Traits and Ancillaries Brainstorming and Suggestions Thread

[Malrubius]

This thread is where you can suggest new traits and ancillaries for Europa Barbarorum, or changes to existing ones.

I recommend you check out the Traits and Ancillaries FAQ and the Europa Barbarorum website Traits page to get your creative juices flowing and see what we already have.

If you want to check if something is possible by delving deeper into the system, or do some coding yourself, check out the How to Mod your Traits/VnVs thread and the Events and Conditions thread.

Go ahead and let your imagination run wild, if you want. I can evaluate and see how possible they are, or if they can somehow work or fit in with the mod, later.

[Jebus]

IMHO, the 'Bored' trait needs revision.

I mean, I can image the dumb, strong guys - the 'ME SMASH YOU GOOOOD' types - feeling bored when they have to manage a city and *gasp* read stuff; but really, really don't see how a smart, vigorous fellow could ever be bored by being the governor of a city like, say, Rome. My guess is that there would be plenty - *plently* - he could occupy himself with without become a fat lazy boozehound. If anything, intelligent and enthousiastic people would be absolutely thrilled to be able to run a city like Rome (as all sane people would), and would most likely do their best to become better at their job.

Now, if I were to appointed to some shithole in the middle of the Sahara or on the Russian planes - THEN I'd start drinking. Perhaps the 'bored' trait should thus take into account the size of the city, the facilities available (e.g. if a vigourous, intelligent governour is in a city with an academy, he'd most likely spend more time there than a dumb, lazy governour would, and thus get better skills), the distance to capital and the trade income of the town.

Just a suggestion. There's not much logic behind the entire 'bored' thing now...

[econ21]

To be honest, I don't worry much about the ancillaries, especially in EB where the ones that give you command stars seem to have gone. However, the salient exception is the churigeon (sp?), which is very valuable - especially in EB, where you cannot retrain your army so easily while campaigning far afield. Incidentally, could you check what other ancillaries are incompatible with the churigeon? I have a very nice general but he is not worth taking to the field, as I can't give him a churigeon. I wonder if it is because he has a physician? If so, it's a poor trade, as the physician is pretty tame compared to the churigeon.

I really like the EB traits system, although my more successful generals seem to pick up the desert fighter one in the most unlikely locations (snowy Germanic woods etc).

[Dooz]

The desert warrior issue has been addressed and I believe will be fixed in the future builds.

[mediobogdum]

I can confirm that the Physician & Chirguron are mutually exclusive. Its not bad however because while Chirguron only helps battle casualties while the physician does battle casualties and something else that helps that specific general (I think its better chance of children or something).
-----------------------------------

Copied from EB Ancillary breakdown:

physician
Ancillary physician Image older_man_ancillary.tga ExcludedAncillaries doctor, herbalist, chirurgeon ExcludeCultures barbarian, eastern Description physician_desc
physician : Fertility 1, BattleSurgery 5


Ancillary chirurgeon Image older_man_ancillary.tga ExcludedAncillaries doctor, herbalist, physician ExcludeCultures barbarian Description chirurgeon_desc
chirurgeon : BattleSurgery 10


OK well I guess its not as good for a strict battling general because ch gives 10 battsurgery vs just 5 for the physician.

[Rilder]

Heres a suggestion for a couple traits...

Son of the King: Being son of the king makes you quite influential among the faction +2 infuence (only available to factions that have kings hehe)

Brother Of the King: Being Brother to the king is a great honor. +1 infuence
(only available to factions that have kings)

Maby one for the faction leader when the faction increases a certain number of provinces, like "Great Leader of His people": This man has made his Kingdom/Empire/etc?? Greatly stronger and will be remembered among his people for centuries to come +4(?) infuence

there that should be good as i cant think of anymore

[Malrubius]

IMHO, the 'Bored' trait needs revision.

[snip]

Just a suggestion. There's not much logic behind the entire 'bored' thing now...

It will have 2 levels in the next patch, the first one just as a signal. Your suggestion about the size of city having an effect is a good one. Currently someone with the Supervisor trait doesn't get bored from sitting in a city (though he might get unhappy if it's a small city).

I can confirm that the Physician & Chirguron are mutually exclusive.

Good to see someone using the html docs! In fact, if your general has acquired the Herbalist, Chirurgeon, Doctor, or Wise Woman, he can't get one of the other ones (although you could pass them on to someone else). The Wise Woman and Herbalist have the same abilities as the doctor.

Son of the King: Being son of the king makes you quite influential among the faction +2 infuence (only available to factions that have kings hehe)

Brother Of the King: Being Brother to the king is a great honor. +1 infuence
(only available to factions that have kings)

Son would be possible, but I don't think Brother would. In factions with dynasties, it would further boost the son's chances of being auto-selected by the AI the heir and future king. Especially good would be a "first-born" trait.

