Extra Traits for C2C

Sgtslick said:

I would like to just make the negative ones be on aggregate negative while positive on aggregate positive, with both having elements of each.

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This one.

Ok then do that.

Is there any update on the new traits situation? I don't have the SVN so I have no idea if they got changed but I know I am getting rather annoyed with the traits that came out with v24.

If they haven't been changed is anyone working on it currently?

If they have, would someone be willing to post the new file so I can just drop it in my version?

RidetheSpiral23 said:

Is there any update on the new traits situation? I don't have the SVN so I have no idea if they got changed but I know I am getting rather annoyed with the traits that came out with v24.

If they haven't been changed is anyone working on it currently?

If they have, would someone be willing to post the new file so I can just drop it in my version?

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You got to talk to Sgtslick, he's handling the traits now.

RidetheSpiral23 said:

Is there any update on the new traits situation? I don't have the SVN so I have no idea if they got changed but I know I am getting rather annoyed with the traits that came out with v24.

If they haven't been changed is anyone working on it currently?

If they have, would someone be willing to post the new file so I can just drop it in my version?

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2.5 weeks latest.

I have been thinking about the traits a lot over the past couple of days and I have come up with an easy (IMO) way to balance out the traits. I would propose each trait would have two positives and two negatives. One positive and one negative from Tier 1 and the same deal for Tier 2.



What does everyone else think about this? Sgtslick what are your thoughts on this?

The original traits have great depth which I don't want to mess with too much. In essence I agree with you, but practically I don't think I will do that.

The idea that negatives and positives should be more consistent across the traits is something that I will try to do. Maintaining that consistency while giving each trait its own flavour that corresponds to the trait name is kinda difficult. Ill send you a draft when its done.

I like the basics of that idea except that I would prefer 2/1 (1 Strong Positive, 1 Weak Positive and 1 Weak Negative) (Overall Positive) and 1/2(1Strong Negative, 1 Weak Negative and 1 Weak Positive) (Overall Negative) then give 2 'overall positive' and 1 'overall negative' trait to each leaderhead.

If this sort of equation was adhered to, it would not matter if traits double up or counteract, all should remain in balance.

Of course, there are more aspects to rate than what you've listed, such as building cost modifiers.

Yeah buildings is a big one, like hunter gatherer gonna have slower granary which is the equivalent of -1 health if not more.

Is there a way to make aspects of traits at all era dependant?

For example, -1 health is a bit of a handicap but after the beginning of prehistoric it really equates to nothing. Would be good if this went up by 2 each era. So by the time you get to modern era it would be like -15 health or whatever it is.

I have an idea.

What about if traits get a free building exclusive to them, it expires at the end of that era and therefore for the duration of that era it gives a specific bonus/penalty.

With this method you could add all sorts of depth to the traits which wouldn't otherwise be possible. Since (from my understanding anyway), buildings and wonders have more flexibility in terms of what they can do.

It would be a heap of buildings, but maybe there would be a way to simplify it so you would just need 1 exclusive wonder that they get in there capital when they build it and it would act like the Nazca lines - that wonder that increases each era.

Another thought:
I remember how everyone was saying wouldn't it be great if traits changed each era. Well perhaps there is a way to randomly give each civ 3 wonders when they advance to next era - these wonders would essentially BE the traits - giving off different side effects.
Not sure if its possible but maybe how these wonders were dished out could be determined by certain factors: like if it could determine what style the player is playing in, like taking into consideration number of wonder/military units/ workers/ certain buildings/ espionage etc etc.. this way you would essentially have dynamic traits. Obviously this would be a lot of work and is not something i'd be capable of doing, but I just thought it might be something the mod team hadn't thought of - as a way to make dynamic traits possible.

Sgtslick said:

The original traits have great depth which I don't want to mess with too much. In essence I agree with you, but practically I don't think I will do that.

The idea that negatives and positives should be more consistent across the traits is something that I will try to do. Maintaining that consistency while giving each trait its own flavour that corresponds to the trait name is kinda difficult. Ill send you a draft when its done.

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I agree with you about the depth of the original traits and if you look at my list most of the trait modifiers are included in there. I just thought it would be a good idea to make some sort of formula for balancing reasons.

I would love to see a draft and help with anything if you need it.

Thunderbrd said:

I like the basics of that idea except that I would prefer 2/1 (1 Strong Positive, 1 Weak Positive and 1 Weak Negative) (Overall Positive) and 1/2(1Strong Negative, 1 Weak Negative and 1 Weak Positive) (Overall Negative) then give 2 'overall positive' and 1 'overall negative' trait to each leaderhead.

