Too many general traits?

[Kaldhore]

Personally I find the amount of traits in MTW2 very high compared to the other TW games and to be honest Im finding them annoying...

I used to manage my generals traits and especially their Ancilaries (that I cant move around now), and Im finding that Im ignoring that part of the game. For the first time since MTW1 Im not really participating in this part of the the roleplaying aspect basically because its become too cumbersome and really a pain in the a** to manage. And Im a micromanger.

Anyone else seen and increase from RTW or the others?

[Fußball]

IMO the traits and ancillaries each general/governor has is one of the best things about M2TW. But one of the worst things about the trait abundance is the abundance of nonsensical triggers to traits that make little or no sense at all. Pagan magician and winning first are great examples of having terrible triggers. And not being able to remedy such traits/ancillaries doubles the foolishness.

Tschüß!
Erich

[Quickening]

IMO the traits and ancillaries each general/governor has is one of the best things about M2TW. But one of the worst things about the trait abundance is the abundance of nonsensical triggers to traits that make little or no sense at all. Pagan magician and winning first are great examples of having terrible triggers. And not being able to remedy such traits/ancillaries doubles the foolishness.

Tschüß!
Erich

Agreed.

[fenir]

Its' another thing we tried to tell CA from Rome experiance.
We love the traits, but there are far to many, and far to many silly ones, with lots of silly triggers.

And recommended limiting them to 8 or 10 per General. With a clear development path.

MTW was good, it was easy to get good steward, and general traits, hard to get good trader. But after playing, and taking note, of how, when, and by what, you learnt how to work toward the traits. Hence, Role Playing.

And by that role playing, your generals, got the good traits, which is generally, what most of us want, and I think, most thought of as role playing your characters. Working towards the good, trying to stay clear of the bad?

Now the traits on your general turn up with god knows what, for god knows how, on the most stupid and pathetic things.
which really makes it near impossible to role play anything. Hence I no longer bother. Hence lack of immersion.

We all understand that by doing silly things you get silly traits, ok fair enough. But to get crap ( for want of a better description) traits for doing good things? that is just stupid.


ok enough from me

[ /rant mode]

fenir

[HoreTore]

Actually, I love the number of traits, and I'd want more of them, not less. Once you become familiar with them, and look through the trait file, you wont have any difficulty with them. When you know what the consequences are for each of your actions, advancing the general as you wish isn't a problem. But you can still see the path the general will take from the traits he has at birth. For example, a guy starting with BattleDread WILL be dreadful. A smart guy will remain a smart guy unless you stick him in a backwater town.

[Quickening]

Actually, I love the number of traits, and I'd want more of them, not less. Once you become familiar with them, and look through the trait file, you wont have any difficulty with them. When you know what the consequences are for each of your actions, advancing the general as you wish isn't a problem. But you can still see the path the general will take from the traits he has at birth. For example, a guy starting with BattleDread WILL be dreadful. A smart guy will remain a smart guy unless you stick him in a backwater town.

How do you get around Winning First then? Id love to know that one.

[Kobal2fr]

MTW was good, it was easy to get good steward, and general traits, hard to get good trader. But after playing, and taking note, of how, when, and by what, you learnt how to work toward the traits. Hence, Role Playing.

And by that role playing, your generals, got the good traits, which is generally, what most of us want, and I think, most thought of as role playing your characters. Working towards the good, trying to stay clear of the bad?

Now the traits on your general turn up with god knows what, for god knows how, on the most stupid and pathetic things.
which really makes it near impossible to role play anything. Hence I no longer bother. Hence lack of immersion.

Sorry, but that's not true. In fact, it's the exact opposite of roleplaying. Roleplaying means starting with a character/psychology and following it through no matter what would be more convenient (even if it leads you to many, many "problems"), NOT taking specific actions to validate or come up with the character/psychollogy.

