Vice & Virtue, Traits used to be fun

[Shigawire]

I wanted to get this off my chest. I miss the old trait systems of the past. It seems that traits are becoming less and less meaningful and more bland. Seems like every general is a blank slate without personality.

We used to have base Traits, with varying levels of power. Some people were born with bad traits. Traits could be inherited from their parents..

example:

Level 1: Anger
Level 2: Unquenched Anger
Level 3: Uncontrollable Rage

Here are all of them:
http://www.geraldtan.com/rtw/traits6.pdf

Effects:
http://www.geraldtan.com/rtw/traits6-sort=alphabet.pdf

They made the game much more fun to roleplay than f.ex. Shogun 2 where I barely care about my generals. They have different hats but otherwise they all have very bland personalities.

[HappyGoodVibes]

Even better than the vanilla trait system, is the Roma Surrectum II train system. Every general gets different traits, take up different positions of government, owns different property, comes from different social classes, their traits change as the game goes on, and a whole bunch of other features that I can't remember right now. I remember one of my generals started out as some pleb and he ended up becoming tribune of the plebs and being one of the most powerful people in the republic, since he was responsible for taking most of spain and had max influence in Rome along with high command traits and what not.

But yeah I agree the new trait systems ended up being too simple and taking a lot of the "life" out of the characters in recent games. You can hover over one of the usually 10+ traits that generals have in Roma Surrectum 2 and find out a lot about Roman Government and what offices there were, what occupations people might have had, etc... And not only that, but the traits would respond to what you did, so like that one general I had ended up advancing very far, generals that you leave in cities usually build up management, and the ruler of the faction also ended up affecting the whole faction depending on how your government was going if the senate thought you were taxing too much or the people didn't like you for some reason. I don't remember exactly what happened based off of that, but it was all run through the trait system and made the game more interesting.

[Shigawire]

Yeah, all mods have better trait systems than vanilla. EB was one of the first mods to add a rather complex trait script.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

Yeah, all mods have better trait systems than vanilla. EB was one of the first mods to add a rather complex trait script.

I liked them in EB too. I remeber who hard it was to get a perfect general for the augustian reforms^^

[krisslanza]

I both love and hate Shogun 2's traits. There were few of them, but there also wasn't just an absurd amount. RTW and M2TW has a lot of traits, but I sometimes felt it as a bit excessive - not to mention it's extremely easy to just get a bunch of junk ones without knowing it, or you had some that didn't seem to make any sense to have with others (How could one "Hate Blood" yet have "Bloody"?).

[windsupernova]

I both love and hate Shogun 2's traits. There were few of them, but there also wasn't just an absurd amount. RTW and M2TW has a lot of traits, but I sometimes felt it as a bit excessive - not to mention it's extremely easy to just get a bunch of junk ones without knowing it, or you had some that didn't seem to make any sense to have with others (How could one "Hate Blood" yet have "Bloody"?).

Thats pretty much how I feel. I do think that with some tweakings the Shogun 2 system could be much much better than the old ways.

Keep the RPG system, add more Random traits, but not the obscenely stupid and huge amount Rome and Med 2 had or fix the triggers so that they make more sense.

[Greve Af Göteborg]

Yeah, the negative part of the old trait system is that when your generals start gathering up a metric ton of traits, you just don't care anymore what they say. So having less traits makes the experience a bit cleaner and keeps the traits interesting.

[krisslanza]

Yeah, the negative part of the old trait system is that when your generals start gathering up a metric ton of traits, you just don't care anymore what they say. So having less traits makes the experience a bit cleaner and keeps the traits interesting.

Pretty much. It's really, REALLY easy to get a general with a bunch of bad traits in M2TW particularly, and in RTW it got easy once you got further in the game because you just make too much denarii a turn and all the corruption traits will start popping up.

I feel there is some ideal balance of traits that could be done.

[Ariovist]

Perhaps some middle ground between Rome and Faall of the Samurai.
I loved the traits in Rome I, but to be honest, they were too much of them.
In FOTS the traits mean something, but a few, and only a few more would be good.

