Acumen or Loyalty?

[Gaius Julius]

This topic may have been discussed; in some form previously, so please bear with me.
I'm playing the Biz., early. I've been having some trouble with civil wars lately.
I know that many factors come into play to prompt a civil war: taxation, character of king, religious zeal, etc.
What I want to know is, does a governor with higher loyalty, than acumen serve you better?
Up to now, I've always tried to have governors with high acumen( get more florins).
I read the thread in the Table of Contents; on preventing mass rebellions. It suggested, that higher loyalty is better than acumen.
What are your thoughts? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Efrem Da King]

Well giveing em provinces makes em more loyal, so thats 2 birds with one stone http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
and you can also marry off your women to him ;)if ya got loyalty probs so I say acumen http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[ToranagaSama]

You shouldn't have to compromise Acumen for Loyalty or vice versa.

If you search ALL your units, there should be little trouble in finding at least 4 Acument Governors with relatively high Loyalty, anywhere from 6 to 10 shields. Just need to check around. If you can't find a good combo, then make the decision based on they Loyalty level of the province at that moment.

If a particular province has very low Loyalty, say 125 or below, then it might be prudent to emphasize and seek a VERY high Loyalty Govenor; but check every new unit for a governor with relatively equal Loyalty, but with better Acumen. YOU NEED HIGH ACUMEN

In terms of Loyalty, the most important factor I've found is religion. Whatever your religion, make sure your provinces get very near or at 100%. There is a direct correlation between religion level and loyalty level. So place a couple Bishops, get a Church built and a Fort; and continue to develop the province. Oh yeah remember to, Garrison, Garrison, Garrison Placing your King (or Prince) in a particularly troublesome province is a big help as well.

Lastly, Dread s/b your third consideration in choosing a Govenor, the more Dread the better. Acumen, Loyalty, Dread.

[bakdal]

Well, I believe acumen is especially important in provinces that already generates the most income, as it boosts the economy. That can be vital, especially in the early years, before a strong and healthy economy is established anyway (not that it isn't important later in the game, but it can be desive early on).

Bakdal

[SmokWawelski]

Quote[/b] ]If you search ALL your units, there should be little trouble in finding at least 4 Acument Governors with relatively high Loyalty, anywhere from 6 to 10 shields. Just need to check around.

Boy, my current SP I mostly get loyalty of 0,1 or 2 for my new units. Can it be because my king has only two crosses for piety an thats all, all the other ratings are zero http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif And he has no heir yet http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif And I just finished one Civil War and do not want to start another.

I like the challenge though http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

[Cardinal]

I have also spent may a day puzzling over this, and wonder if anyone can tell me what the point of Royal's Aucmen is. If the governors Aucmen lies as a base for the provinces income, has, say the Kings aucmen, any relevance at all? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[ToranagaSama]

Quote[/b] (SmokWawelski @ Jan. 17 2003,13:42)]
Quote[/b] ]If you search ALL your units, there should be little trouble in finding at least 4 Acument Governors with relatively high Loyalty, anywhere from 6 to 10 shields. Just need to check around.

Boy, my current SP I mostly get loyalty of 0,1 or 2 for my new units. Can it be because my king has only two crosses for piety an thats all, all the other ratings are zero http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif And he has no heir yet http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif And I just finished one Civil War and do not want to start another.

I like the challenge though http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif
Hehehe, seems as if you've got a bit of a challenge going.

Also, it sounds as if you may have killed off all the good potential govenors without realizing it. That's happened to me before.

What I do is try to start on a good foot from the outset of the Campaign. First thing, I check my units for potential govenors, and pull them off to the side. Preferrably to a province that's not likely to see much fighting. This way, as I take over provinces, I have a nice supply of decent govenors available.

Also, like I said, I check all new units for their potential. If I get a new unit that's better than one of my present Govenors, I won't hesitate to make the switch.

Note, I make it a priority to marry all my govenors to princesses for the Loyalty factor. So, I might wait until that can be done. I've noticed, that if things start to go negative, then it takes awhile to turn things around. Such as, getting decent Govenors (or Kings).

BTW, I do think the King plays a factor, as to what, if anything in specific, I haven't determined as yet. In general, though, I think MANY things play a factor.

Simply put, if things generally are going well, then things go well If things turn negative, then in general many aspects of the campaign appear to turn to the negative.

