TTT - Hellbent's Traits, Talents, and Toadies: A Character Mod Overhaul v.1.6 (Updated Oct. 29th) - (Eastern/Greek/Egyptian Ancillary Overhaul + New Trait Portraits) - Patch 5/Nomad DLC Compatible

[Ziem]

SUCCESS!

So, Governor Cornelius Scipio Asina is just chilling in Cosentia. Turn ends, and poof! He gains 2 whopping points of experience for pushing paper and managing taxes - no blood spilled! Who said Romans had to be bloodthirsty?

(As you can see, way too happy about this simple, little thing. Dunno why, just am. )

Great work people! That's one of the features I'm waiting for.

[redxavier]

Fantastic work Hellbent - which method did you go with in the end?

BTW I don't know if this has been brought up, but I'm really not a fan of how you can't see any personal details when picking generals from the character pool. All you see is some boring numbers like +1 authority or +5 tax, which makes them completely unrelateable and generic.

If you hover over the star on the general/character pool, you'll be able to see what effects they have, though not the name of the trait or skill itself. Alternatively, if you select the general and then hover over the star on his portrait on the left portaloo part, you can also see the effects - though this is bugged most of the time.

Now I know this is probably hardcoded UI issue so how about the next best thing: Is it possible to give newly spawned generals some more personality traits to start with? So that they're not just clone no.3431 with slightly better stats.

Yes, this is possible via scripting since there is a "CharacterCreated" event. That's how the background traits are given. So it's a case of adding a few more of these, with greater percentage chances of occurring. The problem, however, is that I'm not sure whether the trait limit of 3 can be changed, because otherwise you're looking at very limited character development with just 3 slots (and one of these taken up by the background and another taken up or replaced by any promotions).

[Hellbent]

Hellbent you've won a Heroic Victory!! This has left me with the biggest smile now knowing that this feature works

@Hellbent Bloodless..... No paper cuts? Good job and cheers!

Great work people! That's one of the features I'm waiting for.

Haha, believe me. It was a happy moment for me too. Thanks again for the help!

Great work! Can't wait to do some governing.

BTW I don't know if this has been brought up, but I'm really not a fan of how you can't see any personal details when picking generals from the character pool. All you see is some boring numbers like +1 authority or +5 tax, which makes them completely unrelateable and generic. Now I know this is probably hardcoded UI issue so how about the next best thing: Is it possible to give newly spawned generals some more personality traits to start with? So that they're not just clone no.3431 with slightly better stats.

On a sidenote, I think the dignitarys' military administrator trait is bugged, it's adding upkeep instead of decreasing it. Also, the "Likes XX Faction" traits give a big influence bonus for an alien culture, which can be quite a headache in early game when I don't have much cultural influence myself.

Hi aeoloron9,

Yeah, I agree with you. But as redxavier pointed out, the trait spaces for each general is already limited; I fear adding more background skills will just limit it further. I am thinking of something to distinguish replacement generals from each other though. I think a big part of it too is the 3D model portraits. I dunno if you agree, but I'd much rather have 2D models that have wider variety. It seems the Romans only have like 4-5 different head models.

As for your other issues, I apologize since I think I remember you mentioned them before in this thread as well. The dignitary's typo must be a CA bug since I haven't touched traits yet, but I'll fix both of those issues in time for the next release.

Fantastic work Hellbent - which method did you go with in the end?

I went with your method actually! It was fairly straightforward except for a few alterations to your script. Here's the specific one I made:

--[[ Trigger_General_Governor_Garrison ]]--

function Trigger_General_Governor_Garrison_impl (context)
        return char_is_general(context:character()) and context:character():has_garrison_residence() 
end 

events.CharacterTurnStart [#events.CharacterTurnStart +1] =
function (context)
    if Trigger_General_Governor_Garrison_impl(context) then
        effect.add_agent_experience("Trigger_General_Governor_Garrison", 2, context)
        return true
    end
    return false
end

I found that "CharacterTurnEnd" didn't provide continuous experience and you had to re-garrison the governors each time. I tried adding more modifiers (such as action_points >=100 and no action done) but they weren't working so I settled on that for now. One issue I've found is that even generals that are "in port" are considered by the game as "garrisoned" so they gain experience as well. I haven't tried it yet, but I think I'll solve it by adding a and not context:in port trigger. We'll see how it works out.

And thanks for including TTT in your signature. I am humbled and honored that you consider it worthy.

P.S. I know I promised you rep, but the forum is preventing me from giving more since I just gave you some for the triggers post that you did over in the workshop. Will rectify that as soon as I am able.

