Trait issues

[tone]

There are a number of trait issues we need to straighten up for the patch, mainly to do with the Roman tree:


1) Patrician fathers getting Plebeian children. Presumably this is through adoption. The problem I think is in this code here which basically makes the class they inherit just random:

;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_Offered_For_Marriage_Roman
WhenToTest OfferedForMarriage
Condition CultureType roman
Affects Patrician 1 Chance 10
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 80
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 60
;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
Affects Patrician 1 Chance 15
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 60
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 80
;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_General_Roman
WhenToTest LesserGeneralOfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
Affects Patrician 1 Chance 5
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 60
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 80
;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Brother_Adopted
WhenToTest BrotherAdopted
Condition CultureType roman
Affects Patrician 1 Chance 15
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 60
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 80
;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_Marries_Backup
WhenToTest OfferedForMarriage
Condition CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian < 1
and Trait Equestrian < 1
and Trait Patrician < 1
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_Adopted_Backup
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian < 1
and Trait Equestrian < 1
and Trait Patrician < 1
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Lesser_General_Adopted_Backup
WhenToTest LesserGeneralOfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian < 1
and Trait Equestrian < 1
and Trait Patrician < 1
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Brother_Adopted_Backup
WhenToTest BrotherAdopted
Condition CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian < 1
and Trait Equestrian < 1
and Trait Patrician < 1
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 100

What we need to do I think is split this up into two or three different triggers for each current trigger, for example this one:

Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
Affects Patrician 1 Chance 15
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 60
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 80
;------------------------------------------;

Probably ought to be divided up like this:

Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Patrician > 0
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 25
Affects Patrician 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------;

Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Equestrian > 0
Affects Patrician 1 Chance 12
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 12
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------;

Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Plebeian > 0
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 25
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------;

We probably ought to make the marriage triggers a little more dependent on the family they're marrying in to as well, just like these....much more likely for a plebeian to marry a plebeian etc.



2) The issues to do with the military career ladder. I'll have a look at this one.

[tone]

Just reading the stuff about Premarian commanders and so on again. I'm not sure we made the right decision about not having Premarian Legates. There certainly appear to have been legates by Caeesar's time if not before, but maybe we should keep things as they are other than fixing things? See my post int he Roman Leadership System thread on the public forum for an explanation of what's wrong and the fixes for it.

[tone]

We also need to add the gain messages for the senatorial positions:

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but I noticed that all traits through the Cursus Honorum and also the military career ones, do not appear on the side nofitication if the character gains a new trait when you start the beginning of a turn. Not sure if that's an easy fix, or a mistake (as I do a know a patch is coming to fix some of the glitchy traits), but never the less I thought I would mention that.

[dvk901]

Ok, do you want me to work on this, or are you already?

[tone]

If you could that would be great.

There's some stuff in the Calvin's Roman Leadership system thread on the public forum for what needs to be done....it looks like we just need to make some small changes

[tone]

What needs to happen is for there to be additional triggers for the Premarian Patrician tree to allow the generals to remain as tribunes - at the moment ebcause the legates can only be post Marian the generals lose the Tribune trait because they reach a certain level on the Patrician Military Tree and gain no trait - just lose the Tribune one.

[dvk901]

There are a number of trait issues we need to straighten up for the patch, mainly to do with the Roman tree:


1) Patrician fathers getting Plebeian children. Presumably this is through adoption. The problem I think is in this code here which basically makes the class they inherit just random:



What we need to do I think is split this up into two or three different triggers for each current trigger, for example this one:



Probably ought to be divided up like this:

Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Patrician > 0
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 25
Affects Patrician 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------;

Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Equestrian > 0
Affects Patrician 1 Chance 12
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 12
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------;

Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Plebeian > 0
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 25
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 100



We probably ought to make the marriage triggers a little more dependent on the family they're marrying in to as well, just like these....much more likely for a plebeian to marry a plebeian etc.



2) The issues to do with the military career ladder. I'll have a look at this one.

