How traits from the battles should be acquired?

[Kilo11]

Fighting Battles

{INFO_STRATEGY_FIGHTBATTLES_BODY}/n/nGood generals and governors are the key to a thriving and expanding empire, and such men are not born, they are crafted. In battle after battle, with the odds stacked against them, they learn the value of mercy, of terror, of cleverness and courage. In order to assure that your lands are rich with such men, seek out battles, and ones in which they must use ingenuity to achieve victory. /n/nIn the SHHIP, it is essential that the player have very good generals; high chivalry is key to growing cities larger, high dread helps keep public order under control, and many other traits and ancillaries can be decisive for expansion or maintenance of an empire. The main way to improve your generals' skills and traits is for the player to fight battles manually. The autoresolve function will secure victories when the odds are in your favor, but generals do not learn much from such victories where success is virtually guaranteed. Indeed, the SSHIP mechanics are built such that victories over inferior forces will not produce good traits in generals; sometimes, positive traits will be gained when winning against even odds, but most traits and skills are gained by victories over superior enemies. Moreover, the worse your odds are, the more your general will gain by winning. As such, when meeting an inferior enemy, it can be in the player's interest to split your army, and only engage with a weaker force. This will make your autoresolve odds worse, but fighting and winning the battle manually will gain your general a valuable learning experience. After all, there is no school for war as informative as the battlefield itself!
{INFO_STRATEGY_FIGHTBATTLES_TITLE}Fight difficult battles!

While writing this Jurand, I had one thought: Is it really a good overall mechanic that the player cannot have generals learn good things when defeating inferior enemies? I mean, it seems to disincentivize having the advantage, which is an odd thing to build into the system, and one which seems historically counterintuitive. I get that we definitely don't want the gains from such easy victories to be high (makes farming bandits too cheesy of a possibility), but any combat is learning for a general, even if success is virtually guaranteed.

As an alternative suggestion to what you have now, would it be possible to maybe have the gains not be attached to the odds before battle, but rather the assessment after the battle? So, rather than having trait gains only trigger when the odds are balanced or worse (for the player), have the trait gains trigger when the victory is decisive or better. Then "close" or "costly" victories could be trigger trait worsening. Just a thought though, and something which I know involves a lot of changes to script, so something we'd look at for a later iteration.

[Jurand of Cracow]

While writing this Jurand, I had one thought: Is it really a good overall mechanic that the player cannot have generals learn good things when defeating inferior enemies? I mean, it seems to disincentivize having the advantage, which is an odd thing to build into the system, and one which seems historically counterintuitive. I get that we definitely don't want the gains from such easy victories to be high (makes farming bandits too cheesy of a possibility), but any combat is learning for a general, even if success is virtually guaranteed.

As an alternative suggestion to what you have now, would it be possible to maybe have the gains not be attached to the odds before battle, but rather the assessment after the battle? So, rather than having trait gains only trigger when the odds are balanced or worse (for the player), have the trait gains trigger when the victory is decisive or better. Then "close" or "costly" victories could be trigger trait worsening.

1. What I want to achieve is to make the player having fun from battles. This means he should have incentives to play difficult ones. This means it should be better for his game (not just for fun, but for the course of the campaign) to fight a difficult battle and win (even paying the price of losses) than to alway try to gain numerical advantage to crush enemies without losses The system in the new TW games is very bad in this respect - see my discussion here. It basically kills the whole fun from fighting battles, I may play a long campaign and autoresolve everything or play one small battle. Otherwise you feel that you're doing a bad job accepting an 1-1 battle.
2. There's no way to make traits dependent on the fact if the player autoresolved or played a battle by himself. So most of the triggers for positive traits fire with odds 1.2 or less. But there're a few from 2.0.
3. I think that close or costly victories signify a good performance of the player (he's brought just as many men as he needed), while a"decisive" victory is usually gained if one's bought too many people to be able to lose.
4. Actually, any combat is useful for the general. The "number of battles" trait comes into play in may triggers. But the number of triggers for battles with equal or against the odds is much, much higer.

