I would like to talk TRAITS

[Quark]

Having gone through the traits file, adding, taking out, editing several times now I have come to the conculsion that there are just way to many traits, most of which have ridiculous thresholds - just look at GoodFarmer / GoodTrader. I would much prefer a smaller number of meaningful traits that encourage me to play in a medieval style. Here I am only talking about the pure SS traits file. Let me try to explain:

Combat: I don't want good attacker/infantry/cavalry etc, I want GoodCommander, StrategySkill etc. In other words global skills that should be hard to come by, but significant. I want a general to spend years and many battles to become a 5 star Commander, who has good troop morale, personal security, increased movement etc. I like the Byg supply concept for increasing strategic thinking.

Religion: This was very important in medieval times. If I build churches, make pilgrimages, churn out priests, I want an increase in Piety, public order etc

Education: Two paths, Generals or Govenors. These should add to morale, movement etc but not command, that comes from above.

What I do not want, are drunken, gambling, lechers who are only this way because I have had to build taverns etc to deal with unhappeness caused by squalour. Nor do I want Princess Jane, the so ugly and snobbish that foreigners beat her from the city with long sticks. Characters should start small and generally positive, and be roleplayed into greatness.

Now some of this is exacerbated by ancillaries, so a reduction in these is also required, how many people have wanted to shoot the yappy dog or burn the pagan magician?

So whats it all about. I want to start a project that looks at the traits file and comes up with a far smaller, more logical system. People have just been adding to the CA vanilla version, and thats the problem. I say its better to look at it from the ground up.

What say you?

[Fenam]

hear hear! I am in total agreeance with you... I would certainly dip my hands into a mod that employs the concepts you have outlined.

[shaeffer]

Permission to volunteer for sidekick duty again!

Sounds scarily like a plan

[Chola_Kingdom]

What I do not want, are drunken, gambling, lechers who are only this way because I have had to build taverns etc to deal with unhappeness caused by squalour. Nor do I want Princess Jane, the so ugly and snobbish that foreigners beat her from the city with long sticks. Characters should start small and generally positive, and be roleplayed into greatness.

What say you?

i am with you but iam kicked by the one above drunken,gamlers,lechers are really a fact things about the generals
i would not support you with you but iam 100% with you when you said about Studies about the generals, governers i love this trait because this will give the reality of an medieval for sure
if governer is good at cities he cannot be good at wars (except fews)

Permission to volunteer for sidekick duty again!

Sounds scarily like a plan

you are beeing masters in this huh!. good one brothers keep it up team work

[nerazzurri]

Get's my vote

[Byg]

I totally agree, mainly because I hate to have to scroll through my characters traits list to view the really important ones, like whether the faction leader is offending the nobility.
I put some specific code in my traits to bring 2 of them to the top of the list as much as possible.

I myself should have a couple of traits to delete of my own - e.g. if these new battle AI mods make one of my traits irrelevant.

I could also knock 5 traits off my battle/kills counter traits as I doubt whether it needs to count up to 150 major victories. Though these would not be shown anyway they will help shrink the traits file.

[Chola_Kingdom]

why dont you guyz three of them joined together and make the work little more better (with the experience of good trait files from byg and good talented works so far by quark and shaeffer)
just a big fan Kind requests

[Ninefingers]

To be honest, I never saw what was so horrid about the trait system CA put in. Aside from a few minor quirks, it does exactly what you're suggesting. Certain behavior produces certain results, to the point where I can pretty much 'engineer' a general by building certain things and having him do certain things. If I don't want crappy, drunken, lecherous and corrupt generals I don't build taverns (or at least don't put them in settlements with them) and make sure I spend my money so that I don't cross the corruption threshold. I don't see the big deal.

I do agree that there are entirely too many traits floating about in the various player-made modifications, most of which seem to sacrifice fun for "realism" which is a pretty absurd notion to begin with when the game engine is as limited as M2:TW's. All I ever see these resulting in is ridiculously tedious micro-management and the constant baby-sitting of Joe the Jerk in Puttsville to make sure he's not upset about the poor harvest and opts to enter open revolt. To each their own I guess, I just find them (trait mods) annoying in general.

I do however like the notion of a distinction between generals and governors though, but isn't that pretty much solved by just making general's bodyguards recruitable? I mean they're even called "Generals" instead of "Family members".

I guess I'm just saying that I'm not seeing what you're proposing to do differently than CA. Can you elaborate on what you had in mind?

[ME2_junky]

While I completely agree that the traits use an overhaul...there are certain traits that should stya as they are...such as the yappy little dog. Its annoying, but its a trait we like to dislike & its not very severe as to be unwarrented. There should be princesses that are ugly and generals that are stupid...but in general, most should be about average...maybe the guys that made BBB conclude that average is ugly and stupid...hmm...might be right...but its a bit less fun to play...

But uhm...traits such as "very loyal" for the faction leader and bonuses to fighting muslims for muslim generals etc...

Some traits are just stupid, granted...I agree most should be taken out, but some are quite amusing & add flavour and character to the generals we have.

Some nice touches are the heredetary traits...I had a king with the trait "unhealthy" his son had this trait & his son had it as well...don't get me wrong, I am unhappy about these traits...but still, such things have happened in reality.

So I figure the more we stick to reality the more logical traits will be...hopefully. (there are illogical things in reality as well )

[Quark]

Ninefingers
Copy the Traits file in Excel, 30540 lines of text. Now I know alot of that is blank lines, but what you have at the moment are a lot of traits that are pretty similar in what they do, or contract each other in aim (I don't mean Antitraits), some of which you will never see becuase the threshold values cannot be achieved.

What I purpose is that we aim for a smaller, more realistic, more fun orientated system. What a lot of mods like BBB and Byg do is add to the traits file in an effort to provide a better system. This leads to confusion and errors arriving. This is only natural given the size of the file and the fact that it is done by different people.