With reference to this, I don't see that this would really 'fix' the issue...change the issue, yes, but not fix it. If A Patrician family adopted a son of any other class, he would automatically 100% be a Patrician.
If an Equestion father adopted a Patrician son, the son might be allowed to keep his Patrician status. I don't exactly how that would've worked, but it seems like it would sometimes be logical.
I think the only 'change' in class should be from the top.....meaning, if a Patrician adopts 'below' his status, the character is raised TO that status. Likewise, if an Equestrian adopts a Plebeian, he becomes an Equestrian.

In the case of marriage, there should be no change if a Patrician marries a Plebeian woman, or Equestrian. Actually, I'm a little fuzzy on what would happen if a Plebeian married a Patrician....I guess he becomes Patrician. But in any event, I don't think any character should go 'down' in class.

[tone]

My understanding about this is that the trait allocation goes something like this for this one...

Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Patrician > 0
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 25
Affects Patrician 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------;

Basically on being adopted, there is a 25% chance of being an equestrian, but if not then you'll become a patrician. Now I might be wrong about this and we may have to write it in two steps:

Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman1
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Patrician > 0
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 25
;------------------------------------------;

Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman2
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Patrician > 0
Affects Patrician 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------;

Basically the Patrician bit allocates all characters who haven't already been allocated as equestrians to the patrician class. This all depends on at what point the antitraits and no going back stuff works at, whether it's at the end of each trigger of whether it's at the end of line within that trigger....i.e. if one line allocates the character as an equestrian can the next line then overwrite as a patrician before the trigger has finished?

Also worth bearing in mind that we don't want all characters to be patricians as most of the starting characters....so if all adopted sons and married figures join the higher family that's no good for variety.

[dvk901]

Well, you would have a number of ways that characters would be given a class. Starting characters, recruited characters, adopted characters (which could exist, or may not yet exist) and marriage. You often see marriage happening between an existing woman child of 'a' family, to a character that doesn't yet exist until you accept. Likewise, adoption can be of an existing character (thus, the cloned character issue) or a non-existent one who was a 'captain' or something, or a recruited character that the player introduced into the game. Given all these variables, I think the allocation of 'class' should be straightforward and follow a set guideline we establish.

My concern isn't so much with 'non-existent' characters that the game creates, but with existing characters who already have traits. Non-existent characters should simply become the class of the adopting father.....as in your second example.
But why would a non-existent character be adopted by a Patrician father and be an Equestrian? That makes no sense.

Another thing I see missing in this scheme (now) is something that allocates a 'class' to recruited Generals. There are adopted, comes of age and marriage triggers, but nothing for a General you just recruit. So there should be this:

;------------------------------------------
Trigger class_assignment
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition CultureType roman
and IsGeneral
and Trait Plebeian = 0
and Trait Equestrian = 0
and Trait Patrician = 0

Affects Patrician 1 Chance 20
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 40
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 40

This trigger would do the assigning of class, rather than having Calvin's random assigning of class through the existing triggers which don't take into account recruited generals.

I don't 'think' the Affects lines will overwrite each other. It randomly chooses one and then the trigger stops. Otherwise, the last 'Affect' would always be the one chosen.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm just thinking out loud here.

[tone]

Are the generals you recruit named characters though? I thought they were just generals?

You're quite right about adoption - from Wikipedia:

A Plebeian adopted by a Patrician would become a patrician, and vice versa; however, at least in Republican times, this required the consent of the Senate (famously in the case of Publius Clodius Pulcher[1]).

As they quite rightly state Clodius Pulcher managed to get Senatorial consent by various devious means to change from Patrician to Plebeian in order to become tribune of the plebs and wield power that way....

