Ministers and tough choices

[Ichon]

One thing recent TW games have really done away with is negative traits on ministers and generals. Ministers have a couple negative traits but basically meaningless while generals have nothing bad.

Consequently there is no personality. I'd love to have to choose between bad or worse sometimes. For example if I have an absolute beast of treasury minister managing empire extremely well perhaps he tries some.nepotism and get his incompetent nephew appointed to a military command, dilemma box pop up and either appoint poor commander to this army for 5 turns or minister caught and executed in scandal or small chance of getting traitor trait where he desert and take some of the treasury to your nearest enemy.

The other side might be a popular and successful general demands his father in law appointed to as minister or he becomes disloyal or resigns.

[Argon Viper]

Sounds interesting. More involved than the random negative traits in other games where a general would simply become a drunkard.

I do like the idea, especially considering that you would have many competing families within the various factions. They'll probably do a ministerial system similar to the Senate offices in RTW or the ministers in Shogun 2, although it'd be cool to have a display like in Empire or RTW where you could see all you ministers without digging through the family tree.

I guess the biggest thing about the system you're suggesting is that you'd have to have multiple family trees per faction. That would be really cool in the sense that you could play the families off of each other for power (or I guess have them play off of each other, since the player isn't really a person in the sense of being in the game).

[Rijul.J.Ballal]

I agree with You Ichon

[Coleus]

I loved how in RTW that the more massive your empire got, the more inbred and degenerate the Roman generals/governors became.

[The Juggernaut]

I loved how in RTW that the more massive your empire got, the more inbred and degenerate the Roman generals/governors became.

And I absolutely hated it. There was literally nothing you could do to prevent that, just hope that you might find a good one, or take command personally and hope you won enough legendary victories to overwhelm his addiction to brandy! Never mind that his father was the best minister in the Empire, that he personally had been send to the best schools and given a province to govern at the age of 20. Now he's a capering loon, a drunk, and enjoys the company of catamites and jesters at his daily appearances at the races.

I think it would be nice if we could make an example out of such people, maybe decrease loyalty and some population happiness if thee guy was popular, but increase the amount of upstanding citizens we get in high office. Just another gameplay dilemma for us to work out (and might have a few IRL applications as well )

[Coleus]

And I absolutely hated it. There was literally nothing you could do to prevent that, just hope that you might find a good one, or take command personally and hope you won enough legendary victories to overwhelm his addiction to brandy! Never mind that his father was the best minister in the Empire, that he personally had been send to the best schools and given a province to govern at the age of 20. Now he's a capering loon, a drunk, and enjoys the company of catamites and jesters at his daily appearances at the races.

I think it would be nice if we could make an example out of such people, maybe decrease loyalty and some population happiness if thee guy was popular, but increase the amount of upstanding citizens we get in high office. Just another gameplay dilemma for us to work out (and might have a few IRL applications as well )

To be fair, I hated it too. Irony is hard to convey on the internet!

[Zimmy]

The traits throughout the TW games never made sense, and were not tied to decisions.

"What do you mean that Roman general with the disrespect prisoners trait just released prisoners?

[The Juggernaut]

"What do you mean that Roman general with the disrespect prisoners trait just released prisoners?

But before he did, he insulted all of their mothers and fed them gruel. Disrespectfully!

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

"What do you mean that Roman general with the disrespect prisoners trait just released prisoners?"

If he respected them he would grant them an honourable death, by releasing them he is gravely dishonouring them.

[Dan113112]

If he respected them he would grant them an honourable death, by releasing them he is gravely dishonouring them.

Didn't Rome and her allies/enemies make captured enemies pass under the yoke before letting them go? It was considered a great humiliation.

[Dan113112]

What about making a trait like proud or honourable. Where if certain generals are defeated, even though their army is intact, they commit suicide.

[Evillemon325]

Your General has been left in a town with more than 0 move points left. Your General has acquired a trait: An eye for the Ladies.

Not that I'm against negative traits, that one was just annoying.

[Ichon]

I'd like some random traits with conditions rather than triggers- so if a character is spendthrift he also can't enjoy expensive entertainment. The most powerful traits would hopefully come as result of dilemmas. Good traits could also result from a similar system so when a general wins a battle he might gain a confident attitude or feel blessed by the gods but successfully winning several victories the general has to choose between being the gods 'chosen' which temples and some politicians might not like causing unrest or confidence develops into arrogance which inspires the army but pisses off ministers and diplomatic repercussions become likely during negotiations.

As for traits going down through the generations maybe some traits could be passed on thought a single generation but hopefully not multiple generations of a dynasty all acquiring the best traits.

[Maklodes]

Heredity might involve some chance of becoming like your parents, some chance of reacting against your parents, and some chance of going in a third direction.

