Player Choice

[Evershade]

So, this happened in my Ironman ~150 years now game, having begun as Count Konstantinos of Syracusa:

Humble is not Okay here

TL;DR I cannot take one of the biggest decisions one can take in the game because I'm Humble. The game should not prevent decisions such as this based on traits. The player should be allowed to take them, but either penalise with immense stress or have them lose the related contradicting trait or both. You could even trigger a mental breakdown instantly for the character as they take such decisions that go against their character in addition to all those and even proc a 'childhood' like event that has you pick your new trait.

Now, I'm just frustrated as I've been building up for this decision with this character having no idea that this would be the case, as the restriction is not mentioned at all when hovering without all of the requirements fulfilled. Please change this next patch so I can continue playing this ironman save.

Thank you.

 

[The Founder]

Well it does make some sense, given the Magnitude of this choice. But it absolutely should be in the stated requirements, not just the tooltip.

 

[Evershade]

It makes sense only for having consequences when you decide to go against your personality.

We've all done things that do not characterise us as the people we are, and we always will, depending on the circumstances. If a man was the Head of Faith of the religion that his very father was the first Head of Faith of, launched the first Crusade in his name and won, even if he was the humblest of them all, the clergy would baptise him as a Saviour, even if he did not want to be one.

It just makes no sense to forbid anyone from taking such decisions because they randomly had a trait generated in their childhood 60 years of their life ago. Even if one believes that people do not change, the example I gave just above can very easily work to explain the decision taken.

Gameplay-wise though, it just makes no sense to forbid players from taking such huge decisions. Alter all instances of prohibition to severe stress gain, a personality crisis etc. Just do not forbid.

 

[The Founder]

It makes sense only for having consequences when you decide to go against your personality.

The thing is that what you use the ward system for, is dictating your Heirs/future council members traits.
So you are actively avoiding future stress on your Heir/future council members.

This has to cost you something now. You are invensting stress, to avoid stress.

IIRC, if you hit Stress 3 your character just dies. So it is a viable way to commit suicide by using the ward system, once the heir is ready.

 

[Evershade]

The thing is that what you use the ward system for, is dictating your Heirs/future council members traits.
So you are actively avoiding future stress on your Heir/future council members.

This has to cost you something now. You are invensting stress, to avoid stress.

IIRC, if you hit Stress 3 your character just dies. So it is a viable way to commit suicide by using the ward system, once the heir is ready.

There's no point made in that post and no, you don't just die at stress level 3.

Also, no, the ward system has never -ever- given the guardian's traits to their wards in my playthroughs, nor has it ever resulted in the best education possible even when both the guardian and the ward are geniouses and the guardian has immense amounts of learning.

 

[The Founder]

Also, no, the ward system has never -ever- given the guardian's traits to their wards in my playthroughs, nor has it ever resulted in the best education possible even when both the guardian and the ward are geniouses and the guardian has immense amounts of learning.

How did you missread what I wrote to that degree???

I said you get to chose traits on the ward (from a selection of 3, 3 times over the growing up phase), wich allows you to avoid getting stress on the ward when you play/use him later.

Also the Education traits were not part of this discussion. I need to look how those events are scripted sometime.

 

[Evershade]

Just wanna write a thank you note to Paradox for potentially taking this thread into consideration.

Upon logging in 2 minutes ago in my ironman save which I believed was not gonna be played for months and besides finding no mention of this change in the massive changelog of the new patch (1.11, unless I just missed it), the decision is now available and penalises the player with severe stress instead.

Thank you and I can confidently say that my trust to the company has grown substantially after this small change went through.