New Traits and Ancillaries

[The Sloth]

I have recently offered to help with adding new traits and ancillaries to RS2, and Calvin smartly suggested a thread where people can get an impression of the new ideas, criticize (*cough*don't even think about it*cough*) and to make own suggestions. I will post each and every single block of ideas here, and if there is no overwhelming indignation, I'll send them to Calvin afterwards to be implemented.

This post will be updated with all new groups of changes.

Here's the first group of changes, mostly minor changes concerning existant traits.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1) removed command, management, influence, personal security bonuses from the AI_General trait, severely reduced bribe resistance, added taxable income bonus, law bonus, hitpoint bonus and slightly increased morale bonus.
That way, assassination should become useful again, and no one will have to wonder anymore ,,where on earth these awesome stats come from''

2) good/bad infantry/cavalry commander should now be accessible to all factions

3) reduced both morale bonus and influence penalty of the feck traits

4) added a small unrest bonus to the teetotal trait (sobriety lvl 3)

5) turned the morale penalty of the disciplinarian traits into a morale bonus, removed the law bonus, and enabled it for all non-barbarian factions

6) the berserker traits no longer affect morale, but lvl 2 and 3 increase hitpoints instead

7) added a trade penalty to the xenophobia traits

8) added a trade bonus to the xenophilia traits

9) the epic_poet trait no longer gives -1 influence, but +3 influence

10) added a law bonus to lvl 2 and 3 of the spy master traits

11) changed the scout traits into this:

Scout
This man is adept at 'reading the ground' and finding the enemy
+1 line of sight

Expert Scout
This man makes sure he is always well informed about the surrounding area.
+2 line of sight, +5% movement points

Ranger
His good knowlegde of the land and skillfull use of it make this man a troublesome opponent.
+1 command when ambushing, +3 line of sight, +10% movement points

At Home in the Wild ___ epithet: the Hunter
His foes see the wilderness as a giant cobweb... and he the spider at its center.
+2 command when ambushing, +4 line of sight, +15% movement points

Here's the second part, with some new traits I already suggested some months ago in the traits and ancillaries thread in the main forum.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Inspired
This man is eager to show what can be done.
+5% movement points.

Determined
This man has a goal in life, and works hard to achieve it.
+1 influence, +10% movement points

Visionary
Not only has this man a goal in life, but he can make others share his enthusiasm for it.
+2 influence, +15% movement points

-----------------------------

Brawler
This man is no stranger to personal combat.
+1 experience to the generals bodyguards

Fighter
Men such as this should best be avoided in a battle.
+1 experience to the generals bodyguards, +1 personal security

Widow Maker
Few have faced this man and survived to tell the tale...
+2 experience to the generals bodyguards, +2 personal security
--------------------------------------
Disturbing
This man can usually be found plucking a chicken... alive.
-1 influence

Scary
This man is known for the... exotic... punishments he administers on others.
-2 influence, -1 personal security

Sadistic ____epithet: the Cruel
This man does little that is not somehow related with making others suffer.
-2 influence, -2 personal security, +10% cash gained from looting
-------------------------------------------
The following traits were originally supposed to be governors-only. They require no building/event whatsoever, and build up automatically when a FM stays in town. The effects disappear if he leaves the town.

Local Acquaintances
This man has many useful contacts within his city.
+1 management

Social Contacts
You can't possibly know everyone. But you can know someone, who knows someone, who knows someone...
+2 management, +1 public security

Social Network
You can't possibly know everyone. Or can you?
+3 management, +2 public security
------------------------------------
Covetous
This man will do anything to amass more wealth... for himself.
-10% tax income, -10% cost to bribe

Greedy
This man is the exact opposite of king Midas: any gold he touches instantly vanishes!
-20% tax income, -20% cost to bribe

Rapacious
Rumors say that this man was recently found talking to a small golden ring and calling it his ,,Precioussssss''.
-30% tax income, -30% cost to bribe

Here's part three of my trait changes:

Caring Father
This man is often seen with his children.
increases the chances of children coming to age with good traits

Loving Father
This man does his best to educate his offspring.
increases the chances of children coming to age with good traits

Educator
This man is convinced that each and every one of his children is destined to greatness, and does much to prepare them for this.
increases the chances of children coming to age with good traits

Uncaring Father
This man has better things to do than sitting at home and watching babies.
increases the chance of children coming to age with bad traits

Neglecting Father
,,Say, mother, do I have a dad too?''
increases the chance of children coming to age with bad traits

Violent Father
This mans familiy would be quite glad if he would simply neglect them...
increases the chances of children coming to age with bad traits

-------------------------------------------
For admirals, when they often end their turn without any movement points.