Maby one for the faction leader when the faction increases a certain number of provinces, like "Great Leader of His people": This man has made his Kingdom/Empire/etc?? Greatly stronger and will be remembered among his people for centuries to come +4(?) infuence

We have something like that for the Sweboz and some things like that for the Celtic factions. I'm working on one for the Getai now. Parthia really had something like that, that I need to implement. Who else should get something like that? Yuezhi? Sauromatae?

Good suggestions! Keep 'em coming!

[Dooz]

From my own knowledge, I would recommend Armenia having that last type of trait. Great ancient Armenian leaders are still remembered and revered to this day.

[Geoffrey S]

Something along the lines of "Claims to be descended from Megas Alexandros" for Hellenic generals could be good. It could range from claiming to be a distant relative, to claiming to be Alexander reborn or something similar.

[Malrubius]

Something along the lines of "Claims to be descended from Megas Alexandros" for Hellenic generals could be good. It could range from claiming to be a distant relative, to claiming to be Alexander reborn or something similar.

I think Teleklos even wrote the description for that one, somewhere in the Greatest Generals thread.

[Ragabash]

If it's possible to make two or more different kind of traits that would change from family member to another... These are mainly for Romans but could be easily modified to to another factions.

Favor by Senate and Favor by people... These traits could be only with one general (same general could have both). How you would get these would be based how much your general would do and how.

Favor by Senate - This trait could be gained by gaining heroic victories. Maybe including senate missions back, but this time instead of positions in senate or reward your generals who actually complete this missions would gain one or more traits. I think this could be really neat because this would not give too big advantage from senate and it would give certain color to the Roman campaign.

Favor by people - Your general could get it by killing enough popping rebels or doing some other actions, such as stopping sieges to your towns and such.

[Trithemius]

I notice that the Romans have different status classes as their "ethnicities" (at least in the timeframe that my game is in), as well as picking up Optimate/Moderate/Populist traits.

I assume that, later on, Roman adoptees can start to pick up foreign ethnicities and so on - if not would this be something that could be made to happen?

Also, I am curious if the trait system could stand to have particular Families (gens) as traits as well? Or perhaps lesser traits that depend upon their social class?

[mattholomew]

could there perhaps be an iron fist trait for older generals who have spent a very long time governing a city or with huge amounts of influence (obviously they would also need to be corrupt, have a position in government, selfish, possibly the presence of one of the despotic buildings like execution squares or gladiatorial arenas). They would be able to make lots of profit off of the city and avoid the suspicious eyes of those higher up thanks to bribery, making it unlikelyto be censured. obviously their methods of tax collecting and enforcing law would include torture, imprisonment, and "vanishing" political enemies. This might bring a law bonus at first, as well as decreased population growth (representing people being arrested/executed) but soon a second trait could arrive representing how tired the people get of such tyranny. this would cause severe unrest due to unnhappiness, less order due to law, and a decrease in personal security. Maybe their bodyguards might even become less loyal because they've been ordered to do comit too many crimes. it would be easy to look the other way as their leader is hacked to pieces. If possible you could make them likely to die earlier. it would be fun to see that they died from "natural causes" later on.

another suggestion, a general might lose some command/influence if they relied too much on mercenaries and not enough on native troops. as well there could be an "enjoys foreign culture" or "foreign wife" trait which might give them less influence and less command because his people no longer trust him. at least they would be less likely to get a powerful position in government. there could be a problem with determining what the culture of the general was, but maybe faction-specific buildings might effect this. ie: a roman who spends too much time in settlements with greek buildings might get the "wants to be greek" trait. When this general entered a roman settlement with a romans only building, he would get a trait such as "seen as a traitor" this would last only until he left and went to a city with a greek building, where it would cause the trait "feels right at home"

maybe you could also do this with schools and other cultural buildings. an intelligent general with the trait "philosophically inclined" might start to feel impatient in a city without an educational building. this could lead to all kinds of bad things like "sees others as inferior". The same could be done in reverse.

oh, just one other thing could perhaps be an "idealist" who could try to take away things like gladiatorial fights or high taxes. If they did implement high taxes, they would be merciful and also work harder to benefit the people. eventually their reforms in the city could lead to population growth and incredible loyalty. they could crack down on corruption and get discounts. Also, the people would be willing to work and fight harder and/or for less pay, since this man was so kind. at the same time, their security might go down when the local aristocracy feels like they've been wronged. on the other hand the people would be so loyal that no one would be able to attack this general. Obviously they would be hard to bribe, and unlikely to be a good military leader, since their morals would contradict military action.

[Roderick Ponce Von Fontlebottom]

What about retarted trait. They have 1 hitpoint and randomly run around on the battlefield and when you put them in your cities your income becomes negative 10000 and buildings are randomly destroyed. For the picture the general should be lke cross-eyed with his toungue out or somehting.