Proposal: The Trait System in DeI 1.X

[Gwynnedrion]

The Trait System in Divide Et Impera 1.X :

Intro

Hi there! I've been a lurker ever since this mod started, and I finally decided to make my first post after seeing the Trait System will be revised in future updates for this mod. Divide Et Impera has, like many others stated before me, made Rome 2 playable and even more. I love the mixture of historical units while still keeping the gameplay at a good level. In my opinion, DeI is turning out to be the Stainless Steel or Deus Io Vult of Rome 2 (I never could get EB to install so I can't quite make the comparison).

Inspiration for this thread is the revision of the Trait system. Like Dresden said in this post

We will be overhauling the traits in 1.1 hopefully. For now they are mostly from vanilla, some triggers have been changed to actually make them happen less than vanilla (if you can believe that!). It does make sense to have generals gain some negative aspects from sitting around, but also I agree that it isn't ideal currently. We would prefer a more RPG like system.

Also, we mainly wanted dignitaries to be governors. Generals can choose to be also (obviously), but they may not be as effective.

I figured I might just add my two cents and see what you guys think of it. As it is today, the trait system is , for most players, something they do not like, in fact, it's a broken feature with lots of negative traits starting off with a warning (e.g. the drinking trait, faithless trait, far from home, ...) that can't be removed even when you try (move your general, put him in a settlement with a temple, ...). It doesn't have depth, it doesn't have logical and it's a shame since traits are one of the things I like best about the Total War series.

I just took the time to make a few examples, mostly ones that I figured I'd love to see myself. If the people here and the team like it, I'd be more than willing to help with coming up with some more of them/revising the others.

A first idea and example on how I think it could be done

Let's take a look at some of the existing traits that some of my Generals have today first. I will pick a few, both positive and negative ones, and give a view on a few possibilities that could change the system.

"A Bit Of Claret":



-5% moral for enemy units
-5% to number of battle captives
-2% moral for all units

Traits like "A Bit Of Claret" are what traits should be like, giving both a positive and negative effect, so that you don't make 100% positive Generals all the time. Depending on the outcome of battles (Costly Victory/Decisive Victory/Heroic/Valiant Defeat/...) traits like these should be given more frequently. I'll go more in detail into this a bit further.

Another example of a good trait would be the "Student Of Philosophy" trait:

"Student Of Philosophy":



+5% civil research rate (factionwide)
+1 gravitas per turn

However, this is where I'd like to see some change to balance things and make traits more RPG-like. Imagine a philosopher going into battle for the first time, I figure he wouldn't be the most daring or bravest General to walk the earth, and his troops would know this too. While I know that historical evidence dictates that the senators who led armies had both military and philosophical education, I suggest that you add a negative effect to the trait, making it more like:

"Student Of Philosophy (Revised)":



+5% civil research rate (factionwide)
- 5% moral for all units
+1 gravitas per turn

An example of a negative trait would be "Unjust":

"Unjust":



-2 public order per turn (all provinces)

Unjust is a trait that starts with a minor negative effect ( -2 PO/turn) but looking further, being unjust could benefit yourself (or your faction). This is just one idea that comes to mind. Furthermore, "Unjust" progresses along the line to "Tyrant" (giving -6 PO/turn). Once again, only having a negative effect as a Tyrant isn't bringing out it's full potential. A tyrant will be feared, but fear also keeps a firm hand and makes decisions based on his own agenda. Making it so when you have the "Unjust" trait (and even further) it becomes harder to control the Political aspect of the game. Civil War might erupt because of your General becoming unjust. This could also be backed up historically when looking at Marius and Sulla or the civil war caused by Julius Caesar and the assassination of him by those who considered him a tyrant.

"Unjust" (Revised):

-2 public order per turn (all provinces)

+ 1 gravitas per turn OR + 0.25 gravitas for your political party

"Tyrant" (Revised):



-6 public order per turn (all provinces)
+ 25% more chance of political incident occurrence (towards your political party)
+ 8 gravitas per turn OR + 5 gravitas for your political party

PBL/PBB (Progress By Location/Progress By Building)

PBL/PBB or Progress By Location and Progress By Building is something that currently already exists in a way. Traits have a bigger chance of occurring when the general is located in a city with certain buildings or in a certain area (correct me if I am wrong on this). But like previously states, a General with for instance the "Unsure About The Underworld" trait can't lose this trait even though the description says that you can avert it by placing him into a temple. Thus, we can only conclude that the current system is broken and it will need repairs first (if possible) before expanding it.