But, "things" can be turned around, though it takes awhile. The main thing is to stop expanding and pay attention to all the little things that involve "managing" your empire. It seems after a time of "good management", all sorts of things "slowly" begin to improve, but its SLOW

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

PS, I think it better to have a King with High Dread more than piety. Dread effects Loyalty. Piety effects religion, and you can alwyas build Churches and their improvements, as well as, copius numbers of Bishops, etc.

[y2kBug]

I've been adding piety into the mix as well as I've been having some difficulty keeping governors around due to those pesky inquisitors... If I can find a good acumen leader with reasonable loyalty, some dread and good piety then I'm good to go.

Checking all units for good candidates is a reasonable thing to do. I try to check units as they are built so that I can get the 'cream of the crop.'

[ToranagaSama]

Quote[/b] (Cardinal @ Jan. 17 2003,14:20)]I have also spent may a day puzzling over this, and wonder if anyone can tell me what the point of Royal's Aucmen is. If the governors Aucmen lies as a base for the provinces income, has, say the Kings aucmen, any relevance at all? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif
Dude, I've asked this same question not too long ago.

It seems quite difficult to observe the effect of many of the King's attributes, and those of Princes as well. Whatever the effect its fairly subtle. Probably only 10-20 (or less) florins per province, which can add up; and probably is most noticeable at the start of a campaign.

Princes are especially curious, given they CANNOT become governors. As far as Princes, the good thing is that once one of their brothers ascends to the throne and has a heir, they become regular generals and often make for VERY good Govenors

PS, KILL ALL INQUISITORS ON SIGHT http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[y2kBug]

Quote[/b] ]PS, KILL ALL INQUISITORS ON SIGHT

Yes, I'm learning the fine craft of intimidation/assasination. I've found that foreign inquisitors usually bug out if you threaten them with assasination [works well with those preachy types too]. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Devastatin Dave]

Julius, I always go Acumen over loyalty, because contrary to what the Beatles say, You Can Buy Me Love Florins are more important in the long run in my opinion...

[Satyr]

I would never assign a governorship to anyone with loyalty under 5 unless the title added significant loyalty. It is better to make a little less and not have rebellions than it is to take risks with disloyal governors.

Kings can have a significant impact on your income. When you build lots of farms, they will get good agriculture virtues. Same goes for trading, you king will become a trader virtues which add 10-20% extra to all trading income in the kingdom.

[ToranagaSama]

Quote[/b] (Mary, Queen of Scots @ Jan. 17 2003,15:25)]I would never assign a governorship to anyone with loyalty under 5 unless the title added significant loyalty. It is better to make a little less and not have rebellions than it is to take risks with disloyal governors.
Much depends upon your style of play. If your very aggressive then I can see a priority for Loyalty. If your more of a Builder then Acumen takes precedent. IMO, give me the Money

If your worried about disloyal govenors and civil wars, then simply marry them up A Princess' wiles can do wonderous things for a Govenor's loyalty. No Loyalty, No Nookie http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Hermann the Lombard]

Quote[/b] (ToranagaSama @ Jan. 17 2003,15:22)]If your worried about disloyal govenors and civil wars, then simply marry them up A Princess' wiles can do wonderous things for a Govenor's loyalty. No Loyalty, No Nookie http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Of course that trick doesn't work if you're an Islamic faction. Our motto: "Better Loyalty Through Conquest"

[Divine Wind]

Does any1 here notice any patterns in acumen or loyalty to paticuler units? I myself usually in the early period always use urban militia as i can find 5-6 shield acumen units quite often, and they usual have at least 6 shield loyalty.

[Syterion]

I would choose Acumen, because I play Byzantine and the generals are super loyal.

Oh, someone explain how to strip a general of his title. I have a 9 acumen general and I want to put him in charge of Constantinople. I'm only making like 2500 florins a year with Constantinople at very high taxes with my present Duke of Constantinople.

[andrewt]

Math for using normal sized units. It takes 50 florins to build a new group of peasants and only 37 to support them. Just keep building them and then disband the ones with low attributes (acumen and loyalty). You'll only need 13 florins for every peasants unit you'll create that way since you are saving 37 of support costs by disbanding one. I usually have a plentiful supply of 4 acumen governors. If they get vices, just disband and create until you find replacements. I only do otherwise on the ones with additional command. I give them to good generals that I use unless it is in a rich province and I have no good acumen ranked generals.

