acumen for title holders

[jim]

hi,

i've been lurking my way through the archives for a while and couldn't find an answer to this so i thought it's time to lurk no more...

in campaign mode i usually try to install high acumen governors (4 feather minimum) but quite often many years down the line i find that the same governor has 6 or 7 feathers.

the only reasons i can think of for this is that i try to keep loyalty at 200% by lowering taxes wherever possible, rather than using garrisons. there's always the greed vice, but i'm pretty sure this isn't what's happening as that seems to appear when i keep taxes at very high in the province all the time..

any ideas?

[MonkeyMan]

Hi jim Welcome http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

So far as I know there is no gained accumen other than through V&V's. I think the V&Vs gained can depend on the tax rate and also the existing V&Vs of the governor. Some even suggest the governors unit effects it. In my experience if I tax high, they pick up income reducing vices. If you tax on normal I think the new V&Vs are pretty much random.

A good tip is to develop a strong royal line with high command and accumen, so you'll never be short of a former heir to put in positions of power.

Hope you enjoy your stay, I'm sure others have plenty of theories and ideas about how the whole process works and can be made to work for you.

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

[SmokWawelski]

My guess would be that they accumulate experience just liek the troops. Some titles also add acumen to their holders.

[Demon of Light]

Jim: Are you using the French?

[pdoan8]

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


Quote[/b] (MonkeyMan @ April 15 2003,10:27)]Hi jim

...In my experience if I tax high, they pick up income reducing vices. If you tax on normal I think the new V&Vs are pretty much random.

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Form my experience, it seems to be true.

It would be fairly reasonable for the Governor to get Greed vice when you keep taxing people too high. People don't like high tax, especially more than they can afford. Higher tax would usually accompanied by the act of forcing people to pay their tax. While the King demands a certain a mount of tax from a province, the Governor would consider to do almost everything, including being greed, to meet the demand (so he can countinue to be Governor).

[Jeff]

I was actually wondering this for myself as a couple of m Govenors seem to have gained a few feathers. Now the only common factor between the Govenors was that they were all married to my daughters. Does anyone know if marrying your daughter to one of your govenors/generals highers anything other than loyalty? My guess is that SmokWawelski may be close to home. I think it's rather possible that they do accumulate experience and thus more Accumen. Maybe a modder would have an accurate say on this?

[Charlemagne]

I'm not sure but I noticed that trading early on increases the acumen for guv'nors. (But it could be because I was playing with MedMod 1.84? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif)

Anyway I played Danes twice and this is what happened - After conquering Sweden I stared buildin ports and Merchants and boats and soon I was trading happily with England and Germany. All my governors were 4 feathered initially except my chamberlain in Denmark who had 6. After about 10 more turns they earned all became well educated earning 2 or 3 more feathers yippeee http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif), and then I got livonia and finland, appointed 4 feathered guv'nors, same story again. Same thing occured when I played Spain too.

[Beowulf]

Hello All

I agree. I play with the english and i always rush to have merchants and harbors, in the provinces i built it, the governor always seen to gain a couple of feathers.

MONKEYMAN

How do you develop a strong royal lineage ? How do you can influence it ?

I alway thought that the heirs stats were random...

[Dr_No]

some of the factions get special events bonus's- currently playing as the Turks and all my governors have had their accumen increased by one and i know this definately happens in one of the french provinces...

on strong royal bloodlines- two main ways i think:
1. keep the king or heir active in plenty of wars/jihads/crusades
2. if you can get some of them foreign honies to marry into your family

dr_no

[Papewaio]

3. Make sure lesser heirs who may inherent the throne meet a glorious end in battle.

I don't use that to often unless he is really useless... and sometimes it is better to go for lesser heirs with better virtues then a battle king you cannot afford to field.

[MonkeyMan]

Ok people not often you get a full essay of my Monkey goodness but here you go:

Ok then some general rules to note with your Royal Line. These are things I’ve noted from playing the game myself and having found it of particular interest to increase the stats of my king and princes.

