Potential problems (No pun intended)

[Otterbear]

Hello again, Seether, and Gigantus.

Thank you again for this beautiful and epic mod.

I do have a question about "Potential".

I'm wondering if the potential trait(?), can be tweaked, or a building or facility adjusted to help increase or add potential?

I ask this because I'm currently on turn 350 in my current campaign..(And NO crashes, even with 5-6 large army battles! Thank You!), however, I have several very important generals, (Like my faction leader), and others that could have decent leadership/fighting stats, and they are only in their 20's but, have run out of potential while waiting for decent troop availability and/or cities to upgrade, so that medium to high-tier units can be recruited.

I'm unsure as to whether or not, I'm supposed to be fighting mostly with a lot of militia units from day one to adhere to the history/mod purpose, or what?

I tend to try and build strong armies and, I don't like to "turtle" this particular mod, but it seems the right thing, due to slow recruitment rates ect...so, inevitably I end up with generals that have used up their potential before actually getting a chance to improve in battle(although I'm assuming they must have gained some trait(s) to have used up their potential.)
So, I end up getting/creating great generals that are nobodies(historically speaking), and my Major generals(historically speaking) are stuck at lackluster at best.

This may be a result of the faction I'm currently playing(Wudumi[sic]), as they have great defensive positioning, so going on the offensive can be postponed indefinitely...(which I tend to do, until I can crush everybody. ) If so, I guess I may have created my own problem.

Also, I'm unsure as to what constitutes a "victory" as I've won many battles without any acknowledgment of said victory in my generals stats/traits. However, it does appear that the mod keeps track of some of them, as eventually I will get the 5,10, battles won trait(?). Again, I'm unsure if I need to be rushing in this mod for the potential to be of significant use(fighting wise). *I do realize that play-style is entirely up to the individual, but I would like to have some of my historic generals "level-up" without having to go to war with every faction on day one.

*As an aside; the "feathered" units recruitment/replenishment rates are so low as to cause me to never use them, due to unit recovery time being so prohibitive atm. *Maybe this is my fault or, something I'm not doing right?

[Seether]

Well, potential is sort of an abstract concept. Think of it as how much more a person can improve themselves before they are as good as they are going to get. For some that is more than others. Some people can reach their potential at a young age (and have great trait levels at game start, not being able to improve a lot), while others aren't very good at anything (low trait levels) and have to put a lot of work and experience in improve themselves. Even then, the amount that they can improve themselves depends on the individual. Not everyone is created equal or has the same talents or potential. Take professional fighters, for example. Some guys get to a high level and have great skills, but use up their potential (or have low amount of potential to start) and don't get much better than they are. Another guy is mediocre, but has a lot of potential and, through hard work and experience, becomes better (or equal to) the guy that was really good to start with. On the other hand the mediocre guy could stay mediocre because he doesn't try to improve himself and doesn't use his potential, or because his "skill ceiling" (low potential) is just low and, not matter how hard he works, he just can't acquire the skills to be good or great. Some people excel and some just don't have "it".

You can fight with light units and militia-types right from the get-go, or wait until you get heavy or armored troops, doesn't matter your play style. But, be aware that "battle traits" aren't the only thing that improves on characters, and if they are just hanging out in settlements they will at times improve their traits (not just gain new traits), using up their potential. The major generals of the Wudoumi Sect weren't all that major; they were capable, but just barely. Greatness, as far as military commanders, will have to come from new blood or recruiting from the Unaligned faction. As far as what constitutes a victory, it is not losing a battle. That trait only updates, I believe, every 5 victories, so you're not given a message every time you win a battle. And the things is, the mod isn't meant to be able to make every general that fights to become a super general. Some can achieve that, sure, but some will never be anything more than adequate no matter how many times they fight, due to their lack of personal talent.

The Feathered Forest were an Imperial bodyguard that did not have large numbers and were primarily used defensively to guard the Emperor and high ranking officials. They aren't designed to make up the bulk, or even a good portion, of a field army.