[Kilo11]

Interesting thoughts, for sure. I can only speak from my own playing experience, but generally, I play every battle, because I want to minimize losses. But in trying to minimize losses, I also always bring the greatest force to bear that I reasonably can. This sometimes makes the battles easy, but for large parts of the campaign, the lack of funds or recruitment pools means I'm fighting against odds anyway. My only thought was that when I have the money and men to field strong armies, I don't want to have an incentive to not use them. I guess if every fight counts, it's not so bad though to have it as you set it. Just to clarify though, there is no penalty for fighting with the odds in your favor, right? Cause that to me would be a problem. I can imagine there being penalties for losing when the odds are in your favor, but for just fighting when you're sure to win, I think that should be fine for the player.

[Macaras]

Have in mind that sometimes the battles have to be fought with huge disproportion. For example the rebels or any other enemy getting close to the settlements- even if the player select just few units to fight them-the whole army attacks. Or sometimes there are bridges or narrow passes blocked by a small army, and one have to go through them with the whole forces.
Besides, one get tired of fighting the same 5,6 units rebel armies every few turns. After a while I just send the huge army made of only cavalry (to get there faster) and autoresolve. Playing Novgorod I did it a lot- there is a huge uninhabited land. To be forced to fight it every time would be not a pleasure but a tedious, repeatable task.
I think there should be no penalties for the general for fighting in bigger armies. Good traits and incentives for winning difficult battles - absolutely yes!

[Jurand of Cracow]

Have in mind that sometimes the battles have to be fought with huge disproportion. For example the rebels or any other enemy getting close to the settlements- even if the player select just few units to fight them-the whole army attacks. Or sometimes there are bridges or narrow passes blocked by a small army, and one have to go through them with the whole forces.
Besides, one get tired of fighting the same 5,6 units rebel armies every few turns. After a while I just send the huge army made of only cavalry (to get there faster) and autoresolve. Playing Novgorod I did it a lot- there is a huge uninhabited land. To be forced to fight it every time would be not a pleasure but a tedious, repeatable task.
I think there should be no penalties for the general for fighting in bigger armies. Good traits and incentives for winning difficult battles - absolutely yes!

The trait that is a "penalty" for fighting bigger armies is Coward. I've toned down much in one of the 097 versions that it should not be a problem:

;--------------------------------------------------------- Coward from Battles; the challenge of adjusting parameters in Conditions is:
; they should punish the behaviour of too-safe play by the player:
; - a general is just watching the battle, not participating
; - the player is autoresolving a risky battle (not to mention save-and-reload...)
; - the player is withdrawing having seen the risky odds
; but should not punish autoresolving unimportant battles


;------------------------------------------
Trigger BattleCoward_No_Killed_Enemies
 WhenToTest PostBattle


 Condition IsGeneral
       and BattleOdds < 2.0						; 3.0 was too much for autoresolving
       and GeneralNumKillsInBattle < 2


 Affects Coward 1 Chance 5						; to keep it low... otherwise every autoresolve gives it


;------------------------------------------
Trigger BattleCoward_No_Real_Fight
 WhenToTest PostBattle


 Condition IsGeneral
       and BattleOdds < 1.2
       and PercentageBodyguardKilled < 20


 Affects Coward 1 Chance 33 
 
;------------------------------------------
Trigger BattleCoward_Loss_Without_Fight
 WhenToTest PostBattle


 Condition IsGeneral
       and not WonBattle
       and BattleOdds < 2.0
       and PercentageBodyguardKilled < 50
	   and Trait CounterOfBattles < 6			; to avoid a paradox of a coward experienced general
	   
 Affects Coward 1 Chance 33 


;------------------------------------------
Trigger BattleCoward_Routed
 WhenToTest BattleGeneralRouted


 Condition IsGeneral
	   and Trait CounterOfBattles < 6			; to avoid a paradox of a coward experienced general; one may add more conditions here
	   
 Affects Coward 1 Chance 66
 Affects Coward 1 Chance 33


;------------------------------------------
Trigger BattleCoward_Routed_Teenager
 WhenToTest BattleGeneralRouted


 Condition IsGeneral
	   and Trait Wantschool > 0	 
	   
 Affects Coward 1 Chance 66
	   
;------------------------------------------
Trigger Coward_Withdraw_Before_Battle_Even_Odds
 WhenToTest PreBattleWithdrawal


 Condition IsGeneral
       and I_WithdrawsBeforeBattle
       and BattleOdds > 0.7
       and BattleOdds < 1.7


 Affects Coward 1 Chance 33

I think all other trigers are only positive: they don't fire if autoresolving tedious battles.

[Kilo11]

I think all other trigers are only positive: they don't fire if autoresolving tedious battles.