"My father drank an amphora of wine every day, and he was fun" vs. "My father was a drunken lout. I'm never going to touch alcohol."

"My father was a great general. I'll never be anything but an obscure footnote to his legacy, so why try?" vs. "I'm going to show the world that I'm an even greater general than my father was!"

I think in M2TW, alcoholism had this effect. (Alcoholism had a chance of making the sons drunkards too, but it also had a small chance of giving them sobriety traits.)

[AlexCouceiro]

I would like a more complex system. Republics, monarchies and tribes would be composed and characterized by a certain number of influential families and a set of political parties (there would be variations according to the respective government type in question). From within these influential families, generals, senators, diplomats, councilors, province managers, etc. would be appointed or elected for important positions.

Characters would have some main attributes and secondary traits, which would be acquired and which would also slowly change with time. And that would result in different unique personalities with their own ambitions, more or less capable for different government positions. From that point on, important characters would become friends and rivals with each other and internal disputes would arise, the worst scenario being a civil war.

This would force the player to spend some of his campaign time managing the internal affairs of his Replubic/Monarchy, as is the case in EU3: ROME. Assassinations, giving titles to prominent characters, smearing someone´s reputation, imprisonment, troops pledging loyalty to a certain general and a lot more would be possible consequences or actions for dealing with the internal human conflicts that would take place in your country and disturb the peace.

[Ngazi]

Bad traits are good but "choices" are bad.

[Ichon]

Bad traits are good but "choices" are bad.

Why? If we are going to give bad traits why not allow to choose a bit between what kind of bad traits and even better if some good traits bring bad effects as well. Hardly anything is all good or all bad, the key would be to have idea in mind how to develop a character and hope for the more good and less bad developments but all the famous conquerors had some good and some bad traits, in TW they either became angels or fallen angels, not disreputable charmers with a drinking habit who inspires hate in other politicians and loyalty in the men of the army.

Or even a politician who bribes his army into loyalty while pleasing his cronies and quietly eliminating his enemies and ignoring the regular people but growing the state coffers hugely. Run a faction like that for 50 turns to get a huge warchest then when civil war erupts the leading general settles the war and goes on a conquest spree with the saved money though the economy takes 20 turns to recover. Or if unlucky a rival faction takes the chance to support both sides in the civil war and wrests away vassals states and finally invades when the civil war is just ended. I doubt CA will make anything like that but if there are at least some interesting dilemmas and not every single trait has only good effect.

[Argon Viper]

I think the key for me is the competing families part. We may not get everything we want, but most states at the time were ruled not by a single family, but my many noble lineages competing for power within the nation.

I'd like to see multiple family lines put into each faction with the option to eliminate them or promote a particularly useful general into a new line. Favor given to each family would affect their loyalty and ignoring a family for too long could lead them to rebel with what resources they controlled.

It's a bit simpler than what you're imagining, but I can still see the demands and request being a part of it. It would also be easier to implement on the current system.

[Ichon]

I think the key for me is the competing families part. We may not get everything we want, but most states at the time were ruled not by a single family, but my many noble lineages competing for power within the nation.

I'd like to see multiple family lines put into each faction with the option to eliminate them or promote a particularly useful general into a new line. Favor given to each family would affect their loyalty and ignoring a family for too long could lead them to rebel with what resources they controlled.

It's a bit simpler than what you're imagining, but I can still see the demands and request being a part of it. It would also be easier to implement on the current system.

Yes this would be the best feature for me- where perhaps there are at least half a dozen families with different members available for positions- most such positions should be done automatically and depend on the time of election the families members of age and their prestige and the various career tracks of their members- for the important positions or maybe at key points in career progression the player has some choice what office for some family member to run for- for example maybe a successful general leaves the field and takes up a political office in Rome in preparation to run for Consul. I can see many ways to to it without hugely increasing management but management would certainly increase somewhat- though personally I'd prefer this than to moving 20 agents every turns as in late campaign of Shogun 2.

The choices just seem to me like randomized one-time problem like a flood. It is just not so interesting to me.

Each dilemma is about as interesting as a flood or urban vs rural migration but when the dilemmas build up based on previous choices over time and what new dilemma choices are offered which impact your generals career and eventually your whole faction it is much more interesting. Shogun 2 events were basically 1 time only and rarely impact more than 4 turns.

Do you want more traits and some personality for generals or not maybe is important question or were you satisfied with Shogun 2 general skill tree and really having no other traits than those chosen?

If you would like some more personality then how to achieve that- random traits, triggers or conditions as in earlier TW which led to some weird results, or a few random minor traits but the actually important impacting traits having some impact from player choice?

[Diglytron]

Buming for juistice.