            leader_class = governor
                            leader_class = general
                            leader_class = scientist
                            leader_class = admiral
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }

 

 

 

then it works like charm

[Synthesis]

11 hours ago, zerosugar said:

Looks like it's late to do anything for you but for whom will somehow get to this post to solve it. this is how I dealt with that matter

 

 

 

                trigger = {
                    AND = {
                        gender = female
                        NOT = {
                            OR = {
                            leader_class = envoy
                            leader_class = governor
                            leader_class = general
                            leader_class = scientist
                            leader_class = admiral
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }

 

 

 

then it works like charm

 

Back when I was working on this mod, envoys weren't even a thing yet. But thank you for sharing. If I ever resume this mod, knowing this (if I understand it correctly), along with general population roles, if they're still a thing, would be a help.

[Raedyne]

Heirs aren't rulers yet, so you need to add in the leader scope area along with scientist, etc.

#leader scope

    leader = {
            add = {
                trigger = {
                     leader_class = ruler
                }
                portraits = {
                    heir_portrait
                }

           }

   }