my governors are all thievin' bastards!

[Inigo Montoya]

WTF is going on? I'm playing English and I own about 70% of the world. All of my governors have started showing up with some vice that reduces my income. Some of them have been garrisoned since the beginning, some are with, or even leading, armies. Some are peasants, some are knights - it doesn't seem to matter. Is there any way to counteract this - other than appointing a new governor?

Most of my guys have at least 4 acumen - a lot of them have 5 or 6, and a couple even have 7, not including any bonuses that come from titles. I really don't want to hunt around for a replacement governor. I'm starting to think that the best thing to do is to just start cranking out peasants and disbanding them until I find some leaders with good stats - but that seems pretty cheesy. Of course, it also seems pretty cheesy that EVERY SINGLE ONE of my freaking governors has suddenly decided to turn into a thief.

[Mega Dux Bob]

Someone was mentioning that if you drop a spy on these naughty boys they start find ways to unlearn thier bad habbits.

[Inigo Montoya]

I've tried that with a few of them - resulted in one successful treason trial (so he's dead) and a couple of them developing the "informant" vice (or virtue). However, they didn't lose any of the pre-existing vices.

On a related note, I just went through every single one of my governors and 44 out of 50 have some version of an income-reducing vice ranging from -5% to -20%, including 3 guys I just appointed as governors within the last 2 turns who had NO v/v's at the time. This seems like it's somewhat nerfed to me - like CA put this in as some sort control to the total income of a kingdom. If that's the case, then I can quit obsessing about it - but I also have 16 provinces right now that have no governor while I'm trying to get this figured out.

[Inigo Montoya]

On further analysis, I notice that some of them are -X% trade income and others are -X% agricultural income (and some are both). So can I put the trade thieves in charge of rich provinces with no trade (like Algeria, for example)? This just seems to lead to an enormous amount of micro-management. How well does the AI do when assigning titles? Will it remove titles from people that turn out to be corrupt?

Thanks for any information

[frogbeastegg]

The income vices are inevitable and unavoidable to a certain extent. There are only a couple of things you can do:
1)Lower taxes to medium or less then kill your corrupt governors and replace them. The lower taxes should slow down the appearance of new vices on the governors.
2)Keep killing your governors every time a new vice pops up. Unfortunately this means you will spent large quantities of time micromanaging assassins or spies and the new governors will still get the vices.
3)Accept the inevitable and leave them to it. (If you don't want more micromanagement and have plenty of cash.)

Number 1 is your best option, but you will still get some corrupt governors. You can send the trade vice governors to a non-trading province, as their vice will not apply (no trade income). Farming vice governors will embezzle anywhere.

I've never used auto-assign titles so I don't know what it's like.

[Brother Derfel]

I don't know if this is a fact, but I have recently started using auto-assign-titles and letting the computer choose my governers. I have noticed that it always chooses good governers and also I believe that it will also take titles away from governers if a better choice comes allong.
Not only does this solve your problem, but also gets rid of a lot of micromanagement as the computer does it all for you.

[Inigo Montoya]

All right - just to satisfy my own curiosity (or neurosis, as my friends would have it), I tested my theory of "nerfing" and I'm convinced that this is what has to be going on. I reassigned ALL of my governors and had a gross income of 45,000. Two turns later my income was down to 39K and half of my guys had some newfound BS vice. In the first 100 or so turns of my game, I rarely, if ever, saw one of my governors turn into a crook. So I'm thinking that CA had to include something in the code that kicks in to limit the amount of income you can make. Has anyone else ever noticed this - or can anyone confirm or deny this?


Does anybody even care???

[Old Bald Guy]

Have you reduced taxes? Someone mentioned that back some time ago, I tried it, and it reduced the corruption greatly. I haven't done any expermiments to see which way produces the most income, however, as most of the back Vs lose only ten percent, adjusting the taxes down may lose more than the govs steal.

[Brother Derfel]

Quote[/b] (Inigo Montoya @ Aug. 03 2003,06:19)]All right - just to satisfy my own curiosity (or neurosis, as my friends would have it), I tested my theory of "nerfing" and I'm convinced that this is what has to be going on. I reassigned ALL of my governors and had a gross income of 45,000. Two turns later my income was down to 39K and half of my guys had some newfound BS vice. In the first 100 or so turns of my game, I rarely, if ever, saw one of my governors turn into a crook. So I'm thinking that CA had to include something in the code that kicks in to limit the amount of income you can make. Has anyone else ever noticed this - or can anyone confirm or deny this?


