[MOD] Friends & Foes = 100+ Traits Mod

[ash001]

If you haven't already, think about doing interface *.gfx files with custom names. I discovered this today. So alongside the vanilla traits.gfx I also have traits_pr.gfx. It helps a lot with compatibility.

Thanks for the tip!
Will be useful for the next version.

I usually just use wikipedia for images because of fair use usage, though some folks here probably know more about the different licenses available for public domain. You are dealing mostly with 24x24 pixel images so you can't get too detailed.

Let me know if I can help. And check out my Minor Titles mod for some ideas on using icons for minor titles and character modifiers in addition to traits.

Spoiler

I have modifiers for a lot of things that I haven't implemented yet like gifts and 'characters who are not' like the entourage icons for Medieval 2 if you know that game. For example, when you get the event for giving your wife a horse or hunting bird, I will have a special icon appear on her character sheet: just a little deal but still kind of cool--a white stallion will increase her popularity and fertility, while the worn out old sorrel will make her less attractive. Same for jewelry events. I also want to have an event to give your son a, ahem, dire wolf that grows with him: hunting wolves was a rather common pastime for the aristocracy, especially in western Europe, so finding a wolf pup might not be too far-fetched. Yeah and things like jesters, bards, poets, etc. following a character around, like M2TW has.

I can think of a lot of possibilities for events with your archetypes.

And I did check out your minor titles mod, and I really like how you're using it "M2TW"like.
I wasn't too sure on the quality, it's hard to find something that small that gives a good impression and doesn't look too fuzzy...
But I'm open to to adding something like it, yes, absolutely.

Events/archetypes - as I said before, I want to hear from you.

The only thing I'm being careful here is not to go overestimate my modding abilities...

But let's bounce some ideas!

 

[ash001]

Love the time and effort you put into the opening posts, and downloading the mod now. You might want to put the link to download either at the top or bottom of the post, and on a seperate line, I actually had trouble finding it again after reading the 2 first posts.
I would be able to proofread some localization if you need, not a problem at all. English is my first language, send me a pm with the text you need edited.

Thanks for the feedback, I think the download 'link' is better now.

As for the localisation... I mentioned a couple of posts earlier, I'd recommend you to check the localisation file called "fflocalisation.csv". There's already a great number of descriptions for traits and events - the events are numbered but you can check this file "ff_trait_notification_events.txt" to see what they refer to.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with mods and files (some time ago, I would be weary of opening certain mod files dreading the risk of borking something...). If this sounds ok, just go ahead and see what you think, if there are any glaring mistakes or something that sounds a bit off, and let me know.
If you prefer that I send the files to you, then, yes, pm me and we'll start from there - cool?
Thanks!

 

[grallonsphere]

Where? Where?
Tell me more.

Here's a selection - I did the traits beginning with an 'a':

1) aloof - 2)amateurish_plotter - 3) ambitious - 4) analytical - 5) arbitrary - 6) arrogant - 7) authoritative

 

[grallonsphere]

And be advised that to keep the quality of the graphics those are 28*28 - which doesn't clog the interface - especially since you planned for characters to have less traits than in vanilla.

 

[ash001]

hmy:

that was quick!
very nice.

one question/thought: I did try to tie the color of each trat-icon to their predominant archetype.
Meaning - choleric whould have yellowish/orange traits, sanguine would have redish or pink traits, phlegm would be bluish, and black bile could be purple or grey.
Do you think something like this could be done as well?

And the idea is to keep them square or could they be turned into round-icons like the vanilla ones?

In any case, very nice and fast!

 

[apg]

In any case, very nice and fast!

thats my partner/collaborator - a most efficient chap!

@ ash001 - are you staying with your current number of traits or are you looking to expand?

 

[ash001]

Feedback :

It seems that it work now. But at the beginning of a scenario , adult doesn't have archetype. Only child does .

Hmmmm...
And did you leave "personality = yes" on the archetypes and took off the "personality = yes" from PT mod?
Because the engine spreads random personality-traits at the beginning of the game to most characters... so if you favour the PT or vanilla, the archetypes will only appear if an event fires for the character (which does happen often, but I still tend to rely on "personlity = yes" to get the archetypes around... so this might explain why this is much rarer now).

 

[Darkath]

If possible i'd like to keep the traits as graphical metaphor, though i'm not there yet.

But at any rate we should have the same template as vanilla :
Books for education, with stars for the level of education
Hearts for conditions and innate traits (genius, attractive, ugly etc.)
Circles for virtues/sin and other random traits
Drops for Humors
etc. etc.

I've not yet looked at the entire list of traits but i assume beside the humors most will be circles. And the idea of having the color reflecting the humor associated with it is very good, though i must see if it doesn't get confusing with vanilla traits (well mostly green for vitues and red for sins)

And thanksfully the .dds files used for textures are easy to extract so i just have to draw over the vanilla icons and play with the colors.