If you press F1 in the tactical game, every unit with Lord is a governor.

As for kings and princes, I try to get good acumen. The king's acumen affects the acumen of princes and you'll get a good supply of high stat generals later on in the game. Especially with nations like Byzantines and Almohads with high stat royals. I got a lot of crap with the Byzantines this game though with quite a few getting 0 command because of the rollover from 9.

[ToranagaSama]

Not necessarily a pattern, you can find a 4 Acumen general amongst any type of unit, but I find Royal Knights and Knights in general to be the best candidates.

In the beginning, if I have a choice I always will pick Archers. As the game progresses, I make special effort to (re)place Knights as my Governors. You never know when you might need to bring him into battle. A bit of this is "role-playing", but also, I try to find at one star generals too.

Now, that I'm playing on Expert, its working out that my Governors are in many cases my best generals. So, when I have battles, there's a bit more at stake.

Of course, this would require some re-balancing, but I think CA should make some REQUIREMENTS for a unit to be qualified to become Govenor.

Not sure what, but say a Governor should have to have won at least one battle and/or a minimum level of stars. Any ideas?

In general, I think success in the game s/b more dependant upon developing your Empire and developing an empire s/b more difficult or better put more challenging Maybe this s/b another thread. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

PS, drop your Emissary onto your Govenor to "strip" him of his title(s).

[andrewt]

A peasant can become a governor if he is smart enough. I don't think many of those guys are really in the thick of the battle. Those duties usually bore knights and other warriors.

I like peasants. They are cheap and since I use around 2 to garrison every province, I make them my governors where acumen is the only thing I need. They are also not in any danger of dying.

[ToranagaSama]

Quote[/b] ]Math for using normal sized units. It takes 50 florins to build a new group of peasants and only 37 to support them. Just keep building them and then disband the ones with low attributes (acumen and loyalty). You'll only need 13 florins for every peasants unit you'll create that way since you are saving 37 of support costs by disbanding one. I usually have a plentiful supply of 4 acumen governors. If they get vices, just disband and create until you find replacements. I only do otherwise on the ones with additional command. I give them to good generals that I use unless it is in a rich province and I have no good acumen ranked generals.

Someone's ALWAYS got to find the CHESSY tactic http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

Do you think CA designed the game with this tactic in mind?

Please, seek the GREATEST challenge and play the game STRAIGHT people

Build your units as you need them and hope for the best. If the best doesn't come soon enough, just push on thru, its just a game afterall, not life

On the other hand, I guess its fine to try these sorts of tactics when you first start learning the game. It can be quite overwhelming, BUT once your familiar STOP using these, your just cheating yourself. JMHO.

------------
[No insult intended.]

[Houston]

I always go with acumen and never really look at the loyalty of the individual governor, and I have yet to have a civil war. In fact, it was only in my last campaign (Turks, early, expert) that I got a warning that I had too many generals with low loyalty. This was fixed by simply combining smaller armies with higher ranking generals with greater loyalty.

BTW, I think one factor is I almost always play with auto-tax so that the loyalty percentage of each province stays above 100%. Can you get a civil war if you keep each individual province loyal?

[andrewt]

Quote[/b] (ToranagaSama @ Jan. 17 2003,15:23)]Someone's ALWAYS got to find the CHESSY tactic http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

Do you think CA designed the game with this tactic in mind?

Please, seek the GREATEST challenge and play the game STRAIGHT people

Build your units as you need them and hope for the best. If the best doesn't come soon enough, just push on thru, its just a game afterall, not life

On the other hand, I guess its fine to try these sorts of tactics when you first start learning the game. It can be quite overwhelming, BUT once your familiar STOP using these, your just cheating yourself. JMHO.

------------
[No insult intended.]
It depends whether you look upon the game as an art or a science. I look upon everything as a mathematical challenge. From Baldur's Gate 2 to Warcraft 3 to Diablo2 to Neverwinter Nights, I spend a lot of time crunching numbers to come up with the best stuff. The challenge for me is finding the algorithm or whatnot to maximize the efficiency of everything. I even apply something similar to Johnson's rule of job scheduling (two work centers) in building structures in the game. Trust me, it works. My provinces' idle time in building construction is very small.

