Traits and Ancillaries Brainstorming and Suggestions Thread

[Malrubius]

How about an addition to the forced march trait. Say a general has gotten the trait, and then force marches to attack an enemy and wins, say, a clear victory or something. What if he could get a "force march victor" trait or something, that could have more positive bonuses. Any chance that would work? It could reflect soldiers' trust in and willingness to make sacrifices for a great leader.

Since the PreBattle event doesn't work, I couldn't use this trait to give any bonuses right before the battle. However, I already have it where some generals can inspire their troops and spur them on when attacking, even though they're forced marching (gives a +1 to command when attacking).

One thing I always thought was interesting in reading about faction leaders was the relationship that many young kings had with their mother. I think it would be interesting to have a king who was a "momma's boy" and would lose influence, command, and management because he was off acting in plays or what not. This could be a temporary trait while his mother is alive and either he becomes inconsolable when his mother dies and absolutely worthless, or he could come to his senses and recover or even execute her before she dies a natural death. (I am pretty sure the last on is impossible, but hey)

Another question I have is, it was quite common in the ancient world to kill all threats to the crown, especially family members, is that possible in EB. I realize it would suck and for game play reasons, might be a bad idea, but I still think that intrigue is intriguing.

Finally, along those lines, could there be an event where a leader catches wind of an attempted coup (real or fabricated by a jealous aide) and kills a large number of his support staff. That could lead to many temporary and permanent traits that would really make your king a pain to have around.

We can't detect when a general's mother dies. It would have been good, though. I can't kill off generals, the best I can do is take away hitpoints or movement and make them useless. BTW, anybody notice anything happen to a general's son if the father dies in battle?

Now, your 3rd suggestion is possible. It would be a lot of triggers and somebody would need to write up some good descriptions. It would probably tie into the Paranoia trait somehow.

Just skimming through the ideas and saw something about being wary of ambushes...

Would it be possible to make the wary of ambushes trait say something like "An army under the command of this man has been ambushed in the past and it has obviously affected him since he now refuses to even march through woodland" And you won't be able to march through woodland with the general... Obviously he would only get this trait if he is ambushed and loses the battle but i think it could be a good idea, if it were possible.

Not something I can do with traits (or scripting), you have to be able to detect the terrain, and that's not possible. I guess it could be applied when InBarbarianLands, but I'm not even sure how RTW figures something is a barbarian land.

How about a trait where a general fights a lot of defensive battles or defensive sieges in his own lands. He could get.

"Defender of his people: This man has done much to safe-guard the lands and future of his people, they look to him in their hour of need. (+1 Command, +2 Influence."

Then you could have a more extreme one which is really hard to get. "Hope of his people" or something, with double bonuses.

This is possible, but we pretty much have the GoodDefender trait, that covers this.

Could we have the opposite of "Wary of Ambushes", "Complacent about Ambushes" or even an Arminius ancillary. Makes the character move faster but decreases site range. You coudl ahve it if the character is ambushed and wins alot.

And could you give Roman generals in Rome a hidden trait which dissapears if they spend a turn outside of the city, it would give enourmous bonuses to his troops so they will stand to the last man and never rout when defending Rome? It would be pretty realistic

The Arminius ancillary would be an interesting historical ancillary.

On the never routs thing, nobody really routs when defending a city. Once they get to the square, that's it. I don't know why it would only apply to Romans, anyway. Didn't Rome get sacked multiple times in history?

@Three63: Bored has undergone a big reworking for the patch. For the Drink trait, you have to get to level 3 before it has any negatives. That doesn't seem so severe.

Since some factions get their new generals through adoption, could children and siblings that don't show up on the family tree be represented by traits (or non transferable ancillaries: it always seemed strange to me that a drunken uncle could be passed on to someone else in vanilla)?
Suggestions would be things like protective older brothers giving a boost to security, lots of adult daughters giving influence through marriage, jealous brothers plotting lowering personal security, clever relatives aiding management, useless or sickly children reducing happiness because the succession isn't secure etc.
I think this sort of thing would help when imagining that the family tree only shows key characters and your generals aren't actually all infertile.

Very good suggestion! (no way we can make ancillaries non-transferable, though. I wish!) We could do it through traits, though.

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.

We have historical triumphs, coronas, and political factions representing most of this already.


Thanks for all the suggestions, everybody! Keep 'em coming!