Trait System

**Son of Horus** · November 21, 2015, 07:03 AM

It's a bit naff, that you go through the effort of choosing your character to lead an army, only to find out that they're not actually useful at all, because of the post attributed trait. I can understand the idea behind it (ish), and can understand the difficulties of making it show.

However, I've tried to hire 3 generals, all with reasonably decent skills, only to find out that they've been ruined by the random trait.

I'm not sure what can be done about it, but it doesn't seem particularly realistic that one back in ancient times would attribute a general who is considered "anxious", and then give him a bodyguard of lancers, when using him to defend a city. If that was all that was available, then sure, needs must - but you don't actually get to choose the person based on their trait.

I don't have suggestions, as I'm not particularly aware of how the trait system in R2 works, but can it not be tied to the skills in any way? To make more appropriate ones in accordance with a characters skill?

**zonks40** · November 21, 2015, 08:00 AM

The thing is they aren't really generals, they are Royalty, family members, politicians or nobles, it wasn't until a few hundred years ago that somebody came along and started giving people positions based on merit and not bloodline, there have been tens of thousands of generals throughout history, and the ones we know of were exceptions, and even those had less than savory character traits.
Do a bit of research on bad Generals, there is a lot of info out there, some of it is just incredible.

**JCB206** · November 21, 2015, 01:11 PM

Originally Posted by zonks40

The thing is they aren't really generals, they are Royalty, family members, politicians or nobles, it wasn't until a few hundred years ago that somebody came along and started giving people positions based on merit and not bloodline, there have been tens of thousands of generals throughout history, and the ones we know of were exceptions, and even those had less than savory character traits.
Do a bit of research on bad Generals, there is a lot of info out there, some of it is just incredible.

And almost all the great ones, had exceptional fathers that had great careers. Hannibal, Alexander, etc. Then trained their sons in tactics and logistics. War Colleges were not available, learning on the go, and from fathers and mentors was extremely important. Its not unusual for the best generals in this time frame to come from the same family trees. They weren't born great, they received that exceptional training and the families protected those secrets.

**Dresden** · November 21, 2015, 02:03 PM

If you could see which characters had bad traits, it would ruin the entire idea behind the system. It exists to add immersion and roleplaying possibilities for players and to make you connected more to the characters themselves.

Not everything and every part of the game has to be perfectly min/maxed. Try taking a less-than-apt general and turning him into a powerful leader through experience.

**Alfonzo over Innsmouths** · November 22, 2015, 08:42 PM

Speaking of which, can we get a bigger variation of traits for generals? It seems I keep getting Calm, Narcissist and Cheerful - nothing else. My agents end up with huge variations in traits, but my generals don't.

**Dresden** · November 22, 2015, 10:35 PM

Traits should be mostly random but are not quite as random at the start of campaigns. Pure random rolls had multiplayer desync issues.

**JCB206** · November 23, 2015, 08:07 AM

Originally Posted by Dresden

Traits should be mostly random but are not quite as random at the start of campaigns. Pure random rolls had multiplayer desync issues.

I know Characteristics are different than traits in how they are applied but I was wondering if it is possible to have your characters completely be automatic and random. Maybe by how they gain experience. ATM you can garrison a general as a governor and have him build his character as a great general. He should have to gain general traits in the field and administrator traits in the city. That would truly change how you view your generals.

Just curious. Plus most probably wouldn't like this.

**Dresden** · November 23, 2015, 01:59 PM

In theory, you could create a background skill that then determined what future skills he could get. That would make it so that some generals had to be administrators and some had to be field marshals. But, I think most people wouldn't like that and it would ruin the ability to have a well rounded character.

The game can always be min/maxed by players no matter what you do. If a player wants to roleplay more and enjoy the immersion, that is what the skills/traits/governors system is for. It can certainly be abused and always has been by those who prefer to min/max. That is just the nature of gaming, really.

**JCB206** · November 24, 2015, 07:53 AM

Originally Posted by Dresden

In theory, you could create a background skill that then determined what future skills he could get. That would make it so that some generals had to be administrators and some had to be field marshals. But, I think most people wouldn't like that and it would ruin the ability to have a well rounded character.

The game can always be min/maxed by players no matter what you do. If a player wants to roleplay more and enjoy the immersion, that is what the skills/traits/governors system is for. It can certainly be abused and always has been by those who prefer to min/max. That is just the nature of gaming, really.

Interesting that it can be done. Thank you. I agree most people probably wouldn't like it.

**BMLlednar** · November 23, 2015, 07:00 PM

Why would being able to see the traits beforehand break the system? You're still forced to pick one of the three available, so you can't just buy someone with the best traits all the time. You could hire someone and immediately disband them to get a new candidate...but that's how it works with the unseen traits anyway. If my random trait directly contradicts the skill I bought the guy for in the first place...I sigh and immediately disband him. Granted by this same logic it wouldn't help anything to make them visable either, and making them visabale would probably take more work.

**Moonflower** · November 23, 2015, 11:04 PM

Originally Posted by Son of Horus

It's a bit naff, that you go through the effort of choosing your character to lead an army, only to find out that they're not actually useful at all, because of the post attributed trait. I can understand the idea behind it (ish), and can understand the difficulties of making it show.

However, I've tried to hire 3 generals, all with reasonably decent skills, only to find out that they've been ruined by the random trait.

I'm not sure what can be done about it, but it doesn't seem particularly realistic that one back in ancient times would attribute a general who is considered "anxious", and then give him a bodyguard of lancers, when using him to defend a city. If that was all that was available, then sure, needs must - but you don't actually get to choose the person based on their trait.

I don't have suggestions, as I'm not particularly aware of how the trait system in R2 works, but can it not be tied to the skills in any way? To make more appropriate ones in accordance with a characters skill?

There exists already a dei-compatible mod that removes idle/negative traits.

**Dresden** · November 23, 2015, 11:09 PM

If it has the trigger scripts in it, then it actually isn't compatible. It would have to be a specific DeI submod for that. Not to mention, in 1.1 we addressed the idle traits.

**Rosbjerg** · November 24, 2015, 06:42 AM

I'd like to add that I love the new trait system - I really hated that all generals in vanilla (and early DEI) were automatically great at what they did and always got better with what was almost unequivocally good traits. History is after all full of failures of lesser men...

**Dresden** · November 24, 2015, 02:36 PM

I could play around with it as a submod if I ever get the time, because the idea is indeed interesting (skill archetypes).

**JCB206** · November 24, 2015, 06:33 PM

Originally Posted by Dresden

I could play around with it as a submod if I ever get the time, because the idea is indeed interesting (skill archetypes).

Thanks Dresden!

**Ender2436** · February 26, 2016, 05:54 PM

Originally Posted by Dresden

I could play around with it as a submod if I ever get the time, because the idea is indeed interesting (skill archetypes).

Personally, I am a fan of the personality traits. However, would it be possible to create a submod to turn off the idle traits? Many of them don't really make sense. For example, being garrisoned in a city would not likely make you "Wary of Strangers" as cities were hubs of culture where foreigners would visit. I seem to get this trait all of the time. I looked at the conditions in the export_triggers.lua but I'm not exactly sure what the values do or how to edit it into a new mod. If you could point me into a direction on how to do that (via tutorials) in a way that would screw up DeI, I'd be happy to give it a try. I just don't have any experience with modding...

Thanks!