That is a good thing! I think there can be grounds for a few negative triggers (e.g. losing when the odds are in your favor), but for the things which are meant to incentivize playing the battles manually, they really should only be positive buffs. I.e. the player should not feel forced to do every battle, otherwise we go against the general philosophy that the game should present the player with meaningful choices. Given what you've shown here Jurand, I think the situation is good as it is. When we have more time, I think it would be cool to add a few more triggers and nuances to how the battles affect trait and stat gains, but I don't see a problem with the current build you posted above.

[Macaras]

I also think right now it works very well..

[opaxite]

Hi, Drillmaster and Harsh taskmaster seem a bit unbalanced.

1. Triggering seems too common
Basically once you don't realize your general has the Conscientious Trainer, just using all general's movement points a couple of times will increase the threshold. So I just move my general between settlements a couple of times and he gets it.
Second, it seems there's another trigger when just campaingning with a large army, even without spending all movement points. I did not deep diver into the mechanics, but just waiting with my general until Mongols take a city, so I can pin them down there, has triggered the trait.

2. Added Squalor doesn't seem reasonable
I get the reduced Troop morale, but the added squalor makes most of these generals undesirable as governors. Also, from the roleplaying perspective, I would expect lowered squalor from such a governor (but also increased unrest on the other hand)

Usually most of my generals will end up with this trait unless I'm extra cautious.
In general, it is annoying especially when trying to develop chivalrious generals/governors, as it both lowers troop morale and population growth.

[opaxite]

This is my experience with SSHIP traits from battles: It has really changed the way I play the game, but it is vastly dependent on the opponent. For context, I play Poland. Playing vanilla, I always used to take full stacks to minimize losses, wiping out enemy forces. SSHIP really had me reconsider this approach and have much more fun with battles again.

Fighting rebels
This is where I started testing deploying smaller forces, because the battles are very manageable. Most rebel armies spawn without cav or with just one unit, and with one or two archers. So all that's needed is a general and another cav unit to deal with those. The battle always goes like this:
1. Charge the general directly into the archers (usually earns a chevron doing so)
2. My cav goes after rebel's cav
3. General takes out archers, helps finish off cav
4. A bit of maneuvering to get rid of the infantry

This is very easy and almost always ends up in heroic victory. Compared to all other battles, it feels like exploiting the mechanic.

Fighting HRE
Most germans armies are composed in a similar manner, the majority consists of heavy infantry with a couple of cav units to support them. All I need to deal with those is a bunch of spear militia and cavalry superiority. Battle goes like this:
1. Send out my cav to take out theirs
2. Let their infantry march into my spears in the meantime, take out some easy targets with a good charge on the way
3. Once cav is dealt with, charge in the backs of their infatry
4. Trigger mass routs

This is also fairly easy, needs just a bit of recon to adjust the composition of my army. Heroic victories are very common.

Fighting mongols
This is a nightmare. I can absolutely not deploy lesser numbers, I need all help I can get. Just once I took a lesser force into an open field conflict where I suffered an average defeat, and it immediately resulted in "unproven commander" trait. Considering it's almost impossible to reverse a trait, I am not going to risk such an occurence anymore. Open field battles are unmanageable for me, there are full stacks comprised of heavy archer cavalry superior to anything I can get. The only way I can deal with mongols is:
1. Let their large force take an allied settlement
2. Lay siege, attack
3. Heavy inf grabs siege towers, spears take rams
4. Spears engage their cav, once wall defenders are dealt with, heavy infantry can flank
5. Observe the meat grinder

The tradeoff is usually around 2 of my dead soldiers for 1 mongol. The victories are something like close victory, despite me doing my best and dealing with large number of enemies (Recently I have also started using ribaults, but just today I learned it's considered against house rules)

Conclusion
In general, I am a fan of the system, but not a huge fan. My main objection is that it doesn't reflect real effort. I have a glorious victor who has fought against 5 tiny rebel bands, and a promising commander who has eradicated 10 full stacks of mongols. Defeats are part of a great general's life, but with the mechanic I can't risk even one. The mechanic is too punishing. The system also completely ignores the scale of the conflict, which should be considered.

Partially, it has changed the way I approach battles. I would say it works best for mid-scale battles against european factions. At the same time, the battles I'm most proud of are in no way reflected in the game world. In any case, thank you for all the work on this fantastic mod. I absolutely love it.