This however doesn't hold me back from laying out a few ideas on the topic.

Progress By Location

A good example of progress by location is when a General who's stationed in Macedonia or Hellas gets the trait "Likes Greeks". I think these kinds of traits are one of the few that don't need any change, since it's a logical trait to acquire when campaigning in the area. A small cultural penalty however might be added for role playing purposes. Again, historical evidence exists that a lot of the Roman patrician and senatorial class looked up at Greek culture.

Another example might be that if you recruit a General unit in the regions that face extreme seasons (like for instance the dessert region of Garama or the icy lands of Rhoughion) he will be faced with attrition during summers/winters when stationed there. My suggestion however is that if he's stationed there for a few turns (let's say 8 as an example) he would get a trait to lower the attrition. I'm not saying he should become immune, but he should become accustomed to the climate (and having spent two years in the region, he'd adjust his wardrobe, etcetera).

Progress By Building

Progress By Building is the second idea that I have. Looking at the Deus Io Vult mod for Medieval 2 , they had a Career System. Meaning that a General could be located in a city (with a Scriptorium) and build up traits to become a good administrator or he could be placed in a castle to get a military training and become a squire with good combat traits. He then later through combat became a knight and so on. Since Rome 2 is set in a different historical era this doesn't need to be the case, I'm just using it as an example. DeI currently has two excellent buildings for this, the Library/Archives/Scriptorium chain and the Academy/Military Academy/Famous Military Academy chain. Having a General remain in a city with these buildings for say, 4 turns (a year) would lead to him getting a trait. The higher the level of buildings the more chance to get the second and third Tier of these traits.

This would also lead to the Academy buildings getting built/used more and having a clearer role.

For the military Tier 1 trait I took the already existing "Natural Philosopher" trait; the twin to the "Student Of Philosophy" one, and revised it in the same way I did with the other one. To clear things up, I would suggest renaming it to "Military Advisor".

A general who remained in a city with a Library for 4 turns gets:

"Student Of Philosophy" (Revised):

+5% civil research rate (factionwide)

- 5% moral for all units

+1 gravitas per turn

A general who remained in a city with a Academy for 4 turns gets:

"Natural Philosopher" (Revised):

+5% military research rate (factionwide)

- 5% tax rate (for the region)

+1 gravitas per turn

Do note however that both these traits can appear on recruitment. Then, when looking at the second Tier, Generals could get the next level of traits by remaining 8 turns (2 years) in the city. This however could be shortened by their rank (more experienced generals would know more) and by their skills.

A General taking the military path who's obtained the Tactician,Camp Administrator or Commander Of Men Skill would be a fast learner, the same could be said about a General who's taking the Philosopher's path and already has traits such as "City Governor" or "Political Animal".

Considering the trait names, I took the logical choice of naming the administrative trait "Philosopher" seeing as he's no longer a simple student. When looking at the military trait, I went with Tribunus Laticlavius, one of the six broad-striped tribunes that served directly under the Legatus Legionis. It's a role that fits the trait in a RPG perspective.


On the Tribunus Laticlavius:

The position was the first step of the traditional cursus honorum, the formalized sequence of public offices held by Roman nobles of the senatorial class (conversely, the tribuni angusticlavii were knights). Thus the tribunus laticlavius would usually be a young man who might belong to one of the richest families in Rome or be a close friend to the legionary commander.

A general who remained in a city with Archives for 8 turns gets:

"Philosopher" (NEW):



+10% civil research rate (factionwide)
- 2% empire maintenance
+10% upkeep for all units
-10% moral on recruitment in the region

A general who remained in a city with a Military Academy for 8 turns gets:

"Tribunus Laticlavius" (NEW):



+10% military research rate (factionwide)
+ 10% moral for all units
-10% tax rate (for the region)
+2% empire maintenance

The same goes for the third Tier of the traits. I know however that I am not a modder and so that I might not have picked the best positive and negative effects, give some ideas in the comments if you will!

Like for the second Tier, skills picked up, rank and so forth could ease the number of turns required to achieve the traith. Both names have been taking from what I seemed was a logical point of view.


