Traits that are bugged in 1.2 with fixes. Part 1: Scarred, Farmer, Trader

[Sinner]

Yup, with the default triggers amended to have a 100% chance to acquire traits if the conditions are otherwise met, that's what I'd expect.

[gregab25]

Yes, Bob. That is how it seems to work with the default triggers.

I spent some time today looking for a solution withot having to change the default threshold values. But I couldn't find one.

Without knowing more about all of the information that is returned from the "SettlementBuildingFinished" and "Farms" queries, I dont think any of us can get it working as CA intended.

To me the Farmer and Trader traits are broken unless CA intended for a governor to not be able to receive these traits without moving your governor from town to town solely building farms and then removing the governor when you build every single other building in the game.

As a player, i have reached my own threshold, and have received "frustration" level 1. This bug kinda ruins the game for me. It whispers to me in the back of my mind when i'm trying to play saying that i'm not actually playing the game. Just some sort of half game.

Anyways If I play anymore with 1.2, I will probably just disable the farmer and trader traits altoghter. Which, when i think about it, doesn't make me any happier really.

I wish CA would fix this stuff.

[tai4ji2x]

As a player, i have reached my own threshold, and have received "frustration" level 1. This bug kinda ruins the game for me. It whispers to me in the back of my mind when i'm trying to play saying that i'm not actually playing the game. Just some sort of half game.

lol, gregab. me too... me too...

"apologists" for CA (somewhat harsh term, i concede) rationalize that just as a good chess player will play with missing pieces or other handicaps against a lesser player, so too must an RTW player do all she/he can to avoid exploiting the AI. i'm fine with that IN THEORY... the problem is, here it's like you're constantly having to add new restrictions and limits on yourself as you realize your opponent is even worse than originally claimed. sometimes you even see that the opponent doesn't even know certain rules or inadvertently breaks them on a consistent basis since it doesn't know any better.

[hrvojej]

To me the Farmer and Trader traits are broken unless CA intended for a governor to not be able to receive these traits without moving your governor from town to town solely building farms and then removing the governor when you build every single other building in the game.

I'm pretty sure that's how they're supposed to work. For example, tell me how many high-star generals in MTW did you have that were also *not* inbred unhinged loons? I think that the rationale behind it is that otherwise it would be too easy.

The simple solution is to just lower the positive trait thresholds, or make the triggers give you more points for the good traits.

[Simetrical]

seems like your sentence got cut off?

Yes, because vB 3 is moronically paranoid about less-than signs. The paragraph now reads "gregab25 therefore thought that the ≺= operator was bugged, so he changed it to NOT >. Unfortunately, this made every non-farm building increase his traits, tricking him into thinking that his interpretation of EDCT.txt was right."

Simetrical what did you do? And what was the effect?

I just modded the basic EDCT.txt to have a threshold of 1 for GoodFarmer, then I built a farm building and a non-farm building with different governors. The governor who built a farm building got a point of GoodFarmer, and the one who didn't didn't. This proved that the intuitive reading of SettlementBuildingFinished (that it returned the name of the building constructed) was the correct one. If gregab25 had been right, and SettlementBuildingFinished had just returned the level number of the building constructed, the non-farm building should have given my general a point of GoodFarmer (since its level was equal to the level of farms in the settlement).

Okay, after Simetrical's good, albiet immature, post . . .

Okay, I may have been a bit on the gloating side.

However, in the default setting if you desire to become a good farmer or trader you will want to build all other buildings before the farm or trade buildings.

No. In the default settings, building any farm would give you +1 GoodFarmer, and building any other building might give you +1 BadFarmer. The GoodFarmer trigger doesn't care about which non-farm buildings you've built, and the BadFarmer trigger doesn't care about which farm buildings you've built.

Would someone please look into or explain why reversing the > = to a < = sign in the triggers does not reverse the results in game?

Depends on which sign you're thinking of. If you change "SettlementBuildingFinished >= farms" to "SettlementBuildingFinished ≺= farms", then you'll see no difference at the level "farms" (Land Clearance), since both settings trigger off "= farms". The latter shouldn't trigger on any higher levels of farm, however. Did you observe differently in your tests?

Easiest way is to see it for yourself. It will take less than 5 minutes. Simply set the thresholds for farming to 1, 2, and 3. Then go into the game and build various buildings and look at the results.