[Otterbear]

Thanks again, Seether, for taking the time to explain this too me.I must admit, I'm not a fan of the potential mechanic if, as it seems, it puts limits on the players ability to "re-write", or create a new history for whatever faction/general you are playing. For example; a mediocre general/faction could, given the opportunity, become a major player in the Three Kingdom saga, however it seems, for the sake of historic accuracy(?), this opportunity, if possible at all, seems restricted by this "potential" mechanic.(at least with factions that were not a major part of the Three-Kingdoms campaigns historically.)If I'm understanding the concept right, it would seem, that there is a limit, either good starting stats and low potential, or low starting stats and more potential. In either case "potential" seems to be an artificial limit to how "good" they can become. *I realize that even vanilla M2TW has a hard-coded limit.It begs the question..."Why use this "potential" game mechanic at all?" *I'm not trying to sound critical, as I'm sure there is a good reason. I'm just having trouble figuring out what that would be. It would seem to push the player, who wishes to maximize his campaign experience(Play-wise), to only play as one of the three main factions, and avoid playing as the lesser factions, as they(or at least their characters(Generals, leaders, ect...)) can never(?) achieve the "greatness" of the three main faction characters, regardless of how well they play. Certainly, they can take over the entire map, or the Emperors holdings ect...but feel a bit "cheated" in that their characters can't actually achieve any real notoriety as "uber" characters, due to these seemingly artificial "potential" restrictions. Again, not trying to sound "winy", just curious if I've missed something, or if this is indeed the way you want things to play-out?It is still an epic mod, and IMHO, the best M2TW mod to date, and very enjoyable to play.I could, or course, make any changes myself if need-be, so no need to rewrite the whole mod, just to suit my pettiness. But, my curiosity is killing me on this.EDIT:Having thought about it a bit more; I'm thinking this Potential Mechanic was a necessary evil to give the original "Uber"(Notoriety/ability) characters good starting stats, without giving ALL starting characters the same stats, possibly?"skill ceiling"

[Otterbear]

"skill ceiling"

<---- this I guess is the crux of my question. What was the nessitiy of said "ceiling"? I'm sure this require a bit of coding to create, so there must be a very good reason is was added. Just curious.

*I'm having difficulty posting sorry for the multi-post. Most of my responses dont' "take".

[gasas]

Mod is based on historic records not the novel, so basically characters should have some curve to improve but you can't expect that they will turn into chinese version of Alexander the Great. In my Sun campaign I was capable to recruit 3 full stacks of heavy troops on turn 100, imo you turtle too much. With factions like Wudomi your best bet is to raise new blood or adopt.

[Seether]

Thanks again, Seether, for taking the time to explain this too me.I must admit, I'm not a fan of the potential mechanic if, as it seems, it puts limits on the players ability to "re-write", or create a new history for whatever faction/general you are playing. For example; a mediocre general/faction could, given the opportunity, become a major player in the Three Kingdom saga, however it seems, for the sake of historic accuracy(?), this opportunity, if possible at all, seems restricted by this "potential" mechanic.(at least with factions that were not a major part of the Three-Kingdoms campaigns historically.)If I'm understanding the concept right, it would seem, that there is a limit, either good starting stats and low potential, or low starting stats and more potential. In either case "potential" seems to be an artificial limit to how "good" they can become. *I realize that even vanilla M2TW has a hard-coded limit.It begs the question..."Why use this "potential" game mechanic at all?" *I'm not trying to sound critical, as I'm sure there is a good reason. I'm just having trouble figuring out what that would be. It would seem to push the player, who wishes to maximize his campaign experience(Play-wise), to only play as one of the three main factions, and avoid playing as the lesser factions, as they(or at least their characters(Generals, leaders, ect...)) can never(?) achieve the "greatness" of the three main faction characters, regardless of how well they play. Certainly, they can take over the entire map, or the Emperors holdings ect...but feel a bit "cheated" in that their characters can't actually achieve any real notoriety as "uber" characters, due to these seemingly artificial "potential" restrictions. Again, not trying to sound "winy", just curious if I've missed something, or if this is indeed the way you want things to play-out?It is still an epic mod, and IMHO, the best M2TW mod to date, and very enjoyable to play.I could, or course, make any changes myself if need-be, so no need to rewrite the whole mod, just to suit my pettiness. But, my curiosity is killing me on this.EDIT:Having thought about it a bit more; I'm thinking this Potential Mechanic was a necessary evil to give the original "Uber"(Notoriety/ability) characters good starting stats, without giving ALL starting characters the same stats, possibly?"skill ceiling"<---- this I guess is the crux of my question. What was the nessitiy of said "ceiling"? I'm sure this require a bit of coding to create, so there must be a very good reason is was added. Just curious.

