MEDIEVAL II Total War traits & Triggers guide

Traits are characteristics, that affect your family members.

These effects can be positive or negative. Collect the positive ones, avoide the negative.

Traits are generated by triggers. You can influence some of these triggers. This will be explained in this guide.

As an example:
The trait "drinker" is triggerd, if your family member stays in a settlement with a brothel building. If you do not want this trait, avoide the brothel building.
Triggers are mostly logical and easy to understand.

I recommend choosing family members based on their abilities (traits) and specializing between generals on the battlefield and governors in settlements.

Traits affect the character abilities like command, chivalry, loyalty, authority and piety. There are also additional characteristics through the trait such as more income from trade.

These traits mainly improve the morale and combat effectiveness of the troops. In addition, authority can be improved.

Basically, defeats create bad traits. avoid that
Be successful in battles, ambushes and sieges. Your general will then get corresponding good traits. Like "good commander" or "good at sieges".

Conquer settlements to get the "Victor" trait.

Always kill enemies with your general during an battle. This creates "brave" and "battle scared". At the same time, you avoid "coward" or "Haemophobic"

for good infantry general, achieve crushing victories with an army consisting of over 80% infantry
for good cavalry general, achieve crushing victories with an army consisting of over 40% cavalry

Avoid retreating before or during a battle, this generates "coward" and "indecisive"

Piety improves the economy in the settlement and protects against the unwelcome visitors from the "holy" Inquisition.
It also increases public unrest caused by other religions in the settlement Traits for Higher Piety are allways useful and often also improve Authority, Law, and Loyalty

- Always have at least one religious building in the settlement (like a small church) that generates the extremely useful "Public Fate" trait. At the same time, you reduce the harmful “Public Atheist” trait.

- Build religious buildings or recruit priests, this gives "Religiously Active"

- Join Crusades! It gets even better when you win the Crusade!

- Complete papal missions, this gives you "adored by the pope"

Dread

Dread improves public order and reduces the morale of enemy troops. It is quite easy to get, good for high authority and verry good during battles, but it ruins piety, loyality and makes the character corrupt. You shold also note, that actions for dread ruin your diplomatic reputation with other nations.

- Always kill more than 70% of the enemy army during battle and always kill every captured solider. Never accept an ransoming offer of your own captured men. All of this gives “BattleDread”
- Newly conquered settlements have to be exterminated. This gives "Authoritarian"
- Always keep taxes as high as possible and have at least 10k florins in the treasury, this gives "strategy dread" and "HarshRuler
- Complete town hall or better buildings and get with 50% probability "harsh judge"
- Use assassins and spies

Chivilliary

Chivilliary improves the population growth and morale of your soldiers. It s somewhat harder to get but traits that improve Chivilliary are often also good for piety, loyalty and public order.
You shold also note, that actions for Chivilliary improve your diplomatic reputation with other nations.

- crusades, joining and winning them. This, and constructing religious buildings will generate "StrategicChivilliary"
- Always kill less than 70% of an enemy army during battle and always release everyone captured. Always accept ransom of own capturedmen. All of This gives “BattleChivillary”
- Newly captured Settlements have only to be occupied. This will generate "KindRuler" and "NonAuthoritarian".
- Always keep taxes low or build churches. This gives “Strategy Chivilliary”
- Complete town hall or better buildings and get with 50 % probability the "Just" trait. This Is also good 4 law
- Obtain with 10% probability "Tourney Knight" through staying in a settlement with a djousting place

Only your King will show his level of Authority. It determines how often rebels arise and how easily family members with little loyalty desert. Also, the general with the highest authority is always the faction heir. With this in mind you can plan and manipulate your sucsession politics.

For all other generals authority ist hidden and replaced by Loyalty. It determines how easily family members can rebel or be bribed

Authority
-It's best to leave the fighting and conquering to the general you want as your prince and your king . This increases the authority at best.
Crusades in particular are a good source of authority.
- Win battles and destroy other factions. That gives “winners” and “factions killers”
- During an battle, Kill enemies with your general and create "brave" or "Battle scared"
- Always have at least one level 1 religious building in the settlement. This gives Prim, good for Authoritarian & Law.
- Build town halls or better gouvernment buildings and get with 7% chance the trait "Authoritarian"
- Be in a settlements with a horse race or a djousting place
- If you want a King or heir with high dread and authority, let him exterminate settlements.
- Use diplomats for negotiations and bribery and thus create "Political skill & Deciver"
- High levels of Chivilliary or dread are generally a good path to authority

loyalty
- Always have at least one level 1 religious building in the settlement your general is in. This creates “Upright”. "Upright" is extremely useful because it also blocks bad traits like Corrupt!
- Winning battles or staying in settlements or fortresses with stone walls is good for loyalty. This gives “Content General”
- Losing battles or staying in distant settlements or castles without stone walls is bad for loyalty. This gives “Discountend general”
- loyalty will increase, if your Faction leader and the general have both at least 3 Chivilliary. However, it decreases loyality if the faction leader has 3 dread and the general has 3 chivilliary. Loyalty is also reduced when a Chivilliarous general kills prisoners or exterminates a settlement
- an excommunicated king destroys the loyalty of family members with high piety
- Marriage to a princess gives +3 loyalty

