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.

[Vladimir]

I agree that there are too many and that they are too hard to manage, but I can live with it. I just wish that my Spanish heir wouldn't get so many dread virtues by participating so much in combat. It seems like the chivalrous general is one that stays in back and watches the fight. This is after I try to groom him to be virtuous.

[HoreTore]

Hehe, you still haven't figured that one out?

Well, first off, if your general starts with it, I suggest you let him remain dreadful. Trying to change him requires you to flee in battle, which isn't very good... Build on his dread, don't try to force him into chivalry. If he starts with BattleChivalry, then you don't have anything to fear, you will remain chivalrous.

If you start out blank, then you have to do one of the following to get BattleChivalry:

1. Attack a general of a different faith
2. Attack with low odds(1:2)
3. Defend with low odds(4:5)

If you get BattleDread first, then there's nothing to do, he will become dreaded. Note that unless you are EXTREMELY careful, you will have some dreaded generals and some chivalrous generals in your empire. That's by design, I believe. You simply have to accept that you can't rule an empire wuth nothing but chivalrous guys...

But you can, of course, be chivalrous with BattleChivalry. RansomChivalry, StrategyChivalry, Cusader/JihadHistory LenientJustice and Just are all easy to get chivalry traits.

[Quickening]

What usually happens is that I get Winning First but since I always Occupy settlements I get "Fair in Rule" which negates it. So I end up with neutral Generals to start with.

[HoreTore]

Well, sacking said settlement seems like the thing to do. Or building a couple of spies.

[Fußball]

[rant]Funny since the start of 1.2, ( leaked and official ) I have yet to gain the fair fighter trait by myself. But I have gained the winning first trait quite easily. I just dealt with it because in the instances I got the winning first trait I knew I would regardless. There should definitely be more than a 25% chance of gaining fair fighter and at least another trigger for it. It is very frustrating to jump through hoops just to gain the trait.

Pagan magician is also frustrating. I had three different turns I had to move my faction heir out of a 75-80% Catholic province into a 91% catholic province to avoid gaining this horrid little rodent. And had to do the same for another family member in a province with 86% Catholicism.

There certainly needs to be more to the pagan magician trigger than there is. The higher a general's piety should lessen the chance. Any province with little to no pagan % should have an even lower chance if not none at all. And finally any province with between 70 & 75+ Catholicism should lower the chances drastically. It is not as if your pious general is out wandering the streets looking for them.

The number of traits and different traits are wonderful. The variety and diversity of them is what makes having generals that much more fun. But with those come several annoying traits made so by their ridiculous triggers and percentage of occurring. With these fine-tuned the game can be that much more fun. As of now it is a pain in the arse to go out of your way to remedy them.[/rant]

Tschüß!
Erich

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

Pagan magician kicks in if there is more than 10% heretic in province (and of course less than 90% own faith). I send priests in first so it's not a problem. Winning first i never get if odds are 1:1 or less, besides i never let my general fight personally only chase routers. But if he fights outnumbered you still won't get it (Try it against a rebel stack just with the general)

[Omisan]

What are the rarest traits or ancillaries?

One that I have only seen once is "Fine armor" which gave the general extra hit points.

[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....

[Nebuchadnezzar]

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

Easy


If you want chivalric generals and he hasn't fought in a battle previously ie no BattleChivalry then make sure he does not take part in his first battle. Keep him on the sidelines and don't use him to chase routers.

Theres a 50% chance he will pick up the winning first if he has no BattleChivalry and kills more than 8 of the enemy (includes prisoners I think)

But not all is lost if he gets this trait as you can still successfully get them to become chivalric, they just loose a point on the ladder up.

or you can edit the traits file.

[Quickening]

Easy


If you want chivalric generals and he hasn't fought in a battle previously ie no BattleChivalry then make sure he does not take part in his first battle. Keep him on the sidelines and don't use him to chase routers.

Theres a 50% chance he will pick up the winning first if he has no BattleChivalry and kills more than 8 of the enemy (includes prisoners I think)

But not all is lost if he gets this trait as you can still successfully get them to become chivalric, they just loose a point on the ladder up.

or you can edit the traits file.

Well that explains it. I use my Generals Bodyguard to decimate enemy archers and peasants in nearly every battle.

On a slightly different topic, earlier today I began a battle. Unfortunately it was a bridge battle so I withdrew before anything happened. Bizarrely, my General got two Chivalrous traits including Fair Fighter

EDIT: I was outnumbered about two to one if that has any relevance.

[Fußball]

If you want chivalric generals and he hasn't fought in a battle previously ie no BattleChivalry then make sure he does not take part in his first battle. Keep him on the sidelines and don't use him to chase routers.

I am not so sure it will work like this. I have tried engaging everyone but my general before only to end up with winning first. But it was a 1:1 matchup. I will try testing this out if I can in my current campaign.

Tschüß!
Erich

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I am not so sure it will work like this. I have tried engaging everyone but my general before only to end up with winning first. But it was a 1:1 matchup. I will try testing this out if I can in my current campaign.

Tschüß!
Erich

There are other BattleDread triggers but this is the main culprit

;------------------------------------------
Trigger battle3_Dread_fighting
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition GeneralNumKillsInBattle > 8
and not Trait BattleChivalry > 0

Affects BattleDread 1 Chance 50
Affects Bloodthirsty 1 Chance 10

Edit
I am pretty sure that its changed a lot since 1.1 but since I don't have the old files I can't compare.