So, in the case of M2TW, the game picks the psychology for you, meaning if you have a general who winds up with the ignorant trait, you'd be role-playing by making ignorant decisions with him - let him butcher muslims because "the pope said", build useless stuff, recruit only one kind of troops because "they look purdy" etc...
Of course, many of the traits are not so much character as aptitudes, or ineptitudes, which are just freebies. There's no "role" involved because they don't really have an effect on that character's decision-making process, only on the result of said decisions (and what the King would expect of him or ask him to do)

But "working towards the good, trying to stay clear of the bad", that's powerplaying. That's micromanaging. And you absolutely don't have to do that to enjoy nor win the game (heck, you could even go by without even taking care of your cities at all and letting the AI manage taxes, troops and buildings). You certainly can, if you're so inclined, but it's not the point of the trait system.

MTW was *bad* on the RP front precisely because there were so few traits and they were triggered by such basic conditions. But real people aren't that simple, and they're a lot more complicated than 2-3 dominant traits so if anything, the apparent randomness of the trait system (which, BTW, as HoreTore states, is anything but) and the incredible number of different traits and effects makes it more lifelike. They turn your generals into more than just GoodBuilder_001, by giving them a complex personnality. And IMO, the more the better... as long as they make some distant kind of sense, agreed, but even back in 1.0 most of them did, I'm sure 1.2 is even better in that regard. Of course, I'll only be sure when I get off my bony arse and get to work on it :)

But if you don't find they do, they're probably the easiest thing to mod in the game, heck you can delete'em all if you think there are too many of 'em. But devs taking away stuff that's already there, that's just a bad thing for any game. Ask them to be able to turn them on/off or even a none/light/heavy option, sure, be my guest, but one should never ask for LESS options and LESS diversity, ever.

[Didz]

I must admit I don't take a lot of notice of the traits. I certainly don't try and manipulate which ones my generals get and never have done, and I've never bothered much with worrying about which they've got.

I've always taken the view that the traits awarded to my generals reflect the way I play the game. And so the fact that most of my general's end up called Ralph the Wrathful, Sidney the Vicious or Herbert the Malicious is just the result of my playing style.

About the only time I pay any attention is when I put a general in a city and the happiness button turns RED. Then I know I need to post that guy to a castle or send him back to the frontline.

[Sentinel]

Personally I find the amount of traits in MTW2 very high compared to the other TW games and to be honest Im finding them annoying...

I agree. The system is getting so complex and confusing that I rarely bother with it.

I recently had to choose one of 6 generals to leave in a settlement I had just conquered. Since each had about 10 traits / ancillaries, it was difficult to work out which would be best. In the end I just moved them in and out one at a time and checked what happened with the public order.

Other than to just confuse people I don’t see the point of giving a trait that gives +1 to command then further down the list giving another that has –1 to commend then at the end having a third that gives +2 to command etc.

Why can’t they just cancel each other out and disappear from the list.

At least with command there is summery at the top of the general’s page to help, but with other factors, Tax, PO, Trade, etc it take too long to decide if any general has merits or not.

[Crian]

Personally I find the amount of traits in MTW2 very high compared to the other TW games and to be honest Im finding them annoying...

I'm with you on this one.

I enjoyed managing the traits in Medieval 1, and titles were fun and really helped a lot. It was rewarding to find a great general among the rabble, build him up, give him a bunch of titles and feel good at looking at all those high command and acumen points he has . Dread and piety are pretty much secondary for me though, but they're a welcome bonus.

It didn't feel as good in Rome, though, primarily because you had less generals and titles were gone, but still, you can pretty much still do a lot with the ancillaries.

Now it's just irritating, no titles, you can't manage ancillaries (not to mention half of the ancillaries you get are useless), and everything is one confusing pile. I never bothered with this aspect of the game anymore either. Plus in Med1, princesses were actually useful in that you can boost a general's loyalty in you by marrying them to him. Now I don't bother with princesses. I liked it in Medieval that you can get a civil war when you run out of princes. This has never happened to me in Medieval 2 yet, since I never run out of heirs and my general's loyalties were never low enough.

And God I really want those titles! Gone are the days of "Ibn al-Asir, Emir of Granada, Master of the Sultan's Horse", etc....