Do I need a trait of Insane and Deranged, Cursed and StrikenSilly, Good Commander and GoodInfantry... I feel that a smaller number of traits which attempt to provide us with a medieval flavour is what we should be aiming for.

I would therefore want to start a project of 'Stainless Steel Traits' which starts from the bottom up, not bolt on new traits which are general in nature and may conflict with other mods.

I want to encourage roleplay, stratergy and a medieval atmosphere, not micro manage where my generals can go just to avoid things. I am not saying that everything that CA did was wrong, just that it needs one central vision, rather than many.

Does that make sense?

[messenger42]

Bravo!

[aduellist]

I agree completely. First thing I do when I get a mod is start to reduce and strip out excess traits and ancillaries. I don't like the feeling not not having control over my characters' development. I'm willing to pitch in,although I'm not an expert at this stuff.

[Resurrection]

Quark, I am absolutely with you!

As I see it, the main problem is you cannot get rid off the bad traits. On the other hand you can lose almost all good traits... (EDIT: in game I mean!)

To summarize what Quark imho wants:
- remove or drastically decrease thresholds of bad traits
- tweak thresholds and triggers of good traits for them to happen less likely
- traits and ancilliaries should actually mean developing of characters (if you constantly fight, you become good general, if you constantly build your city, you become good governor etc.)
- all done to vanilla system

I find most annoying those pagan magicians or yappy dogs too. And more, I hate traits related to taxes at all, what have tax rate do with actual skills with taxes? Why it affects chivalry in rule as well? And many more...

Simply I agree with Quark and I offer my help if needed in this, though I am not that skillful in modding things (don't know what most values do )

[Mike13531]

i agree with gamble drinks and all of that

but for generals , years and years to become 5 star? i thought is the generals aren't good enough, i personally added the chance of them receiving good commander and so on. For I have never seen a character have 5 star above naturally, i swear, none. They only get reduced through time and never goes up, so i agree with everything except toning down the general commands. Correct me if i misunderstood you

[Vanquisher]

And I would like to talk STIART

[Resurrection]

i agree with gamble drinks and all of that

but for generals , years and years to become 5 star? i thought is the generals aren't good enough, i personally added the chance of them receiving good commander and so on. For I have never seen a character have 5 star above naturally, i swear, none. They only get reduced through time and never goes up, so i agree with everything except toning down the general commands. Correct me if i misunderstood you

I played vanilla a lot, even now with SS4.0 I cannot take that trait system and battle system, so I wait for things get changed. Battles are already fixed with this RealCombat, but traits need fixing and that's what this topic is about imho.

So in vanilla, many traits occur somewhat nonsensual. Those yappy dogs, pagan magician or those with taxes as I mentioned in previous posts. It's not true you cannot build your general to high stars, that one is simple, almost piece of cake! Just run around, fight battles using human skills -> very impressive results (little casulties, many kills etc.) and thus getting aspiring commander and similar traits. Soon you get higher than 5 pretty easily.

What Quark means is, that you would have to put much more effort to get higher than five stars (not one clear victory battle for getting aspiring commander trait, but three for instance). Maybe not making it so drastically slow to get such traits, but slightly slow it down.

If there were those mentioned changes (not many bad traits, less traits in general, but almost only good ones etc.), it would ecnourage you to actually care for you characters. Now they are picking up bad traits so easily and that demotivates you to develop them...

[Mike13531]

it's his mod, so i have no rights to stop him from doing anything. If he feels that is necessary, then by all means , do it. I personally would like higher stars for generals, after all, there are 10 general stars. I have never seen one higher than 5, so think, there are 10 slots, which is meant to be filled, it should be possible at the very least, but it's not. I also personally edited adoption traits too, it's ridiculous, i get ppl with no loyalties, and no stars, often. So , slowing the growth of general stars IMO isn't a good idea

[Quark]

Make it Hard and Fun, thats what they like Anyway what I am going to do for tomorrows SS task is create a cut down traits list, to see what people think. After that, lets argue.

I would love some help, and would be honoured if such people as Byg would join in (I mention him because he obviously knows what he's doing and has already thought about this). ME2_junky, you too, I seen the work you put into that mod. Resurection, adultist gald of the help, I am new to this as well, but come packed with stubborn perseverence, so something will eventually come out.

PS I don't think its possible to detect game settings, so for those who like an easier game, we will just have to make sure the fun part is worth it.

Mike1351
It not about making them have no stars, but making it logical and fair about how they do gain stars and having a firm idea of that process without have a ton other other traits mucking it up.

[Chola_Kingdom]

i can live without piety,command stars but..Loyalty Nooo.. because i don't want a traitor in my Family
not few not too many average traits files are good quark i hope you will include the best of the best traits available such as
*****General vs governor differentials
*****Region bonus-changeable regional governing bonus,
*****Movements points trait - i want a general who could reach the city that is in under siege to help the city (only to General)
*****Banners(for General)
***Hit points
*****Better Trainer (experiences giver to units)
***Governers have lots of childrens atleast 3 but generals have few to their standings in their wars

bad traits
*****General cannot command Cities unrest, Governor cannot command the units
*****General would be coward, governor would be money stealer
*** Blood thirsty, Dread, Feck, Over confidence

[It's just a Humble suggestion mates]

[Resurrection]

Maybe not, presonally I like how stars are coming as they are... but that's why we discuss it right :-) Anyway I had 10 star generals many times, usually on crusades or conquering missions with many fights... and even more, I had once general who had 14 stars all in all and I cursed that 10-grade scale that he won't be able to use all his skills :-))) Same with assassins, one my assassin once had overall 16 skill points and was still 10 ranked assassin, grr.