[Hellbent]

Hey all,

So the next big project for TTT is the overhaul of how the ancillary triggers work. Basically, I am now in the process of preventing the ancillary spam that has been plaguing Rome II by using more specific and context-sensitive triggers for each and every single ancillary. I am also cutting down on the redundant ancillaries and replacing them with more unique ones. For more information on how exactly I'm doing this, here's a summary:

To illustrate how I'm cutting down on the spam: in vanilla, if you use the general's unit in battle, you immediately have a 10% chance to gain the 'Heroic Saviour' ancillary. As a result, it's pretty much inevitable that you gain this ancillary in the course of a campaign. I've changed the triggers so that you have to lose greater than or equal to 30% of your general's bodyguard unit in battle before you can have a 20% chance of gaining this ancillary. 'Master Armourer' was in the same vein; you only had to research the first tier of the civil tech tree and you immediately gain a 10% chance per battle to gain this ancillary. I've changed it so your general has to be garrisoned in a city with an armory-type building to even have this chance.

Some of the issues I've come across are on the other end of the spectrum - some ancillaries have ridiculous vanilla triggers that ask too much; for instance, one ancillary asks that a general win 20 battles before he has a chance to gain it. With vanilla's 1 TPY, I don't even see how they saw it as possible.

These changes also favor a more active play style in regarding to gaining ancillaries. The chance to gain them are increased, but the triggers are made more specific and context-sensitive.

Here's the issue: this is a painstakingly long process. Editing trigger files is not like editing DB files where you just change number values. Since the trigger files deal with scripts, for each of the 800 different ancillaries, I have to think of a specific trigger to add, type up the code (making sure there are no typos as even a single misplaced character will result in a useless script), then load the game from scratch to test the new triggers. I've also made new ancillary cards so that each one will have a unique look.

Anyway, the reason I'm saying this is because I want to know your opinion in regards to how I'll release this. Would you prefer that I release the ancillary spam fix in increments? Or would you rather wait a longer while for the whole thing to be done? Currently, I am about 121/800 ancillaries done and I can release the fixes incrementally by culture. So far, those 121 are the "all" ancillaries or those that affect all factions. Next on the list, alphabetically, are the Barbarian-specific ones, then Eastern, Greek, Punic, and finally, Romans.

In the meantime, I still plan on releasing small updates such as the governor experience gain and cursus honorum changes in the following days but the crux of the next major update will be this ancillary spam fix.

I made a poll attached to this thread so I can get some feedback. Of course, you can also reply with your thoughts.

Let me know what you think!

[raest]

incremental would be better, particularly for hunting bugs (less code to check, faster fixing, thus less overall dev time )

btw, fantastic work!

[redxavier]

I agree, incremental changes would probably work better for making sure everything's going ok, and would allow you to take a break from the ancillaries once in a while and release updates with other features that you're working on. In addition, I imagine it would be easier to incorporate feedback into batches of ancillaries triggers than going through all 800 together. You have my sympathy going through all those triggers! (I'd be happy to help by the way.). I was wondering, could you share your method of creating new ancillary pictures as I ran into difficulty with this - how did you save your new icons? I'm sure myself and others here would leap to help you with those as these will constitute a big job as well.

[toasterwarrior]

Great job Hellbent! I'm eagerly waiting your next version since patch 4 just officially came out and I'm in the mood for some TW. And as for your poll: I think incremental updates will serve you better so you won't get burnt out doing 800~ ancillaries in a row.

[Deketh]

I vote incremental, for some reason the poll won't let me make an actual vote. I'm finding this mod to be crucial to improving my experience with this peculiar game, so thanks again, and I can't wait to see the next updates! I'm loving the ancillary images, by the way.

[super_newbie_pro]

WOW !! desperate by the game, passing in the forum I found this topic! Congratulations, I will follow closely the development and in six months, when CA will finish his game, I will come to see what you could improve more.

[Hellbent]

incremental would be better, particularly for hunting bugs (less code to check, faster fixing, thus less overall dev time )

btw, fantastic work!

I agree, incremental changes would probably work better for making sure everything's going ok, and would allow you to take a break from the ancillaries once in a while and release updates with other features that you're working on. In addition, I imagine it would be easier to incorporate feedback into batches of ancillaries triggers than going through all 800 together. You have my sympathy going through all those triggers! (I'd be happy to help by the way.). I was wondering, could you share your method of creating new ancillary pictures as I ran into difficulty with this - how did you save your new icons? I'm sure myself and others here would leap to help you with those as these will constitute a big job as well.

Great job Hellbent! I'm eagerly waiting your next version since patch 4 just officially came out and I'm in the mood for some TW. And as for your poll: I think incremental updates will serve you better so you won't get burnt out doing 800~ ancillaries in a row.

