Unique traits?

[Makanyane]

I'm trying to get some unique attributes to apply to the first child of a faction to come of age.. this includes the requirement to have a unique epithet and various unique ancillaries and or traits.

I can make the ancilliaries work as unique - whilst he's alive by using the:
and not WorldwideAncillaryExists
line in the ancillary trigger, but I can't work out how to either

A. get the ancillary to give the epithet, or

B. get a trait trigger to use the and not Worldwide.. function
it ignores and generates exit error message if I use 'and not WorldwideAncillaryExists' and just ignores it for any way I can think of writing it for WorldwideTrait etc. !

Has anyone tried anything like this, advice appreciated!

[wlesmana]

If you already know from the start who's going to be the first, then just make a script that would give the trait to that character at a certain date (when he comes of age). That'd be simplest, I suppose, but requires you to know who this person is (by name) and when he'll come of age. And hope he won't die before maturing.

Another way is to give a trait that's automatically given to all new generals, then this trait would give the Ancillary, which is unique worldwide, and this ancillary would trigger more unique traits. The problems with this method:
- You can give the ancillary to another general that comes after the first matured general and he'd start getting the traits too.
- If you gain an adopted general, he'd be treated the same as the first matured.
- If the general with the ancillary dies, the ancillary would pop up for another newly matured general.

The problem with traits that are triggered by a spawned ancillary is that you can't keep it from not spawning again. So the only way to make it not spawning again is to spawn it only by script or have it exist at the start of the campaign with no trigger to spawn again.

[Apoc]

A couple of questions:

- Do you know which character this is (i.e. is it a specific character, or a random one). Is he already coded in the ds (as a child)? Do you know the father?
- What type of trait is it? Is it something that you'd want to die out with the character, or could it be passed on to his sons?

Uniqe traits are not really possible, only in a roundabout way, really. Still, there are some ways it can be done, provided information is already known. That's why I had to make Steward of Gondor an ancillary :(

Another way is to give a trait that's automatically given to all new generals, then this trait would give the Ancillary, which is unique worldwide, and this ancillary would trigger more unique traits.

I could not get the FactionwideAncillaryExists & WorldwideAncillaryExists conditions to work in the traits files in BI 1.6.

[BozosLiveHere]

To make the ancillary unique all you have to do is add the Unique line to it, like you would add Hidden to a trait, like this:

Ancillary BozosLiveHere
    Image BozosLiveHere.tga
    Unique
    Description BozosLiveHere_desc
    EffectsDescription BozosLiveHere_effects_desc

As the others have already said, there's no straightforward way to get a unique trait. In the case you mentioned maybe you could do something like this:

Trait Fatherhood
    Characters family
    Hidden

    Level Firstborn
        Description Firstborn_desc
        EffectsDescription Firstborn_effects_desc
        Threshold  1

    Level FirstbornBecomesAdult
        Description Firstborn_becomes_adult_desc
        EffectsDescription Firstborn_becomes_adult_effects_desc
        Threshold  32 ;assuming you're using 2 turns per year

    Level FirstbornAlreadyAdult
        Description Firstborn_already_adult_desc
        EffectsDescription Firstborn_already_adult_effects_desc
        Threshold  33

;----------------------------------------
Trait Firstborn
    Characters family

    Level OnlySon
        Description Only_Son_desc
        EffectsDescription Only_Son_effects_desc
        Threshold  1

In the trigger section you'd have:

Trigger Becomes_Dad_For_The_First_Time
WhenToTest CharacterBecomesAFather

Condition Trait Fatherhood < 1

Affects Fatherhood  1  Chance 100

;--------------------------------------
Trigger Firstborn_is_getting_older
WhenToTest CharacterTurnStart

Condition Trait Fatherhood > 0
        and Trait Fatherhood < 3

Affects Fatherhood  1  Chance  100

;--------------------------------------
Trigger Firstborn_gets_his_trait
WhenToTest CharacterComesOfAge

Condition FatherTrait Fatherhood = 2

Affects Firstborn  1  Chance  100

I could not get the FactionwideAncillaryExists & WorldwideAncillaryExists conditions to work in the traits files in BI 1.6.

Really? I thought I'd seen WorldWideAncillaryExists in the vanilla edct. Gah! There goes my idea for using scripts to affect trait acquisition.

[Apoc]

Really? I thought I'd seen WorldWideAncillaryExists in the vanilla edct. Gah! There goes my idea for using scripts to affect trait acquisition.

And my idea of having a 'Steward of Gondor' unique trait, with accompanying epithet and two unique ancillaries were shattered.

[Makanyane]

Thanks for all the info, there's a lot to digest so I'll probably be back.!

BozosLiveHere I hadn't noticed the 'Unique' line in use for ancillaries - that suits me better than the Worldwide condition, thanks for that.

wlesmana I was trying to avoid scripting, because A. I'm useless at it and B. mod so far isn't scripted, so I didn't want to get into the whole hit 'show me how' thing just for this.....

Another way is to give a trait that's automatically given to all new generals, then this trait would give the Ancillary, which is unique worldwide, and this ancillary would trigger more unique traits.

Did you really mean that? Ignoring bit about trying to get FactionwideAncillaryExists & WorldwideAncillaryExists conditions to work in the traits file, can you actually get any trigger for a trait to reference (spawn from) a named ancillary? I couldn't find any example of that either. If I could get my now 'Unique' ancillary to generate trait with epithet I think I might be part of way there.



As you may have gathered by now I'm slightly lost on all this - is there anywhere a list of all the trigger conditions and effects etc. that have been proved to work?

