Princes & Princesses

[Asmodeus]

Hello all, this is my first post on this forum but I've been reading lots of the others.

I have a few questions about Princes and Princesses and how they should best be used.


Firstly Princesses - as far as I am aware are good to marry off to your favoured generals to improve loyalty. This makes sense to me. Do they become peers of the realm in this case? Do they have any right to the throne if they marry a princess?

They can be wed to foreign kings and princes to seal an alliance or secure a peace treaty (ala Henry V) but this means the foreign power may have a claim to your throne if your monarch dies and has no heir. I was wary about doing this at first but now i've been thinking about it, does it matter?? If you have no heir your game ends anyway doesnt it? Or does it mean during a civil war that the foreign power may try to seize the throne?

Lastly princesses can move about freely and effectively 'spy' on other lands, are they vulnerable to assassins etc when doing this?

Next, Princes:

The eldest heir will inherit the throne when the king dies. Where ever he is on the map he will 'teleport' to the homeland and take the thrown. He also gets a small band of Royal Knights as retainers - I assume these are rather better than the other knights in the game?

Princes can make good generals ( sometimes ) but it may be to risky to use them in battle unless you have a few 'spares'. Is there any advantage to using a prince as a general rather than a normal general with equivalent Command level?

Sometimes a prince seems to lose his 'Prince' title and become a Sir or a Lord (cant remember which) - why does this happen?

If a prince and a governer both occupy the same land who is actually ruling it in terms of trade, loyalty, piety etc? Example: I send a Prince leading an English army to invade Scotland - they take the land but must remain there to garrison it against rebellion. I award one of the generals in that army the title 'King of Scotland' to improve his stats. Now is the prince or the general running things?

What happens if the newly appointed 'King of Scotland' moves to another land, who will effectively be running it then?

last question for now.....

If you end up with an heir whose stats are far from good, in what ways can you try to improve him before he becomes king? With generals you can give them titles or marry them to princesses - so how can i improve that 'good for nothing' prince?

[SmokWawelski]

Well, a lot of questions, but I can offer only few answers:

- Do they have any right to the throne if they marry a princess? I don't think so, cause they are not of royal blood anyway.

- They can be wed to foreign kings and princes to seal an alliance or secure a peace treaty (ala Henry V) but this means the foreign power may have a claim to your throne if your monarch dies and has no heir. I was wary about doing this at first but now i've been thinking about it, does it matter?? If you have no heir your game ends anyway doesnt it? It isn't such large problem after all. If your king dies without a heir the game ends (?) so there is not penalty here as far as I see it. The problem is that the alliances are not working anyway though...

- are they vulnerable to assassins etc when doing this? They are not vulnerable to border towers and forts which usually kill your agents, but they can be assasinated. I think tha the chance is at least close to 50%.

- small band of Royal Knights as retainers - I assume these are rather better than the other knights in the game?
They die just as other humans do. I do not think that they are any better than regular knights, Although there is a vice that gives +5 health to your general/king/prince.

- Sometimes a prince seems to lose his 'Prince' title and become a Sir or a Lord (cant remember which) - why does this happen? I think that the brothers of king loose their claim to the throne where he gest the first male heir. Might be wrong here...

- If a prince and a governer both occupy the same land who is actually ruling it in terms of trade, loyalty, piety etc? As far as I know only the King overrides the governor.

- What happens if the newly appointed 'King of Scotland' moves to another land, who will effectively be running it then? The governor is still the governor regardles of position on the map. The farther away he is though the weeker his influence, just like with the King. Bad vices can be awarded too...

Fiuu, can't help you on the rest of them, Good Luck.

[Lehesu]

The best thing to do is to lock up one or two princes for a succesion. Than treat all other princes as general's. They become a Lord when a brother becomes the King and never again are in the running for power unless the King dies without heirs. Than you must fight a civil war.

[Asmodeus]

great answers, thanks guys

[Edratman]

A lot of questions, but I'll help as I can.

I find the best use of princesses is to marry them to my generals, it improves the loyalty of all your generals in addition to the one marrying the princess. The only exception to this is in the earliest stages of the the game when you don't have many agents, then I use the princesses as emissaries and they end up getting married when you are making alliances. (The value of alliances is open to significent debate, not to be resolved here.) Princesses are usually difficult, but not impossible to kill, much tougher than a zero star emissary.

You may choose to not do anything with the heir prince and still be succesful. But I have learned that if you make sure that your heir engages in a few (winning) battles before getting to be king, his sons will have more command stars and less negative vices. Repeat this a few inheritance cycles and you will have all the 4+ star generals you could use from the stock of princes you spawn.