The problem with marriage is that there is no way of triggers being dependent on the father of the bride's class as far as I can see, so the class of a general entering a family by marriage will be random.....maybe best to go for mainly equestrian there with a few patricians and plebeians. Whatever we do we need a mopping up 100% at the bottom of the list:

;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_Offered_For_Marriage_Roman
WhenToTest OfferedForMarriage
Condition CultureType roman
Affects Patrician 1 Chance 15
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 75
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 100 (this will ensure that any character that hasn't yet had a class allocated is allocated one)

...although worth checking that everyone doesn't come out plebeian!!

[dvk901]

Are the generals you recruit named characters though? I thought they were just generals?

You're quite right about adoption - from Wikipedia:



As they quite rightly state Clodius Pulcher managed to get Senatorial consent by various devious means to change from Patrician to Plebeian in order to become tribune of the plebs and wield power that way....

The problem with marriage is that there is no way of triggers being dependent on the father of the bride's class as far as I can see, so the class of a general entering a family by marriage will be random.....maybe best to go for mainly equestrian there with a few patricians and plebeians. Whatever we do we need a mopping up 100% at the bottom of the list:



...although worth checking that everyone doesn't come out plebeian!!

Yes, I was looking into that marriage thing, and it is an issue. I'm still thinking about how to do that. As of now, I have altered a few triggers like so:

Trigger class_assignment_trigger_for_recruited_generals
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition CultureType roman
and IsGeneral
and Trait Plebeian = 0
and Trait Equestrian = 0
and Trait Patrician = 0

Affects Patrician 1 Chance 20
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 20
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 60

;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman_Patrician1
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption

Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Patrician > 0
and Trait Equestrian > 0

Affects Patrician 2 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman_Patrician2
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption

Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Patrician > 0
and Trait Plebeian > 0

Affects Patrician 2 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman_Equestrian
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption

Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Equestrian > 0
and not Trait Patrician > 0

Affects Equestrian 2 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman_Plebeian
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption

Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Plebeian > 0
and not Trait Patrician > 0
and not Trait Equestrian > 0

Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 100

I have removed the 'NoGoingBack' statements from Equestrian and Plebeian to make this work, and as you can see, a Plebeian or Equestrian can move 'up', but they cannot move 'down' in class. Hopefully the 'Affects 2' will remove the former clas trait
and replace it with the desired one. The first trigger listed here is the most important one, because that's going to check all the time and assign a 'class' regardless of adoption, marriage or whatever.

I have (hopefully) fixed the 'Conqueror' traits...as far as I can tell, the mistake was having the Senate triumph triggers reset the counters to 0. I think this was removing the gained 'Conqueror of xxxx' trait.

I'm also going to implement some kind of 'battle counter' with nine levels. This will be a hidden counter trait, but will award 'command' and stars based on battlefield performance or lack thereof. I will then tie this in with other General traits as to how and why he may or may not get them. It's just in the early 'thinking about it' stages right now.

I also wonder if there should be 'parallel' ways for Generals to become 'Tribvnvs Militi' (pre-Marian commander of a Legion) or Legatvs Legionis (post Marian). Calvin's system is entirely based on a progression...and time, in effect. But it doesn't (and really can't) take into account the fact that players may use or recruit a character as a General right off the bat, and start conquering stuff. As it stands, there is no way for a character who has theoretically conquered a large swath of territory to really BE a legitimate General. I would propose that the same battle counter method could be used to 'award' the titles 'post haste' as they have been earned by the character. Thoughts?

[Jon Arbuckle]

Well, I don't know either about adoptions for sure Guess we can just try it out and see!

I also wonder if there should be 'parallel' ways for Generals to become 'Tribvnvs Militi' (pre-Marian commander of a Legion) or Legatvs Legionis (post Marian). Calvin's system is entirely based on a progression...and time, in effect. But it doesn't (and really can't) take into account the fact that players may use or recruit a character as a General right off the bat, and start conquering stuff. As it stands, there is no way for a character who has theoretically conquered a large swath of territory to really BE a legitimate General. I would propose that the same battle counter method could be used to 'award' the titles 'post haste' as they have been earned by the character. Thoughts?

