The memories system should be how personality traits form

[jtorr]

I know there are existing character qualities in the game for ai such as zeal, honour, boldness etc. Could it be made so that instead of the personality traits being decided from childhood events, these events instead just add score to these qualities and once these scores reaches certain values the child gains a personality trait?

This kind of set up would work best with dozens of more childhood events (well PDX did just start selling "event packs"), and they should ideally work with the memory system to make a child's emerging personality transparent to the player. I do quite dislike how personalities are almost completely random atm and I think this would be a great change.

The memories system and the rest of the 1.7 update is fantastic btw - Improved domain management for the AI, house feuds and the new memories system are excellent updates. I personally haven't seen that many new events from friends and foes yet so it's too early for me to judge it, but I'll note it's very hit and miss with events due to poorly set up trigger conditions as mentioned in other threads. On one hand, it's nice when your child gets murdered or falls in battle and it leads to feuds, rivalries and a compelling and flavourful narrative against their killer. On the other hand, it's not so nice when your 4yo ruler has to lose prestige because he can't beat an adult woman with 40+ prowess and make her his wife.

 

[james24eagle]

Agree 100%

 

[SeraphAscending]

That is a really cool idea.
Notify me if you form it into a suggestion in the suggestions-subforum. You got my vote.

 

[Vegetalss4]

I don't think the AI-personality scores could work for granting personality traits, at least not without fundamentally replacing either the personality traits or the scores.

There's only 9 AI personality scores and 34 personality traits.
One could double that with a trait for a low score and another opposed one for a high score, but that's still only 18 traits total.
You'd also have to solve the problem that the scores mostly don't map to a specific trait, with each trait instead modifying several scores.

For instance both Trusting and Paranoid gives a penalty to Rationality (because both assuming everyone are an active threat and that no one are, makes them worse at determining how big a threat someone actually is), with Trusting also giving an increase to honor, compassion, sociability a decrease to vengefulness, while Paranoid increases vengefulness and decreases compassion, honor and sociability and not in mirrored amounts to Trusting at that.

If for instance a child got a low enough rationality to get a trait, which trait should that give them? Brave, Wrathful, Fickle, Stubborn, Vengeful, Arrogant, Arbitrary, Impatient, Trusting, Paranoid or Zealous?
(Or if we include non-personality traits that decreases rationality: Lunatic, Dull, Avaricious, Drunkard or Irritable)

The broader idea of having personality traits build over time behind the scenes and having memories showing where they came from afterwards could be neat but I think it would be better to use a score specifically for that, similar to how the theology lifestyle events can give you Cynical/Zealous, rather than trying to make the AI personality scores pull double duty.

 

[SeraphAscending]

I agree that we can't use the AI personality score, but we could add per-trait-axis scores that determine a likelyhood of developing that trait.
So all memories of children could influence these axes and at fixed ages it is rolled which one gets selected. (Something like 3 strongest values get rolled by proportional likelyhood)

This is a bit more of a rework, but it wouldn't be necessary to scrap the current childhood events. They could mere add/subtract to specific scores significantly. But your child may still become paranoid if people had attempted to take their life multiple times, irrespective of your parenting choices.

 

[johnty5]

I'm 100% on board for anything that fleshes out a narrative for characters or that give the player less control to "optimise" their heir(s) - and this does both.

 

[SeraphAscending]

I'm 100% on board for anything that fleshes out a narrative for characters or that give the player less control to "optimise" their heir(s) - and this does both.

I know that we theoretically are able to optimise, but in my recent runs i literally get the same 1-2 choices of completely unfitting traits over and over again.
They always come in triplets and one of the events i always get twice. Every single time. Every generation. It is terribly frustrating.

I haven't played a lot since 1.7, but before that it was incredibly frustrating to play Norse and only get things like shy, paranoid, greedy, fickle, compassionate, honest, etc. and not a single martial/prowess trait that would actually be relevant/helpful.

 

[johnty5]

I know that we theoretically are able to optimise, but in my recent runs i literally get the same 1-2 choices of completely unfitting traits over and over again.
They always come in triplets and one of the events i always get twice. Every single time. Every generation. It is terribly frustrating.

I haven't played a lot since 1.7, but before that it was incredibly frustrating to play Norse and only get things like shy, paranoid, greedy, fickle, compassionate, honest, etc. and not a single martial/prowess trait that would actually be relevant/helpful.

I'd actually be fine with them (mostly) randomising the inheritable traits too. More realistic to real life genetics, less "gamey" incentives to marry your prince off to some random peasant because they've got good inheritable traits and removes one of the ways in which players are able to snowball away from the AI.