Mostly what gasas said above. In addition to that, you may be overplaying the necessity of extremely high skilled generals. Great generals, of course, make things easier in battle (or tougher if you fight against them), but consider that the "average" Leadership score is 4. Also, it isn't a trade-off of either high starting traits and low starting potential or low starting traits and high potential; it is different for everyone and entirely depends on the individual character.

I also wouldn't necessarily agree that we push the players to only take the three main factions to have their character's achieve greatness. Generals that are better than the majority of generals in the three main factions are plentiful. Ba-Shu, for example, has Zhang Ren and Yan Yan. Yuan Clan has Qu Yi (who is one of the best generals in the game), Zhang He, Wen Chou and Yan Liang. Yanzhou has Zhang Liao (probably the best general), Gao Shun and Zang Ba. Jingnan has Huang Zhong and Wei Yan. Jingzhou has Cai Mao and Wen Ping. Xiliang has Ma Chao and Pang De. Liang has Huangfu Song. Nanyang has Zhang Xiu and Jia Xu. Chen has Luo Jun. Plus there are others, like Guo Huai and Wang Shuang, who are a part of the Unaligned factions.

[Otterbear]

Mod is based on historic records not the novel, so basically characters should have some curve to improve but you can't expect that they will turn into Chinese version of Alexander the Great. In my Sun campaign I was capable to recruit 3 full stacks of heavy troops on turn 100, imo you turtle too much. With factions like Wudomi your best bet is to raise new blood or adopt.

Thank you, Gasas(reps added). I thought that I might have been going way to slow. You have helped to confirm that, and remind me that some factions require a very different approach.

Mostly what Gasas said above. In addition to that, you may be overplaying the necessity of extremely high skilled generals. Great generals, of course, make things easier in battle (or tougher if you fight against them), but consider that the "average" Leadership score is 4. Also, it isn't a trade-off of either high starting traits and low starting potential or low starting traits and high potential; it is different for everyone and entirely depends on the individual character.

My thanks to you Seether, as well. (tried to add rep).

This is good to know, and speaks to the hard work put into this mod, as I'm sure that was quite the undertaking, and is probably still a work in progress.

I think my problem was that I had not played as some of the main factions. I see now, (playing as Sun Ce), that there are MANY great generals scattered throughout this mod. I was even able to bribe some away from the other factions. Something that I was unable to do playing as some of the lesser factions.

As an aside, a good player can win just about any battle against the AI in M2TW. My main ambition wasn't to make the battles any easier, but rather, to gain reputation as a great general, perhaps to role-play a bit, but the time it takes ME to put together an army worthy of such a general, and to be able to get him to these great heights,(If this is even possible given that particular generals potential limits.) is what I guess is causing me the Potential losses atm. *see below - I gather that I'm probably not going to be able to do this, unless I stumble across a really low level general with tons of potential(?).

I am still loosing potential. The reason for this(I think), is that; although I could merge all my starting generals together and go on the offensive, only one of them would get credit for "winning", and I run the risk of loosing the others to "stray arrows". Also, I don't want an army comprised of mostly conscripted peasants and generals. It may be my neurosis,... but, I start trying to pull together professional armies, however, in the meantime my "Tech" has risen to the point that I can now recruit better units, and so I start training better troops, and feel it would be crazy to send my best generals into battle with less than optimal troops

...so, I have at least 20+ generals all sitting around(in forts, hoping to avoid too much potential loss), waiting for me to finish building and re-training troops. LOL!...and now they are starting to lose potential to attributes other than great fighting ancillaries.