A general who remained in a city with a Scriptorium for 8 turns gets:

"Rhetoricus " (NEW):



+15% civil research rate (factionwide)
-5% empire maintenance
+ 20% upkeep for all units
-15% moral on recruitment in the region

A general who remained in a city with a Military Academy for 8 turns gets:

"Praefectus Legionis" (NEW):



+15% military research rate (factionwide)
+ 10% moral for all units
-15% tax rate (for the region)
+ 5% empire maintenance

Changing the perspective, we could also look into traits such as the "Biblious" (aka Alcoholic) trait. Currently, even if a city doesn't have a Wine Trader, your General is still prone to acquire it. Looking further into it, it's second and third tier provide a moral bonus to units, something that imo is absurd. I wouldn't follow the orders of a drunken general. Nor would he be fit to lead a province.

"Drunkard" (Original):




+4% morale for all units
-2 authority
Bread and Games Edict:
+4 public order(local province)


"Slave To Dionysus" (Original):




+6% morale for all units
-3 authority
Bread and Games Edict:
+8 public order(local province)

A more appropriate version of this trait would be to give a penalty to morale and to give a bonus to trade or commerce instead of giving extra PO:

"Drunkard" (Revised):




-4% morale for all units
-2 authority
Commercial Stimulation Edict:
+5% trade tariffs


"Slave To Dionysus" (Revised):




-8% morale for all units
-3 authority
Commercial Stimulation Edict:
+10% trade tariffs

Conclusion

This is just an idea I have, it's not fully worked out yet but I figured I'd share it with you guys and see what you think of it. Any suggestions or remarks are more than welcome. Like I said in the intro, this is my first post, and the first time I've contributed. I think DeI is becoming the best mod out there and it would only become better with a good trait system based on logic and gameplay instead of random occurrences.

Thanks for reading



Sources used:

Marius & Sulla's Civil War: http://www.forumromanum.org/history/morey20.html

Julius Caesar's Civil War: http://www.livius.org/caa-can/caesar/caesar_t08.html

Assassination of Caesar: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/caesar2.htm

Roman's view on Greek Culture: http://www.academia.edu/5235643/Capt..._Greek_Culture

Adapting to a different climate: http://www.tribunesandtriumphs.org/r...s-clothing.htm

Tribunus Laticlavius: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribunus_laticlavius

Image Sources:

http://www.honga.net/totalwar/rome2/...?l=en&v=dei&i=

[Gwynnedrion]

held for further use.

[GatoVolador]

This is nice
One thing that have to be revised are the traits that pop out of nothing once you recruit characters. ATM you watch for a good one by hovering over the guy. You can see the starting skill of the caracter and the Authority/Cunning/Zeal values. But once you hit the recruit button, out of the blue, your character turns out to be an inbred idiot (-3 Authority) or something on the line. This is nasty, and it happens rather often. Now you have to stick with this idiot for a looooooong time (4TPY DO has its downsides, go figure...)
Could it be modded so that this "surprises" are eliminated so that just the normal/reworked versions of traits are possible?

Cheers

[Gwynnedrion]

This is nice
One thing that have to be revised are the traits that pop out of nothing once you recruit characters. ATM you watch for a good one by hovering over the guy. You can see the starting skill of the caracter and the Authority/Cunning/Zeal values. But once you hit the recruit button, out of the blue, your character turns out to be an inbred idiot (-3 Authority) or something on the line. This is nasty, and it happens rather often. Now you have to stick with this idiot for a looooooong time (4TPY DO has its downsides, go figure...)
Could it be modded so that this "surprises" are eliminated so that just the normal/reworked versions of traits are possible?

Cheers

To be honest, I have no idea if it could be modded but I fear it's hardcoded not to show. On one hand, I agree with the fact that it's an unpleasant surprise, on the other nobody is perfect and the assigned traits on recruitment add to roleplaying elements. Normally you can see by the authority/cunning/zeal points if the General in question has a good or bad trait at recruitment like you said, so I think it might be hardcoded.

Glad to see you liked the idea of revising the system

[Amur_Tiger]

Just because I'm listening to the history of Rome podcast ( again ) and covering the rule of one of the more philosophically inclined emperors ( Julian ) I'm compelled to mention that philosopher-emperors don't tend to be anything other then supremely diligent and remarkably competent when it comes to war making. I suspect that much of this has to do with the nature of the philosophies practiced by those rare philosopher emperors but really, philosopher emperors are great if history is any indication.