This is what i just did with the default triggers, and I was receiving the traits by building all the non farm and trade buildings first.

I suspect your EDCT.txt may have some lingering changes from your earlier modding which are throwing off the results. What's your full trigger for GoodFarmer?

I guess what this saying then is that as long as you have the basic farms in place, it will award you GoodFarmer each time you build another building?

No. I'm not sure that's implementable, actually. You'd have to compare the level of the finished structure to the level of existing farms, and I'm not sure that's possible.

I saw someone say 'good farmer' has a 100% chance if you build [something, a farm most likely].

Close, but one important mistake. If you build a farm, you have a 100% chance of getting one point in GoodFarmer. The threshold for "Grower" is six, so your governor has to finish six farms to get it that way. In other words, it's exceedingly unlikely that you got any GoodFarmer trait from building farms. You probably got them from temples of farming (Ceres, Freyja and the like).

Bad farmer I get on almost every single governor within 10 turns of their appointment.

Another problem with the thresholds. You have an 8% chance of getting BadFarmer every time you build a non-farm building—but the threshold of BadFarmer is only one, as opposed to GoodFarmer's six. The thresholds need to be modded to something reasonable, preferably symmetrical.

Without knowing more about all of the information that is returned from the "SettlementBuildingFinished" and "Farms" queries, I dont think any of us can get it working as CA intended.

I'm pretty sure we understand those queries. "SettlementBuildingFinished" returns the name of the building that was just finished, and "farms" is just a building name. The comparison sign checks the relationship between the finished building and the named building: if they're in the same build tree, their level is compared, and the condition returns true iff the relation is true; if they're not in the same build tree, the condition returns false. I think we have ample evidence to support this interpretation, and nothing seems to contradict it.

-Simetrical

[Pode]

I'd like to look at the vanilla expected trait levels for farming. A 16 yr-old governor who dies at 66 governs for 100 turns, which I like 'cause it keeps the maths easy for me. During that time he can build no more than 5 farms max, right? 5 points of good farmer total.

How many other buildings can he build in that time? It takes 14 turns to build the governors houses, and 15 to build the farms, so he has 71 turns left in which to possibly get bad farmer traits. Anybody know off hand how many buildings he can build in that time frame, max? Until someone posts that number and makes a fool of me, let's assume the average building takes 3 turns, which makes for 27 buildings. 8% of 27 (so much for easy math) is 2.16 levels of bad farmer.

Net: ~2.8 levels of good farmer, from a life spent neutral on the farm subject. I would conclude from this that the threshold for grower should be no less than 3. Considering that the temple of farming adds 6 points every 10 turns on average, he who honors the farm gods gets 60 points of good farmer from that. Thus the threshold for Agriculturalist should not be greater than 62, and probably less.

I conclude from this that good farmer was intended to be a trait that only those with farming temples acquired, and everyone else washed out even in the long haul. I think 3, 18, and 36, would make good thresholds. Someone who builds farms first has a shot at getting grower for a while, even if he will eventually lose it for failing to honor the farm gods properly (which plays for me since he's not the onee actually DOING the farming). A man who is dilligent about farming and is seen to worship the farm gods, otoh, gets grower within his first 2.5 to 5 years, then after 15 years he gets level two, and after 30 years as a farmer, he spends the remaining 20 years renowned as an agriculuralist.

[tai4ji2x]

probably got them from temples of farming (Ceres, Freyja and the like).

those are fertility temples, i believe. not farming.

[Sinner]

I'd like to look at the vanilla expected trait levels for farming. A 16 yr-old governor who dies at 66 governs for 100 turns, which I like 'cause it keeps the maths easy for me. During that time he can build no more than 5 farms max, right? 5 points of good farmer total.

He's limited to 5 farms if he stays in the same settlement for his entire life, but how many governors do this? With few exceptions I leave a governor in a city while it's growing or to help deal with unrest, then once the city is established and/or remains loyal with just a garrison I move my governor on to the next settlement or out into the field to lead an army.

