Hayasdan FM Origins Questions

Hello everyone! Since I'm new to these forums I'll just give a quick introduction: I'm a rabid fan of the total war series, been playing 'em since the original Medieval Total War. Especially Rome Total War with this mod, Europa Barbarorum, which in my opinion RTW and EB together make for the penultimate Total war experience.

Anyway, on to the point of this thread; As for the Hayasdan faction I have found their trait system specifcally to be a little quirky. What I am referring to is the origin of each family member. Every FM has like "Makedon" or "Thrakian" or "Heterogenes" or somethin or another to denote both their origion and gene pool, and it is to my understanding that these origins have an effect on the likelyhood of developing certain traits.

Hayasdan FMs, however, with the exception of the royal Yervanduni line, lose their origin trait at the second generation. For example, one lucky guy is deemed worthy of marrying a royal daughter, and he has the origin trait "Hai Aznvakan Vrastantis". His sons, however, will not have this trait. In fact they will not have any origin trait at all!

My question is, why are Hayasdan FMs unique in losing their origin trait at the 2nd generation? Is my game bugged or is it designed this way?

P.S. I'm also curious as to why the royal Carthaginian Barcid family line do not have Barca as their surname, but instead simply have one name i.e. "Hasdrubal" is the name of the FM and not "Hasdrubal Barca".?

I'm just curious if others' have the same thing going on or if my game is just bugged or somethin?

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Originally Posted by Zelwindin

I'm also curious as to why the royal Carthaginian Barcid family line do not have Barca as their surname, but instead simply have one name i.e. "Hasdrubal" is the name of the FM and not "Hasdrubal Barca"?

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I don't know about the Hai, but the Barcas weren't a royal family...
QartHadast had "kings", elected by the senate, and were descendants of Mago, the Barcid family was a rich family from Byzacena iirc...

Ahh rgr I did not know that. Thank you for the history lesson personally I always enjoy learning new things especially when it comes to history. Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.

Still doesn't answer my question though :(. As far as the game goes are the starting FMs of Carthage supposed to have the surname "Barca" or is it just supposed to be "Hasdrubal" (for example) only? Also still looking for an answer on the Hayasdan FMs too!

Replies are greatly appreciated! :D

Was saying that not all nobles were Barca, in EB only Hamalcar and his sons should be...
Why in the game they lack the family name, I don't know, maybe because at the start of the 3rd century, they weren't as powerful as 30-40 years later (Hannibal's father was only three years old, and he should be the first recorded using that name)...
Or maybe it was a feature that wasn't addressed, since all manpower moved to EBII...

Ahhh alright. That makes sense from a historical standpoint then. I was just a bit confused, thought perhaps my game was bugged or something. Thank you Arjos :D

Still need some help on the Hayasdan question though, anyone?

I can help you with understanding the origin of the FMs, their history. But I don't think that's your question, unfortunately. You're asking a technical question. You'll need the trait coder from the dev team to respond to get the right answer. I don't remember whether the geographic origin of FMs was maintained in the secondary (and onward) generations, but I can see why they should not be. If an FM is Pokr Haykits (from Lesser Armenia/Sophene/Tsopk/Ani), what would you be implying by saying his son is also Pokr Haykits, when in fact that son could have been born elsewhere, such as in Mtskheta (Vrastanits)? His father would be from one region, but he would be "from" another, if origin means one's own birth location. Does that make sense? That said, I don't think there was any tangible effects on gameplay arising from these origin traits.

The tribe/ethnicity that an FM comes from DOES have an effect on their tendency to acquire certain traits. For example, here are some notes on Hayasdan tendencies, which I figured out by looking through the data files (I skipped the exact percentages and some of the lesser effects, so this isn't a complete list).