I suspect that wouldn't be a popular change thougg.

 

[SeraphAscending]

I wouldn't want to mostly randomise - i would much prefer an understandable process that has a lot of randomised influences additional to your own influence.

I think the memory system would fit that amazingly well.
Imagine you're a ward of a compassionate ruler and he releases all prisoners without ransom or favors, but out of just that - compassion.
This could be teaching you to be more compassionate - but it isn't and should never be deterministic. You could also develop a sense of arrogance, because your guardian is a fool in your eyes.
You shouldn't be able to select traits at any point nor act in a way that deterministically results in the desired traits. But you should always be able to influence.

Maybe the ward of the compassionate ruler actually understands the lesson taught, until some bully murders their dog and they decide to go full john wick on their bullies.

This would be a much more emergent system. Influencing your wards by the decisions you make in gameplay rather than specific set childhood events would be a lot more fun, in my eyes.

EDIT:
This could also mean that you could potentially influence other people's children.
Murder their entire family? More likely to be brave, vengeful, paranoid or craven.
Gift them a sword? More likely to be brave, wrathful, diligent, etc.
Befriend them? More likely to be honest, compassionate or gregarious.
Sacrifice their bully to the gods? More likely to be zealous, just or vengeful.

Having all of your actions influence coming generations would be a really cool system.
But at that point we might have some computational problems if it isn't cut down for distant realms that you don't interact with.

 

[vandevere]

What I like about the Memories is that they could be the base upon which to build the Chronicles. No more tales of ten foot tall women getting crucified, or three-headed sheep born in a peasant's farm. Instead, the Chronicles can be built upon the Memories of each Ruler.

 

[jtorr]

I don't think the AI-personality scores could work for granting personality traits, at least not without fundamentally replacing either the personality traits or the scores.

There's only 9 AI personality scores and 34 personality traits.
One could double that with a trait for a low score and another opposed one for a high score, but that's still only 18 traits total.
You'd also have to solve the problem that the scores mostly don't map to a specific trait, with each trait instead modifying several scores.

There are actually 35 personality traits There are 16 pairs of opposite traits and then the compassion/ callous/ sadistic traits. I wasn't thinking that the scores directly map to a particular personality trait, but instead a combination of specific scores would give children a specific trait once a certain age or 'maturity value' is reached. Alternatively, they could rework the AI personality scores so there are 17 of them that do map directly to personality traits, although I'm not sure if this might be that simple as it could involve a massive overhaul of AI behaviour as well. Your suggestion of a new score specifically for this would be another good solution as well.

Having all of your actions influence coming generations would be a really cool system.
But at that point we might have some computational problems if it isn't cut down for distant realms that you don't interact with.

I'm not sure how much of a strain character memories are on PC memory and processing, but in lategame especially as they add more content it could certainly become an issue. Personally I think the memories system being visible (or even used) for non-player characters is not necessary at all and can be done away with, especially for characters outside of diplo range.

I'd actually be fine with them (mostly) randomising the inheritable traits too. More realistic to real life genetics, less "gamey" incentives to marry your prince off to some random peasant because they've got good inheritable traits and removes one of the ways in which players are able to snowball away from the AI.

I suspect that wouldn't be a popular change thougg.

The inheritable traits are already randomised, aren't they? I suppose they could be even more random and unpredictable, but I'd prefer they develop new content around the friction between peasants and nobles to deter players from marrying random peasants. There could be gameplay mechanics such as big prestige and opinion penalties, as well as reduced resistance to hostile schemes for marrying a peasant, or ideally there could be Joan of Arc-like event chains where you have to defend them from your realm's nobility and the church.

 

[johnty5]

The inheritable traits are already randomised, aren't they? I suppose they could be even more random and unpredictable, but I'd prefer they develop new content around the friction between peasants and nobles to deter players from marrying random peasants. There could be gameplay mechanics such as big prestige and opinion penalties, as well as reduced resistance to hostile schemes for marrying a peasant, or ideally there could be Joan of Arc-like event chains where you have to defend them from your realm's nobility and the church.

They're slightly random - but if you have two parents with the intelligent trait, chances are you're getting a load of kids with intelligent/genius traits.

It's desperately unrealistic and gamey. I'm surprised it doesn't get more complaints, given how many "x is slightly unrealistic/ahistoric and therefore absolutely ruins the game for me" posts we get around here.

 

[Staal]

I'd actually be fine with them (mostly) randomising the inheritable traits too. More realistic to real life genetics, less "gamey"

Good genetics, while having some randomness, is still inheritable. More intelligent people generally have more intelligent children.