...I conclude from this that good farmer was intended to be a trait that only those with farming temples acquired, and everyone else washed out even in the long haul. I think 3, 18, and 36, would make good thresholds. Someone who builds farms first has a shot at getting grower for a while, even if he will eventually lose it for failing to honor the farm gods properly (which plays for me since he's not the onee actually DOING the farming). A man who is dilligent about farming and is seen to worship the farm gods, otoh, gets grower within his first 2.5 to 5 years, then after 15 years he gets level two, and after 30 years as a farmer, he spends the remaining 20 years renowned as an agriculuralist.

Nice reasoning and solution for GoodFarmer, providing some reward for the average governor while still keeping the trait a relatively rare and thus precious virtue to possess, which seems to have been CA's intention.

[therother]

I've opened up a Ludus Magna thread to research trait bug fixes of the type discussed here. I'd greatly appreciate it if those who have devised fixes could post (or in some cases repost) them over there, so that we can have them all in an uncluttered thread.

Thanks.

[Bob the Insane]

To continue Pode's discussion I we should discuss what we want to get out of the Goodfarmer and Goodtrader traits (and their opposites) and who should get them and for what reason...

I also like the concept that the dizzing heights of these traits are reservered for those governors that not only build loads of farms/trade buildings but also builds the farmer/trade temples...

Is it really only a change of the threshold values that is required to achieve this?

One thought I have been considering is a check to see if the the farm or trade build had been built before any other building of the same tech level (looking for which building ware upgraded first). And handing out GoodFarmer or GoodTrader points if those are first... Though thinking about it having Godfarmer and Goodtrader points gained simply by building the coorect building should be pretty easy to balance out with the threshold values.

And for handing out BadFarmer and BadTrader point a check to see whether those building had been upgraded as far as possible before the settlement itself is upgraded... So if you had a large town and a sufficient population to upgrade to a city, if you had not maxed out your farm and or trade buildings before upgrading the settlement you would get poorfarmer and/or poortrader points... This would make the slide into those traits much slower..

[gregab25]

I'm pretty sure we understand those queries. "SettlementBuildingFinished" returns the name of the building that was just finished, and "farms" is just a building name. The comparison sign checks the relationship between the finished building and the named building: if they're in the same build tree, their level is compared, and the condition returns true if the relation is true; if they're not in the same build tree, the condition returns false. I think we have ample evidence to support this interpretation, and nothing seems to contradict it.

Sorry if I'm slow on the uptake, but could you help me out here by explaining a couple of things?

If "SettlementBuildingFinished" and "farms" just return the names as you suggest, why would the equation not compare the names alphabetically?

Thus:

Condition "Market" >= "Farms"

Why would this not just compare the letter "M" to the letter "F", and return true?

I know this doesn't work, but is that not what the equation calls for if "SettlementBuildingFInished" and "farms" just return names.

And, If "SettlementBuildingFinished" and "farms" look up the level of the building in the file EDB.txt, does that not make them variables as i originally proposed, and which we know believe to be wrong?

So, isnt the trigger actually working in game by only returning the name and saying:

"farms" = "farms"

Which returns True.

and "anyotherbuilding" = "farms"

will always return false.

I don't believe the level is even checked and therefore the > sign in the equation is pointless. Which raises the question why is it there?

Both the > sign being irrelevant and the threshold being so high for GoodFarmer still leads me to believe that these traits aren't working the way CA wanted them to.

[gregab25]

Oh, and the above explanation i made would also explain why reversing the > and < signs did not have any noticeable effect on the results in game.

Am I on to something?

[Sinner]

In a word: nope.

From what you've said, apparently your problem is that you're viewing the condition as a mathematical equation, with SettlementBuildingFinished as a variable, but that isn't the case. SettlementBuildingFinished is a function and the rest of the condition are parameters. Go read the Events, Conditions, & Commands thread for further info, although to save time I'll copy the SettlementBuildingFinished info here...

Identifier: SettlementBuildingFinished
Trigger requirements: prior_build
Parameters: building description, logic token, test level
Sample use: SettlementBuildingFinished = governors_house
Description: Test to see what the last finished building was
Battle or Strat: Strat
Class: SETTLEMENT_BUILDING_LEVEL_FINISHED_TEST
Implemented: Yes
Author: Guy

From the Parameters and Description we can see the intended use and intent of the condition and from testing we can deduce how it operates: the function first compares the completed building with the test building parameter to determine if they're in the same building tree, if they are it then compares their levels using the logic parameter, returning true or false as appropriate.

