Princesses and Charm (Tip) [Archive]

Slaists

12-09-2006, 01:55

Initially, I thought this was just a random thing, but now I have observed it rather consistently with my princesses (on VH campaign setting): they gain charm very rapidly handing out gifts... Walk from castle to castle (preferrably your best allies castles) and hand out 100 florins (50 seem to work too) every turn as a gift. My princesses go from 0 charm to 5-6 in no time...

Molinaargh

12-09-2006, 02:53

That's been known for some time, the problem is that the AI doesn't do this and you often marry your heir to ugly princesses.

Lochar

12-09-2006, 02:55

It got to the point where I just have them get married.

I never seemed to see my diplomats gain skill for gifting so wasnt sure.

Will have toi try this again.

Oaty

12-09-2006, 08:10

I've been trying the opposite by gifting the princess of another faction as my king and heir are married but getting close to 60, hoping to have a 5 charm princess when a new heir/king comes about. But so far no raise in charm.

Carl

12-09-2006, 13:37

Maybe once the charm reaches aceartin level you need to use bigger gifts?

FactionHeir

12-09-2006, 13:48

I think the OP's suggestion is flawed.
From my own tests, you only ever get diplomatic skills if you have a successful negotiation without a single fail (if you fail once, even if its a just rejected, you have a chance of losing ALL diplomatic/charm points at once)

Therefore, if you exchange map info every turn or trade 100 florins for 100 florins (or maybe give a few more), you will get diplomatic skill/charm, but not if you just gift them stuff.

rookie7

12-09-2006, 17:50

I'm a n00b here...but...why is charm important to princesses and why is it important to marry your prince to a charmed princess?

dopp

12-09-2006, 17:59

If your princess sux then he gets the "Wife is a Wretch" trait that can trigger off a lot of other bad traits and ancilliaries (Adultress, drinking, girls, boys, gambling).

Darius

12-09-2006, 19:01

I'll have to look into this, I'm hoping to get a nice high charm Princess so I can steal away some uber foreign family member to use against his former masters.

Slaists

12-19-2006, 21:12

I have to correct myself: this way of raising charm seems to work only on the very first princess a faction gets at the beginning of the game. From that point on: it seems, new princesses can do whatever they want - the only stat change they get is reduction of charm... Seems bugged one way or another.

Kobal2fr

12-19-2006, 21:23

The OP is right : GoodPrincess (the trait that goes up with successful diplomacy endeavours) has 1/2/3/4 thresholds in vanilla. Meaning if you get 4 successes in a row, you will get 4 Charm, as opposed to the 8 successes in a row for diplos to get 4 Influence.

I think CA made this because normal, born during the game princesses all start out with 0 Charm because of an oversight in their code. And of course, barring father traits, 4-through-diplo will be their max charm, ever (factor in lovers, yappy dogs and chastity belts, and you'll understand why all vanilla princesses are hags).

In my fix, princesses will start with 1-6 Charm (6 is when they are *really* lucky at birth, and it can backfire fast since it also means they're...closet lesbians :laugh4:), more/less depending on father's traits and ancillaries. Charm will decay overtime (up to a max -3 Charm). GoodPrincess has normal thresholds.

Merciless_Doge

12-19-2006, 22:50

Are princesses worth it? Isn't it better to have them marry within your faction so you can have more off-spring (i.e. generals)? Am I missing the importance of the character?

madchoochter

12-19-2006, 23:11

The starting princess in my English campaigns always gains three or four charm from selling alliances as first deal on table, then trading map info for map info and a small cash extra but after doing that enough to gain 4 or 5 points then gains a stalker like ancillary (which follows from secret love). Any idea why? Had it happen twice. Visit Danes, sell alliance, trade maps, visit HRE, do the same, boom! -2 charm, -2 personal security.

That said I don't bother much with princesses because I forget about them, so I've only played around with the starting princesses.

Kraxis

12-20-2006, 00:40

malkuth

12-20-2006, 00:59

I think this whole thing needs a rework. All of the Units like Princesses and Assassins etc take way to much micromanagement. Why not just have a princess born with a % chance of being Ugly or Hot or something. Spending a half hour trying to Raise all the levels of all these Units sucks... Which in my case I totally ignore most of them except priest and assassin and spies.

madchoochter

12-20-2006, 01:18

He comes around as a result of diplomatic negotiations and the princess being of a relatively high charmlevel (3-4 I think). Without any change to the triggers he is just about the most annoying thing as he will usually pop up as you reach the best possible level for the princess.

Well that sucks. I wondered if it had anything to do with distance from homelands, but if it's charm based that sucks. Has anyone got charm higher than 5 through diplomacy?

Merciless_Doge, yes that is the point. If you marry your 0 charm princess to a general he will get that awful trait 'Wife is a wretch' which can really be a downfall for him. He will ge a lot of bad vices and ancilliaries, and will get a hit to fertility (no more little princes).

Is the opposite true? i.e. more likely to get good traits? I have only seen one positive trait from marrying to a princess with words to the effect of "wife is a hottie" which gave more babies.