If this sort of equation was adhered to, it would not matter if traits double up or counteract, all should remain in balance.

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I like how you are thinking on that I would just be concerned that when dynamic traits (or choosing your own combination of traits) that it would be best if all traits were evenly balanced.

I suppose with your preferred method that that would still be possible. The player would just have to pick an overall positive and an overall negative trait. I personally just think it would be easier on everyone's brains if all traits were equal.

Thunderbrd said:

Of course, there are more aspects to rate than what you've listed, such as building cost modifiers.

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Agreed, I was sure there were modifiers that I was leaving out when I made that list and I was hoping when I posted it that people would add their input I would think that those would fall in the second tier, right?

Sgtslick said:

Yeah buildings is a big one, like hunter gatherer gonna have slower granary which is the equivalent of -1 health if not more.

Is there a way to make aspects of traits at all era dependant?

For example, -1 health is a bit of a handicap but after the beginning of prehistoric it really equates to nothing. Would be good if this went up by 2 each era. So by the time you get to modern era it would be like -15 health or whatever it is.

I have an idea.

What about if traits get a free building exclusive to them, it expires at the end of that era and for the duration of that era it gives a specific bonus/penalty.

Click to expand...

Era variable modifiers would be a great thing if balanced correctly in IMO. I think a lot of era adjustments could be made to all aspects of C2C to make the game more balanced (which I believe there has been discussions about in other topics of gameplay).

As for traits getting a free building...well I wouldn't think that would be a good idea for a couple reasons. Firstly, more buildings , please no (at least not unnecessary ones). Secondly, I think the mod team has enough stuff going on that they shouldn't be bothered making more buildings for traits. Lastly, I think it would be more realistic to have traits scale by era or have traits created that manually scale that are available to pick in that era when dynamic traits is implemented!

Basically, I think all traits should be balanced but have their own uniqueness and that the traits should be more focused on the eventual implementation of dynamic traits so that work doesn't need to be done on the same concept within a short period of time.

*Didn't see you add that last part until I had posted this*

I think the dynamic traits/leaderheads would not require any sort of wonders. That would just make the need for more wonders and screw with the people that use wonder limits (me ). I'm not very knowledgeable on this but I believe that coding would need done for your leader to die off over a semi-random period of time and you would get a new leaderhead with different traits or with dynamic traits you could pick your traits (maybe different by era that you are in).

Did you catch the rest of my ninja edit?

Sgtslick said:

Did you catch the rest of my ninja edit?

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Lol I just did. See the bottom of my last post

Maybe we could work together on figuring this out? I do have map work to do but right now the map team hasn't convened yet to discuss our group plans.

It might be able to be coded without using my building/wonder idea, the reason I think its a good idea is because its simple. Should be quite 'easy' to implement.

Im not sure if you totally understood what I meant when I was talking about the free buildings. They are not buildings you build, they are like the palace in your cap. You get it and it gives you stuff. Its a way to overcome the restrictions of CIV4traitinfos.xml, from my understanding (pretty limited) buildings and wonders can do WAY more than traits can in terms of xml code and the potential benefits they give to the player.

Agreed, I was sure there were modifiers that I was leaving out when I made that list and I was hoping when I posted it that people would add their input I would think that those would fall in the second tier, right?

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I think it'd depend on the particular buildings, how many of them and how much cheaper they are made (usually cut in half so that's not much of a variable I guess.) But some are more worthwhile than others. Factories at half cost is far more valuable than half cost barracks imo. So it would have to be judged based on the package of buildings included I think.

As for the adjustments by era, that would be possible with some additional tags which wouldn't be too tough but would be put on an extensive wait list to get developed.

Keep in mind, too, All traits should be designed now with the idea that we'll need to develop additional stages of those traits (Spiritual I would unlock Spiritual II for example) down the line. My eventual plan (again a fair bit down a long wait list) is to have leaders start with their initial traits as usual but then earn more (only positive ones so negative ones wouldn't go on accumulating) as they go based on Global Culture earnings. This way Culture becomes a more valuable commodity to produce even after your city has capped out.

I had been considering the other concept someone mentioned about leaders changing as you go but if that ever gets implemented it would be highly optional so I'd focus on this first. I'd also been considering having the leader also represented by a unit that could be killed or used daringly in the field like a hero, and if they die you'd be starting anew on all achieved traits.

But this is just something to keep in mind now so we don't have to revamp all the base traits down the road.

