More editing questions

[Highspeedpixels]

So, yeah, I have been spending way too much time making events and characters instead of playing the game (What am I doing?). Anyway, I have some questions for you veterans:

1. Does edit happens retroactively?
I know in DW empires, what you edit AFTER starting a game won't be changed. Is it the same here? Can I add new characters as I play? Like making a new character "A" in the editor after playing the main game for a few years; can I find "A" in the save game? no? how about specialities?

2. How do you make a balanced officer? especially their abilities spread. (this is subjective I guess)
Now, I am playing as an empty (ability) officer because I always liked the RPG aspect of this series - learning 30 skills in ROTK10 comes into mind. For custom non-player officer, I use auto ability with some extra tweaks. Mostly 3-4 abilities at lv2-3.

What bugs me is that when I want to make a ,say, SUPER FOE, I am a bit concerned about the abilities. In this game, famous officer's abilities are super high and kind of ruin my initial ability balancing (20 pts or something). Lu Bu or Xun Yu for example, have quite a lot of skill at lv7-9 just to show you how good they are whereas the common ones have like, 2-4 skills at lv1-3. Kinda overwhelming difference. Does it matter that much? which brings me to the next question

3. Can abilities of Non player officer grow in game?
If I set a person's abilitiy at 5, can he/she reach 8 or maybe 9 eventually? Honestly I am skeptical that'd happen but that would help a bit in balancing character creation.

I am okay with fixing/editing them in game, but I am not sure if the edit is persistent or just in that saved game (probably should check, eventually).

[Highspeedpixels]

Betting on forces, sounds fun. I will have to give that a shot.

Yeah, maybe it's just me, but in past game, gov type skills doesn't really work (although I only played like rotk10 (finished it) and rotk11 (stalemate, impossible to win because I let the game run too long and it's just liu bei vs me with millions of soldiers. Also my old laptop decide to die, so it was lost. Too lazy to start over, never liked the one skill mechanic)). It's good to have, but I didn't find real need to obsess over those.

Thanks for the replies guys!

[Highspeedpixels]

I am a bit worried about cluttering the forum with my topic, so I'll try it here first; I've got two issue I need help with.

1. Custom speciality
I purposely made some item custom/received from event only (Ex. Max bond with char a give you a weapon) but I found that Merchant's "Purchase speciality" lets me obtain them. Well, I have some dummy item that work as trigger and I got those - but the most baffling part is a weapon that is suppose to be event reward/unique and I got it (It's not even super weapon or anything but it has 50 value and 100 price). What is causing this? Is this because of the 100 price? And no, the speciality is not possible to be stocked in store. I set that one properly.

2. Bond request event type
How does it work really? Specifically, are duel and debates impossible with regular event? Just Bond request? That's kinda weak. And I am not even sure it can be set up properly like a quest that require me to go and buy specialities or lend them money? At least I didn't see any condition beside "investigate city" or "invade city" - how does those work? Again, feels kinda limited.

EDIT:
3. Can I ask other comrade to do TRADE? I have to do it myself all the time, feels like I could have delegated and make more money if I can sell them en masse. Buying supplies feels weird. 20 days for buying 1500 unit (max) and another 20 to sell (1500 unit). Not worth it imo.

4. I only have 2 command slot -and that's terrible. I can use 1 to purchase speciality, 1 for myself to conduct trade (ugh) and that's it. I wonder if I can get more slot if I am not employed (i.e. free) ? That would be nice.

5. So while I can swap Prestige at will, does the benefit from the ones that require you to join a force - the higher ranked ones (only the starting prestige require joining a force?) can be used as free officer? Ex. Advisor, Civil, War officer, and Commander. I am still reading into those, so I have no actual idea how to abuse it yet, but it seems there are opportunities here.

[heinous won]

1 and 2, I have no idea there. I don't totally understand point 2 to be honest.

3. You should be able to ask your comrades to trade once you get past that first (second?) tier in the prestige. The optimal way to trade food is to stock up on it by having one comrade roam between 1:1 trade cities buying it. And then have another go to a city under siege and sell, the rate there will plummet to the minimum. The amount you can buy and sell goes up as you rise through the prestige.

Buying and selling in the same city does earn you a small profit. And I find trying to follow the food rate related events is hard, the rate will return to normal quite fast. Cities under siege stay at the minimum during the battle. So an extended siege will make you some serious cash.

4. Action slots for merchant maxes at 4, you just have to grind through the early stuff.

5. You can't access those prestiges without joining a force. And if you join one for a bit and then leave to go back to merchant, I believe you will not be able to rejoin that force for a significant period of time. You won't lose your merchant gains by switching to lone wolf. But your lone wolf troops disappear if you switch back to merchant, just a heads up. But at least as lone wolf you can recruit some comrades more easily.

It's worth highlighting that the merchant path starts off pretty slow, the fun stuff comes later in the path. That first tier in particular where only you can trade is a real drag, I think I have my comrade do add-on tasks while I manually buy and trade specialties until I have enough gold to move up the path.

[Highspeedpixels]

To elaborate:

1. You seem to have played the merchant prestige, so I am wondering if your custom speciality (if you have any) can be obtained via "purchase speciality" merchant ability. Some of my item can be obtained that way and it is pretty annoying (it shouldn't happen; I already set them to not appear in store) as they are event reward only. So I am wondering if there is any way to stop this.

2. Custom event type : Bond Request.
I think I am starting to understand that this is only for raising bond quest - but the event editor for this type seems limited in usage (you can't make condition by date, month, chance, etc). On the other hand, the regular event does not let me add "duel" or "debate" in them. Is there a way to combine them together? Basically that is what I was asking.

3/4/5 Your response is clear, thanks! I want to clarify one thing though; when you "purchase supplies" you can see BUY and SELL ; that is a hint from the game right? BUY from the area with BUY and SELL in area with SELL, something like that? Of course I still need to check the exchange rate to see which place is the best to maximize profit.

[heinous won]

Yes the BUY and SELL stuff are hints from the game, it is also color-coded. Getting the >1 rates is hard but getting the min (.5) is comparatively easy. I think the rate fluctuation goes between .5 and 1.2 so the base rate of 1.0 is good enough for buying supplies to trade later. Which at some point you will probably end up stocking supplies anyway because the gold will start pouring in if you make good force investments and you will be trying to avoid passing the 500k gold goal. In my last game I just had Fa Zheng I think run between cities buying supplies at the base 1.0 rate, you can do a circuit of 6-8 cities or so and each city's rate should reset to 1.0 by the time you return.

I wouldn't worry about trading supplies though until you have 4 orders, your orders are really precious as a merchant before then.

And yeah I have done the merchant path a few times. Unfortunately I have way less experience messing with the event editor so I don't have answers for 1 and 2, even with your clarification :(