[Humble Warrior]

The trait system in MTW2 was brilliant. I loved it as it gave them character, bad traits gave them even MORE character. I really paid attention to all my Generals, not from a stat point of view but from a personal point of view. How was my mad but brilliant General getting on? Where was that womanising alcoholic?

It was not only fun, but realistic. CA should never have taken it out and ignored those who screwed it away by whining because they didn`t like Generals developing bad traits beyond their control.

You can`t stop people developing bad habits in real life most times and it was HUMAN.

[krisslanza]

The trait system in MTW2 was brilliant. I loved it as it gave them character, bad traits gave them even MORE character. I really paid attention to all my Generals, not from a stat point of view but from a personal point of view. How was my mad but brilliant General getting on? Where was that womanising alcoholic?

It was not only fun, but realistic. CA should never have taken it out and ignored those who screwed it away by whining because they didn`t like Generals developing bad traits beyond their control.

You can`t stop people developing bad habits in real life most times and it was HUMAN.

Yes but it's also frustrating that you basically have to never build any of the Brothel chain, as it gives nothing but bad traits. If you try to make your cities grow well, that can lead to bad traits too (although that's more in RTW then M2TW).

And then some traits that you get born with, have no way to fix and will just randomly get worse despite your efforts to make that Lazy person not get any worse.

[Humble Warrior]

Yes but it's also frustrating that you basically have to never build any of the Brothel chain, as it gives nothing but bad traits. If you try to make your cities grow well, that can lead to bad traits too (although that's more in RTW then M2TW).

And then some traits that you get born with, have no way to fix and will just randomly get worse despite your efforts to make that Lazy person not get any worse.

I don`t like what you say I`m going to change YOUR trait: that of `whining good stuff out of a game`. Oh wait, I can`t because that`s just how you are.

See what I did there?

It`s this kind of whining that ruined what was a good part of the game. So what if you build something and it gave your men a bad trait? I mean, a brothels a brothel, I`ll still send my General there if I want. it`s realistic roleplay and humanises what are otherwise just pixel robots.

[krisslanza]

I don`t like what you say I`m going to change YOUR trait. that of whining good stuff out of a game. Oh wait, I can`t because that`s just how you are.

See what I did there?

It`s this kind of whining that ruined what was a good part of the game. So what if you build something and it gave your men a bad trait? I mean, a brothels a brothel, I`ll still send my General there if I want. it`s realistic roleplay and humanises what are otherwise just pixel robots.

Because it doesn't take too many bad traits to get a general that's only good at being thrown at the enemy and hoping they kill you, so you can get too few and start adopting some new ones.

In the end Total War is a game, it's not real life, so we should be able to prevent generals from stacking up horrible traits that turn them into dead weights. I mean, if I'm making a general march around everytime, he shouldn't get MORE slothful as a result.

[Humble Warrior]

Because it doesn't take too many bad traits to get a general that's only good at being thrown at the enemy and hoping they kill you, so you can get too few and start adopting some new ones.

In the end Total War is a game, it's not real life, so we should be able to prevent generals from stacking up horrible traits that turn them into dead weights. I mean, if I'm making a general march around everytime, he shouldn't get MORE slothful as a result.

Oh the `it`s just a game` routine now, is it? That changes nothing. Who are you to say what should and shouldn`t be in the game simply because you don`t like it? I think it should be in because it adds an added interesting level of realism, similar to how REAL people are.

And it should be in EVERY TW game.

[Greve Af Göteborg]

The trait system in MTW2 was brilliant. I loved it as it gave them character, bad traits gave them even MORE character. I really paid attention to all my Generals, not from a stat point of view but from a personal point of view. How was my mad but brilliant General getting on? Where was that womanising alcoholic?

It was not only fun, but realistic. CA should never have taken it out and ignored those who screwed it away by whining because they didn`t like Generals developing bad traits beyond their control.

You can`t stop people developing bad habits in real life most times and it was HUMAN.

