Traits and Ancillaries Brainstorming and Suggestions Thread

[paullus]

Sounds good to me! I'll run it by the historian-types.

I got the idea from Recherches Sur Les Armees Hellenistiques, by Marcel Launey, if that's any help.

[Justiciar]

Literacy, maybe?
Bookworm +2 Managment
Literate +1 Managment
Illiterate -1 Managment
Terriffied by Paper -2 Managment

Maybe there could be a 'bastard/illegitimate' trait that decreases influence? Or 'Rumoured Bastard' as in it isn't clear but it's still a constant issue in the general's life.. which might well be even more damaging.

[The_White_Knight]

I've got a couple of suggestions: but I don't know whether they are possible to script in.

1. The 'ambassador'-trait and the 'spy network'-trait are both very interesting. However I wonder: is it possible to give a similar bonus-boost for gouverners who lead their cities for a very long time? -i.e. the gouvernor would become an experienced ruler and therefor get many tax/happiness bonuses, but only in the city he gouverned? The occurany of this trait would ofcourse be heavily influenced by parameters as acumen...
2. The characters in EB are fun to seem them evolve, however I missed a little bit of 'interaction' between different members of the royal family. Is it possible to deepen out the different relations between campaign characters? It could open a wealth of possibilities, not only between general-general but also between general-diplomats... For example one ruler could be to much of a 'wish-crack' and interfere with every step a diplomat [ambassador] makes in the settlement...
   

PS/ Awesome work on EB traits. It's what I love most about EB.

[Malrubius]

@Justiciar: we have something like that, with a general's proclivity to learning or aversion to it, or even one who's self-educated (Unschooled, Practical, Scholarly, etc traits). That probably covers it.

It wouldn't be too hard to do the Bastard trait; Hiero of Syrakousai would fit the bill, I think. It could be obtained when suitors or adoption candidates are offered (men of the hour would be very prone to it, I guess). Even sons could have it, if their father has a trait like "Cuckold" (meaning the son is the wife's), or if the father has the adultery vice or something similar.

I've got a couple of suggestions: but I don't know whether they are possible to script in.

1. The 'ambassador'-trait and the 'spy network'-trait are both very interesting. However I wonder: is it possible to give a similar bonus-boost for gouverners who lead their cities for a very long time? -i.e. the gouvernor would become an experienced ruler and therefor get many tax/happiness bonuses, but only in the city he gouverned? The occurany of this trait would ofcourse be heavily influenced by parameters as acumen...
2. The characters in EB are fun to seem them evolve, however I missed a little bit of 'interaction' between different members of the royal family. Is it possible to deepen out the different relations between campaign characters? It could open a wealth of possibilities, not only between general-general but also between general-diplomats... For example one ruler could be to much of a 'wish-crack' and interfere with every step a diplomat [ambassador] makes in the settlement...
   

PS/ Awesome work on EB traits. It's what I love most about EB.

Glad you're enjoying them!

Yeah, therother has been on me about doing what you mentioned in (1). (2) would be a bit difficult, because I can check what a father's traits are, but the father can't tell what his son's traits are, in game terms. I could do things at random, but they might seem incongruous. Same would go with relations between spies and assassins. For a little role-playing effect, it might be fun, but I wouldn't want to tie any severe penalties to it.

[Warlord 11]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=125

Some good ideas. I like the language idea. Perhaps he will let you use it. Just a thought.

[john289]

I think something should be done about the Gloomy trait line. If your general is has the pessimistic trait, it's pretty likely he'll end up with Melancholic. It just kills my generals influence. I haven't checked the threshold, but I think raising it a tad would be good.

[SpawnOfEbil]

How about an Architect trait that reduces building build times?

[Malrubius]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=125

Some good ideas. I like the language idea. Perhaps he will let you use it. Just a thought.

That mod started as a submod of the EB system, though they may be doing a complete reworking now, I'm not sure.

I think something should be done about the Gloomy trait line. If your general is has the pessimistic trait, it's pretty likely he'll end up with Melancholic. It just kills my generals influence. I haven't checked the threshold, but I think raising it a tad would be good.

I may add another level that has less severe penalties and do some more happiness triggers tied to buildings. That trait does seem a bit too common, and there should be some triggers to counteract it more.

How about an Architect trait that reduces building build times?

Not possible. We can reduce build costs. As for times, I found out something recently: you can drag and drop buildings in the queue to reorder them, so you can start a Type2 government building, and move roads or temples in front of it when you need one of them built fast. It will slow down your government building a few turns, but it can come in handy.

Any chance we could rename the Merc captain to xenologos (merc recruiter)?

Edit: Ah, good point Trithemius. This would only be for Greek factions, and perhaps you could use it for the Getai as well.

Yeah, we could do that, to have faction or culture-specific ancillaries like that. With Forgus working on the portraits, we've done this with a few of them. Equilibrium has gotten changes like these implemented.

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?

For now, we don't have the ethnicities for the Romans. There has been discussion of adding some. I would guess Samnites or others might be possibilities.

We do have the Plebeian/Patrician split, as well as a later Senator/Equestrian split, and the 'political parties' you mentioned (Optimate, etc).

We had discussed using the epithet system to apply the gens, but didn't go with that system.

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.

An interesting idea. With some good descriptions for each level, it would be a nice progression.

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"

Tying this to buildings wouldn't work so well, because we can only detect the building level, not the faction or culture it belongs to.

I can tell when a general hires mercenaries, but not how much of a percentage they represent in his army.

The original game had a "foreign tastes" trait for romans (ForeignTasteRomanVice), but it was poorly implemented and didn't work. The CVP disabled it, but I re-enabled it for diplomats.

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.

This would be possible.

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.

This would be the opposite of the iron fist trait above. These two have some similarities with the current Brutal and Lenient traits, and might represent offshoots of them.

[oudysseos]

I have a trait/ancillary suggestion- but I can't seem to open the .rar docs on the website so if I'm repeating something sorry in advance.

What I'm thinking is some sort of cultural conflict progression- traits like 'Religous Convert', 'Going Native', or 'Forgotten His Roots'. These are all probably negative traits, or maybe mixed- 'Going Native' could be minus influence but a plus on local management. Is there some way to assign traits to generals who have spent a long time away from the core homeland? That's what I'm getting at- generals and governors who are influenced by local culture, losing rep/influence back home but gaining something among the conquered locals. Shouldn't happen automatically though- think of Pausanias (old guard Mak no matter how long away) and Hephaistion (wearing Persian trousers).


Ancillaries to go along with this trait system could be 'Influential Priest' (I'm thinking Rasputin here, actually), 'Local Client'. The idea needs loads of work in the details.



A second one, independent of the above is a trait for Autobiographer/ Memoir Writer. Someone like Xenophon or Caesar should gain Influence from publishing their memoirs/analyses of recent campaigns. Again, sorry if you already have this.


Last question- is there any system in place/coming up to represent the Roman Patron/Client relationships. I dunno how that would work in game but the acquisition of clients was a major part of a Roman's auctoritas/dignitas. Pompey boasted that he had kings as clients, which he indeed did. I'm betting that you already have something on this.