I quite literally had more generals than troops at one point. I'm not sure how to semi-role-play this mod, as like I say, atm I have more generals than I know what to do with. (Perhaps they could be used as Arrow-bait? (lol). It just stinks as most are rather competent, able fighters, great administrative personnel, and truly great men in history, and I'd hate to loose them. However, I cannot field enough competent troops to use all of them in battle, and I do not own enough territory atm, to use the great administrative generals either. Chances are they won't be so great by the time I have a place to put them. Sun Ce, or Sun Jian(?), is using troops that are in desperate need of re-training but that is 8-10 turns, plus travel time, and by that point I'm 2 turns away from a better armory, and so its a cycle that I can never bring myself to break.(IE:I cannot stomach sending generals into battle with troops that are less then they could be.)

This is of course, my fault. *I have watched many lets-plays, where the player conquers half or ALL the map(in other mods), using the starting (mostly militia) army they had at game-start with a few more militia thrown in every once in a while, and they rarely bother with recruiting upgrade buildings(armories, barracks, ect...). Needless to say, this isn't my preferred play-style, but maybe it should be to avoid the cycle of upgrading armies, only to have higher tier units become available in the middle of the process.

Its obvious where the fault lies, and its definitely NOT with the mod. I'm liking this mod, more and more everyday. It does help to know how some of these new mechanics work.

[gasas]

Okay now I see what the problem is. You just trying to role-play too hard. Till turn 150 you can and you should use only light troops (zero county milita or peasants) and utilize your cities for the best income/recruit potential. My first rule is to retrain units only below 100 man, simple as that. That's authentic btw, armies never had ideal numbers. If you play as Sun Clan you should know that they had big potential on river battles and above average infantry so you can focus on that to add more flavour in your rpg campaign. On another note, just ignore potential, there is not big difference if you got 4 or 6 leadership, believe me that you can pick average general and win vs let's say Zhang Liao. For example my stack build: 2/3 generals, 4x archers, 10x infantry, cavalry rest and with that composition you can win every 1v1 battle if you act smart.

[Otterbear]

Okay now I see what the problem is. You just trying to role-play too hard. Till turn 150 you can and you should use only light troops (zero county milita or peasants) and utilize your cities for the best income/recruit potential. My first rule is to retrain units only below 100 man, simple as that. That's authentic btw, armies never had ideal numbers. If you play as Sun Clan you should know that they had big potential on river battles and above average infantry so you can focus on that to add more flavour in your rpg campaign. On another note, just ignore potential, there is not big difference if you got 4 or 6 leadership, believe me that you can pick average general and win vs let's say Zhang Liao. For example my stack build: 2/3 generals, 4x archers, 10x infantry, cavalry rest and with that composition you can win every 1v1 battle if you act smart.

Thanks so much Gasas for these great insights and tips.

I am going to start over, and try to incorporate these tips and techniques into my new campaign.
If its OK with you, I'd like to add you to my list of "friends" and might PM you with other game-play issues? (Not necessarily ROTK issues.)

As you can see, I've been playing this game for over eight years, off and on, and I still have lots to learn.
The "supply" mechanic has me a bit confused atm. I have two full armies in forts outside a city,(the city being already fully garrisoned with troops in training/re-supply), because they were at starvation level, but one of them is now fully supplied, while the army right next to him, in another fort, is staying at starvation levels.

I'm hopeful that some of these unique game mechanics will be explained in some detail in the next release, or in a readme, or forum thread at some point. *They may already be. There is the very real possibility that I've overlooked them somewhere.

My sincere thanks to all involved; (You, Seether, Gigantus, ect...) I feel very privileged that you all have taken the time to answer my many questions.

