How about this?
You create a new menu, the traits menu that lists all traits and has points next to them. Instead of just switching traits every time you do something, you get points. For example, you get aggressive points for declaring war on someone and protective points for building the Great Wall. A points system makes more sense to me than just randomly switching to different traits. If you switched traits, almost every action would cause you to change, and then usually doesn't happen in real life.