 

[ash001]

thats my partner/collaborator - a most efficient chap!

@ ash001 - are you staying with your current number of traits or are you looking to expand?

I'm impressed.

And... I'm planning on creating traits for old age. Something like this:
- a character with "cynical", "lustful" and "gluttonous" might loose all three traits, and take another one - "decadent".
- or "proud", "brave" and "gregarious" might loose the three traits and become "respected"/"prominent".

...something along those lines.

As far as adding more traits... for the system adopted so far, I'd say no, don't really see good enough reason for this.
But I'm keeping my options open.

 

[ash001]

If possible i'd like to keep the traits as graphical metaphor, though i'm not there yet.

But at any rate we should have the same template as vanilla :
Books for education, with stars for the level of education
Hearts for conditions and innate traits (genius, attractive, ugly etc.)
Circles for virtues/sin and other random traits
Drops for Humors
etc. etc.

I've not yet looked at the entire list of traits but i assume beside the humors most will be circles. And the idea of having the color reflecting the humor associated with it is very good, though i must see if it doesn't get confusing with vanilla traits (well mostly green for vitues and red for sins)

And thanksfully the .dds files used for textures are easy to extract so i just have to draw over the vanilla icons and play with the colors.

Well spotted, Darkath. I'd suggest having some leeway when it comes to coloring the sanguine ones as red is very easy to be understood as "bad trait" - one of the reasons why I went with something that resembles pink or purple...

 

[grallonsphere]

one question/thought: I did try to tie the color of each trat-icon to their predominant archetype.
Meaning - choleric would have yellowish/orange traits, sanguine would have redish or pink traits, phlegm would be bluish, and black bile could be purple or grey.
Do you think something like this could be done as well?

And the idea is to keep them square or could they be turned into round-icons like the vanilla ones?

In any case, very nice and fast!

I suppose it's possible but I'm no graphic artist - all I did was find a source - put on a golden frame and save as DDS. The original images are in 32*32 format but since they have their own frame, pasting mine on the image and cropping to a 28*28 canvas did the trick. I wouldn't advise reducing them further. I also suppose we could paste a spherical frame and crop - but you might lose too much of the picture details. What I like about those is they have lots of human figures in them. However the source is basically a war game so most of the pictures are essentially armed men in various poses.

But check out for yourself - it's the Lord of the Rings Online Wiki - there are various sections that cross reference each other. I found those I used under the 'Deeds' section ( http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Deeds ). There are 'Traits' and 'Skills' as well. Sadly the consistency of the color patterns do not match CKII categories. But if you want an advice, I wouldn't worry too much about that. The only thing that needs to be consistent would be your humor icons and the 'professional' icons. You can also check out the Lord of the Rings Online Lorebook : http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Category:Skills. As usual, right-click on the icon, select 'View' and then save it locally. I can send you the frames I did - I have several with a metallic sheen to them. APG and I have our own project which I used those for.



G.

 

[grallonsphere]

Actually it's probably best to search this page: http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Category:Icons. Hundreds of them - and I do believe you can match according to whatever color coded scheme you chose...



G.

 

[unmerged(426560)]

Hey, it's great that you worked it out! I saw what I think was your first post about this idea, and after that I couldn't found a better concept about traits... Fantastic!

 

[RedRooster81]

Sounds great, you two. And color-coded to boot! I am a melancholic myself, so whatever you got in purple.

On events, what I think is lacking is everyday character interaction--a step backwards from CK1 to some degree. A basic one would be to have events within the close household--sort of a honeymoon one, where the newlyweds actually get to be alone since being betrothed since age 6. He's melancholic, she's sanguine. Any two can get along, but depends on who wants to give first. Marriage is like that. I'm a Sagittarius who has lived for Taurus woman for nearly a decade, and we came to an understanding. Then there's siblings, and parents getting along with children, and each other, and guardians and their wards, and the wards fighting over position. All that could be conditioned by temperament traits, like your archetypes.

A couple of links FYI:

Spoiler

New sociological research suggests links between personality and birth order: in a nutshell, the oldest is the most conservative, because he/she has the most to lose from a shakeup; the middle is a negotiator; the youngest tends to have a wild hair. In game terms, I don't know how to advise this. <is_primary_heir> is a valid trigger, combined with <random_child> could work for the oldest (surviving) at least. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1673284,00.html

While you're at it, think about the Myers-Briggs Exam for personality type/temperament. If you don't know what I'm talking about look here for a basic intro: http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html

And of course there's old Carl Jung and his psychological archetypes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetypes

How are you handling historical characters? Are you going to make a startup event to cover them or code each one individually? I'd try for the former if possible.
http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html

 

[Trashed]

What an amazing mod. One of the mayor problems I have with CK2 is the lack of trait diversity and in the impact they have on how they define the characters. Love that instead of just adding boatloads of traits you're also implementing all sorts of lokigcal changes to how and why they are gained. Awesome!