I vote incremental, for some reason the poll won't let me make an actual vote. I'm finding this mod to be crucial to improving my experience with this peculiar game, so thanks again, and I can't wait to see the next updates! I'm loving the ancillary images, by the way.

Hm, it seems the poll isn't working right for most people, but at least we have a vocal group here advocating for incremental release, which from your points about bug squishing and my own sanity being a factor, is sounding a much better idea for me than the all-in-one package.

As for your question, redxavier, I got a lot of the new ancillary images from the Rome I files. I had to unpack a few of them, but with the mod tools from this forum, it was a fairly straightforward job. Luckily enough, most of them already had transparent backgrounds, so it was just a matter of creating a template background (the marble one you see from the examples) and copying and pasting them through GIMP.

The more realistic looking cards required more work: I had to find scenes from film and TV with roughly the right historical timeframe (e.g. HBO's Rome, 300, Alexander, Spartacus, Gladiator, Troy, etc.), carefully cut out the images of the people I wanted, then pasting them onto the template and resizing them. I find that it's better to use images of extras from the shows, but from time to time, I can't resist and I add some of the more well-known faces (Leonidas from 300 being in that 'heroic saviour' ancillary for instance). Anyway, if you guys have any suggestions for sources of images and characters, please let me know.

And if anyone is willing to give a hand in this regard, just let me know and we can work something out!

WOW !! desperate by the game, passing in the forum I found this topic! Congratulations, I will follow closely the development and in six months, when CA will finish his game, I will come to see what you could improve more.

Hi super_newbie_pro, and thanks for the kind words! TTT v.1.3 is currently out and has all the changes promised in the original post. Feel free to try it!

EDIT: Also, expect the next release sometime this weekend (unless something unexpected comes up)!

[Theoroshia]

I don't think this works with the official release of patch 4....

[Hellbent]

I don't think this works with the official release of patch 4....

Are you running any other mods? I just tested it and there were no problems on my end.

Can anyone else confirm it's working?

[Beremor]

Hey there love your mod a lot! Just letting you know that I am currently using patch 4 live and I can't get this to work, it worked well for me on the patch 4 beta, but for some reason not anymore. This is the only thing I have installed currently, and when I check in the Mod Manager it shows up as TTT_1 and doesnt seem to be working anymore sadly.

[Hellbent]

@Beremor and @Theoroshia and anyone else having problems after the official patch 4:

Every time any file changes in your data files occur, like beta/official patches or installing new mods, you have to click "fix any problems" on the Mod Manager. This was already included in the FAQ section in the original post.

I suspect that is what the problem is here especially if it's incorrectly showing up as TTT_. Once you click that button, it should show up back as TTT_1.3 which should work again.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

[Beremor]

Okay thanks! I did not realize that I had to make sure the mod wasn't selected when I had it fix all problems. It works now!

[Hieronymos]

Hellbent, I've been enjoying your v1.0; but now see that to use the v1.3 2tpy version I need to use your startpos.esf
However, I'm very much into the PlayAllFactions mod, which also uses a startpos.esf
Any ideas on how to use your v1.3 with PAF's?

[Hellbent]

Okay thanks! I did not realize that I had to make sure the mod wasn't selected when I had it fix all problems. It works now!

Glad to hear it's working now!

Hellbent, I've been enjoying your v1.0; but now see that to use the v1.3 2tpy version I need to use your startpos.esf
However, I'm very much into the PlayAllFactions mod, which also uses a startpos.esf
Any ideas on how to use your v1.3 with PAF's?

Just completely forgo my own startpos. That is to say, install my mod first, then install PAF's startpos and let it overwrite mine. It's not essential to my mod at all since it only changes the turns per year.

If you still want a 2TPY experience and use PAF, you might have to edit the PAF startpos yourself (which is very easy, takes about 2 minutes). Here's a quick tutorial.

[Beremor]

Okay just a quick update to let you know how things are going. It works well, but whenever I reopen the mod-manager it reverts back to TTT_1 but it works as long as I uncheck it and press fix problems again. So I keep doing that to make sure it works and it does, no clue why thats happening or if its supposed to happen, just figured I'd give you a head up on that

[Thaetre]

I'd vote for Incremental Release but I'm not able to vote yet. I'm curious, is it possible to edit the costings on internal-political actions and the availability of those options? I haven't found anything so far (mind you it was a brief search so i could have just been ignorant to it). Leaning towards an edit to marriages reducing cost and being able to do it for your own family/political party

[zeddtakashi]

Thanks for the work you put into this hellbent, hope you finish it soon, im having a blast with what youve done so far, it really changes the game experience.