Traits 4 taxes & Law
- Always keep taxes as high as possible. This will generate “Good Administrator”
Low taxes and high public order on the other hand produce “bad administrators.” So taxes should always be as high as possible.
- If the taxes are at the highest level possible, the public order is at "blue face" and a building is completed there is a 75% chance of getting the "Good Taxemen" trait
- If your treasury is negative, you have a 4% chance of getting the useful traits like "Cheapskate & Miserly"
- Uprisings and rebellions in settlements have a 50% chance of traits like "Rabbleroucer, Disciplinarian, harsh justice & Authoritarian". These give law and authority. But be careful, your governor can be killed during an uprising!
You should also note, that when a rebellion or riot occurs and the tax level is anything higher than low, you risk the "BadAdministrator" trait

Traits through building and owning buildings
- If your governor completes a building of the trade, farming or mining series, corresponding good traits such as good farmer or good trader are created. Specialize your governors in building the 3 types of structures.
- Always have at least one town hall, one basic church and one grain exchange in cities. This is how you prevent bad traits like “bad trader”, "ignorant", "Atheist" or “unjust”
- Alchemist labs, universities and libraries give very good traits for economics and trade such as "Mathematician or Intelligent" Build them whenever possible!
- Through the drill square, siege works or the military academy, useful traits such as "Strategic skill, Tactical skill, Academy trained or Good engineer" are created. These are good for command.

- A theater, Artist Studio and Icon Studios will generate good traits like "Epicureean", "aestetic" or "cultured" and useful artist retinues. But be careful, these buildings also create the “expensive taste” trait. This is bad for tax revenue.

- Never be in a settlement with a building of the brothel chain. This creates bad traits like "Drink", "Arse", "gambler" & "girls"
- There is also an extremely low chance of these negative traits if your family member is idle in settlements or at a sea Voyage. However, the probability is less than 1% and the risk has to be accepted.
-Never have more than 50k in the treasury and avoid settlements with a bank or the merchant quarter. This creates “corrupt” or “expensive taste”

- avoid adoptions. As a result, biological children become jealous and develop negative traits.

- Assassination attempts create "paranoia". avoid enemy assassins.

- Avoide staying in regions with more than 15% heretric religion. This will generate the negative "Pagan magician" retinue

- Witches can curse you. Avoid that.

It is important to note, that many negative traits like "ugly", "inbred", "insane" or "perverted" will be inherited by children of the affected character.
Meanwhile, many positive traits like "handsome" or "fertile" can also be passed on to descendants.
You should also note, that the number of offsprings is limited by the total number of living family members.

So, bad family members will clog up your famiy tree and prevent the good ones from breeding. At the same time they will pass down their bad traits to their offsprings.
It is therefore important to kill characters with bad traits and thus keep your family tree "clean" from spoilation.

It is also important to note, that marriage with an princess with less than 3 levels of charme or negative traits like "ugly" or "infertile" will also negatively affect your offsprings
and vice versa.
So acepte for marriage with your faction heir only good quality princesses with at least 3 levels of charme. Her sons and daughters will inherit her good traits.

- Staying in a settlement with a Birmastan or baths will cause the useful "Hale and Hearthy" trait. This improves health and the chances of having offsprings. Verry usefull 4 characters with gootd traits that should get many offsprings


Breeding good princesses

First it is important to know, that ony your king and the heir can "produce" new princesses.
Secondly, the quality of new princesses is determined by traits of her father. To sum it up, "handsome" or "intelligent" fathers will produce "handsome" or "charming" princesses. Also, Kings and heirs with high chivalry or low authoriity produce good princesses

That is why you should choose your heir allways after criteria like "handsome", "fertile" or "intelligent".
If you found such a qualified man,
let him crusade and become your faction heir through this crusading work.

- Your princesses will also profit from sucsessfull diplomatic negotiations.

- If a princess is comming of age and your tresaury is negative or at least less than 10k high, she will get the usefull "natural beauty" trait.

