Strong King vs Weak King

[Edratman]

Has anyone found a difference in play using strong kings and weak kings? Once I have established a fairly secure realm I leave my king and the eldest heir parked in a good central province to eliminate rebellion issues, and it works I admit. I never use either in combat from that point on.
I haven't noticed any difference in AI reaction to the quality of my king. It refuses practically every marriage advance regardless of influence or dread and other than that, what does the king do?
I used to try and kill off weak heirs, but once in a while that wasn't an available option and that is how I came to this realization.

[Vlad The Impaler]

a strong king is always useful ;having a strong king u have loyality and many other things; with a weak king u can expect anytime a civil war ;but can be exceptions too.

[Didz]

Personally I've never noticed any major problems from having a King remain safe and sound in the Capital no matter how bad he is.

The only time I have ever had major rebellion trouble is when I have tried to use my King to lead an army into battle. As soon as he starts moving, especailly into enemy held provinces the nation begins to get restless and you can expect massed rebellions to follow.

As far as I am concerned the only place for the King is in bed with the Queen making sure that she keeps producing heirs.

[Kraxis]

A weak king produces weak offspring, a strong produces strong offspring, we all know this.

Not all offspring becomes king, and so becomes a Royal general. A mighty Royal general can be more powerful than any other general you can produce.
Also, I too have noticed that when I lost my strong king and his son was a weakling my lands began to rumble.

And never forget that the kings stats affect all of the country. His Influence affects Loyalty of generals (and perhaps the peasants), his Piety affects zeal and happiness of his religions followers, Dread affects happiness of all inhabitants and Acumen affects the income of the country on a whole. His Command has only effect on the battlefield.
So if you have a weak king and have managed to keep teh country from breaking apart then you should not fear other weak kings, but a strong king should fear a weak prince.

[Edratman]

Possibly I do not notice any difference between strong/weak kings because of my style of play. I play GA on Hard and I am fairly passive, prefering to build and establish trade networks,i.e. accumulate a large treasury. I don't initiate wars, (except with the backstabbing French when I play England), and slowly expand by bribing rebel provinces, and only then if they are strategically located for my situation. I also build all the happiness factor buildings ASAP and do all the maintain/improve loyalty activities. Because of this I don't experience rebellions, my king always acquires builder status (related to having a large treasury) which is +2 to loyalty and sometimes get steward and trader virtues which are also positives.
So eventually I expand until I get offered the partial victory which I accept because each turn is now taking too long to manage.
(I just read this post before submitting it. Good lord, I play a boring game. Must be the engineer in me.)

[MacGregor]

Strong kings definetly have advantages, but weak kings can be made stronger by becoming great builders and such. You can also "train" your royal line and turn it into a good one even if it is weak by commanding battles to gain command, murdering prisoners to gain dread, and other stuff to rise your other skills. If you build up your king this way when his heirs come of age they will also be much stronger. I made the not so outstanding HRE into a family a where almost all the heirs would have almost every stat maxed out over the course of about 200 years. This is great because most of sons turn out like this so it helps to have several 7 or 8 star generals. The only problem with that is if they start having loyalty problems.

[Kraxis]

Quote[/b] (MacGregor @ Dec. 16 2002,16:48)]This is great because most of sons turn out like this so it helps to have several 7 or 8 star generals. The only problem with that is if they start having loyalty problems.
That would be a pain if you faced the better half of your army under the command of your two best princes... Ohh wait I have experienced that... Damn did I get beaten or what.

[Alrowan]

well after having a strong king produe about 6 hiers all with 4 stars or more, i definitly see the advantage, espicially since one of them had 6 stars...

go figure

[MacGregor]

It also helps your bloodline to arrange an "accident" for your heir if he's weak and will just throw your Empire into civil war. That is only if you have a back up heir who is much better.

[LordKhaine]

"Strong King vs Weak King, Does it matter?"

Not as much as it should. Early on a good king is an advantage, later on you usually end up sticking the King in the middle of your kingdom and forgetting about him.

[[RDH] Spetz Natz]

Personally, I have never had a "bad" king. Sure, most of them have had low command ratings (doesn't matter - I don't use them in combat, either)...and some of them have had bad vices ("unhinged loon", "adultery", etc.)...but the truth is...any faction leader can become a GREAT faction leader as long as you do two things:
1) keep him in constant communication with the rest of your empire (blockaded trade routes could bar this) and
2) build, build, build, build

All of my f.l.s have managed to live long enough to develop into "Magnificent Builders", "Mag.Stewards", and (early on anyway) "Mag.Traders" - which all keep the populace and generals immensely happy.

Cheers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[chunkynut]

I had a v1.1 danish campaign and i (stupidly) missed a bad egg of a heir and he became king. Loyalty was around 5-7 on units produced before the bad heir and 1-3 after.

I managed to raise his infuence which was 2 (i think) to 4 but the damage had already been done. Civil war came about and if i hadn't actively tried to raise his loyalty my kings troops would, i believe, have been outnumbered.

