Traits and Ancillaries Update

In light of feedback from our beta testers, it seems that the acquisition of command stars by the player's generals is just too easy. We've introduced a variety of new triggers and restrictions to hamper this rapid advancement. Specifically, battles must be fought with 2 to 1 odds or worse against your general. He must win the battle with a clear or crushing victory. Each one of these is tallied into the system, increasing the chance of getting a point in the GoodTactician or GoodLeader trait (the thresholds for these traits have also been raised). After 100 such battles, the chance of your general getting his first star should be nearly 100%. Each star after that is twice as hard to achieve as the previous.

The purpose of this update is to continue our beta testing and give you, the player, a chance to be on the bleeding edge of traits and ancillaries development. Only download this update on the condition that you will be reporting all of your trait or ancillary problems or feedback in this thread, including CTDs that occur with your new campaign. If you're not interested in providing this information, do not download or install this update.

Here are the instructions and list of other changes included in this update:
This folder contains an updated version of the EB Traits, Ancillaries, and Quotes files.

To apply this update,
Extract this zipped file into your Rome - Total War folder
Double-click the file labeled "EB_01_Update.bat" in the EBTraitsUpdate01 folder
This will backup your original files and copy in the new ones.

To restore the files you had before:
Double-click the file labeled "EB_01_Restore.bat".
This will restore your original traits file.

These files will *NOT* be savegame compatible.

List of changes since 0.74b (17 March)
-----------------------------------------
Traits Fixes
--------------
- general at sea shouldn't get "forced marching" or "tired" traits.

Traits File Refinements and Tweaks
-----------------------------------
- raised thresholds back to vanilla for IndecisiveAttacker, since antitrait GoodCommander is disabled
- removed more vanilla epithets
- Increased threshold for levels 2 and 3 of Anger (now antitrait to BlackBileHumour)
- New level for BlackBileHumour, Dejected
- Added first province-specific trait for Governor of Syrakousai
- disabled luxurious_lifestyle triggers pertaining to awesome temples, we have specific ones based on the religion
- governor not building, despite money, can get "Miserly" trait (would reverse Expensive Tastes and Aesthetic traits)
- tavern, game_field, theatre, temple of fun can adjust health and mood
- selfish, disloyal, and intelligent generals more likely to become sacrilegious, atheists, and pragmatic, respectively, to reduce their religious impulses
- added positive Management effects to Stoic
- added Unrest effect to top level of Austere
- Changed negative Command effect of Aesthetic to Management and TroopMorale

Quotes
-------
- fixed initial loading screen quote to have separate translation section
- added new quotes from Tacitus, Josephus, and Menander


Download this update (713kb zipped file).

[QUOTE=Malrubius]- selfish, disloyal, and intelligent generals more likely to become sacrilegious, atheists, and pragmatic, respectively, to reduce their religious impulses
QUOTE]

This gives me an idea. Would it be possible for characters to become members of mystery cults as the game wore on? I know that you can get "Worshipper of Iupiter" and other such traits, but what about "Cult Initiate of Isis" or "Mithraist" traits? Initiates into a cult could give a character more degrees of advancement, as well.

As well, it is possible that particularly religious and intelligent characters may deserve such positions as "Pontifex Maximus" or "Rex Sacrorum". Other positions, such as "Priest of Ceres" would require him becoming a eunuch, preventing him from marrying or having further children. Another possibility is for any unmarried daughters becoming Vestal Virgins, granting him Influence bonuses, and maybe even showing up as ancillaries.

In the political arena, you could be elected consul more than once. Can that be reflected in the game?

Finally, internal political rivalry could possibly be expressed in a game. If, for example, one general is a populares and another an optimate, could they develop a dislike for one another? For example, this could lead to one (if he is elected censor) attacking the other legally? Or even unrest developing in cities when both of them are present (reflecting political infighting)?

Wow. That was a lot of brainstorming! ~:idea:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Malrubius

In light of feedback from our beta testers, it seems that the acquisition of command stars by the player's generals is just too easy. We've introduced a variety of new triggers and restrictions to hamper this rapid advancement. Specifically, battles must be fought with 2 to 1 odds or worse against your general. He must win the battle with a clear or crushing victory. Each one of these is tallied into the system, increasing the chance of getting a point in the GoodTactician or GoodLeader trait (the thresholds for these traits have also been raised). After 100 such battles, the chance of your general getting his first star should be nearly 100%. Each star after that is twice as hard to achieve as the previous.

---

At the risk of sounding like a moron, this is an April Fool's joke......................... right? ~:confused:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GodEmperorLeto

As well, it is possible that particularly religious and intelligent characters may deserve such positions as "Pontifex Maximus" or "Rex Sacrorum". Other positions, such as "Priest of Ceres" would require him becoming a eunuch, preventing him from marrying or having further children. Another possibility is for any unmarried daughters becoming Vestal Virgins, granting him Influence bonuses, and maybe even showing up as ancillaries.

In the political arena, you could be elected consul more than once. Can that be reflected in the game?

---

We're working on Roman priesthoods right now actually, and I think you can be elected repeatedly already.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wonderland

At the risk of sounding like a moron, this is an April Fool's joke......................... right? ~:confused:

---

Just that 1st paragraph :laugh4:


You can be elected consul more than once, but otherwise there's a progression from one office to the next higher one. Let me know if there's any problems with them and I'll sort them out.

We have initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries and there are some things in the works for the east.

The problem with the celibate generals is that I can't stop the game from marrying them; same with daughters. I'm not even sure if I can detect whether the daughter is married or not. Also can't have one general "know" the other general's traits unless he's the son of the other. Now in 1.5, all generals can "know" the faction leader's traits and be more seditious or loyal, etc, as a result.