[gasas]

I'm okay with that, you can add me and I will try my best to help you with my knowledge. That's beauty of MTW we still can learn even after so many years. About supply mechanic, your general must stay in city for one turn to resupply, just generals not the entire army. Also pay atention to news coming with new turn, you got list with every trait that change, supply too.

[Bloodly]

Doesn't have to be a city; just friendly territory. What I can't figure is how the drain in unfriendly lands works.

[Otterbear]

Doesn't have to be a city; just friendly territory. What I can't figure is how the drain in unfriendly lands works.

Thanks again Gasas, and Thank You Bloody.

Thats what I thought...but some mechanism atm is/was keeping my other army from getting supplied.

Its not a huge deal. I can live with it. (At least you don't start loosing men right away. I'm not even sure that would happen.)

It would be nice to understand why it is happening...is it intended or is it actually a game mech. or glitch?

I can see where having to many units in a particular region would cause supply issues, however, looking at Cao Cao, and Lieu(?), this mechanic(if indeed it is one) doesn't seem to be having the desired effect.

How the drain system works is a dark art to me too, atm. All I know is, if I'm going on the offensive in enemy territory, I'd better get in, make my "Z" and get out quick. <--A little Zoro humor there.

I have another ROTK game mech(?) question, If anybody feels they can help...but I don't want to start another thread.

I am still having generals with 6-8 command stars, loose all of them, the minute they go into battle. I've checked and re-checked, and their stats, traits, ect..., all indicate that he and his men are in perfect fighting shape.
While I've been reminded that the command stars are not the "End-all" of combat, particularly in this mod, it still feels strange having a general "who would wet himself at the thought of being in charge.", when two seconds ago, he was the "Grand Puba of warfare". Like I say, I've checked and re-checked and nothing(Weather, illness, supply, organization, stats) indicates why this is happening.

Is it part of the "Potential" system? He has plenty left.
Is some kind of script keeping him from leveling up in command, or re-setting his Command stats?

I does kinda take the wind out of your sails when that happens.

[Otterbear]

Hey again, guys,


I'm wondering if I can somehow give all generals max potential, whatever that amount would be, or remove it altogether, so that I can "level up" generals according to their usefulness.


Its just a personal thing, but I'm finding that they are running out of potential (usually) long before a lot of them can be used according to their inherent strengths in any meaningful way.
It may be my play-style causing me this issue, however; I'm unsure of what I'm doing wrong, if anything.


In any case I've tried to look at the scripting and various files, but it appears that each individual general gets an individual (random?) amount of potential upon creation, and I went cross-eyed trying to figure out how to adjust this, due to the enormous amount of coded traits.


Again, its just a personal play-style thing, and I'm not suggesting that any changes be made to your mod on your end.


I realize this would make all the generals rather generic, but I'm hoping that this would allow me to "level up" generals at my discretion, and hopefully based on their use...and somehow, not used up while sitting around in forts, waiting for the opportunity to play to their strengths.


It's obvious, to me, that this was an enormous undertaking; mixing history and flexibility in this mod, and incorporating the "Potential mechanic" to add a really neat bit of historic realism. You and the others involved, have done a tremendous job in this regard, and I cannot commend you guys enough on how awesome this mod is. I really love the historic bio's on each of the generals. It adds so much to this mod, especially if you want to role-play things a bit.


However; I do think it would be nice to have the option of turning on/off the potential mechanic, so that you aren't limited by the history of each general and can set-about re-writing the history for that particular general in a particular campaign.


Maybe, its just a matter of being able to increase the time(turns) that it takes before potential goes down, Ah..., but then you have the problem of not gaining other useful traits for individual generals who are not "campaigning" or are sitting around governing cities.


Maybe some way of "normalizing" all generals so that they are average in every area, and can go up or down in ability from there, based upon what they are doing.(IE:Governing, campaigning/fighting) But, again some/alot of them will gain un-needed/un-wanted traits sitting around waiting to be used.


