Vices and Virtues

[sharpshooter]

I want to second Asai's thank you to Captain Fishpants. Really, thanks very much for looking. I also second the comedy value. I can still chuckle at the Odd Number of Toes text.

Umm ... now I guess it's up to us in the forum to pin down triggers - or not. Is anyone interested? I read over Jrxc's excellent pdf mentioned in the earlier thread. Are there any plans to extend it?

On topic about VnV's and heirs, I'd agree with Drone that it's best to use them, and groom them in the campaign, so to speak. My single proviso to that is when it's the heir apparent, the next king, and they've got a potentially loyalty/influence dropping vice, like Strange, that you don't want to evolve to something worse. Then I'd keep them under the king if I couldn't get rid of them. I'm very careful when it's the next king that's maturing, but otherwise don't worry too much. For good heirs mostly I just hope!

@ Gollum - my remark about the Chivalric Knights was mostly jest, but, of course, the game does know every unit you've made, and running a script across that data is comparatively simple. I don't think it's Chivalric Knights specifically, but I do think the game counts Elite vs Ordinary. Please do feel free to dispute any of my conclusions. I'd welcome any discussion and clarification whether it fits with my ideas or not. I'm just really interested in working these things out.

That said, perhaps my style of posting makes me sound more certain than I am. It's really a percentage, which, for me, ranges from pretty sure (90%) to simply an impression (30%) that, say, making religious buildings unlocks Eloquent, which then needs further triggers. In my earlier post, some of the specific things I said range from "pretty sure" (90%) for Drinker, getting stars for heirs, and gaining the skilled attacker line, to "impression" (30%) for Perversion or "I think" (50%) for Hedonist.

Some of these are pretty easy to test - Drinker is quite easy. So I'll use Drinker as my example - for trigger and way to test it.

Drinker
Trigger = producing too many troops (perhaps a ratio of 3 units to each territory held)

Test
- Quicksave (Ctrl+S) before each end of turn
- when Drinker appears in any general, reload (Ctrl+L) and cancel all troop production for that round

Predicted Outcome
- Drinker disappears

ReTest
- reload and produce troops in several provinces
- Drinker reappears

Do this as many times as you like.

Warning: testing heirs for Drinker
I think - 70% - that the game logs when you do Quicksave and Reload, and may start producing worse and worse outcomes. For example, when I've been testing heirs characteristics if I reload more than once or twice it seems to spiral downwards. Even if I started testing Weak Principles in the end the options become Strange or Chinless, and it simply alternates between the 2. Weak Principles doesn't come back. With Drinker it seems you get one chance to cancel it out, and if you've been getting a run of Drinkers beforehand it might be too late.

Anecdotal Evidence
When I first "mastered" the game - or rather, was able to guarantee winning, I made stacks of troops, with big armies on all borders, and others assembling behind the scenes. I used to get Drinker all the time. Once an heir maturing in Rum got it, and I wondered if it was a developer's idea of a joke.

Since I changed to a minimal troop production style I don't get it most campaigns. If I do get it once I immediately stop production and trim a few units that aren't doing anything. If a maturing heir seems vulnerable I don't produce troops for a couple of rounds before-hand. I can't remember the last time I had Drinker appear in an heir, but it's not for many many campaigns.

Other Evidence
Check the VnV's of the royal family in other factions that are producing lots of troops. The HRE, England and Spain seem particularly likely to get it.

Warning: AI's view of "enough" is very small
My take on the AI's idea of "enough" seems to be very very small compared the sizes of armies I used before. Maybe it's a ratio like 3 units per territory held. It doesn't help if you're the Russians, and when Drinker appears after the 5th Halberdier trots out you say "the Mongols are coming, the Mongols are coming". It doesn't seem to care.

General Stuff
For testing, the rub comes when the game style is involved, which I think it is for Drinker. People usually have good reasons for their strategies and are reluctant to change them ... me especially. I have once or twice found myself arguing with decisions the AI has made (once or twice ???) It seems logical to keep making troops if you can afford to keep them. At first I found myself reluctant to scale down.

In the original Shogun TW there was an old Japanese geezer that you could ask for advice. He would say something incredibly cryptic. The only thing he said I ever understood was "why build an army twice?". The principles of Shogun were supposedly based on Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", which came as a pdf on the game disk. This guy was supposedly the embodiment of the principles.

I believe the old Japanese chap has turned into the VnV engine in MTW. The VnV engine then seemed to become, in particular, the followers in RTW, and Drunken Uncle was one of them. You can't get rid of him. I suspect the VnV's follow the Art of War's principles. I only thought of this when it clicked that Drinker seemed to be about number of units.

I also think that these type of VnV's may have more than one trigger. It may be that first a condition is set, then there's a percentage chance of the VnV appearing per round. Or it may be that once one thing is set to true then another must also be set to true to trigger the appearance. So, with Perversion as the example, I've associated it with choice of alliances, with changing a suggested build strategy, and possibly with retraining troops, e.g. if you retrain a part unit with a Valour of 1 to a full unit with a Valour of 0.

Next Steps
I'm happy to tackle any VnV's especially if someone has a suggested trigger and a way to test it. We could try the ones Tirpitz asked about to start this thread - Perversion and Hedonism.

Personally I'm interested in Pride (one suggested trigger = building on provinces that border an enemy)

Is anyone up for this?