So you're thinking of something like

;------------------------------------------

Trait Battle_Counter
Characters all
Hidden
ExcludeCultures barbarian, greek, eastern, egyptian, carthaginian, nomad

Level Battle_Counter1
Description Battle_Counter1_desc
EffectsDescription Battle_Counter1_effects_desc
Threshold 1

But with 9 levels and an increasingly high threshold (like 5, 10, 15 etc) sort of thing, with different styles of victory or defeat adding (well, defeat should probably take some away...) different amounts of threshold per battle, and these being what affect the roman military leadership?

I think that works, it rewards a players skill with his characters in battles. One other thing, perhaps a different battle counter would be needed for each 'class' of romans. I think it would make sense for patricians to more easily advance than equestrians for example.

[dvk901]

That looks OK, I think, although I think you need 100 as the last line in this trigger because to make sure that characters do get assigned a class, as with the code you've written, someone could slip through the net:

Quote:Trigger class_assignment_trigger_for_recruited_generals
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition CultureType roman
and IsGeneral
and Trait Plebeian = 0
and Trait Equestrian = 0
and Trait Patrician = 0

Affects Patrician 1 Chance 20
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 20
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 100

I'm not sure that we need this line here....seems redundant.

Quote:;------------------------------------------
Trigger Patrician_Military_Career_Become_Tribunus
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition IsGeneral
and not EndedInSettlement
and CultureType roman
and RemainingMPPercentage <= 100
and Trait Patrician = 1
and Trait Patrician_Military_Tree = 0
Affects Patrician_Military_Tree 1 Chance 100

...and this one would make the Patrician jump straight to a legatus after the first battle they take part in and win unless I'm mistaken?
Quote:;------------------------------------------
Trigger Patrician_Military_Career_Participated_Battle_Become_Tribunus
WhenToTest PostBattle
Condition IsGeneral
and WonBattle
and GeneralFoughtInCombat
and CultureType roman
and Trait Patrician = 1
and Trait Patrician_Military_Tree = 0
Affects Patrician_Military_Tree 4 Chance 100

I have removed this line from that trigger:

and RemainingMPPercentage <= 100

As it really serves no purpose. As far as the first trigger I proposed, this trigger will run every single single turn, so 'eventually' some class will be assigned. My main concern with this particular trigger is that recruited Generals are not 'family', not always adopted, married or brought into the family, and kinda left out in Limbo. So all this trigger would do is check for characters with none of the classes assigned, and eventually assign one. I do fear, however, that a '100' % chance would just make ALL of the characters Plebeians. I even wonder if a 60% chance would override the two 20% ones? They may have to be all the same...like 33%.

I corrected that last trigger, because, as you point out, it just skips right to 'Legatus', and it shouldn't. But, do you have an idea why the Patricians (or anyone) would be losing the Tribunus trait before the Marian Reforms? I really can't see anything that would do that. The Marian reforms trait that controls this doesn't take anything away, it just 'prevents' the triggers that assign 'Legatus and Legatus Legionus from being assigned if the character doesn't have the Marian Reforms trait that gets inherited from the Faction Leader.

Now I may be wrong about this, but are you sure that FatherTrait works for adoptions? I've had issues with that sort of thing in the past, just like with when a character marries in. Also, so long as you have any trait's chance being 100, I'm almost certain that even if the character gets the trait above it with the chance of 25%, the other trait with a 100% chance will appear and override it. Giving it a 100% chance means it is a guarantee.