I personally dislike like negative traits or reductions in ability as most mod campaigns are very long, and it can be hundreds of turns before the Ideal "man for the job" comes along, and in the meantime, you have to make-do with your available personnel in ways that do not play to their historic or appropriate strengths, according to their stats. It seems(at least in my case), that by the time that you do find an appropriate "man-for-the-job",(A "coming of age", or bribery...ect...), your great warrior/governor has lost all ability to improve. I may have this confused, but thats the way it seems at the moment.


This is good for historic accuracy(I think), but, if the player is wanting the flexibly of re-writing, or creating their own history, (as is bound to happen the minute you hit the "End-Turn" button), it feels as if you are racing the clock to use these individuals to their best "potential"/strengths, and it may take(and usually does, in my games), "many moons" before you can get them into a situation to do that. By which point they have used up all the potential they had available on traits not supportive of their particular strengths.


I may be looking at this all wrong, but thats what seems to be happening to me.

I realize that any general can be used for any purpose without available potential, it just saddens me when I get say, a sneak attack upon one of my settlements, and win a great victory against enormous odds, to then realize that that particular general had maxed out his potential and therefore can get nothing for his heroics.(At least thats the way it seems to me. Again, I may be looking at this all wrong.)


If not, hopefully, there is something that can be adjusted, either by me, my play-style, or the mod to help alleviate this issue.(?)

...And the things is, the mod isn't meant to be able to make every general that fights to become a super general. Some can achieve that, sure, but some will never be anything more than adequate no matter how many times they fight, due to their lack of personal talent.

I guess, this is what I'm trying to negate. It would be nice if circumstance dictates, to have the ability for that particular general, to distinguish himself in governance or battle, and become somewhat "supper" due to his heroics or improvements built ect..in governance, and not be forced into ambiguity by the potential mechanic. Its just something I would like to do. I'm not saying you need to make any changes to this great mod.

It may just be removing the historic limitations, to allow the player this opportunity. If that can be done, either by an option at game start or by making some code changes, by me(or those that know how and have the time/patience to do so), that would be nice.

[gasas]

Oh boy that was huge. But I will keep it simple for you. First of all winning battles or be heroic doesn't mean that your general will be better, he can gain merit,titles,rank etc. If you do the same battle, with the same tactic x100 it will not improve you by any means, you will just get experience. I know that you want to write your own story but you must remember that you are playing MTW2 not nextgen strategy title. There are many limitations and authors choose to go with historic version of this time period, deal with it.

[Otterbear]

Otterbear:...Again, its just a personal play-style thing, and I'm not suggesting that any changes be made to your mod on your end.

I'm not trying to make the generals "better", as that is handled by the player and proper placement of Governors and/or how the particular player handles combat and city/town management, for the most part.
I just like the way they have the ability to improve their stats(even if its only cosmetic), and even if they have no real effect on game-play skill-wise, as I think its neat that they can improve(in that way), and, for the sake of a bit of role-play, gain some "notoriety" like "authority" for example, for actions, such as successfully ending a siege against terrible odds, even though he has no particular fighting skill, or creating some city improvement.(other than building improvements, I have no idea how to improve a governors abilities.). As it stands,(and its fine!), there are historic limits to how far a general can increase his stats, as pertains to skills regardless of if/and how well they perform. IE: The potential mechanic.

Without said limits, one could not only, re-write the history of China, or a faction, but also of individual generals as well ...which is essentially what this mod gives us. It gives the player the opportunity to do things differently. I may be going out on a limb here but, I don't think people play this game to its historic conclusions, or most of them would be trying to loose every other battle. I may be wrong.(Its happen a couple of times that I can remember.)

To reiterate: I do NOT want the mod re-designed to suit my particular interest or play-style.
I'm just wondering if its possible to create that scenario myself, and maybe get pointed to where the best place would be to start if I wanted to make said adjustments.

Things like:

Is it going to be more trouble than its worth to attempt?
or,
Is it a simple matter of deleting a few lines of scripting?

I could re-write the whole mod myself, but it seemed the more intelligent thing to do, was ask the Developers what they think.