Apparently the bad traits still do exist, but they are too uncommon. But one that surprised me was after having lost his son & heir in a gruesome battle, my daimyo developed a trait called "Depressed" which I think gave negative morale to the men in his army.

That was really awesome to see and it gave a bit of personality to my daimyo, but they are however far too uncommon.

What I'd like to see in Rome 2 is the ability to put your family members in schools and other educational buildings, which then has a percentage based chance of developing traits (perhaps based on said character's ambition's and intelligence). This would remove the randomness of rome, where you just place your character in a city with educational buildings and just hope that something will happen.

[atheniandp]

Have to agree with Humble Warrior. Also, I'd like to see a bit more gravitas in the Total War traits. Less humour. Humour always kills it for me.

[Antissa]

Also, I'd like to see a bit more gravitas in the Total War traits. Less humour. Humour always kills it for me.

The humorous descriptions are the best part


{Pathetic_Commander_desc}
This man has an almost unsurpassed ability to mess up when in command and this instills despair in his troops.

{Over-Optimistic_desc}
This man can turn almost suicidal attacks into certain mass suicides. His men, or the survivors, are certain that he lacks any real ability to lead.

{Pathetic_Attacker_desc}
This man has a talent for turning even a moderate chance of victory, when attacking, into an almost-certain defeat!

{Foul_Mouthed_desc}
The colourful language of the rank-and-file endears this man to his troops, but causes vague disquiet amongst his peers.

{Kills_With_Kindness_desc}
Too concerned for the comfort of his soldiers, this man is a popular but ineffectual leader.

{Ruled_By_Fear_desc}
This man's girlish screeching in the face of an enemy provokes amused horror and utter contempt in equal measure.

{Boring_Beyond_Belief_desc}
No matter how superb his logic, this man's tedious speechifying puts all his listeners into a coma!

{Undiplomatic_desc}
This man has a talent for saying exactly the wrong thing when negotiating even the most delicate of treaties.

{Deranged_desc}
There are those who say that this man gibbers like a deranged rock ape. The rock apes will take offence at this slur.

[Shigawire]

One way to handle inheritable bad traits can be found in Crusader Kings 2.
Send your son to study at a tutor with the opposite traits.

I don't want a middle ground between RTW and FOTS.. FOTS barely had any immersion and variation in the characters.
More like a middle ground between Rome and Medieval 2, more fun.

So let me get this straight. People whined this feature out, jeopardizing the very future of the Total War series? What on earth for?

[Ariovist]

Normally traits develop over years.
I think in FOTS you never see so much different traits because it had so much turns/year which is the way i prefer.

I really don't like a game where you get masses of traits only to see you faction characters die of old age in 20-30 turns.
But talking about immersion and variation in characters (what i really like) we could argue again over the number of turns Rome II should have.

[Lord Baal]

The key is affect big things in a small way.

I think the personal, "small" traits should be random if certain conditions are meet, those should be really subtle traits that would affect only small things at worst, and generally should affect only things pertinent to the general unit, like I don't know, like this:
Vanity: "This men fancy himself too much" +5% to this general unit upkeep.
Healthy: "This men is a hard as a stone" +1 to general hit points.

Please note that this traits should always be simple tweaks, like +1 to health and things like that. Never a -6 or +10...

Then there consequential traits, that truly determine who is this man, what have accomplished and what can he accomplish in the future, along the lines of:
Siege master: "This men has assaulted successfully X amounts of cities, he truly know how to take walls" +50 to siege construction points.

And then there's theres the reunite of this man. But again, this would affect big things in small ways. A siege engineer in this case could give you +1 to the damage made by siege machinery to walls. Or a expert siege ammo field workshop could make those siege machines some extra ammo for every battle. Or another guy that gives increased action points, but like +1% or something along those lines. Or in the case of a bigger, forced march option, if units start battle right after a forced march some stamina, moral or whatever penalties should be included.

Basically, what I'm asking is a toned down, more sensible and less convoluted Medieval 2 trait system, but not as dumbed down as what Shogun 2 had.