Navigator
This man will never get lost on sea.
+5% movement points, +1 line of sight

Explorer
For this man, distance is only a matter of time.
+10% movement points, +2 line of sight

Discoverer
This man is eager to sail towards new lands, the further the better.
+15% movement points, +3 line of sight

----------------------------------------
The ,,not-greek'' version of the philosopher traits.

Thoughtful
This man is very fond of reasoning and finding solutions to both practical and hypothetic problems.
+1 management, (+x% bribe resistance)

Pondering
This man is always pondering over the same question: Why are we here?

Meditative epithet: the Thinker
Despite his appearent absent-mindedness, this man is really constantly unravelling the secrets of the universe.

-----------------------------------------
For spies and assassins, to make things more interesting for them...

Wanted
This man's success has finally attracted the wrong kind of attention.
-1 subterfuge, -1 personal security

Dead or Alive
This man is worth his weight in gold... litterally.
-2 subterfuge, -2 personal security

Preferably Dead
The bounty on this man's head has reached such vertiginous heights that even his employer feels tempted sometimes.
-3 subterfuge, -3 personal security

[dvk901]

Excellent. I just posted a comment in the Buildings thread that these need a rework. The temples currently in the game...well, make it impossible to be removed given how they are written into the acilliaries and stuff.

[The Sloth]

Excellent. I just posted a comment in the Buildings thread that these need a rework. The temples currently in the game...well, make it impossible to be removed given how they are written into the acilliaries and stuff.

Wouldn't it be enough to just erase all temple-related triggers?

[Gotthard]

Yes, but then we'd have a bunch of traits that are never triggered. I spoke with dvk for a while on this, they need a complete re-work. Which is another thing for us strat guys to look at. I've got new traits I want for education and city building... but frankly, I'm thinking of nuking the *whole* thing, and starting over. I mean probably re-using a lot of it, but organizing it differently so we can find things easier, and getting those new ones in.

Actually, Sloth, why don't we split this up? I'll take care of anything building/city/temple/school related, you do anything family/field/combat/culture related?

[The Sloth]

Er, it's not like I'm in charge of the traits department or anything. I just wanted to add some of my ideas. There's no way I could build up half a trait system all by myself.

[Calvin]

SquidSK is the man to talk to. He's the guy in charge when it comes to traits and ancillaries - maybe he could help out with the temples?

[Gotthard]

I know he is, but he's not posted here in a *while*, and we need to get moving on some of this stuff now that the tactical area is better. He might be burned out (it happens, especially with something this complicated) and if so, we need to help out. Either way, temples have to be redone, and so do traits, and dvk wants it done now, so I jump when he says how high

[dvk901]

I tried removing all but one temple....but there are 100's of referrences to them in traits and ancilliaries. Replacing them all with the same temple seemed ludicrous. AND, there are referrences to other buildings\factions that have changed from RS1.5 to RS2. It may be that some of the 'sneaky' CTD's with no errors people are experiencing are happening because of this. I'm not saying that for sure, but I am saying that the current Traits and ancilliaries are not suitable for RS2.

That said, none of these new buildings are going to get in if we can't get rid of 18-19 temple trees that are tied to the above. Basically, this is the old 'ran into a brick wall' syndrome. We can either fix it or WAIT for someone to fix it. I'm sure Squid may want to give advice, but my immpression is that he doesn't want to DO it or he would be here DOING it. Nothing against Squid, he's got RL issues like a lot of you. (Except me, I have no real life. I'm married to this mod, and it sucks. All it does is take, take, take.....give me headaches, and sleepless nights).

[The Sloth]

I'm married to this mod, and it sucks. All it does is take, take, take.....give me headaches, and sleepless nights).

I'm not married, so I wouldn't know... but is what you describe very different from a normal marriage?

And thanks for the correction, Cherryfunk. But I guess you meant ,,and he is the spider in its center'', didn't you?

[cherryfunk]

I like these suggestions Sloth, you're off to a great start. One thing I'd change:

His foes like to think of the wilderness as a giant cobweb... with this man being the spider in its center.

The wording is a bit off -- nobody would 'like to' think of an enemy this way.

How about: "His foes see the wilderness as a giant cobweb... and he the spider at its center."

[cherryfunk]

The 'is' is implied, it's not needed; and it sounds cool and archaic without it.... the way Tolkien would have written it!

Sloth, did you read through the traits thread in the main forum? The fans suggested some good ideas...

[The Sloth]

The 'is' is implied, it's not needed; and it sounds cool and archaic without it.... the way Tolkien would have written it!