Thunderbrd said:

I think it'd depend on the particular buildings, how many of them and how much cheaper they are made (usually cut in half so that's not much of a variable I guess.) But some are more worthwhile than others. Factories at half cost is far more valuable than half cost barracks imo. So it would have to be judged based on the package of buildings included I think.

As for the adjustments by era, that would be possible with some additional tags which wouldn't be too tough but would be put on an extensive wait list to get developed.

Keep in mind, too, All traits should be designed now with the idea that we'll need to develop additional stages of those traits (Spiritual I would unlock Spiritual II for example) down the line. My eventual plan (again a fair bit down a long wait list) is to have leaders start with their initial traits as usual but then earn more (only positive ones so negative ones wouldn't go on accumulating) as they go based on Global Culture earnings. This way Culture becomes a more valuable commodity to produce even after your city has capped out.

I had been considering the other concept someone mentioned about leaders changing as you go but if that ever gets implemented it would be highly optional so I'd focus on this first. I'd also been considering having the leader also represented by a unit that could be killed or used daringly in the field like a hero, and if they die you'd be starting anew on all achieved traits.

But this is just something to keep in mind now so we don't have to revamp all the base traits down the road.

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Okay well I think it might be a good idea to have a concrete idea where C2C leaderheads are heading for this to be a productive venture.

Wouldn't it be the best of both worlds if the leaderhead was represented as a unit and if he dies his oldest child would become the leaderhead? I would personally love that You would get a new feature with leaders as units plus dynamic leaders! It would be sweet if his trait progression was based of off the player's personal style of play.

RidetheSpiral23 said:

Okay well I think it might be a good idea to have a concrete idea where C2C leaderheads are heading for this to be a productive venture.

Wouldn't it be the best of both worlds if the leaderhead was represented as a unit and if he dies his oldest child would become the leaderhead? I would personally love that You would get a new feature with leaders as units plus dynamic leaders! It would be sweet if his trait progression was based of off the player's personal style of play.

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It's going to be a long while before I get to this so lets not get too far ahead of ourselves. BUT I had been considering something like what you were saying there but I'm just not sure if that's entirely the way to go either. I was thinking it would be based on civic selections no? Democracies, for example, would naturally replace leaders at a specified turn rate.

But this concept of replacing leaders has been hashed a bit and determined to be a bit of a stretch for C2C so I'm not sure if we'll go that way or not or make it an option or whatnot. As I said, a lot of other modifications are on the list prior to any work on that so there's still time to see what people think on these matters and try to take them all into consideration.

As for trait progression being based off the player's personal style of play, I'm not sure I want to get into evaluating a playstyle on a human's actions in the coding. It would be a massively complex coding and really would be somewhat unnecessary I think. Besides, I believe the game would be even more enjoyable if players were able to select new traits from a popup that hits the screen once they've earned another one (with Global Culture representing something of an XP system for Leaderheads.) But of course, AI leaders would utilize their existing personality preferences to guide their selections (something would need to guide their choices and I can't see a better means than that )

Yeah I'm sure that that would be tons of work! I do agree that it should be based off of civics though. Is the reason for it not being a good fit for C2C the leader units or the dynamic traits?

Maybe it would be best if the leader units didn't exist (which I would be sad about ) but rather the leader's death (variable turn amount) or term of office (set turn amount) would cause the leader switch and the trait selection menu. Just putting some ideas out there, obviously it's not up to me

If you are looking for some more things to add to traits, you can have property manipulators on traits. So for instance you could have a trait that adds a powerful anti crime effect, but only when the crime is above a certain value or you could have a trait that adds some air and water pollution each turn to each city.

AIAndy said:

If you are looking for some more things to add to traits, you can have property manipulators on traits. So for instance you could have a trait that adds a powerful anti crime effect, but only when the crime is above a certain value or you could have a trait that adds some air and water pollution each turn to each city.

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can you give me an example of the code so I can duplicate plz

RidetheSpiral23 said:

Yeah I'm sure that that would be tons of work! I do agree that it should be based off of civics though. Is the reason for it not being a good fit for C2C the leader units or the dynamic traits?

Maybe it would be best if the leader units didn't exist (which I would be sad about ) but rather the leader's death (variable turn amount) or term of office (set turn amount) would cause the leader switch and the trait selection menu. Just putting some ideas out there, obviously it's not up to me

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Well, it was more about having leaders change during the game at all, nothing about the idea for leaders to be represented by units or dynamic traits. But that doesn't stop it from being a possible game option project.