Where they suffered the most was gravitas and to a degree ambition, a gravitas penalty and perhaps an ambition penalty would be more appropriate then simply being afraid of battle. Julian in particular faced a lot of trouble getting generals to co-operate with his plans to fight the Germans, to the point that he and his army was put in very mortal danger that was only escaped thanks to some clever Cannae-like generalship on Julian's part.

Also worthy of note I think that it might be interesting to have 'general likes x culture' result in a small +1 to that culture in the region along with public order bonuses to make sure that this doesn't remove all benefit. I find that the slow but certain elimination of all cultures but Roman as they conquer is more then a bit odd. It might even be worth re-configuring the whole culture system to avoid converting to 100% conquering Roman, maintaining say 20% of the starting culture, if that's at all possible, and perhaps having some cultural fusion buildings help eliminate the penalties of that remaining 20% other culture.

[Gwynnedrion]

Just because I'm listening to the history of Rome podcast ( again ) and covering the rule of one of the more philosophically inclined emperors ( Julian ) I'm compelled to mention that philosopher-emperors don't tend to be anything other then supremely diligent and remarkably competent when it comes to war making. I suspect that much of this has to do with the nature of the philosophies practiced by those rare philosopher emperors but really, philosopher emperors are great if history is any indication.

Where they suffered the most was gravitas and to a degree ambition, a gravitas penalty and perhaps an ambition penalty would be more appropriate then simply being afraid of battle. Julian in particular faced a lot of trouble getting generals to co-operate with his plans to fight the Germans, to the point that he and his army was put in very mortal danger that was only escaped thanks to some clever Cannae-like generalship on Julian's part.

Also worthy of note I think that it might be interesting to have 'general likes x culture' result in a small +1 to that culture in the region along with public order bonuses to make sure that this doesn't remove all benefit. I find that the slow but certain elimination of all cultures but Roman as they conquer is more then a bit odd. It might even be worth re-configuring the whole culture system to avoid converting to 100% conquering Roman, maintaining say 20% of the starting culture, if that's at all possible, and perhaps having some cultural fusion buildings help eliminate the penalties of that remaining 20% other culture.

I agree with you on the fact that the philosopher-emperors were good in battle, and without a doubt many of the leading senatorial class that held military ranks were also educated on philosophy as it was part of the Roman education. I just figured I would give it as an example. There are cases such as with Claudius where a man known for his religieus reforms, judicial and legislative affaires, etc. still made the first expansion since Augustus. It's for gameplay reasons that I divided the trait into a philosophical and a military one as to give a use to both building chains. Some people never build the Library chain or the Academy chain because they feel there isn't enough reason behind it. And like I said, it's just a suggestion that I'm making about these revised traits, all feedback and discussion is more than welcome

The gravitas penalty like you say could well replace the battle moral penalty. And the idea about "General likes x culture" is exactly what I had in mind myself! Albeit that I don't fully agree with keeping 20% starting culture since it would require new building chains etcetera which isn't what revising the traits is about. I'd rather see traits work alongside the existing buildings. A +1 "x culture" should exist within the trait's bonuses/penalties already if I'm not mistaken.

[Alu10]

Not so short turn requirements, 8 turns in military academy for a good trait make it rather like 16 turns.

[Butan]

Totally agree with your idea of having positive/negative bonii linked to every traits.
I can already tell you that, to some degree, it is already being worked on, and not limited to traits but also to buildings and skills. It will certainly not follow your exact thoughts, of course.

For revised triggers (location, buildings) I'm reasonably sure that it is possible to do the things you propose... but it would require a lot of work and I dont know if the traits system will be overhauled that much anytime soon, personaly I think its in a great shape right now and other things require attention.


Also dont forget that since the AI picks traits/skills at random and dont know how to min-max, the negative/positive always have to be overall slightly positive, else AI armies might nerf themselves picking the wrong things. So even if everything is revised to have more negative with the positive, it will always have to be more positive than negative, except for the intended bad traits. Relative to the few examples you gave, for example, negative bonus should be less impactful in the reality of the game to give the AI a competing chance. It has the slight problem that human decision process is largely better, thus the players can min the - and max the +, but it has always been so, it can only be balanced to be as less exploitable as possible, to increase the challenge for the players.

