Princess Trait Inheritance v0.5
The idea for this mod occured to me while examining M2TW's character traits file, and I saw that princesses can inherit a few traits from their father, but not from their mother. I thought, "What the heck? A handsome father can have a pretty daughter, but a beautiful mother cannot?" So I decided to make a system that will allow traits to be passed on to princesses from the mother character, as well as the father. I then asked myself, "Why stop there?" and continued to greatly extend the inheritance of traits from the father's side as well. The mod also has a secondary purpose of making princesses less useless, however, bad traits can be passed down through the generations as well.
Is anyone actually interested in this kind of thing? I have no idea. However, I made the changes for my own use, and I thought I may as well post them in case anyone else is interested as well.
What this mod does (in brief):
All princess-specific traits have a high chance of being passed on to their children, with the exception of DykeWoman (inheriting lesbianism from Mom? I don't even want to go there), NaturalPrincess and Desperate Woman. Male offspring can also act as 'carriers' for these traits, however, they will not be visible and will not directly affect male family members. The traits can be passed down through an (in theory) infinite number of generations of both princesses and generals, if the game's random number generator is kind to you.
In addition to allowing Mother traits to be passed to their children, I also significantly increased the number of Father traits that can potentially affect their princess daughters. For example, a very brave father may have a brave daughter; a mathematically inclined father may have an educated daughter; a chivalrous ruler may have a daughter who is just and fair. The emphasis here was on positive charm traits; negative charm traits are less likely to be passed on, but they weren't overlooked completely.
What this mod does, and how it works (in more detail):
Any time a General marries a princess, he will receive hidden traits to correspond with the traits of the princess he married. I called these Gene traits; PrettyWomanGene matches with PrettyWoman, etc. For each level of the Gene trait present, there is a 75% chance that the character's children will receive one point in the same trait; the highest level of each trait gives a 100% chance instead of a 75% chance. For example, if the mother possesses PrettyWoman 3 (Vision of Beauty), the father will in turn receive PrettyWomanGene 3. When this couple's children come of age, they will be guaranteed 1 point to the PrettyWoman trait, a 75% chance of a 2nd point, and another 75% chance of a 3rd point. Sons will receive points to the PrettyWomanGene trait (to pass to future generations); princesses will receive points to the PrettyWoman trait.
The passage of other General traits from father to related Princess traits is done as per normal trait inheritance from vanilla M2TW. I picked out the traits to use, and the percentage chance of passing them on, entirely subjectively. You may or may not agree with my choices. At present, the father must have at least the second level of his trait to match the trigger conditions, and the chances range from 7% to as high as 40%.
This mod does not make any changes, in any way shape or form, to the pre-existing traits and triggers from vanilla M2TW. If CA thinks that a General who is Intelligent or a Genius should have a chance to produce airhead daughters, far be it for me to defy them.
Installation Notes and Mod Compatibility:
I do not have any intention of making a mod-switcher version of this mod. The aspect of the game that I've modified is too small to justify it, and besides, there are only two files involved.
Princess Trait Inheritance should be 100% compatible with any mods that do not make changes to the trait files. Just extract the zip file into the mod's Data folder, and it should be good to go. If you're using the unpacker and the --io.file_first switch on your M2TW executable, you can instead extract straight into your main Data folder.
If you are using a mod that does have modified export_descr_character_traits.txt or export_VnVs.txt files, don't worry: you should still be able to merge them very easily. All of the new material added in my files appears in blocks clearly indicated by comments in the files. Just copy everything that appears between the "VAULTDWELLER <whatever> STARTS HERE" and "VAULTDWELLER <whatever> ENDS HERE", and paste that into your mod's EDCT and EVNV files.
Note that the Export_VnV file is not actually required for the mod to work. The only new traits I added are hidden ones, so it doesn't matter if their descriptions are broken. However, if the file is not present, you may see a few hundred lines of errors in your game's log file.
Other Notes and Comments:
Why only version 0.5? I have tested basic functionality for all traits and triggers I added, and the game reports no parsing errors in the trace log. However, as there are 199 new triggers added, and individually testing each of them is about as fun as a kick in the dick, I may have over-looked some errors. Also, I have not done any extended play-testing. I will probably need to tweak some numbers around on the triggers. I may need to adjust some of them higher to increase the chances of the effects appearing in game, or the opposite may be true, and I might need to lower the chances to avoid a repeat of the Brutally Scarred trait fiasco in RTW.
So, please, if you do try the mod, keep me updated on your thoughts. If you find some traits start appearing far too often, do tell, do tell! If you find the mod isn't doing a damned thing, I want to hear that as well.
Anybody may feel free to add my work to their own mods, modify it, and redistribute it in any way they see fit, so long as:
- You inform me
- If you make any changes or enhancements beyond basic tweakage, you let me know what you're up to, and also give me permission to integrate them back into my mod
In the future, there are a couple things I might expand on if there is sufficient interest. First, with regards to gaining princess traits based on father traits, my current implementation is relatively limited. The mod checks if the father has (at least) the second level of the trait, and if yes, gives a chance of assigning a related trait to the princess. I might expand this later, and make it a gradual effect, with higher levels of the father trait granting a higher chance of affecting the daughter. Second, I'm quite pleased with the idea of traits passing through multiple generations before they manifest in grandchildren and great grandchildren. I may add some hidden 'carrier' traits for male characters that can be passed on for a few generations before they become visible. For example, I'd like to see a general with the Intelligent trait produce a son with a hidden IntelligentGene (a recessive gene, I guess?), and have his grandson acquire the Intelligent trait based on that.
Known Shortcomings:
All male characters can carry traits through generations, as can all princesses. However, female characters that don't become princesses never have an in-game avatar, and thus can never have traits assigned to them. This means there is no way that I know of to use them to pass traits on to their children.
The actual impact that this mod will have on a campaign is still questionable. There's a fairly high chance that a princess with good traits can pass them on to her successors, but that doesn't make a difference if no princesses ever get good traits to start withThe new triggers to receive traits depending on the father will hopefully lead to new princesses having a broader variety of traits, but again, I haven't done enough testing with the probability numbers to really know the extent of an impact they will have.
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Originally Posted by Darkmoor