AzatYervanduni - Noble of the House of Yervand
Charismatic => xenophilia, expensive tastes, authoritarian, smooth talker
Sharp => xenophilia, authoritarian, good administrator
Optimist => good cavalry general, good defender

HaiAzatDsopk - Armenian Noble from Sophene
Sharp => xenophilia, good trader, good administrator

HaiAzatHayasdan - Armenian Noble from Pokr Hayk
Sharp => good farmer, good administrator, good defender

SkyutAzatEgrisi - Scythian Noble from Egrisi
Sharp => good administrator, good defender
Dull => drink, bad attacker, bad infantry general

SkyutAzatHayasdan - Scythian Noble from Hayasdan
Sharp => good farmer, good administrator, good defender
Dull => drink, bad attacker, bad infantry general

SkyutAzatKartli - Scythian Noble from Kartli
Sharp => good administrator, good defender
Dull => drink, bad attacker, bad infantry general

VirAzatEgrisi - Georgian Noble from Egrisi
Sharp => good administrator, good defender
Optimist => hale and hearty
Dull => xenophobia, bad farmer, bad cavalry general
Uncharismatic => xenophobia

VirAzatKartli - Georgian Noble from Karli
Sharp => good administrator, good defender
Optimist => hale and hearty
Dull => xenophobia, bad farmer, bad cavalry general
Uncharismatic => xenophobia

I see. Thank you Vartan and Friendlyfire both of your posts are very informative and helpful concerning my question. It does make sense that the family members do not inherit the origin traits from their fathers when you look at it in that perspective. Although it does make me a little bit of a sad panda to read all that cool stuff in friendlyfire's post and realize the 2nd generation onward wont have a neat predisposistion to xenophilia :( :(.

I'll ask about this topic internally (but do not expect an answer in a sort period, the coders and historians who created this faction are not more that active as in earlier times).

XSamatan

I think there might be a problem with your install, I'm almost certain when I've played the Hai their ethnicity traits worked fine. Still don't go reinstalling just yet, it may turn out that I just wasn't very observant.

As for you Carthaginian question, Barca was nickname, not the name of the family IIRC.

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Originally Posted by bobbin

As for you Carthaginian question, Barca was nickname, not the name of the family IIRC.

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Indeed it was, originally. Don't quote me on this, but I believe that Hannibal's father Hamilcar, who is but a child at the beginning of the campaign, was awarded the name (or adopted it, I'm not sure). This was somehow connected to his achievements during the first Punic war, which happened only a while after the starting date of the game.

Thank you XSamatan, that would be much appreciated :D.

@ bobbin and Lysimachos That's interesting about the Carthaginian surname Barca. I'm curious: were other Punic family surnames like that? Was the average Carthaginian citizen recognized by just a given name e.g. Hasdrubal, and select few were known by a "title" or "nickname" e.g. Hannibal Barca?

Call me a nerd but I love learning everything I can about history, especially from the Classical Era ;)

Edit: It'd be no problem to reinstall but I wouldn't want to do it unless I was sure that my files are just glitched a bit and all it would need is a redo to fix the origin trait issue.

about a bugged build:
Please run validateInstall.bat found in your main RTW folder and post your results here (or if you want to split that part, in a new thread in the technical subforum)

XSamatan

I had the same problem (would have it still if i would play hayasdan again) and created a thread some time ago:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...-Family-Traits

Since now, it happen to me every time i play hayasdan. Even after several re-installations.

as you can see from my thread: This problem happens to me only with family members from Kartli (Vrastantis) and from Egrisi (Latzi...).
another bloodline you can adopt (e.g: Hai Hayasdanitz) seems to be alright.

Afaik it's not clear whether brq (Barca) "lightning" was a cognomen ex virtute for his guerrilla and decisive tactitcs or if it was an older family name meaning "blessing" ...
The origins of the family are somewhat obscure, but the agnomina seems more likely...

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Originally Posted by Zelwindin

were other Punic family surnames like that?

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I think there were mostly patronymics or agnomina...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zelwindin

@ bobbin and Lysimachos That's interesting about the Carthaginian surname Barca. I'm curious: were other Punic family surnames like that? Was the average Carthaginian citizen recognized by just a given name e.g. Hasdrubal, and select few were known by a "title" or "nickname" e.g. Hannibal Barca?

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Family surnames in general were pretty uncommon in the ancient world, important individuals would sometimes have nicknames attached to their first name or have an identifier based on where they came from or who their father was, but for the majority of people they would just have the first name. IIRC we don't actually know if Hannibal shared the Barca nickname of his father btw.