[JoeSaunders]

I like these ideas, and it's nice to see well thought out posts like every now and then, but I do wonder if this sort of thing would alone be enough to make traits seem more meaningful. I think we might want to consider the relation between traits and skills, and how this could be improved. For example, in the current version of DeI (and the previous ones I guess) a problem I find with traits is that their effects can just be totally overidden by skills if any negative effects pop up. So, if I have a trait that decreases morale, I'm at liberty to find the relevant skill which improves morale and spam it until my general is perfect. Given that we're talking about 'traits', as in, personality and lifestyle traits, it's odd seeing that they do not have a pervasive influence on a general's abilities. Granted, certain traits like the drunken ones could theoretically be overidden, and battle experience would change things a bit, but on the whole it's not quite right. I'd rather have a set of unique generals with their own personalities than a bunch of optimised morale hoggers and tax collectors - or at least a mix.

In light of this concern, it seems that we need a way of keeping traits distinct from skills. Or at least have it so that the traits influence the skills somehow. I'll stress at this stage that I have no idea whether any of the forthcoming ideas are possible, but ideas are ideas

Some ideas:
1) Certain traits could perhaps cut off or prevent particular skill trees, or just skills, being developed. A 'drunk' person may not become a capable bureaucrat, and so on.
2) Keep the attributes modified by traits and skills somewhat distinct, to avoid any crossover. Although this appears more doable, I'd imagine the traits and skills would end up being pretty boring if this happened. Variety's fun and all that.
3) Make it so that it takes longer for generals to be a able to pick skills, but make the skills stronger so that it doesn't feel entirely meaningless. This would at least delay trait overwrites. But it would not be so nice for governers perhaps.

I can't think of any more of the top of my head, partly due the difficulty of redesigning a whole system from the ground up! I have confidence the DeI have something up their sleeves anyway.

To be clear, I don't disagree much with the ideas you've provided - they're splendid! But there are other issues which may need to be taken into account. One thing I dislike about my campaigns at the moment is that gravitas becomes so out of control that it's meaningless, with generals frequently attaining near 1000 in gravitas. So while your revised 'tyrant' trait for instance, with its high gravitas bonus, may seem independently good, its impact on the game as a whole may be less so. Given that traits, ancillaries and skills impact on similar attributes they ought to be considered together. (I realise that the stats you've given wouldn't be final, but it's just an example so I can make a point )

[Gwynnedrion]

Totally agree with your idea of having positive/negative bonii linked to every traits.
I can already tell you that, to some degree, it is already being worked on, and not limited to traits but also to buildings and skills. It will certainly not follow your exact thoughts, of course.

For revised triggers (location, buildings) I'm reasonably sure that it is possible to do the things you propose... but it would require a lot of work and I dont know if the traits system will be overhauled that much anytime soon, personaly I think its in a great shape right now and other things require attention.


Also dont forget that since the AI picks traits/skills at random and dont know how to min-max, the negative/positive always have to be overall slightly positive, else AI armies might nerf themselves picking the wrong things. So even if everything is revised to have more negative with the positive, it will always have to be more positive than negative, except for the intended bad traits. Relative to the few examples you gave, for example, negative bonus should be less impactful in the reality of the game to give the AI a competing chance. It has the slight problem that human decision process is largely better, thus the players can min the - and max the +, but it has always been so, it can only be balanced to be as less exploitable as possible, to increase the challenge for the players.

I've picked up the fact that they're working on the traits system and that's one of the reasons I posted this. I'm not saying the system I propose should be implemented, but it might just give some ideas to the team.

I'm not a modder so I don't know how much work it takes, but I imagine even the slightest change takes a lot of time to implement, balance and work properly and I fully agree other things require attention first. However, until the actual revision of the system, I figured it would be worth opening the debate on how and why it should be revised and to see what the people playing DeI thought about how this should be done. I'm far from the most experienced gamer there is here on the forum and I imagine there will be a lot of different opinions on the subject.

And indeed, like you said, I don't know how the AI will behave with these. Do note however that I'm talking about traits and not skills so I imagine these are also assigned randomly to the AI (or does the AI get to pick it's own traits?). A bonus to AI when it comes to traits could be implemented to counter and balance it though. A +x% of positive traits for instance?