You never know how bad kings hurt your country untill you get one I now never miss an heir http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Edratman]

I have noted that this style does continually produce low rating weak kings. It didn't when I was playing Byz which was the first faction I used with this style, but it is now obvious that is a game programming factor. I was wondering why I didn't get any decent rulers when playing England in my last 2 campaigns, but this thread has explained that.
Next occasion when I get an extra heir, I will start a war and place my eldest heir in a strong army and see what happens to the royal line.

[Kraxis]

Chunky... it could well have been worth it to not try and raise the horrible kings Influence... As you said he would most likely have been outnumbered, well then you simply just back the Rebels and you get a good general as king.

[chunkynut]

Quote[/b] (Kraxis @ Dec. 17 2002,12:38)]Chunky... it could well have been worth it to not try and raise the horrible kings Influence... As you said he would most likely have been outnumbered, well then you simply just back the Rebels and you get a good general as king.
Very true. But i hadn't counted on a civil war http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

As it was it turned out ok and it was like a school of hard knocks for my growing empire and it toughened up my loyal generals for the advance towards italy

[Kraxis]

See that is the problem with us...

We only see Civil Wars as bad (I have only just recently come to accept the opposite) and try for all our power to stop them, but at times they are impossible to stop.
Well, I have begun to see when it is impossible to stop them, and I will from now on work towards a Civil War if I get a lousy king. I will remove all titles from the generals and I will give the most disloyal ones big armies. Important is it to move the king far away from big production facilities, we don't want to destroy them when we take the province from him. That way I might get a brilliant general as my new king.

[Exile]

in MTW war makes strong kings. When I put my king out there early and get some stars, good V&Vs and influence, I tend to have a good line. The later I can sit back and not send the king out to fight, but leave him somewhere roughly in the center of the empire. When I have a wimpy king to start and then I sit back and try diplomacy, I have a weak line of heirs...then I get to have fun marrying princesses to low loyalty commanders, killing the worst heirs with the suicide charges, etc. Both ways are fun in their own right. But a strong king with 5-7 stong heirs is a big advantage in the game.

[ToranagaSama]

Quote[/b] (Edratman @ Dec. 16 2002,15:50)]Possibly I do not notice any difference between strong/weak kings because of my style of play. I play GA on Hard and I am fairly passive, prefering to build and establish trade networks,i.e. accumulate a large treasury. I don't initiate wars, (except with the backstabbing French when I play England), and slowly expand by bribing rebel provinces, and only then if they are strategically located for my situation. I also build all the happiness factor buildings ASAP and do all the maintain/improve loyalty activities. Because of this I don't experience rebellions, my king always acquires builder status (related to having a large treasury) which is +2 to loyalty and sometimes get steward and trader virtues which are also positives.
So eventually I expand until I get offered the partial victory which I accept because each turn is now taking too long to manage.
(I just read this post before submitting it. Good lord, I play a boring game. Must be the engineer in me.)
Truly a non-aggressive style if ever there were one

1) Really no need for a high star King, ergo no negative effects result from having a low star King. No fighting, no need.

2) Little room within your style of play to take benefit from a High influence King. Low aggression, slow-as-she goes equals low rebellion.

3) The negative effects of bad V&V are negated by the low aggression level. Consequently, low quality offspring are take away little.

Curious what level do you play at, Easy, Hard, etc.?

I suspect that if the AI were to make better use of Inquisitors a slight change in strategy might be needed.;) Sighhh, if only a "Learning" AI were available.

The overall strategy takes overwhelming advantage of weakness in the game code.

[Edratman]

Toranagasama
I play at hard. I may try expert, but then again maybe not.

I concur with your analysis that my style takes probably advantage of the programming, it surely was written with the more aggressive, conquer the world style players in mind. My strategic game play style has been developed over almost 20 years starting with CIV 1 and I just adapt it to each game. It is always successful.

Also my game playing motivations are also much different than most players. At 51, I'm much older than most and I started playing computer strategy games when text only Zork represented the entire genre and I loved it. (It was an enormous pleasure when I typed a command and the 5" disc drive kicked in, meaning I did something correct.)

I don't play for ego or self satisfaction; my career, family and life do more than fill that side of life. I play for amusement, diversion, pleasure and challenge. MTW fulfills all of that for me and I am happy for the 2 hours or so of playing I can squeeze in a night. I only twice played up to the partial victory offer, I just start a new campaign when it takes too long to complete a turn or I get bored with a campaign. Every new campaign now is a new mod.

I didn't even know a game could be modded until I came across the ORG when I caught an prerelease blurb in CGW and I started to investigate what the game was about. (That comes about when you are the only one of your age group that plays computer games.) Modding and playing a new mod is what I do mostly now. I follow the interesting modding threads (Kraellin's are the best) and adapt what I find interesting. I've got about 12 mods that come up on my Early campaign start menu (I only play Early) and each one is a little better than the one previous. As soon as I tire of my present game I'm going to incorporate Kraellin's change to the AI build factors for trading and also try them for the + happiness buildings for the AI into my base mod which has trade goods and resources in every province. (More money makes the AI play better.) But the same time I'm going to substitute the MEDMOD crusader unit build for the original because I like what he did there.

Boy, this got a lot longer than I intended when I started out. A long answer to a simple question. It should be obvious that I am pedantic, one of my host of shortcomings.