[gasas]

I must say sorry, my previous post sounds pretty harsh. I understand what you want to achieve and I must say in 90% I agree with Seether. But be aware that changing things can lead to broken balance, certain factions/generals will be overpowered. The easiest way for you is to make some kind of submod, to create setting that you enjoy most. Since I have limited modding knowledge, can't help any further.

[Otterbear]

Apology accepted. Not that you really needed too. That was very kind of you to say. (I tried to give you reps, but need to spread it around some more I guess.)
Communications, via text/posting ect...are easily misunderstood. You are not alone. I have had the misfortune of misunderstanding people myself, many times. A good example would be my miss-perception of your previous post.
I feel I owe you a public apology, for taking it the wrong way.

But be aware that changing things can lead to broken balance, certain factions/generals will be overpowered. The easiest way for you is to make some kind of submod, to create setting that you enjoy most. Since I have limited modding knowledge, can't help any further.

Thanks for the help, and reinforcing what I was beginning to think myself.

I'm beginning to think that a general "leveling-out" of starting stats for all generals could be a starting point. This would reduce the stats of some of the more historically powerful generals at game start, but would allow them to improve as they go, or not, depending on their actions. As you have noted; There are a few drawbacks to what I'd like to do; such as famous generals in history being less powerful, in the beginning, than history would suggest, but as I'm attempting to give myself the freedom to re-write the history of the three kingdoms, and include the possibly that other generals make a name for themselves, I'm OK with that aspect.

The only thing holding me back from re-designing that aspect of the game, was some sort of clarification on whether or not it would be a simple removal of a few lines of scripting or if I was about to take on a monumental task that would probably not be worth it in the long run.

I do know how to mod most aspects of the game, however I'm not keen on animations or unit appearance as that is a bit too involved for my tiny brain atm. lol
So, if it is a simple modification of some scripting, I can do that.
If the scripting of this particular mod is as complex as it seems, I may not be able, or have the time/patience to carry out such a task.

I've taken a look at the scripts and they do appear to be very thorough, so again, I may be biting off more than I can chew. Its hard to say.
Hopefully Seether, or most likely Gigantus will know if its worth my time to even try.

[gasas]

That trait system is really rare in MTW2 mods, I believe RotK have the most complicated/advanced since I've played many of them. For the time being you can set the same stats for all generals and try to adjust from there. About scripting well that's hard to say, if you look at recruitment script it looks like hell for people without modding experience, wrong typo can mess up everything.

[Otterbear]

That trait system is really rare in MTW2 mods, I believe RotK have the most complicated/advanced since I've played many of them. For the time being you can set the same stats for all generals and try to adjust from there. About scripting well that's hard to say, if you look at recruitment script it looks like hell for people without modding experience, wrong typo can mess up everything.

Yea. You are so right. I've not played a whole lot of mods, but I am fairly familiar with TATW 3.0, and DAC(a sub-mod of TATW3.0)
I did take a look at the Traits file and its associated scripting, as I thought that it might be as simple as adding more potential to the Max amount. Turns out, its not quite that simple.
Gigantus and Seether have put together is a very complex traits script(from all appearances). *Leave it to me to want to re-do all their hard work.

There looks to be a unique trait or set of traits for almost every general in the game. ...And they are not labeled according to the general's names, but by a set of codes..."EffectsDescription JnA9004", for example.
So its very difficult to know what a particular trait does, it may increase or decrease one of the "Codes" and unless I know what JnA9004 does, I dare not mess with it for fear of making a complete mess of things.

I'm not complaining. Its obvious that a tremendous amount of work went into creating that trait system.

So, the one area I wanted to "dabble" in, may in fact be the most complex part of the entire mod.(The campaign script appears to be very lengthy and complex as well.)

It may be that in order to get my desired result, your suggestion that I may have to basically create a sub-mod, will turn out to be true.
On the up-side, should I take up the challenge, and get it working as desired, I will share it with the community...after getting the required permissions of course.

[Seether]

It won't be campaign_script; it will be export_descr_character_traits that you will be modifying. And yes, you (and everyone else) have permission to make any sort of submod that you want.