I like these ideas, and it's nice to see well thought out posts like every now and then, but I do wonder if this sort of thing would alone be enough to make traits seem more meaningful. I think we might want to consider the relation between traits and skills, and how this could be improved. For example, in the current version of DeI (and the previous ones I guess) a problem I find with traits is that their effects can just be totally overidden by skills if any negative effects pop up. So, if I have a trait that decreases morale, I'm at liberty to find the relevant skill which improves morale and spam it until my general is perfect. Given that we're talking about 'traits', as in, personality and lifestyle traits, it's odd seeing that they do not have a pervasive influence on a general's abilities. Granted, certain traits like the drunken ones could theoretically be overidden, and battle experience would change things a bit, but on the whole it's not quite right. I'd rather have a set of unique generals with their own personalities than a bunch of optimised morale hoggers and tax collectors - or at least a mix.

In light of this concern, it seems that we need a way of keeping traits distinct from skills. Or at least have it so that the traits influence the skills somehow. I'll stress at this stage that I have no idea whether any of the forthcoming ideas are possible, but ideas are ideas

Some ideas:
1) Certain traits could perhaps cut off or prevent particular skill trees, or just skills, being developed. A 'drunk' person may not become a capable bureaucrat, and so on.
2) Keep the attributes modified by traits and skills somewhat distinct, to avoid any crossover. Although this appears more doable, I'd imagine the traits and skills would end up being pretty boring if this happened. Variety's fun and all that.
3) Make it so that it takes longer for generals to be a able to pick skills, but make the skills stronger so that it doesn't feel entirely meaningless. This would at least delay trait overwrites. But it would not be so nice for governers perhaps.

I can't think of any more of the top of my head, partly due the difficulty of redesigning a whole system from the ground up! I have confidence the DeI have something up their sleeves anyway.

To be clear, I don't disagree much with the ideas you've provided - they're splendid! But there are other issues which may need to be taken into account. One thing I dislike about my campaigns at the moment is that gravitas becomes so out of control that it's meaningless, with generals frequently attaining near 1000 in gravitas. So while your revised 'tyrant' trait for instance, with its high gravitas bonus, may seem independently good, its impact on the game as a whole may be less so. Given that traits, ancillaries and skills impact on similar attributes they ought to be considered together. (I realise that the stats you've given wouldn't be final, but it's just an example so I can make a point )

Thanks for saying it's a well thought out post And you're right, traits and skills should be intertwined more in my opinion. Maybe if it's possible a "IF General X has "Drunk Trait" THEN "Skill;Capable Bureaucrat="0" kind of thing?

A bigger variety of skills would be a nice touch too, while Toadies system is great, I often find myself making the same builds, as well as noting that there is a lack of Naval traits for your Admiral.

Your third point is something that has a nice ring to it but it would, like you yourself said, become a problem for Generals who govern cities. I don't really see a way around it without changing XP values or redesigning the entire skill system.

And I'm glad you mentioned the 1000 gravitas problem! The Tyrant example (and maybe I should make it a bit clearer) indeed does give a big gravitas bonus but it also gives a bigger chance for political occurences to happen. So your General might be assasinated (as nobody likes a Tyrant) or a Civil War might errupt, making it so that you'll have to be very careful to let other factions build up gravitas too. But the stats I gave are far from final and, like everything, open to debate. Maybe something else could be given to the trait instead.

I have to say I'm glad that everyone is responding to this and that there's a good discussion about it! In any case, it shows the team how players feel the Traits&Skills system should be like and that helps them with the mod. Which in turn benefits everyone of us!

[Butan]

Yep for traits the AI cant choose (at least I think!), so it just has to be balanced through the triggers so that you cant get too many good ones without doing much extraordinary things. Overall your traits ideas seems correct, but I wanted to give you the big picture because for obvious reasons, traits has also to be balanced with skills and ancillaries and everything else in mind.

[rjacko10]

Traits occurring for specific reasons and being balanced by each having +ve and -ve effects are key for greater immersion. They will make you care about your generals more.

I would love to see generals be able to reverse the traits that have different levels. For example become less of a drunk if you move him away from a wine trader/wine producing region and give him active combat experience... etc. So it works as a sliding scale that you can TRY to manipulate over time.

I say TRY because you don't want to get stuck doing something repetitive and always getting the same result. People are individuals and react differently to certain situations. Not everyone will learn philosophy even if you stick the best tutors and books in front of them. After 4 turns it would be nice to get a msg "Your general just doesn't get it.." etc :oP

Stainless Steel for M2 had a nice trait system too.