[Fußball]

If that is the main problem then things may have just gotten a bit easier. I was trying very hard to engage with as few units as possible which included my generals bodyguard and perhaps a unit or two versus x1.5-2 size enemy units to remedy it. That has gotten me nothing so far, neither fair fighter nor winning first.

Tschüß!
Erich

[Nebuchadnezzar]

If that is the main problem then things may have just gotten a bit easier. I was trying very hard to engage with as few units as possible which included my generals bodyguard and perhaps a unit or two versus x1.5-2 size enemy units to remedy it. That has gotten me nothing so far, neither fair fighter nor winning first.

Tschüß!
Erich

That makes sense because BattleChivalry has similar triggers.

;------------------------------------------
Trigger battle3_Chivalry_fighting
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition GeneralNumKillsInBattle > 8
and not Trait BattleDread > 0

Affects BattleChivalry 1 Chance 50

[whtdoesitmatta]

So it's a 50% shot either way, just pray, or don't kill with the general, and don't get BattleChivary.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Well, not quite b/c battledread_3 trigger has the additional 10% chance of getting bloodthirsty. There are also a number of other battledread triggers that kick in such as "picking on weak" if you heavily outnumber your enemy or "total annihilation" if you use you general to mop up.

I also noticed that in the official 1.2 I get less battledread and rarely the 2 together like I did in the leaked 1.2. Coincidence maybe or there might be new triggers as I have been busy playing rather than checking files.

[Malachus]

I agree that a lot of the traits and ancillaries in the game are useless and only make a whole mess of things, but I have hopes that future mods will get rid of these and replace them with sensible choices that make for a more immersive role-playing experience. Deus Lo Vult's campaigning system, knight banners, crowns, and legendary swords are certainly a step towards such a goal.

As for now, you could always go in and delete those nonsense traits and ancillaries if you'd like or adjust their triggers to be better suited for your style. Also, IIRC, you can make ancillaries transferrable by setting "transferable 0" to "transferable 1" in the export_descr_ancillaries.txt file

Ultimately, the best part about this game is the fact that even though CA may not have perfected some areas, there's a lot we can do to clean up their shortcomings via modding (assuming it's not something hardcoded like the inability to choose your heir... WTF is up with that? ).

[RickooClan]

So it's a 50% shot either way, just pray, or don't kill with the general, and don't get BattleChivary.

Sorry it is not a 50/50 % chance as you think as the game calculate dread fighting trigger before chivalrous fighting trigger

ie.

to gain battledread = 50%

to gain battlechivalry = (1-50%) x 50% = 25%

[RickooClan]

Also, i have edited 2 of the battledread trigger like this:

;------------------------------------------
Trigger battle3Dread_PickingOnWeak
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition WasAttacker
and WonBattle
and BattleOdds > 1.5
and PercentageEnemyKilled > 50
and not Trait BattleChivalry > 0
and I_ConflictType Normal

Affects BattleDread 1 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------
Trigger battle3Dread_TotalAnnihilation
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition WonBattle
and BattleSuccess >= crushing
and PercentageEnemyKilled > 70
and GeneralFoughtInCombat
and IsGeneral
and BattleOdds < 0.95
and not Trait BattleChivalry > 0
and I_ConflictType Normal

Affects BattleDread 2 Chance 100

That means these trigger will not be counted in siege or sally out battles and the reasons are:

1. In leak 1.02 patch the AI dont take the wall defense into account for battle odd. So you can end up with a 1:1 battle odd while sieging with your general against another AI general + a citadal. (I assume official 1.02 works same)

2. If you won a sally out battle with battle odd >1.5 in favor, you will hit the "picking the weak" trigger and gain battledread. This does not make any sense at all as i have no choice to adjust my force of army in a sally out battle.

[_Tristan_]

I agree that there are too many and that they are too hard to manage, but I can live with it. I just wish that my Spanish heir wouldn't get so many dread virtues by participating so much in combat. It seems like the chivalrous general is one that stays in back and watches the fight. This is after I try to groom him to be virtuous.

I don't know about that... My Hungarian heir is dubbed "the Champion" and has 14 Chiv, while bearing the major part in most battles fought...So...

As to the number of traits, one can't get too many..I find them one of the coolest aspects of the game, most are real easy to get by... What bothers me most is that in the vanilla game, trading of ancillary between characters is impossible, so your aging King cannot pass his retinue to his maturing son (even if some should remain untradable...)

[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.

[madalchemist]

About the Pagan Magician, as I said in another post, the trigger is still bugged.

Trigger magician_pagan_vnv_trigger
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition not AtSea
and IsGeneral
and PopulationOwnReligion < 90
and PopulationHeretic >= 10
and not Trait Superstitious > 0

This is the base trigger (without the chance to gain it because I edited it and don't remember the original one -maybe 25-)

The correct trigger should be:

Trigger magician_pagan_vnv_trigger
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition not AtSea
and IsGeneral
and PopulationOwnReligion < 90
and PopulationHeretic >= 10
and Trait Superstitious > 0

otherwise the magician_pagan will be acquired from who hasn't the Superstitious trait, instead of who has it.

By the way, the credit for fixing this trigger is from Orientis' Vices and Virtues mod