So, it's no secret that some of the Focuses from Way of Life work really differently from one another, and some of them just feel a lot better to use than the others. The types of power that they give are really different, and some of them are pretty frustrating to work with. The Family and Rulership Focuses feel pretty terrible, even though they're both reasonably strong - Rulership gives some really nice traits and can get rid of bad ones, and Family combines the whopping health bonus of Theology with the Fertility Bonus of Seduction, without being as interesting as either of them.
On the other side of the Spectrum, some of them are *very* One and Done, and are strong only at the very beginning of the game, before becoming hardly worthwhile. The Business and Scholarship Focuses especially are like this. Both are only especially good for characters within the first few generations (primarily because of the way they lend themselves toward helping you escape the dreaded Gavelkind Succession Law and to form your first kingdom).
Finally, the Lifestyle Traits vary dramatically in terms of the difficulty of getting them. Some like Gardener, Game Master, Hedonist, Scholar, and Mystic are practically gimmes. Others, like Master Seducer, Strategist, Hunter, and *especially* Administrator are so obtuse or RNG dependent that it really is a slap in the face to see randomly generated courtiers from the Intrigue Menu with these traits show up all the time.
Here's my suggestion for how these can all be brought into line. Generally speaking, every focus should provide one or another of a targeted decision (Seduction, Carousing, War, Intrigue), an intrigue menu decision that can be used regularly (Scholarship, Hunting, Business), or a totally passive benefit, like Health or Fertility, or maybe even Demesne Limit! (Theology, Rulership, Family). All of these should also have regularly firing - VERY regularly firing - events which come with identifiable choices you can make based around improving your character, making resource gains, improving opinions, etc. The key here is Choices. There should be clear choices to make with definite outcomes, each with different pros and cons, so that there are never situations where there is always one Best Choice. There should also be clear progression down the path to a Lifestyle Trait, so that it never feels as though you're floundering around waiting for a random event over which you have no control to fire. Finally, resource gains like money, piety, and tech should be scaled according to something like realm size or
So there you go! Way of Life is by far my favorite expansion, maybe more than Holy Fury. I love the roleplaying options is opens up, and the ways in which it enables me to really feel like my character has a personal life, interests and hobbies. But it's badly balanced, and in many ways, feels as though it was designed with several different ideas of what it should be like, and no focused (pun intended) direction for its end state. But I think that if the best features of each of the focuses were applied more generally, and the weakest design choices were removed, it could go from being great to really Awesome.
On the other side of the Spectrum, some of them are *very* One and Done, and are strong only at the very beginning of the game, before becoming hardly worthwhile. The Business and Scholarship Focuses especially are like this. Both are only especially good for characters within the first few generations (primarily because of the way they lend themselves toward helping you escape the dreaded Gavelkind Succession Law and to form your first kingdom).
Finally, the Lifestyle Traits vary dramatically in terms of the difficulty of getting them. Some like Gardener, Game Master, Hedonist, Scholar, and Mystic are practically gimmes. Others, like Master Seducer, Strategist, Hunter, and *especially* Administrator are so obtuse or RNG dependent that it really is a slap in the face to see randomly generated courtiers from the Intrigue Menu with these traits show up all the time.
Here's my suggestion for how these can all be brought into line. Generally speaking, every focus should provide one or another of a targeted decision (Seduction, Carousing, War, Intrigue), an intrigue menu decision that can be used regularly (Scholarship, Hunting, Business), or a totally passive benefit, like Health or Fertility, or maybe even Demesne Limit! (Theology, Rulership, Family). All of these should also have regularly firing - VERY regularly firing - events which come with identifiable choices you can make based around improving your character, making resource gains, improving opinions, etc. The key here is Choices. There should be clear choices to make with definite outcomes, each with different pros and cons, so that there are never situations where there is always one Best Choice. There should also be clear progression down the path to a Lifestyle Trait, so that it never feels as though you're floundering around waiting for a random event over which you have no control to fire. Finally, resource gains like money, piety, and tech should be scaled according to something like realm size or
So there you go! Way of Life is by far my favorite expansion, maybe more than Holy Fury. I love the roleplaying options is opens up, and the ways in which it enables me to really feel like my character has a personal life, interests and hobbies. But it's badly balanced, and in many ways, feels as though it was designed with several different ideas of what it should be like, and no focused (pun intended) direction for its end state. But I think that if the best features of each of the focuses were applied more generally, and the weakest design choices were removed, it could go from being great to really Awesome.
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