[gregab25]

Ok, if that is true, and i'll take your word for it that it is, is there another Identifier in the game that would compare the levels of buildings from different trees?

[gregab25]

For example maybe something like this might work:

Trigger governing5
WhenToTest GovernorBuildingCompleted

Condition SettlementBuildingExists

[gregab25]

Ug.. damn < = to sign...


For example maybe something like this might work:

Trigger governing5
WhenToTest GovernorBuildingCompleted

Condition SettlementBuildingExists < = farms

Affects GoodFarmer 1 Chance 100

[Old Celt]

This may seem like a silly question, but I'll ask anyway:

If the VnVs were much better with version 1.1, then has anyone thought to just copy the file information from there and paste it into the 1.2 files to fix the VnVs??

[gregab25]

Sinner, why does it only check buildingsfrom the same tree? If it checked the level of buildings from different trees it seems like everything else would work out?

[Sinner]

The SettlementBuildingExists condition can be used but you get a very cumbersome trigger like so...

Trigger governing5
WhenToTest GovernorBuildingCompleted

Condition SettlementBuildingFinished = farms
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= wooden_pallisade
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= muster_field
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= trader
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= roads
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= mines
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= temple_of_battle_shrine
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= temple_of_battleforge_shrine
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= temple_of_farming_shrine
... (all the other shrines)...

Affects GoodFarmer 1 Chance 100

With this trigger you'd only get a point towards GoodFarmer when you build Land Clearance and you haven't yet built any other building of the Town level.

You'd have to repeat this for each level of farm, changing the conditions to compare against the appropriate building for each building tree available at that level of settlement. Here's the Large Town/Communal Farming trigger as a further example...

Trigger governing5a
WhenToTest GovernorBuildingCompleted

Condition SettlementBuildingFinished = farms+1
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= wooden_wall
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= militia_barracks
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= stables
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= practice_field
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= market
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= blacksmith
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= port
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= sewers
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= paved_roads
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= mines+1
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= tavern
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= temple_of_battle_temple
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= temple_of_battleforge_temple
and not SettlementBuildingExists >= temple_of_farming_temple
... (all the other temples)...

Affects GoodFarmer 1 Chance 100

With this trigger you'd only get a point towards GoodFarmer when you build Communal Farming and you haven't yet built any other building of the Large Town level.

I've no idea if triggers this big would even work and if I did use an idea like this for GoodFarmer, I'd personally drop the condition checking walls, roads, farming temples and perhaps fertility temples.

EDIT: SettlementBuildingFinished only compares levels of buildings in the same tree because that's how CA wrote the function!

[gregab25]

Ah, thanks for the excellent help, Sinner.

With the threshold so high in the GoodFarmer and GoodTrader traits i thought that the trigger you just showed was how CA possibly intended for it to work.

Now, I just don't know.

To me it doesn't make sense the way it is now, and looking at those big triggers i just don't know what to think.

But, thanks a lot for the help and showing me how it works and also for giving me the link to the Events, Conditions, and Commands thread.

Cheers.

[Pode]

Greg, look at the effects of the temple of farming and temple of trade triggers to help you understand why the thresholds are so high. temple of farming gives 6 points of good farmer every 10 turns. I can't check from work, but I suspect temple of trade pays out similarly well. I think the design concept is that a governor's individual ability may help some, but in the long run unless the townspeople see him honoring the gods appropriately, there won't be much change in the output of the town overall. The age of reason is still a LONG way away in game

[gregab25]

Greg, look at the effects of the temple of farming and temple of trade triggers to help you understand why the thresholds are so high. temple of farming gives 6 points of good farmer every 10 turns. I can't check from work, but I suspect temple of trade pays out similarly well. I think the design concept is that a governor's individual ability may help some, but in the long run unless the townspeople see him honoring the gods appropriately, there won't be much change in the output of the town overall. The age of reason is still a LONG way away in game

Yes, I am aware of the effects of the temples, and it may be you are entirely right. Of course this would mean all that factions that cannot build those specific temples would still have a very hard time getting those traits, which may be how it is intended to be. IE. Each faction has stengths and weaknesses in their ability to gain traits based on what temples they can or cannot build.