I'm glad you pointed that out, as now I see the logic of why that wouldn't work. At the point of adoption, the character technically has no 'father', which is why the marriage one doesn't work either. Blast! All of these adoption and marriage triggers are therefore useless. They can't do what we want them to do at the point we want it to happen. Therefore, it has to happen 'after' the marriage or adoption. Like so:

;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_After_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman_Patrician1
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Patrician > 0
and Trait Equestrian > 0

Affects Patrician 2 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_After_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman_Patrician2
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Patrician > 0
and Trait Plebeian > 0

Affects Patrician 2 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_After_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman_Equestrian
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Equestrian > 0
and not Trait Patrician > 0

Affects Equestrian 2 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Character_After_Offered_For_Adoption_Roman_Plebeian
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition CultureType roman
and FatherTrait Plebeian > 0
and not Trait Patrician > 0
and not Trait Equestrian > 0

Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 100

These triggers would just check every Roman character with a father, and match the Class to the father IF it can be matched. Patricians and Equestrians will remain so if adopted by Plebeians; Equestrians will remain so if adopted by Plebeians; anyone adopted by a Patrician becomes a Patrician. Make sense?

As far as the marriage triggers go, I see no purpose for them as they are not going to work as we desire anyway. The guy who marries 'whomever' will just remain whatever he was.

Well, I don't know either about adoptions for sure Guess we can just try it out and see!

So you're thinking of something like

;------------------------------------------

Trait Battle_Counter
Characters all
Hidden
ExcludeCultures barbarian, greek, eastern, egyptian, carthaginian, nomad

Level Battle_Counter1
Description Battle_Counter1_desc
EffectsDescription Battle_Counter1_effects_desc
Threshold 1

But with 9 levels and an increasingly high threshold (like 5, 10, 15 etc) sort of thing, with different styles of victory or defeat adding (well, defeat should probably take some away...) different amounts of threshold per battle, and these being what affect the roman military leadership?

I think that works, it rewards a players skill with his characters in battles. One other thing, perhaps a different battle counter would be needed for each 'class' of romans. I think it would make sense for patricians to more easily advance than equestrians for example.

Yes, this is what I had in mind. As far as the Roman Leadership, I'm still a bit 'fuzzy' here. CAN these two systems work in parallel? It's annoying that a 'Centurion' or something should be winning battles left and right, and yet be 'captive' of a system of promotion that can't really 'see' this. OR, is the system seeing this, but not progressing fast enough? I think we have to determine that first. But for all other factions, I think the Battle_Counter thing would be a good idea...if only to award command points (stars) to characters who excel. And yes, it would be a 'dynamic' system where winning and losing is taken into account...so you may go up or down the counter.

[tone]

That looks OK, I think, although I think you need 100 as the last line in this trigger because to make sure that characters do get assigned a class, as with the code you've written, someone could slip through the net:

Trigger class_assignment_trigger_for_recruited_generals
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition CultureType roman
and IsGeneral
and Trait Plebeian = 0
and Trait Equestrian = 0
and Trait Patrician = 0

Affects Patrician 1 Chance 20
Affects Equestrian 1 Chance 20
Affects Plebeian 1 Chance 100

I'm not sure that we need this line here....seems redundant.

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Patrician_Military_Career_Become_Tribunus
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition IsGeneral
and not EndedInSettlement
and CultureType roman
and RemainingMPPercentage <= 100
and Trait Patrician = 1
and Trait Patrician_Military_Tree = 0
Affects Patrician_Military_Tree 1 Chance 100

...and this one would make the Patrician jump straight to a legatus after the first battle they take part in and win unless I'm mistaken?

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Patrician_Military_Career_Participated_Battle_Become_Tribunus
WhenToTest PostBattle
Condition IsGeneral
and WonBattle
and GeneralFoughtInCombat
and CultureType roman
and Trait Patrician = 1
and Trait Patrician_Military_Tree = 0
Affects Patrician_Military_Tree 4 Chance 100

[Jon Arbuckle]

Now I may be wrong about this, but are you sure that FatherTrait works for adoptions? I've had issues with that sort of thing in the past, just like with when a character marries in. Also, so long as you have any trait's chance being 100, I'm almost certain that even if the character gets the trait above it with the chance of 25%, the other trait with a 100% chance will appear and override it. Giving it a 100% chance means it is a guarantee.

[tone]

I don't know to be honest.