You shouldn't have to follow the strict cursus honorum at the start of the game, but it should become more regularized overtime (and then break down again).

For some reason the updated ancillary files mean that I am unable to start a new campaign (no CTD, the game just redirects me back to the singleplayer menu), but the rest of this patch seems to work fine; my generals are obtaining command stars at a reasonable pace now.

Sorry about that. :embarassed: I accidentally included the ancillaries file for RTW 1.5 instead of 1.2. I've uploaded the correct one now; the link from the first post should be good.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by QwertyMIDX

We're working on Roman priesthoods right now actually, and I think you can be elected repeatedly already.

---

That's good. It's never happened before to me, but maybe that's just this particular campaign.

I was also thinking if certain objects can be part of someone's ancillaries, like the Sybilline books. If nobody's doing a mission for them, perhaps we can make them a sort of ancillary.

They wouldn't be an ancillary because they just sat in the Temple of Jupiter Capitoline and were only allowed to read by a select group of men charged with their care and interperation (Decemviri Sacris Faciundis, at least often Decemviri).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by QwertyMIDX

They wouldn't be an ancillary because they just sat in the Temple of Jupiter Capitoline and were only allowed to read by a select group of men charged with their care and interperation (Decemviri Sacris Faciundis, at least often Decemviri).

---

Yeah, but didn't that happen after the start of the game? I was thinking that it could become one of the game quests after a while. A general in Capua gets the books and needs to return them to Rome. They leave his possession, but the city of Rome (and the general) get all sorts of bonuses.

Hi. I downloaded this update and began a game as the Ptolemaioi. Noticed a couple of problems with the season traits. The initial generals that you start the campaign with all have the season traits, but any that you acquire throughout the game don't have them. This is true for adoptees, comings of age and marriages. However, they do still get the Summer/winter campaigning restricted traits at the approprite times. Also I noticed that Admirals had the traits but that the season was one in advance of what the general's ones were saying.

Haven't had much of a go with it yet so that's all I've noticed so far. Will bring anything else I find straight here.
Thanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GodEmperorLeto

Yeah, but didn't that happen after the start of the game? I was thinking that it could become one of the game quests after a while. A general in Capua gets the books and needs to return them to Rome. They leave his possession, but the city of Rome (and the general) get all sorts of bonuses.

---

The myth of the texts is that the last king of Rome bought them, so some time in the late 6th century.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stufer

Hi. I downloaded this update and began a game as the Ptolemaioi. Noticed a couple of problems with the season traits. The initial generals that you start the campaign with all have the season traits, but any that you acquire throughout the game don't have them. This is true for adoptees, comings of age and marriages. However, they do still get the Summer/winter campaigning restricted traits at the approprite times. Also I noticed that Admirals had the traits but that the season was one in advance of what the general's ones were saying.

Haven't had much of a go with it yet so that's all I've noticed so far. Will bring anything else I find straight here.
Thanks.

---

Thank you! :2thumbsup:

I'll take a look at those admiral seasons and see about the seasons not showing up for the later generals. They still have the hidden generic trait, just not the faction-specific one, I guess. I believe we decided that all family members should have the visible traits.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Malrubius

Just that 1st paragraph :laugh4:

---

Yay!

And Yay! For the rest of it too.

:balloon2: :balloon2: :balloon2:

So wait though... that first paragraph was a joke indeed, but has it actually been made somewhat easier to get command stars at least? I mean, I can live with it either way, just curious though. It'd be kinda nice.

Well I definety dont think it needs to be made harder. If only for autocalc battles. I was a little stunned, espesially the 100 battles with 2-1 odds to get your first command star.

The point is that your generals won't all become amazing just because you control their battles and dominate, we can all dominate the AI. As such the general's characteristics are much more important to getting command stars than winning a bunch of battles.

Yeah, that first paragraph was just my April Fool's Day joke. I didn't make it harder to get command stars with this update.

Future versions should have something to take a general's overall record into account better when awarding command stars, so he doesn't get cheated out of a boost for fighting a difficult battle one turn, and then an easy battle the next. With this new addition, both battles will go on his "permanent record" and help out in gaining stars (but still be throttled by his innate ability). The hard battle will still count much more than the easy battle, though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Malrubius

Yeah, that first paragraph was just my April Fool's Day joke. I didn't make it harder to get command stars with this update.

Future versions should have something to take a general's overall record into account better when awarding command stars, so he doesn't get cheated out of a boost for fighting a difficult battle one turn, and then an easy battle the next. With this new addition, both battles will go on his "permanent record" and help out in gaining stars (but still be throttled by his innate ability). The hard battle will still count much more than the easy battle, though.

---

That sounds like just enough to be a perfect system. We shall see how it plays out in practice but I'm happy to hear that now in any case. Yay. Yay I say.

I started a Roman campaign tonight, still using this update and found a couple of anomalies. My leader's son got the First Born trait. Don't know if that's intended or not but I would have thought that would be more apropriate for factions with kings.

Also, none of my family members have been elected to any office other than Tribunis Milita and Pontifex Maximus (for the faction leader) and its 255 now. Might have just been unlucky though.

Thanks.

Will there be a update02 before .8? One of my favorite parts of EB is the traits and I'd like to be able to play/test them.

Also, if your still interested in feedback about this. Tacitus, annales, 11.24 when he speaks about sparta and athens, the text displays off screen, at least at my resolution of 1024x768.

0.8 isn't that far away and malrubius hasn't been very active for the last month, so probably no; but don't worry we have coded a lot of new traits, especially ethnicities and they'll all be in 0.8...

Does this update fix the olympic competitor every 3 turns whatumacallit?