[Makanyane]

Double posting as new info:
For original problem it didn't actually matter too much which general got the unique ancillary and epithet traits (random could actually be quite good), just that they should be together, not recurring at least definitely not until after death and that they shouldn't be divisible. Was using first born as that was only way I thought of initially to tie up the T & A (with advantage if he was in strat it would give me some control over name of general).

Ideally it would have been better to have a specific unique general name with the unique ancillary - but flaw is, I think even with scripting the generals name would have had to go into descr_names.txt pool, meaning game could re-use it for other captains spies etc, which in this case would be sillier result.
(If it is possible somehow to have a once only general name please advise...)

Anyway:
Have finally found one way of linking my now Unique ancillary back to a trait trigger,
I've pinched Marcus Camillus's idea #150
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...ry#post1188831
and given my Unique 'Fred ancillary' a 'Effect NavalCommand 2' and then used

Trigger Fred
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition CultureType nomad
and Trait xxxx>= 1
and Attribute NavalCommand > 1
and IsGeneral

Affects Fred_Name 1 Chance 100

to give him the Fred_Name epithet trait on the next turn - that being the only ancillary etc. to give NavalCommand to a general in that culture the epithet shouldn't reappear unless the ancillary is transferred.

To stop the ancillary getting transferred I've set up three new ancillaries that exclude each other and 'Fred' (I believe you can only have three excludes is that right?). Every general in that culture will have to have one of them if they haven't got the Fred ancillary - that seems workable by going through triggers in order with 100% chance as catch all for last one. So none of those three ancillaries or the Fred ancillary can be moved - and epithet shouldn't recur.

umm, any better ideas and advice on known workable trigger conditions still appreciated......

[BozosLiveHere]

I still think you're doing this on the reverse. You should try going trait->ancillary instead of ancillary->trait. Make the ancillary trigger have a Trait Fred > 0 conditional and it should be fine.

[Makanyane]

Thanks again BozosLiveHere for the reply, I'm not arguing but just trying to understand this, I'm already feeling like I've been applying head to brick wall for a very long time, so help is greatly appreciated !!

Trigger Becomes_Dad_For_The_First_Time
WhenToTest CharacterBecomesAFather

Condition Trait Fatherhood < 1

Affects Fatherhood 1 Chance 100

Unless that can be defined for a specific character wouldn't that apply to all men within the family tree who become fathers for first time - possibly simultaneously? I think I understand your very neat timing thing that determines fatherhood 1 starts at birth reaches 2 at coming of age then trips to 3, therefore stops that father giving same trait again - but surely other 1st time fathers (brothers in the tree etc) then and later would still give Firstborn (fred_name) trait to their offspring as well?

That Firstborn trait could link to my Unique / WorldWide restricted 'Fred' ancillary, but if the Firstborn trait isn't itself unique and I can't link back to another restricted trait then I still have no way of getting unique Epithet name in ............... I think

It's still the problem with getting a Trait attached to a name / epithet to trigger only once...

[Apoc]

If you have an idea of when the birth will occur, you can apply the I_TurnNumber condition - this should stop any other 'fathers' getting it later on (though, of course, not anyone getting it within the turn number limit).

[wlesmana]

Unless that can be defined for a specific character wouldn't that apply to all men within the family tree who become fathers for first time - possibly simultaneously? I think I understand your very neat timing thing that determines fatherhood 1 starts at birth reaches 2 at coming of age then trips to 3, therefore stops that father giving same trait again - but surely other 1st time fathers (brothers in the tree etc) then and later would still give Firstborn (fred_name) trait to their offspring as well?

If the guy who's going to have his first child already exists at the start of the campaign, you can just give him the trait in desc_strat.txt and not have a trigger for the trait. So he'd be the only one who'd get it.

The concern with ancillaries is that they can be transfered. If the epithet you're trying to achieve is triggered by an ancillary, even if it is unique, it can still be transfered to others to trigger the same thing.

[Makanyane]

-apocalypsis- thanks for tip on I_TurnNumber condition I'd not spotted that, that could be used - could well help..

wlesmana

If the guy who's going to have his first child already exists at the start of the campaign, you can just give him the trait in desc_strat.txt and not have a trigger for the trait. So he'd be the only one who'd get it.

That would fit with my first idea that the child would be in strat, I would just need to test what happens if dad dies before the child is born.... however now I think I can do it I'm starting to like the idea of it being a random birth!

I'd realised that the flaw with using an ancillary was that it would normally be movable, that was why I was proposing the other three mutually exclusive ancillaries (last one triggered at 100%)

Every general in that culture will have to have one of them if they haven't got the Fred ancillary

you can't seem to transfer an ancillary onto a general that already has either one of the same, or has an existing ancillary that Excludes the one you're trying to move. I've got to re-do most of the traits / ancillaries for this faction so I can make the ones that are blocking the transfer into something useful.
I've tested that I can definitely get one of the four ancillaries to apply to each general that comes of age - I just need to cover adoption / marriage, I need to test that those events can trigger the other three ancillaries...

[Makanyane]

you can't seem to transfer an ancillary onto a general that already has either one of the same, or has an existing ancillary that Excludes the one you're trying to move.

Oh Bahhh, I seem to be wrong again! That appeared to work in testing for the first ancillaries I put in, that were either specified in descr_strat or acquired at coming of age.

Have just tried same principal on some further ancillaries to be acquired on next turn / later and those seem to be moveable despite having same ExcludedAncillaries
line as the first set!

EDIT, EDIT: Principle is right, I was just being thick, the 2nd lot of ancillaries have only got a one way exclusion so A excludes B, but B doesn't exclude A (and can't as it would give me more than three ExcludedAncillaries and CTD!) the reciprocal exclusion is what is needed to stop them being put on same character.