Kraxis

12-20-2006, 04:40

Yes, if she has various other positive traits she might give him popularity bonusses, and of course fertilty.

In any case good charm = good traits.

zandor

12-20-2006, 07:01

I just hacked my traits file so the wife is fair/wife is a wretch traits are based mostly on looks rather than charm score. There were only 2 levels of negative looks though, so I assigned one of the negative points to the "ColdWoman" trait.

So far this has meant no wife related traits at all most of the time. I did get one with an "educated" trait though, which gave my heir a 10% bonus on income... I think it was tax & trade income.

I think this is working out pretty well... no more need to run a princess around the world trying to raise her charm score, and I can just marry whatever foreign princess to my faction heir with no ill effects most of the time. Of course, it's still helpful to check her out with a spy to make sure she doesn't have a supid, ugly, or bad personality trait.

DukeKent

12-21-2006, 09:41

Tried GoodPrincess trait on a princess. Still do not have the three part name down yet. Anyone got that to work yet. Here is what I tried 'give_trait "Ynes el_Valiente" GoodPrincess 4' . Didn't like the character name:dizzy2:

Vuk

12-21-2006, 13:36

Foz

12-21-2006, 15:08

So what is charm? Does it affect your diplomatic relations, or just the chance of getting a princess married?
Also, on a side note, what the heck is a 'Chastity Belt'? I won't even ask what a 'Yappy Dog' is...
Perhaps it's best you read about chastity belts on your own (lol) so I'm linking you to the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chastity_belt).

A "yappy dog," on the other hand, is just a dog that "yaps." You know, those annoying little dogs that will never shut up, with their horrible high pitched barking? That's yapping, thus a "yappy dog."

As for charm though, it affects all of her diplomatic actions as well as marriage - think of it as her skill level at being a princess, which affects all her game activities (like all other agent's skill level affects their various game activities). I think they intend it to be something akin to the diplomatic skill level for a diplomat, it's just that the word charm is used to help illustrate the way a princess would approach the job (where she is always dealing with men), as opposed to how a diplomat would approach it.

Julius_Nepos

12-21-2006, 15:54

I simply went in and modified Princesses so that they're starting charm is 3 rather than zero. I find this helps quite a lot as handing out gifts doesn't seem to increase charm at all for my princesses. on the other hand I find that a Princess can go from 7 charm to 3 charm just with one failed negotiation, an entirely stupid way of doing things and I'm not sure if It can be fixed or not.

The game also also asked me to arrange for an incestuous marriage, the irony being that the princess had zero charm and was thus a "wretch." I'm still scratching my head over why the prince wanted her, the game seems to have no conception of the difference between 0 charm and 10 charm, nor does it understand the penalties there in. The whole point of changing base charm to 3 was so I could be assured of having marriage alliances actually work, rather than just be a means to never have children. Of course this makes the starting princesses pretty uber out of th box, but such is life I suppose.

Kobal2fr

12-21-2006, 16:06

The "yappy dog" also implies that the princess is the type of woman who'd own that kind of stupid, rat-looking dog in the first place.

It refers to the stereotype of high society women who consider their annoying dogs more important than people, talk to them all the time , feed them better than they feed their children etc... Think "the cheerleader's mother in the Heroes sitcom". Think "dog person" to the tenth power :laugh4:.

Charm is just overall princess skill, just as Subterfuge is the name of the assassin skill. High charm means she'll be good at diplomating and seducing generals, low charm means she'll fare worse at diplomating, and more often than not will "die" (she really runs away with him, but the point is you don't have her anymore) if she tries to seduce a general.

Wonder if a failed-and-ran-with-him seduction failure gives the target general the relevant WifeIsSoandso trait though. In that case, it might be an interesting strategy to breed horrible horrible princesses, then flog 'em to the enemy's best generals :laugh4:. Although generals marry fairly quick, and as the game goes on it's harder and harder to find an unmarried general, let alone a strategically interesting to have (or to flog a wretch to) one.

Julius_Nepos

12-21-2006, 18:45

Kobal, you know I wish the Princess's charm rating only effected her political abilities. After all, in reality a woman's negotiating abilities are not defined by her looks and vice versa. The problem with M2TW as it is, is that most new princesses are popped out with zero charm, and typically, (under AI control) gain no Charm, ever. This makes marriage alliances fruitless, as the "Wife is a wretch" trait is all to common. This means no children and thus no advancement of the family line.

It is also, as a rule, ridiculously easy for a Princess to pick up the "secret lover" trait, and unless her Charm is very high (and sometimes even if it is) she'll end up disgraced. I will admit though marrying a zero charm princess to the family line of a faction you don't Like IS an interesting strategy. The only problem is the AI can create family members out of thin air. When I get back to Houston I'm going to try to figure out what happens if I own territories but lose all my male generals. I wonder if the AI will "gift" me generals like it does to itself.

Kobal2fr

12-21-2006, 23:43

Princesses spawned with zero charm is a bug in the traits code, it's not intended. Princesses were intended to be like diplomats, start with 1-3 basic Charm + good/bad from their fathers.