[Gwynnedrion]

Traits occurring for specific reasons and being balanced by each having +ve and -ve effects are key for greater immersion. They will make you care about your generals more.

I would love to see generals be able to reverse the traits that have different levels. For example become less of a drunk if you move him away from a wine trader/wine producing region and give him active combat experience... etc. So it works as a sliding scale that you can TRY to manipulate over time.

I say TRY because you don't want to get stuck doing something repetitive and always getting the same result. People are individuals and react differently to certain situations. Not everyone will learn philosophy even if you stick the best tutors and books in front of them. After 4 turns it would be nice to get a msg "Your general just doesn't get it.." etc :oP

Stainless Steel for M2 had a nice trait system too.

The reversing negative traits that warn you (such as Bibious, Unsure about the Underworld, ...) should be reversable in theory but it's broken so I figure the team will have to fix that first. Also Stainless Steel<3

[Dynamo11]

I do like the idea of most traits being good and bad. I still greatly dislike the 3-trait limit that's been imposed since Shogun 2 in Total War. What person has only 3 aspects of their personality? I am definitely of the school of Med 2 and it's extensive trait system.

[rjacko10]

I still greatly dislike the 3-trait limit that's been imposed since Shogun 2 in Total War. What person has only 3 aspects of their personality?

A person that can pop out the ground with a full body guard compliment whenever your previous general dies. Reminds me of the locust horde... not sure how much personality they had.

[Gwynnedrion]

I do like the idea of most traits being good and bad. I still greatly dislike the 3-trait limit that's been imposed since Shogun 2 in Total War. What person has only 3 aspects of their personality? I am definitely of the school of Med 2 and it's extensive trait system.

I loved the entire list of traits you could get in Rome and Medieval. Especially with mods. If only they would bring that back :')

[Amur_Tiger]

I agree with you on the fact that the philosopher-emperors were good in battle, and without a doubt many of the leading senatorial class that held military ranks were also educated on philosophy as it was part of the Roman education. I just figured I would give it as an example. There are cases such as with Claudius where a man known for his religieus reforms, judicial and legislative affaires, etc. still made the first expansion since Augustus. It's for gameplay reasons that I divided the trait into a philosophical and a military one as to give a use to both building chains. Some people never build the Library chain or the Academy chain because they feel there isn't enough reason behind it. And like I said, it's just a suggestion that I'm making about these revised traits, all feedback and discussion is more than welcome

The gravitas penalty like you say could well replace the battle moral penalty. And the idea about "General likes x culture" is exactly what I had in mind myself! Albeit that I don't fully agree with keeping 20% starting culture since it would require new building chains etcetera which isn't what revising the traits is about. I'd rather see traits work alongside the existing buildings. A +1 "x culture" should exist within the trait's bonuses/penalties already if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah I understand that some of the culture focused ideas are a bit beyond the scope of what you're thinking.

On the subject of traits, or retinues at least, I think it might be worth making advisers/guards notably more powerful then they currently are but with the chance that they give the character they're attached to a 'court's puppet' trait or something with some really serious penalties. Almost all of the worst emperors out there were made worse by sycophant advisers that took advantage of the character flaws of the emperors for their own means and a number of very good emperors even had a few poor policies that can be traced to an adviser. This might also apply to wives to a lesser degree, though their main role in Roman history is the promotion of their sons through convincing/manipulation/murder.

[Veltegez]

I like the idea of traits having both positive and negative effects.

But I see the main problem in the fact that the AI is choosing traits randomly (correct me if I am wrong). But if this is the case, then I would really like to see a mod that will make the human generals to choose traits with the same random formula that the AI is using. I think this will make the game more challenging.

[Krixux]

@ Gwtbbedrion

Awesome idea m8 !!!
+rep

This makes a lot of sense.

[Gwynnedrion]

I like the idea of traits having both positive and negative effects.

But I see the main problem in the fact that the AI is choosing traits randomly (correct me if I am wrong). But if this is the case, then I would really like to see a mod that will make the human generals to choose traits with the same random formula that the AI is using. I think this will make the game more challenging.

But that problem could be fixed by adding a balanced trait system with both + and - bonuses and adding a factor that increases or decreases certain random traits.

If the AI builds a Wine Trader, then it might get a +10% chance at getting the Drunk trait similar to how if a player does he would be more prone to such traits connected with the Wine Trader building chain.