Extreme vices

[Magraev]

Maybe I've been playing with a mod fixing vices for too long (cherry vanilla), but I'm appalled at the extreme vices that every one of my alemanni family members seems to get. I've seen the same in my other games.

I'm not rich or anything (shortly about 30k denari, but lately around 5k), but after having captured the italian peninsula every one of my family has expensive tastes, embezzles, and engages in every other vile practice known to man. I may have been a bit hard on the romans, but still... Most my temples are for Donar (Thor) so I'd expect some anger management issues, but not this.

I have to keep them all outside cities most of the time, since they take most of the profits for themselves. It's a bit sad that all my generals are dishonest bastards.

So my questions are:
1) what the **** was CA thinking? (you don't have to answer)
2) Where can I get a mod to tone this down? (answer this one please)

[Strappy Horse]

I'd say they are enjoying some well earned perks of being a barbarian raider.
After all what is the point of plundering all those rich roman cities, if you're not going to enjoy the spoils afterwards?

[Magraev]

heh yeah.

I love your name btw - "YES strappy horse" = the "Yessir" of the greeks.

[parcelt]

I fully agree with Magraev, and would like to add to that.

Because BI goes much further in its mistreatment of generals. I always loved (especially in MTW) to take a promising young general and have him develop a variety of qualities until eventually evolving into a superb general and statesman, one of those guys that from say his lates 30's on becomes a real cornerstone of your empire. I would place him in cities with the necessary buildings to develop good virtues and attract good retainers, and bestow him with the best titles available and eventually award him by marrying one of my daughters for some guaranteed quality time when off-duty .

Now, that is being made absolutely impossible in BI. Indeed, the extreme vices that many generals develop are only a first factor that seems to spoil the role playing part (it doesn't seem to differ much between factions, but that's based on my limited amount of campaigns played). A second factor is their extreme disloyalty (this seems worse for romans than barbarians). As soon as I have a general win a few battles and gain some stars, he'll get full of himself and loyalty drops to 2 or lower. As a consequence, I can no longer entrust him with any of my quality armies and have to bring in a new young general, just to repeat the entire process.

This really limits the useful life of your generals, and is taking a fun part out of the game. I like how it has been made more dificult for generals to gain command stars (way too easy in RTW), but shouldn't that also mean generals last longer (without becoming dangerously untrustful)? Sure, if it's one or two every now and then, fine with me. But this happens to every single general (at least in WRE campaign).

If I can make some suggestions, it would be great to be able again to coach some selected generals towards true greatness. It shouldn't be easy like it was in RTW, in that respect BI is fine, it just shouldn't come with such drastic disloyalty being applied to each and every general, and so many bad vices being gained so rapidly.

In addition, the AI should be told to try and have some of its own generals collect a huge amount of command stars ..... over time resulting in the type of adversary that can only be stopped if you have a general of equal status of your own. Yes, I guess what I want is the gradual appearance in the game of some super-generals every 30 years or so. You know its coming sooner or later, so you'd better have your own champion ready. At some point, perhaps when they're in their 50'or 60's, I can then have a final showdown between two such giants.

Apart from being a nice addition in terms of a bit of roleplaying, I think it may add interesting strategic and tactical dimensions to the game. You will have to think twice before commting your super-general to a specific front..... because your spies are reporting a 11-star enemy general gather troops on your other border.... etc.

Finally, it can't be that hard to implement, can it? Perhaps.... dare I say it.... even moddable????

[Magraev]

Surely it is moddable. I've dabbled myself (increased the limit for gaining bad vices for a big treasury). It would be nice to get the vices totally overhauled instead of just repairing the worst inconsistensies though.

BTW I noticed many roman generals with Corpolentius as nickname... Nice.

[phred]

Magraev,
maybe converting to Christinity will give your Barbarian governors some good traits.
Has anyone noticed a difference in family members' traits after converting?

I haven't played enough to notice.

[Magraev]

I haven't played with any christians yet :) The Sassinids get the same raw deal though, but with them I got rich and could sorta understand it.

I suppose it's possible, that the game makes all non-christians out to be nasty, evil people? That would be absurd though. Maybe a game as the ERE is needed to test - I just have to avoid getting rich as that may affect the results.

[phred]

I think I'll start a Franks campaign and see if converting gives good traits.
I imagine that buildings like abbeys and monasteries will yield some good ancillaries.

[Aquitaine]

As the ERE, I've got a near-complete Christian Empire and there are certainly a lot of bad traits around, although not quite to the extreme that some of you seem to be experiencing. No generals above 4 loyalty, though, and no successful generals above 2.

[the_inquisition]

I just hope Player1 (the bugpolice!) does something similar to BI to what he did with RTW: BugFixer that fixes the absurd and bugged VnV system. A great piece of bugfixing.

[player1]

I'm not rich or anything (shortly about 30k denari, but lately around 5k), but after having captured the italian peninsula every one of my family has expensive tastes, embezzles, and engages in every other vile practice known to man. I may have been a bit hard on the romans, but still... Most my temples are for Donar (Thor) so I'd expect some anger management issues, but not this.

Two problems here.

First, in BI, corruption triggers now start from 11,000 gold (2nd and 3rd at 17,000 and 23,000), so it's pretty common for barbarian hordes after settleing to get many vices.

Good strategy is to spend money ASAP.

Second, big cities that have city_plumbing or silk_road get extra spoling triggers (getting mix of bad and good traits).


Knowing this, it is much easier to prevent lost of bad VnVs poping around.

And when your income gets so good that it's impossible to keep it below 11,000, well then who cares about bad vices since they in most cases affect income, which you have too much.

[player1]

As the ERE, I've got a near-complete Christian Empire and there are certainly a lot of bad traits around, although not quite to the extreme that some of you seem to be experiencing. No generals above 4 loyalty, though, and no successful generals above 2.

Exactly.
This issue mostly plaques hode happy sacking factions, since they get tons of cash which can't be spent quickly after they settle.

This is one of the things that made Huns decadent in real life.

[player1]

I probably won't chance the way how corruption triggers work in new version of bug-fixer, since it's not a bug but intended feature (however annoying it is ).

But, if it bothers some players too much, good idea would be to double the money threashold in all corruption triggers, so they get active at 22.000, 34.000 and 46.000.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Let me sum up.

A few of you are perturbed that your barbarian hordes are turning out to be poor candidates for hall monitor status following a 20 year career of rapine, pillaging, and blood sating.

Well, that makes sense. Who wouldn't want a ferocious barbarian army with sober, upright, construction-oriented roman-style governors and vigilant accountants. After all, wasn't that the historical norm for dark-age Europe?

Seamus

[magnum]

I went in the 2nd day I had the game and modified all the corruption triggers by x5. Which is what I had done in RTW also. Just to easy to make money and I hate having massive armies just to soak up the spare cash.

[Taiwan Legion]

I agree with everyone. It's impossible to get a good general. in RTW, it used to be easy to get a good commanding general as you only have to fight couple of battles. It was impossible to get a good managing general, sicne most of the time if you stick him in cities, you'd get so many bad traits, it cancels out anything. Now, you can't even gain commanding stars anymore because your general rebels.

I wonder if your faction heir rebels?

[Bob the Insane]

Well, thanks to Player1 for pointing out the changes to the corruption triggers. I guess we shouuld look over all the negative trait triggers to get a hold on whats causing all this negativity.

[Magraev]

Those thresholds are getting tripled tonite

I'm not opposed to my generals having some bad traits, I just think it's massively overdone.

Thanks y'all (well most of y'all...) for your input.

[antisocialmunky]

Atleast this is all moddable so we dont' have to go begging to CA.