I solved it in my fix (actually, since they lose charm very fast through secret lover/fanatic suitor ancillaries, and they don't last as long as diplomats, I made them a little bit better at birth).

I haven't had the time to properly test things out, but 3/4 Charm princesses from the AI should be fairly common, while >7 should still be very rare.

Foz

12-22-2006, 06:19

Princesses spawned with zero charm is a bug in the traits code, it's not intended. Princesses were intended to be like diplomats, start with 1-3 basic Charm + good/bad from their fathers.
I've been digging around in the traits file, and it's amazing how obvious some of the bugged things are, like the "guild bonus for agent" triggers being totally inconsistent for different agent types, and starting piety for family members never happening because it's set only for generals. It appears in this case that the various princess init triggers just aren't there... so yeah, no wonder it doesn't work. :oops:

For those of you who might not have heard, Kobal2fr has a CherryVanilla mod that deals with this and other obvious miscues in the traits code, while avoiding most balance tweaking that players might be more opinionated on. If you want your traits to work right, but without a lot of unwanted balance tampering or tweaks, then this is definitely what you need! Props on a great job from what I've seen, Kobal2fr, you've managed to create a traits file that everyone should be able to embrace. :yes:

Kraxis

12-22-2006, 15:00

Kobal, you know I wish the Princess's charm rating only effected her political abilities. After all, in reality a woman's negotiating abilities are not defined by her looks and vice versa.
That depends... Quite a few men can be distracted by beautiful women. So if she isn't too stupid and has been trained through her younger years to act like a diplomat, then she should be able to smooth her way through th negotiations fairly well.

Besides, only some of the traits are regarding beauty, others deal with ability to charm (talking and behaving in a pleasuring manner). And I must say I have met enough females that have been neither beautiful (not ugly either) nor stunning, yet terribly charming.

Julius_Nepos

12-22-2006, 16:51

Kobal2fr

12-23-2006, 17:56

Kraxis, thanks you essentially made my point. What I was getting at was, if a woman was a bad diplomat it wouldn't make her unattractive. her diplomatic skill, whatever it may be should be completely divorced from her outward appearance. A woman could have a horse-face and a lisp and if she's a cunning negotiator she could still get the best of other people. And no amount of idiocy would be able to overcome a woman's superb looks if she's dealing with a man with a one track mind. I just find it funny that in M2TW the game basically is saying if a princess is a bad diplomat she also LOOKS bad, by definition.

It's not, it's a combination of both. Basically, as far as traits are concerned, a 3-4 Charm woman is your average gal, anything under 3 is closer to your moustache-wearing aunt (we all have at least ONE of those.), and 5 and above is closer and closer to perfection. But charm and uncharm can come from different sources. A princess with +2 Beauty (and a working natural princess trait, can't stress this enough : PRINCESSES ARE BORKED IN VANILLA. They should start with 1-3 Charm !) will be above average, because she's got the looks, and somewhat the brains. An intelligent, beautiful princess will be the dream of any husband. A noticeably ugly but markedly intelligent girl will end up average, etc...

I hear Francois I's (French king from the Renaissance, famous for his womanizing - some say he first got syphilis when he was 10 years old) first wife had one leg shorter than the other, and a cleft, and everyone acknowledged she was a very deformed woman. Still he had a lot of affection for her : they had 9 children together, and he often said he would give his life for hers any day. She would probably be the NaturalPrincess 2 UglyWoman 3 PassionateWoman 3 princess :sweatdrop:

mambaman

12-29-2006, 15:29

my princesses dont seem to be able to act as independent agents i.e. they are old enough according to my family tree but i cant actually find them in any of my towns or castles: is this a bug?

Bongaroo

12-29-2006, 16:06

You will only get the spawned agent princesses from your King and maybe your heir. The other royal women are too far removed from power to be a princess. But they will still marry and bring in new generals.

Zenicetus

12-29-2006, 18:00

my princesses dont seem to be able to act as independent agents i.e. they are old enough according to my family tree but i cant actually find them in any of my towns or castles: is this a bug?

If they're shown in the family tree as individualized portraits, and not the generic "kid" portrait, then they should be in the game. Check your capital city.

Fisherking

12-29-2006, 22:42

I am not sure that it is all working just right. I have tried raising their charm by gifting (post patch) and it does not work for me. The best way I have found is to pass out what ever I can give/get as an exchange…one at a time. You can pick up two or three hearts at a time this way. However, the poor girls are as bad as generals in picking up bad traits and they do it walking around as well as at the coming of age. Two I got started with minus charms in this way….and it is seldom that you even get two in a campaign! The third (must be a record) only had a chastity belt to cut her movement points. But as soon as she stepped out the door she picked up a secret love…must be quite frustrating that secret love and chastity belt. Wonder if she found a lock smith.

I am certainly displeased with the V&V in this game, both prepatch and postpatch. And while I am at it, they sure didn't take the teeth out of the inquisitors either.

Now to finding where they are…it is weird, they just seem to sprinkle around. The best way to find them is to click on their pics in the family tree. They show up as Agents though so check that when you are looking.