3-Trait Leaders

Lyoncet · Feb 6, 2010

I've always been a fan of pointless speculation threads, and concepts that as far as I know are completely impossible to implement are among the most blunted of the pointless! So on with the opining! (I didn't even know that "opine" had a gerund form until this second.)

I just finished a sourcebook on Pericles and was struck by how well his traits fit him, but also how well a couple others would too. Imp. seems natural, since the Athenian Empire was essentially his doing (moving the Delian League treasury from Delos to Athens was for all intents and purposes the final step) and he was regarded by the philosophers, orators, and statesmen of the day as the single greatest speaker in a city of eloquence. While only 3 of his speeches have survived (and one - the funeral oration - was probably written by Hypatia at least in part), if Herodotus's accounts and retellings can be believed, he managed in one 10-page long speech to get the Athenians to go from calling for his expulsion to giving him a fine and then re-electing to his generalship.

The Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus is still studied today as a prime example of centralized government, which is no small feat given that it was almost 1,000 years before the world saw a larger empire (for reference, it encompassed about 25% more land that the Roman Empire at its height, and around 500 years earlier). While how much of that was Cyrus's doing could be argued, I'd say that Org. would fit the bill nicely.

While it wasn't exactly traditional imperial expansionism, one could certainly make a case for Otto von Bismarck's vision (and flawless implementation) of a unified Germany as rationale for Imp. Perhaps it warrants its own trait, something like "Magnificent Bastard."

zyphyr · Feb 7, 2010

Lyoncet said:
I've always been a fan of pointless speculation threads, and concepts that as far as I know are completely impossible to implement are among the most blunted of the pointless! So on with the opining! (I didn't even know that "opine" had a gerund form until this second.)

This particular idea is trivial to implement. Just add another trait to the leader's listing.

As a specific example, to add Org to Cyrus, you would change

Code:

			<Traits>
				<Trait>
					<TraitType>TRAIT_CHARISMATIC</TraitType>
					<bTrait>1</bTrait>
				</Trait>
				<Trait>
					<TraitType>TRAIT_IMPERIALIST</TraitType>
					<bTrait>1</bTrait>
				</Trait>
			</Traits>

to

Code:

			<Traits>
				<Trait>
					<TraitType>TRAIT_CHARISMATIC</TraitType>
					<bTrait>1</bTrait>
				</Trait>
				<Trait>
					<TraitType>TRAIT_IMPERIALIST</TraitType>
					<bTrait>1</bTrait>
				</Trait>
				<Trait>
					<TraitType>TRAIT_ORGANIZED</TraitType>
					<bTrait>1</bTrait>
				</Trait>

			</Traits>

There is no inherent limit on how many traits a leader can have.

Doing so would likely lead to major balance issues, even if you were to give every leader a third trait. Of course, as long as you are having fun that is all that really matters.

Lyoncet · Feb 7, 2010

Wow, I really had no idea it was even possible.

Of course to make it non-cheat-ish you'd also probably have to modify the AI a bit to make it take advantage of its new traits. But who said traits were balanced in the first place? :lol:

nzk13 · Feb 7, 2010

i dont think u would need to mod the AI. why would you if the ais for all teh traits are already in the game so if a leader posseses a trait; any traits it posseses tells the computer to call upon the ai for all the traits it owns, (Which are preloaded in the game from the start) so why would you need to change the AI?

Bluetooth · Feb 7, 2010

The last months I have played my own mod and one of the modifications is that all leaders has a third trait. My favorite so far is Tokugawa, his third trait is Financial.

Kid R · Feb 7, 2010

nzk13 said:
i dont think u would need to mod the AI. why would you if the ais for all teh traits are already in the game so if a leader posseses a trait; any traits it posseses tells the computer to call upon the ai for all the traits it owns, (Which are preloaded in the game from the start) so why would you need to change the AI?

Most of the AI behaviours are controlled by a big heap of % modifiers, not their traits. (e.g. %chance to build a unit, %to declare war etc). As far as I know if you were to make Monty financial instead of aggressive he would play just the same, just be able to afford more units :eek:

Lyoncet · Feb 7, 2010

I'd almost be tempted to give Tokugawa Industrious just to laugh as I watch it go to waste! :lol:

Bluetooth · Feb 8, 2010

I believe that some traits are easy for the AI to adopt, I mean Aggressive and Protective give you an advantage, you don't need a brain to make use of it. Traits like Financial also gives you an advantage but is more complex to use. If the AI is programmed to build Farms he won't use it properly, so changing the traits probably give you an advantage.

kornuletz · Feb 8, 2010

AI leaders aren't indeed affected much from the traits directly as far as I know, rather a sum of %-modifiers.

I think Defensive, Aggressive, Financial, Creative, Organized, Expansive would give them easy to use bonuses, while Spiritual, Philosophical, Imperialistic probably less obvious and thus less easy to use bonuses (from an AI perspective!).

Kid R · Feb 8, 2010

The actual nature of each trait is just a heap of XML variables too, so in fact it would be a little tricky, probably impossible, even for an AI to "know" it was financial. It would have to look up its traits, then look up the screen description and compare it with the text "Financial". It would also have to compare it with all possible non-english text versions in all languages on earth. Or it could look at all the bonuses it was getting and compare them with a set which it knew made up the financial trait, but that would be like hardcoding the financial trait in the AI brain which I doubt they did.

Here is the total contents of Alexander's brain as I understand it. He plays aggressively because of all the lines starting with War..... having high values. The free combat 1 from the aggressive trait just adds gravy.

Spoiler :

3-Trait Leaders

Lyoncet

Emperor

zyphyr

Prince

Lyoncet

Emperor

nzk13

Some Jew-boy on Noble.

Bluetooth

King

Kid R

Emperor

Lyoncet

Emperor

Bluetooth

King

kornuletz

Chieftain

Kid R

Emperor

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