[Pode]

It certainly makes the Julii pantheon seem a bit less pathetic in comparison to the other Romans. The troops aren't as good, but there can be a WHOLE lot more of them.

[tai4ji2x]

^
again, i think the julii temple (ceres) is a fertility temple, giving fertility bonuses. it is not a farming temple.

[Bob the Insane]

Sinner, you are a saint...

That would work beautifully for my Badfarmer and Badtrader idea...

The following would test when a settlment is upgraded to see if the govern had bothered to upgrade the farms first, if not he is a bad farmer. The fact that this only occurs rarely (up to 4 times in the life of a settlement) ties in well with the low threshold settings in the default trait. If you have left the triggers for GoodFarmer as default it is also pretty easy to recover from getting BadFarmer points simply by building farms. Thus to become an unredemably bad farmer (Loathes_Farmers) your general would have to been the govern during the upgrading of a settlement 3 times without having any farms built...

--------------------------------------
Trigger governing5
WhenToTest GovernorBuildingCompleted

Condition SettlementBuildingFinished = governors_villa
and not SettlementBuildingExists = farms

Affects BadFarmer 1 Chance 100


--------------------------------------
Trigger governing5a
WhenToTest GovernorBuildingCompleted

Condition SettlementBuildingFinished = governors_palace
and not SettlementBuildingExists = farms+1

Affects BadFarmer 1 Chance 100

And so on....

Using the same idea with Badtrader is slightly more complex because of the combination of buildings; trade, road and ports. Although, the only action to gain BadTrader points by default is not building trade buildings. So using the same triggers as for BadFarmer but checking for trading buildings not being built/upgraded instead. The slightly higher thresholds in BadTrader mean that to get the worst you would have to govern the growth of at least two settlements without building or upgrading the trade buildings...

The fact that there are three times as many opportunities to gain GoodTrader points is of set by the huge threshold levels...

[Bob the Insane]

Arrgghhh... Double post hell...

[Sinner]

Good idea Bob!

I'd only give BadTrader for the trader line of buildings (trader, market, forum, etc) as it does now, without worrying about ports & roads, the other ways to gain GoodTrader. It'll simplify the trigger and keep closer to the vanilla intention.

EDIT: Perhaps the second trigger should be like this, changing the '=' for the farm condition to a '< =' ...

WhenToTest GovernorBuildingCompleted

Condition SettlementBuildingFinished = governors_palace
and not SettlementBuildingExists < = farms+1

Affects BadFarmer 1 Chance 100

That way you'll also get BadFarmer if you haven't built farms or farms instead of the just the latter.

[Bob the Insane]

Good idea Bob!
WhenToTest GovernorBuildingCompleted

Condition SettlementBuildingFinished = governors_palace
and not SettlementBuildingExists < = farms+1

Affects BadFarmer 1 Chance 100

That way you'll also get BadFarmer if you haven't built farms or farms instead of the just the latter.

Surely that would make it too hard to get the BadFarmer trait as you would have to never build any farms to get BadFarmer points, and if you built even the lowest level of farms you never have to worry about getting the BadFarmer points...

Using = means that you have to keep upgrading your farms to avoid he BadFarmer traits, nad even if you do gain badfarmer points you can negate them by building the farmer later (which gets you a GoodFarmer point)... You would really have to make an effort to not keep you farms updated to gain the BadFarmer trait...

I guess this is down to personal opinion. Just how bad a farmer do you have to be to get the vice??? (same logic applies to BadTrader)

[Sinner]

Yup, my bad.

[Bob the Insane]

Another trait I would like to discuss is Smoothtalker:

Trait SmoothTalker
Characters family
AntiTraits Feck

Level Plausible
Description Plausible_desc
EffectsDescription Plausible_effects_desc
Threshold 2

Effect Bribery 10

Level Slick
Description Slick_desc
EffectsDescription Slick_effects_desc
Threshold 4

Effect Bribery 20

Level Smooth_Talker
Description Smooth_Talker_desc
EffectsDescription Smooth_Talker_effects_desc
Threshold 6

Effect Bribery 30



;------------------------------------------

You can see that while this trait improves the chances of bribing someone (Effect BribeResistance is for preventing someone beeing bribed) and it can be gained through bribary missions. Yet it is own available to family members and not to diplomates... Surely this can not be right??