Giving a hoot about characters….how?

[Dual_CoRed]

I enjoy IR, as it’s my favorite time period. I really was hoping Paradox would have done a bit more to add more immersion to the characters. I’m playing as Rome, and I’m hard pressed to really care or follow any of my characters. I just quickly pick the guy with the best stats and move on. I was actually thinking about creating an empire just so I could focus on my leader. Are there any tricks you guys use to get some type of attachment to your characters?

 

[IsaacCAT]

For me the onus is on your POPs, taking care of their happiness, spreading your primary culture, saving some integrated cultures, improving their social strata and overall civ level, etc…

Characters are just an expression of your society, tools for your empire building. I tend to accept all characters when invading other nations to have as much choice as possible. And I mostly keep them loyal and well paid to avoid corruption.

To answer your question, sometimes the game happens to create an event that makes a character memorable, this makes me follow it and care for its life. But mostly is a hands-off approach.

 

[hansnoetig]

I was actually thinking about creating an empire just so I could focus on my leader. Are there any tricks you guys use to get some type of attachment to your characters?

I did a spartan "god-emperor" thing just recently (combine all the bloodline traits from Invictus and deify rulers), and i found the entire dynasty/eugenics game incredibly frustrating. Royal marriages are very buggy and require a lot of micro and memorizing birth dates, just so that your son with ~8+ bloodline traits ends up a mediocre 6/7/7/3 or something like that (he'd be godawful without the bloodline traits). Made me want to not care about characters at all, so naturally i'm doing yet another Rome campaign now.

I find it a lot easier to get attached to characters in a republic too, now, as you're not constraint to all these morons from your dynasty. Check the talent pool regularly (i do it once every election when i reshuffle jobs anyway) and help the talented youngsters along in their career. Let them hopefully increase their traits (with the "rich fools go to school" mod) until aged ~20, then make them governor to prepare them for office (increases admin afaik) or the good martial ones as tribune > legate and then win battles. Won't get a Gaius Julius Caesar story out of all of them, but some kinda do if you help them with it: Mostly prominence, but they obviously can't come back victorious from Gaul and threaten you with civil war if you don't put them in charge for it in the first place.

For instance, i go out of my way to "aquire" Phyrros asap when playing Rome (as soon as you get the claims, basically) for his martial skill and the history shenanigans. As the founding legate of your first legion and Carthage or the Hellenic World to fight against, it's actually pretty easy to get him to Pro-Consul and even Consul later on in his life. Just don't let too many cohorts become loyal to him..

 

[manager2525]

I did a spartan "god-emperor" thing just recently (combine all the bloodline traits from Invictus and deify rulers), and i found the entire dynasty/eugenics game incredibly frustrating. Royal marriages are very buggy and require a lot of micro and memorizing birth dates, just so that your son with ~8+ bloodline traits ends up a mediocre 6/7/7/3 or something like that (he'd be godawful without the bloodline traits). Made me want to not care about characters at all, so naturally i'm doing yet another Rome campaign now.

I find it a lot easier to get attached to characters in a republic too, now, as you're not constraint to all these morons from your dynasty. Check the talent pool regularly (i do it once every election when i reshuffle jobs anyway) and help the talented youngsters along in their career. Let them hopefully increase their traits (with the "rich fools go to school" mod) until aged ~20, then make them governor to prepare them for office (increases admin afaik) or the good martial ones as tribune > legate and then win battles. Won't get a Gaius Julius Caesar story out of all of them, but some kinda do if you help them with it: Mostly prominence, but they obviously can't come back victorious from Gaul and threaten you with civil war if you don't put them in charge for it in the first place.

For instance, i go out of my way to "aquire" Phyrros asap when playing Rome (as soon as you get the claims, basically) for his martial skill and the history shenanigans. As the founding legate of your first legion and Carthage or the Hellenic World to fight against, it's actually pretty easy to get him to Pro-Consul and even Consul later on in his life. Just don't let too many cohorts become loyal to him..

Wow, I have exactly the opposite problem. I cannot bring myself to play as a republic because I like to care about characters (and think that monarchies are the way to go about that). So i try to get in bloodlines marry your heir to someone that would have the right stats etc. I am thinking of playing an Athenian run but again going for extended terms as them seems so wrong. I feel I have minimum control of characters in Republics their terms seem so short. I often forget who is ruling as a republic.

 

[Dual_CoRed]

Good ideas thx guys. I have the same problem as A Roman republic, so many characters bouncing around it’s tough to keep track or care. I’ll try some of these and maybe consider going for an empire.

 

[AggaWackTan]

Agreed I'd love an update on characters.

A few things I do that I think help keep characters interesting.

With Invictus Mod and Holdings Map Mode you can see character portraits alongside the holdings. So I'll keep Great Families holdings assigned to one region only, so that early campaign I'll have one Great Family (GF) dominating Italia (maybe the Fabii) and as I expand I'll grant holdings to other families in other regions (Cornelii in Magna Graecia and Claudii in Cisalpine Gaul) With roleplaying in mind only great family members who dominate holdings in 'Home Territories' can be governors of those territories. I think it helps create an atmosphere of oppressive patricians dominating major political positions. Roleplay the GF's in this way. Consul will always have to govern the capital but it sets up some roleplaying conflict in the capital.

Every few years look at the Great family Tab and 'Star' an upcoming promising character and immediately give them a researcher position when they come of age. Only focus on those characters career.

 

[Germanicus_Caesar]

For Rome, I would pick a family and stick with trying to increase the fortunes of said family. So, the best character of each generation of Claudius is who I followed. The rest are enemies.