Even in homeworks in my business school, I compute stuff which aren't needed in the question just because I'm curious about it. It usually goes "these guys are dumb, doing it this way will increase profit" even though the guys in question are fictional. Hell, sometimes I just play with my computer changing settings to achieve the "optimum speed" for it.

I got an A last term in Operations Management. I wonder why. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Hosakawa Tito]

In the early part of the campaign I go with acumen to get the old cash register and trade route cha-chinging. Later in the campaign, when I'm pulling in 10,000+ florins a year, I prefer dread, especially in newly conquered territory on the far edges of my empire. The province's religion is usually different from my faction till I get my agents in there so fear works wonders in keeping the population in line, florin production isn't as important. As Al Capone said," You get more with a kind word and a gun, than with a kind word alone."

[Gaius Julius]

Quote[/b] (Syterion @ Jan. 17 2003,17:49)]I would choose Acumen, because I play Byzantine and the generals are super loyal.

Oh, someone explain how to strip a general of his title. I have a 9 acumen general and I want to put him in charge of Constantinople. I'm only making like 2500 florins a year with Constantinople at very high taxes with my present Duke of Constantinople.
Syterion

To strip a general(governor) of his title, drop an emmissary on him. I believe it takes 3 turns to do it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[hoom]

It takes as many turns as is needed for the emmisary to get there.
If he can get there in one turn then it takes one turn.

Ugh dread ick

Anyone who doubts the effect of king accumen, next time you have an elderly king with high accumen and a next in line with bad accumen, check your income before he dies and after the prince takes over.
You should be several thousand florins down.

[Shahed]

Priorities:

1. Acumen
2. Piety
3. Dread
4. Loyalty

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

[Lord Of Storms]

rebellions can start for many reasons not having enough troops garissoned in the region to control it, region has different religious beliefs , your King is too far away, your people want more improvements to keep them happy. you can easily increase loyalty with titles, princess, etc. or you can always disband a unit with a low loyalty and move on to the next and hopefully better candidate

[cugel]

YOu should never have a problem with civil wars in this game. If you have an old "softie" for a king, without male heirs and he dies, simply reload and kill off all the other princes, except for the one you want to inherit. You can do this simply by disbanding their units. Next turn your king dies and the sole remaining prince becomes the new king. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

Civil wars are so devastating for any faction that they really amount to a broken game feature. The AI really suffers from them. You've probably noticed that AI factions usually get conquered and disappear soon after they have one (even if the player doesn't conquer them himself).

[Hermann the Lombard]

Quote[/b] (Divine Wind @ Jan. 17 2003,17:34)]Does any1 here notice any patterns in acumen or loyalty to paticuler units? I myself usually in the early period always use urban militia as i can find 5-6 shield acumen units quite often, and they usual have at least 6 shield loyalty.
Playing as the Egyptians, yes I notice a pattern. Early on, myy high-acumen governors tended to be peasants, urban militia, or bedouin camels. As more advanced units became available, I saw *very* few bright lights among my missile troops (with the exception of crossbows), and very few among my cavalry (Armenian, Mamluk, Saharan, or Steppe...or Ghulam Bodyguards, for that matter). I have started to notice some high-acumen Ghazi, but no high-acumen Abysinnian Guards. A few among the Saracens, but hardly any among the Muwahid Foot. I think the sample size is large enough, now, that these patterns are statistically significant.

[Efrem Da King]

Interesting http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif . Why doesn't some one do a proper scientific test on this http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif .

[Efrem Da King]

Not me of course http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif .

[Cardinal]

Quote[/b] (ToranagaSama @ Jan. 17 2003,18:11)]PS, drop your Emissary onto your Govenor to "strip" him of his title(s).
How come I did not know that? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

A true pot of gold this Forum.

[SmokWawelski]

Quote[/b] ]PS, drop your Emissary onto your Govenor to "strip" him of his title(s). How come I did not know that? A true pot of gold this Forum.

Remember that the general/governor's loyalty will suffer though.

[Brighdaasa]

well i was wondering too, kings with high influence give good generals, with more stars, and i believe better accumen too, loyalty i'm not sure of, but definitely not piety, this one is always low in my campaigns throughout the game, maybe because i almost never build churches and stuff?
so, what does influence the loyalty, piety and accumen of generals?

[bosdur]

Acumen first, loyalty is not really a problem i think, just dont let the governor command a big army.