[Jon Arbuckle]

When it comes to the roman leadership, I'm still very fuzzy in how it all actually works. There are counters that I'm just not getting my head around, and it's difficult to navigate such a large edct and keep my thoughts together. But I THINK that if I have it right, separately coded battle counters can easily affect the roman leadership though it may mean changing or even removing other things that affect it. For example, a plebeian centurion could have a battle counter that is identical to a patrician one, except that the thresholds he needs to reach are higher...or lower depending on how you want it to be, so that battles influence promotion in this sense while allowing OTHER things to also affect the actual gaining of the next trait - like GeneralFoughtInCombat.

That doesn't sound very clear when i read over it so I'll try to make more sense of what is in my head. The battle counter sounds like a nice, simple and effective way of managing how a generals victories/defeats help him to progress militarily. So for example (and these thresholds are all hypothetical and subject to change) a Centurion character is general of a legion, scores 3 heroic victories which give say, 5 threshold each coming to a total of 15 threshold for the battle counter. If we had say, level 4 or 5 at threshold 15, that's what he would jump to. Now, say Praefectus Castrorum needs level 5 battle counter before it is possible, and has a threshold of 10 for itself, well suddenly this centurion has a possibility of jumping straight to that. So we could have a trigger with a certain percentage like:

;------------------------------------------;
Trigger Roman_Plebeian_Promotion1
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian_Battle_Counter > 4
and Trait Plebeian > 0
and Trait Centurion > 0

Affects Praefectus_Castrorum 10 Chance 35

So he isn't guaranteed it, but his chances are improved. Now, add to this separate triggers from GeneralFoughtInCombat, Attribute, GeneralNumKillsInBattle and so on, each with varying amounts of threshold they can add, with varying percentage possibilities then I think we could see faster promotion for gifted generals. We could even bring personality traits into play, and probably should. Also, I think that for just the Plebeian tree there should even be a 'time in the field' factor that can have a small effect. A centurion shouldn't be leading armies historically speaking, but if we give the IsGeneral to triggers then he has to be leading. However, if we give small gains through just the 'not EndedInSettlement' combined with say, 'InEnemyLands', I think it could be possible that the character does not have to be the general of the army to be affected. So a plebeian character could still be promoted, albeit over a longer period of time than if he was in charge.

These are just some ideas though...not even sure some would work!

[tone]

I do fear, however, that a '100' % chance would just make ALL of the characters Plebeians. I even wonder if a 60% chance would override the two 20% ones? They may have to be all the same...like 33%.

You can always have a couple of "catch all" triggers below that pick up anyone that slips through the net.


Note that there are some battle performace triggers for going up the military tree already in the EDCT.

Jon - think of the roman leadership trees like this. There are two ladders that go up that keep a track of where the character is in terms of promotion both militarily and on the civilian side. These operate in the background but mean that someone can swap between the civilian and military sides without losing track of where they were before..for example, a character has reached the level required for a legatus (4 points on the Patrician_Military_Tree which gets him to level 2). Now supposing he goes into a settlement - he's now out of the military so loses his Legatus status, but could be eligible for senatorial election....in the background there's also some tracking that's been happening in terms of his RomanCivilPrestige - buildings that he's built, traits that he's acquired, and so on, which gradually takes him up (we hope, though he can go down as well) the invisible civil career path. At certain levels on this he can then be eligible for senatorial election, assuming he's in town at the right time.

Actually that's a point....do we want something to show when the senatorial elections are happening as it would help players to know when to move characters into a settlement in order to benefit, and would improve the role playing element?

[dvk901]

Yes, I've noticed that done elsewhere, so I'll do that. Good idea.

With regard to battles and gaining command levels, in pondering this problem I think we're dealing with two specific (and different) problems and\or complaints. Gaining the command levels (Tribunus Militi, Legatus) is one issue. The command stars is an entirely separate issue. The battle counter should ONLY address the command star issue, and would just be a background checker that's hidden, and would award stars to commanders who win a lot of battles.