- If a princess is comming of age and her father has the "aestetic" trait, she will get usefull cosmetics

- getting to old or staying faraway from her home country will decrease her charme

General Statements
- Coresponding guilds will give newly recruited Agents positive traits like "member of x guild"
- Higher level recruiting buildings will give newly created Agents positive traits.
To give an example, a recruited priest will benefit from an high level abbey, a spy will benefit from an high level inn building.
- Traits are created through actions. Like assassinations, negotiations, bribery, traiding or denunciations

Priests

- They benefit from high rates of religious conversion to your religion in a province, this will geneate "Purifier" or "Missionary". To maximise this effect, take a bunch of priests and move them all at the same time to a province with foreign religion or high level of heresy. But be carefull, if you fail to get any religious change in that province, you will generate the negative"WaveringFaith" trait.

Merchants & Diplomats

- Both types of agents generate good traits at their creation, if there is less than 70% of your religion at the site of creation.
- Being createt or staying far away from your capitol generates good traits. So, create them at best at your crusading target.
- Merchants get the "monopolist" trait, if a Region has more than 1 slot of the same ressource and your merchants occupy all of these ressource slots via traiding
- Merchants benefit, when there is at the site of creation a town hall or better, or an alchemists lab or better.


Useful retinue

- CARAVAN DRIVER (Merchant) - 50% chance when ending turn in a settlement with the building "caravan stop"
- TRANSLATOR (Diplomat only) - 15% chance when ending turn in settlement with >= market.
- Foreign Dignitary (Diplomat) - 3% chance if in enemy land and distance to capital > 30
- EXOTIC GIFTS (Diplomat only) - 33% chance when created and >= great market exists in settlement.
- Monk (priest) Stay 4 turns in a region with at least 70% of your Religion.

Retinues for Management:

TREASURER : 10% chance after spending a full turn in settlement with = great market.

ACADEMIC ADVISOR: 33% chance after constructing university or library

ALCHEMIST or Apothecary: 5% chance when spending a full turn in a settlement with >=alchemists lab

Artist, Musicians and Actors: 5% chance when spending a full turn in a settlement with an artist studio or theathre

LIBRARIAN : 5% chance after spending a full turn in settlement with >=library.

MATHEMATICIAN : 5% chance after spending a full turn in settlement with = academy or university

MONEY COUNTER 8% chance after spending a full turn in settlement with >= fairground and faction treasury is > 50000. Be Careful, will also trigger corruption.

OVERSEER : 10% chance after spending a full turn in settlement with >= crop rotation

Retinues for Autority & Health:

DOCTOR 3% chance after spending a full turn in settlement and >=bimaristan or alchemy school exists and general has command > 3

HERALD 33% chance after constructing a citadel and command > 3.
Guilds produce corresponding retinue like INTREPID EXPLORER (explorers guild) or Priest (theologians guild)

BRILLIANT SCRIBE : 10% chance after spending a full turn in settlement with >=town hall and >= alchemist lab.

UNIQUE CHARACTERS through joining Crusades:
PETER THE HERMIT (turn 5 - 50)

ROGER DE MOULINS (turn 45 - 60)

GERARD DE RIDEFORT (french only during turn 30 - 52)

Various relicts: you can get them, if an character with more than 3 piety takes a famous City during an crusade. Most eastern Citys are Affekted. Relicts can be exchanged, conquered and even be inherited between characters

UNIQUE CHARACTERS through actions

AMERIGO VESPUCCI : Constructing >= explorers guild between turns 208 - 225.

VASCO DE GAMA: faction building >= explorer's guild exists and distance to capital is > 40 and between turns 205 - 225

JOHN GUTENBERG or ALDUS MANUTIUS : Constructing a >=printing press between turn 187 - 218.

HILDEGARD VON BINGEN (HRE only) 33% chance when constructing >= church between turns 20 - 50.

ANTHONY OF PADUA Southern European only) 75% chance when constructing >= abbey and between turns 69 - 76.

FRANCIS OF ASSISI (Southern European only) Constructing a >=church between turns 60 - 73.

MARTIN LUTHER: 15% after spending a full turn in a settlement with >= abbey and Piety < 5 and between turns 210 - 233

DONATELLO, RAPHAEL, MICHAELANGELO : Constructing >= artist studio between turns 162 - 193 / 210 - 220 / 209 - 242

FRANCESCO PETRARCA: Constructing an alchemy school between turns 130 and 150.

IBN KHALDUN (Middle-eastern only) Constructing >= alchemist lab or birmastan and between turns 135 - 160.