Sloth, did you read through the traits thread in the main forum? The fans suggested some good ideas...

Ok, good to have you people check on it... yay, englich lessons for free!

And concerning the suggestions thread, that's where I got most of my REP, so yeah, I know about it.

[Gotthard]

DVK, I've got some new temples designed, I"m going to code them up tonight/early tomorrow morning. THEN, just for a fix, I'm going to write a script to find/replace the temple references with the new ones I made. I'm planning on gutting it completely, but just so we have something that works.

[cherryfunk]

You know... you might boot up M2TW with one of the nice big mods like Deus Volt or whatever it is (I think Stainless Steel uses the same or a similar trait system) -- they have a bunch of cool traits that we could probably adapt... particularly for faction leaders, traits that have a big impact on the entire kingdom...

[Gotthard]

Actually, I've just done that yesterday. I'm sort of disappointed in SS, although since I haven't played vanilla, perhaps MTW2 is weak. Cavalry is strong, but feels weak... battles just don't have that... umph that ours have.

Anyway, in terms of traits, I've definitely been taking notes, but I've *got* to get the old system working first.

[The Sloth]

And I've got some interesting things in mind myself, trust me on that. What I can do will be severly limited by my little knowledge about coding, but we'll see. Since everyone seems to like my first suggestions, I'll probably send them to Calvin sometime tomorrow. I'm currently working on part 2... this is where the fun starts!

[cherryfunk]

M2 is weak -- SS is basically like XGM, a nice expansion of vanilla with a great map and nice touches, but still essentially vanilla plus. The units though are pretty lame. And yeah, the combat just ain't the same. Partly it's the smaller units, but there's something 'off' about how they behave as well. You don't get the same epic clashes you do in RTW, and I'm not sure exactly why... all of which is why I feel RS2 is going to surprise a lot of people who have migrated to M2TW -- if we can do our jobs and market it properly, which is why those final previews have to be truly mind-blowing.

In SS, pay attention to the civil war traits; your faction leader gets traits that can lead to a faction-wide civil war, which causes a number of your cities to rebel and family members become 'Loyal to the King' or 'Rebels'. It's a really wonderful system that can blow your campaign wide open if you're not paying attention to how much your nobles like or hate the king...

[dvk901]

M2 is weak -- SS is basically like XGM, a nice expansion of vanilla with a great map and nice touches, but still essentially vanilla plus. The units though are pretty lame. And yeah, the combat just ain't the same. Partly it's the smaller units, but there's something 'off' about how they behave as well. You don't get the same epic clashes you do in RTW, and I'm not sure exactly why... all of which is why I feel RS2 is going to surprise a lot of people who have migrated to M2TW -- if we can do our jobs and market it properly, which is why those final previews have to be truly mind-blowing.

In SS, pay attention to the civil war traits; your faction leader gets traits that can lead to a faction-wide civil war, which causes a number of your cities to rebel and family members become 'Loyal to the King' or 'Rebels'. It's a really wonderful system that can blow your campaign wide open if you're not paying attention to how much your nobles like or hate the king...

I wonder if this could be our 'ticket' to a 'civil war' of sorts? Part of the problem I encounter with our current setup is that I can't give Legions to the slave faction to spawn because they'll spawn them whenevr they like. So aside from a script, there's no way to do this.

But what if a Roman General were to 'rebel' with a Legion in a city or in the field. If the slaves have ownership of the Legion's units, would the character\general rebel to the slave faction and take the Legion with him? This would pretty cool if it worked, and FORCE the player to pay close attention to whose commanding his Legions...making sure they aren't ready to bolt on him.

I'm just not sure if that would work...

[Gotthard]

Sloth, clue me in if you need coding help, and don't forget about plugins if you need them!

dvk, not too many new ideas at once, I can barely keep everything in my head as-is! Let's smash out a working beta with the new temples, and see if we can go from there. And when I say we, I really mean I

[The Sloth]

Sloth, clue me in if you need coding help, and don't forget about plugins if you need them!

dvk, not too many new ideas at once, I can barely keep everything in my head as-is! Let's smash out a working beta with the new temples, and see if we can go from there. And when I say we, I really mean I

Good to know I can count on you. And here I thought my immovable governors with building ancillaries and the likes had vanished together with Squid. Well, anyway, if you know what plugins are, then you know more than I do.

DAMN YOU, DVK! Here I stay up until 1:00 in the morning to congratulate him for 10000 posts in these forums and that lowly romanophile logs out at 9999.

Ah, whatever, I'm going to bed.