The gaining of rank is specific to the Romans, at this point, and really should be separate from any command star issues, because rank isn't necessarily gained through merit in this system. For example:

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Plebeian_Military_Career_Become_Centurion
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition CultureType roman
and IsGeneral
and not EndedInSettlement
and RemainingMPPercentage <= 100
and Trait Plebeian = 1
and Trait Plebeian_Military_Tree = 0

Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 3

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Plebeian_Military_Career_Participated_Battle_VnV_Trigger
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition IsGeneral
and WonBattle
and GeneralFoughtInCombat
and CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian = 1

Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 4 Chance 30

These two triggers basically award a character points for just showing up. But I think the problem here is in the triggers. The first trigger here only shows a 3% chance of that character getting a point for being in an army that the player obviously PUT him in to command. To my way of thinking, that trigger should be 100%.

The second trigger would, if it hit the 30% chance, knock the guy up to 'Prefectus_Castrorum' just because he fought in a battle and won. Here again, that should be '2'. I think (Primus_Pilus), and a 100% chance.

I guess what I'm saying is that we don't want characters to be 'passed over' by the system, because players are using these guys as Generals anyway, so they should progress through the ranks 'positively' and more quickly. It's nice to see the actual ranks and the progression, but I think it's frustrating to see the progression take so long to the point where it makes no sense.

[Jon Arbuckle]

Ohhhh. Wow, nice system for the romans. Pretty complex, it's no wonder I hadn't been able to figure it out properly yet I'm going to have to work on the carthaginian system I've developed to bring it up to scratch, you guys do things with ambition that's for sure!

The second trigger would, if it hit the 30% chance, knock the guy up to 'Prefectus_Castrorum' just because he fought in a battle and won. Here again, that should be '2'. I think (Primus_Pilus), and a 100% chance.

Having the percentage at 100 for just winning a battle seems a little easy to me. Maybe if it was a crushing victory 100%, but otherwise it means they can scrape a victory and definitely gain another '2'. I suppose if you want to see characters reaching the top quickly it would make sense, but that does seem to offer quite a lot for relatively little effort. What about removing that second trigger completely and changing the 'BattleSuccess' triggers to be more rewarding like this:

Old:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Plebeian_Military_Career_Close_Victory_VnV_Trigger
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition IsGeneral
and WonBattle
and CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian = 1
and BattleSuccess = close
and BattleOdds < 1.5

Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 2 Chance 80

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Plebeian_Military_Career_Average_Victory_VnV_Trigger
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition IsGeneral
and WonBattle
and CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian = 1
and BattleSuccess = average
and BattleOdds < 1.5

Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80
Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Plebeian_Military_Career_Clear_Victory_VnV_Trigger
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition IsGeneral
and WonBattle
and CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian = 1
and BattleSuccess = clear
and BattleOdds < 1.5

Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80
Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80
Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Plebeian_Military_Career_Crushing_Victory_VnV_Trigger
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition IsGeneral
and WonBattle
and CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian = 1
and BattleSuccess = crushing
and BattleOdds < 1.5

Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80
Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80
Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80
Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80
Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80

Possible New:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Plebeian_Military_Career_Close_Victory_VnV_Trigger
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition IsGeneral
and WonBattle
and CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian = 1
and BattleSuccess = close

Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Plebeian_Military_Career_Average_Victory_VnV_Trigger
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition IsGeneral
and WonBattle
and CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian = 1
and BattleSuccess = average

Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 2 Chance 80

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Plebeian_Military_Career_Clear_Victory_VnV_Trigger
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition IsGeneral
and WonBattle
and CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian = 1
and BattleSuccess = clear

Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 2 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Plebeian_Military_Career_Crushing_Victory_VnV_Trigger
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition IsGeneral
and WonBattle
and CultureType roman
and Trait Plebeian = 1
and BattleSuccess = crushing

Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 3 Chance 100
Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80
Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80
Affects Plebeian_Military_Tree 1 Chance 80

This way there is a decent chance with poorer victories, but a certainty with better victories.