 

[ash001]

@vf_castro, Trashed - thanks, hope you enjoy it!

Actually it's probably best to search this page: http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Category:Icons. Hundreds of them - and I do believe you can match according to whatever color coded scheme you chose...
G.

Grallonsphere - I don't know if it's just me, but going through the icons from the link, they tend to be very similar (men in armour, men fighting, weapons) and I'm not sure it would allow enough room for traits like pompous, frugal, loyal, manipulative...
So, in that sense, what Darkath suggested might work best - keeping it closer to the game's style and easing the player into it.

On events, what I think is lacking is everyday character interaction--a step backwards from CK1 to some degree. A basic one would be to have events within the close household--sort of a honeymoon one, where the newlyweds actually get to be alone since being betrothed since age 6. He's melancholic, she's sanguine. Any two can get along, but depends on who wants to give first. Marriage is like that. I'm a Sagittarius who has lived for Taurus woman for nearly a decade, and we came to an understanding. Then there's siblings, and parents getting along with children, and each other, and guardians and their wards, and the wards fighting over position. All that could be conditioned by temperament traits, like your archetypes.

Oh, yes!
Family is a big thing.
If I had super-modding powers, the first thing I would tackle would be family.
Brothers - I'd love to see the player favouring one brother, and this would upset the other brother (whose traits don't match the favoured brother or the player's character), make it feel more like the messy business families usually are...
In one of my playthroughs, I was very spiritual and chaste, like my wife. But my elder son turned into a rude filthy-mouth. Interesting to see that we didn't get much along, kinda entertaining from the RP perspective.
Would be nice to see events making these oppositions into big things, like a fight between father and son... I'm still thinking of ways to do it.

A couple of links FYI:

Spoiler

New sociological research suggests links between personality and birth order: in a nutshell, the oldest is the most conservative, because he/she has the most to lose from a shakeup; the middle is a negotiator; the youngest tends to have a wild hair. In game terms, I don't know how to advise this. <is_primary_heir> is a valid trigger, combined with <random_child> could work for the oldest (surviving) at least. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1673284,00.html
While you're at it, think about the Myers-Briggs Exam for personality type/temperament. If you don't know what I'm talking about look here for a basic intro: http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html
And of course there's old Carl Jung and his psychological archetypes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetypes

How are you handling historical characters? Are you going to make a startup event to cover them or code each one individually? I'd try for the former if possible.
http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html

Nice, thanks, I'm very much into neuroscience but I appreciate the links, no doubt.


Historical characters - not idea!
:blush:
I might reach you for advice, I would definitely need some help there.

 

[Syren]

I believe 1.5e changed guardian_events.txt so you might want to see what was changed; none of the other files this mod uses seem to have been changed from 1.5d-1.5e.

 

[ash001]

I believe 1.5e changed guardian_events.txt so you might want to see what was changed; none of the other files this mod uses seem to have been changed from 1.5d-1.5e.

Thanks for the heads-up.
Just ran a WinMerge on them, and there's a couple of minor (I mean, almost undetectable things), it won't be a problem at all...
so the good news is - it's confirmed, the FF mod is good for 1.05d and 1.05 e!

 

[chowbeng]

I had played this out for a couple of games and some hands-free games.
The concept is great and it works well. I do have a couple of suggestions.

1)Maybe it would be good to make the ARCHETYPES traits invisible. Or till legal of age 16.
2)I think if time permits, vanilla traits should be totally re-swamped to fit more closely into your concept.
3)I noticed that a few of the traits only featured a couple of opposites and effects. Balance decision?

I love it, good job!

 

[ash001]

I had played this out for a couple of games and some hands-free games.
The concept is great and it works well. I do have a couple of suggestions.

1)Maybe it would be good to make the ARCHETYPES traits invisible. Or till legal of age 16.
2)I think if time permits, vanilla traits should be totally re-swamped to fit more closely into your concept.
3)I noticed that a few of the traits only featured a couple of opposites and effects. Balance decision?

I love it, good job!

Thanks so much for the feedback!

1) As for making ARCHETYPES icons invisible, I'm not sure it's possible without making it look like some sort of weird bug...
Would you mind telling me more of your reasoning here?

3) Sorry, do you mean some traits had only a couple of opposites and NO effects? Because that is the case for a couple of traits, yes :huh:
BUT just because they are supposed to trigger a few interesting events in the future...
And when I say future, I mean, future versions of this mod
as I haven't had a change yet to go deep into the whole event chains, concentrating on the traits first.