1. When an heir comes of age he takes a copy of each of his fathers stats at the time. These stats then have applied to them +/- 1(possibly2) to each.

So given a king with:

Piety 5
Dread 5
Command 5
Acumen 5

His son will get

Piety 4-6
Dread 4-6
Command 4-6
Acumen 4-6

2. This applies AFTER bonuses from V&Vs. So say your king started life with

Piety 5
Dread 5
Command 5
Acumen 5

And before his son came of age he fought off a rebellion. In this rebellion he killed 1001 prisoners, after the battle he gained butcher +2 dread and no mercy +1 dread. Also he gained skilled defender. Two years later his son comes of age, the king is currently in his province, so the defence bonus applies on the strategy map. So for inheritance terms the king now has

Piety 5
Dread 8
Command 6
Acumen 5

His son will therefore get:

Piety 4-6
Dread 7-9
Command 5-7
Acumen 4-6

3. The heir will then have random V&Vs of his own applied to these stats, either good of bad.

4. The following factors have the following effects on stats:

Being tried by the inquisition + to piety, – slightly less to dread. (do only once or twice).
Killing prisoners + to dread, - slightly less to piety. (for best results kill 1001+ in one single battle for +3 with no ill effects).
Win battles, particularly in defence to gain huge bonuses to your command. Remember skilled defender bonus can give +3 base command per generation.

5. There is no way to increase acumen, except possibly by having an university to increase the likelihood of the educated virtue.

6. Kill the bad genes. Make sure you kill off your sons until the best one is next in line to the throne. Remember all stats except acumen are easy to improve over a few generations. If only one son has +1 to his acumen then almost always worthwhile. Killing them is not an exact science, but inquisitors, assassins and combat can all work. My favoured one is to send them on their own into combat and control it myself. Another is to take a province, incite rebellion and leave them their on their own with a unit of peasants. Retreat and let them starve in the castle.

7. Incite rebellion. Find one of the most rebellious provinces you can. Those who know where their early.txt in startpos is can navigate it and find full list of rebelliousness. For now though Scotland and Portugal are good places to start. Have a 1 stack army led by your favoured King or heir in the adjacent province. Set taxes high, with no governor, remove watch towers and churches. Then repeatedly put down the rebellions until you have trained enough.

8. Make sure your king is in a high tech province when the heir comes of age or send each for retraining to one so you gain the benefits of morale and armour bonuses.

9. Beware of command rollover A current bug in the game means that is any heirs come out with having 10+ command actually get 0. To counter this I try to keep all kings at natural command of 8-. You can still have you 9 command king through defensive virtues, but when an heir is going to come of age place your king in a castle to remove the defensive bonus.

10. Make sure your heirs always come to the throne before 35. This does mean that often you have to kill off your current good king. The chances of having an heir seemingly reduce as a king ages, so 50 year old kings not only have to have a son but live to see them come of age and be good. Kill your current king in the same way as poor heirs.

11. The myth that a good mother means good kids. Sorry I have seen absolutely no beneficial effect from marrying a foreign princess The only benefit is that having already married, the heir will come to the throne with some heirs already born. In fact you'll probably just increase the chance of inbreeding if you do it regularly.

Well I might think of more but I have work to do.
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[jim]

thanks for all the replies - i'm starting to think the instruction manual should just consist of a link to this forum..

in answer to your questions;

i've noticed this when i play as the english, playing using non-expansion tactics while i develop advanced troops (so very heavy on early trade to boost income).

i ususally save the kings female offspring to marry off to high command/low loyalty generals such as sir tancre de normandie, so the governors in question are generally batchelors

i don't think it's the greed vice (unless it's randomly generated) as being a very benign king i don't usually tax above normal - but admittedly i can't actually remember what v&v's they had

crusade-wise i don't really bother as i can't really see much benefit (apart from weakening neighbouring armies)