The kings brothers stay on the inheritance list as princes until the kings eldest son reaches maturity at age 16 (or 15). Then they are demoted to sirs or lords or some other lesser title. In exchange for that demotion the game grants them immortality and these are your stock of multiple star generals and high attribute governors for the balance of the game. Of course they are also prone to picking up negative virtues, but at no greater rate than any other general. Getting the kings heirs to have high command stars is the only major benefit I am aware of that is derived from having a strong king. There are the income and loyalty modifications generated by v&v, but any king can pick up positive builder and trader attributes if you play well.

You are right not to be concerned about some other faction inheriting your lands. And I have no idea how the game picks a new king from among your existing generals if your line dies out or is killed off. If you think about it, after a 150 years or so you have a host of immortal ex-princes floating around, several of which you have married off to your princesses along the way.

[khurjan]

i always uses my princesses to marry my most capable generals as i found that making alliances are a utter waste of time as you find yourself under attack from allies as quickly as you would from your enimies

[Gaius Julius]

I'll use my princesess as spys. Also to secure loyalty from my top generals; shotgun wedding. I haven't yet had one of my princesess assassinated, but I have assassinated a rival faction's princess. As far as princes go, the top ones I'll keep out of harms way, for succession's sake. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[TheViking]

Princes i usually just have in one territory so they dont go and get killed so i dont have any heirs when my king die.

Princesses i almost forgot i have, but when i do remember them i use them to see beyond my enemys boarders.

I usually never train emissarys, assassins, spies, priests and units like that.

[Gregoshi]

TheViking, I see you prefer the Conan method of diplomacy - take your sword and split the diplomat in half from head to groin. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

[Dukezer0]

Quote[/b] (TheViking @ Jan. 04 2003,00:39)]Princes i usually just have in one territory so they dont go and get killed so i dont have any heirs when my king die.

Princesses i almost forgot i have, but when i do remember them i use them to see beyond my enemys boarders.

I usually never train emissarys, assassins, spies, priests and units like that.
I always produce catholic priests (or alims), one for each provence. I get annoyed with the traveling band of other religeon priests going around all my land and changing the 100% http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

But seriously, priests are good to send on a provence with a differing religeous tendancy a few turns ahead of conquering. That way there is less chance of a rebellion http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Asmodeus]

Quote[/b] (Dukezer0 @ Jan. 04 2003,07:35)]
Quote[/b] (TheViking @ Jan. 04 2003,00:39)]Princes i usually just have in one territory so they dont go and get killed so i dont have any heirs when my king die.

Princesses i almost forgot i have, but when i do remember them i use them to see beyond my enemys boarders.

I usually never train emissarys, assassins, spies, priests and units like that.
I always produce catholic priests (or alims), one for each provence. I get annoyed with the traveling band of other religeon priests going around all my land and changing the 100% http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

But seriously, priests are good to send on a provence with a differing religeous tendancy a few turns ahead of conquering. That way there is less chance of a rebellion http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Going slightly off topic....

I've started leaving a Bishop in each province now too for the exact same reason. I also been having lots of fun and frolics with spies and inquistors causing rebelions and mass burnings everywhere http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Inqisitors can be extremely useful - in a recent campaign the devious Italians declared war out of the blue and caused me serious problems in the Med by sinking a lot of ships and cutting off my supply route to Genoa. The relatively small army guarding Genoa was now very vulnerable to an attack from Milan. The Italians had quite a big army and several very capable generals commanding it. I sent in a couple of assassins but they weren't very experienced and his spies dealt with them both. So I sent in my Inquisitor http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif All three generals burnt at the stake and nothing he could do to stop me Muhahahahaha The % chance to find them guilty seemed to rise dramatically after they declared war too which almost guarenteed their deaths. When they finally did attack I routed them from the field http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Finally moving slightly back to topic:

I also went after an Italian prince with my Inquistor thinking that would strike a real blow to his empire but the chance was only about 15% even though he was, after so many successful burnings, up to 4*. He never managed to knock him off unfortunately and the Doge always had a 0% chance despite his low Piety. Would it be better to get a Grand Inquistor when attempting to burn Princes, Princesses and Kings? Nothing beats a Royal bonfire http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Ueriah]

I try to groom my line to the throne.

Seriously, nothing is worse then ending up with a King who's got an odd number of toes or some other such genetic abhorition. Makes the old bloodline all saucy or something and has a tendancy of revisiting itself on later princes. Much better to get a king who has a couple good traits that he can pass down the line... anything that helps him fight well is a plus, as well as numerous other virtues to increase happiness and acumen.

If you find yourself with a firstborn saddled with vices who has a younger sibling who has some good virtues, it might be worthwhile to kill off the elder son so that the younger takes the throne. Rather then using an assassin, I usually just throw the lad into the center of a calvary charge or something. Might as well get some use out of him instead of just snuffing him off... if time is of the essence, you could probably just disband the unit if you had to...

[SmokWawelski]

Quote[/b] ]Would it be better to get a Grand Inquistor when attempting to burn Princes, Princesses and Kings?

I assume that it should be, but from my experince I have not notticed any. I made only several attempts though, as these guys are hard to come by...