Does anybody even care???
To be quite honest mate, if you are making 39K a turn, even with corruption, you shouldn't realy worry that much. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[jas]

Quote[/b] (Brother Derfel @ Aug. 03 2003,07:03)]To be quite honest mate, if you are making 39K a turn, even with corruption, you shouldn't realy worry that much. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif
Its the principle of the thing Thieving bastards ..

Although 39K is a lot. I've not noticed this amount of loss due to corruption even in the late game, although I know that corruption is related to income and I'm not sure I've ever been making that much. Could it be related to something else eg: influence of the King?

[Divine Wind]

I tend to find that if i assign titles to a particular unit and just leave that unit as the garrison unit in a certain province, that these commanders usually gain the -income vices (for just being lazy buggers i presume). So more recently ive give titles to units that are in the front line only and i find that you get less of those pesky income vices. But that comes with the risk that the governor may be killed in battle or be so far from his province that rebellions might occur.

[Inigo Montoya]

I dunno about influence - my last three kings have all been the most influential persons on Earth. All of the governors have had full loyalty, and most of them have had at least two of the good virtues. It just seems that as soon as I appoint one, he turns into a robber baron of one kind or another.

And yeah - it is the principle of the thing. How well does the AI manage the appointments? 'cause it's incredibly frustrating to appoint a 7-acumen governor and have him immediately start stealing from me.

[Red Harvest]

First of all, anyone suggesting you turn down taxes needs to think more than one step at a time. Turning down taxes reduces income more than the vices...so what was the point of that again?

Second, I've noticed vices are more prevalent if you don't have border forts or if enemy agents are active in the area. Do you have your own assassins hanging about? That should help.

[Inigo Montoya]

Quote[/b] ]First of all, anyone suggesting you turn down taxes needs to think more than one step at a time. Turning down taxes reduces income more than the vices...so what was the point of that again?

Second, I've noticed vices are more prevalent if you don't have border forts or if enemy agents are active in the area. Do you have your own assassins hanging about? That should help.

Well, all of my provinces are on Normal taxes anyway - they were briefly on VH while I whipped the Italians 'cause that interrupted my trade routes badly. I don't think that's it, though - I started the game with everybody on VH for the first 25 or so years, and nobody developed bad habits.

The first two things I build in every province are watch towers and border forts. Also, I have an emissary, a bishop, a spy and 2 assassins in almost all of my provinces. I never get assassinated - buy it doesn't seem to have an effect on my governors.


Oh - and it's now about 8 years since I reassigned all offices - now my income is down to 35K (from about 45K). This seems like a ridiculous amount of corruption to develop in such a short time.

[Frankymole]

I care I'm struggling with the same thing. Own about 75% of the map, most governors of 5 or more acumen are showing -10% or so vices, with some trading vices of -30% (but they're put in non-trading provinces).
I thought I read in the manual that a governor has to be in the province to which his title applies - if he's anywhere else he has no influence over the province, which means no gain from acumen whatsoever and it just ticks over on its lowest income for its imrpovement level. I may be wrong about having read it, but it seems logical they do have to be "at home" to use their acumen, not away in some far-flung war.
As to auto-assigning, it never worked properly for me. The AI seems to give a vacant title fairly quickly to someone in a nearby province (fair enough, they may be the best in the kingdom) but doesn't reassign them if someone better comes along - that would involve using emissaries to strip titles and the computer won't do that for you. The best option seems to be to find some generals with positive vices too, and just accept the negative ones as unavoidable.

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (Red Harvest @ Aug. 03 2003,16:23)]First of all, anyone suggesting you turn down taxes needs to think more than one step at a time. Turning down taxes reduces income more than the vices...so what was the point of that again?
The point is that the worst corruption vices cost you more than a slight reduction in taxes - it saves you money. The minor vices are not a problem, but ones that cost you 30% of a provinces income is a real loss. Reducing the taxes from very high to normal only loses you about 20%, giving you a gain of +10%. Lower taxes also raise loyalty and reduce the 'late game revolt factor' making life easier. Sometimes you can reduce your garrison if you lower the taxes, saving you money on upkeep. That's thinking ahead.

The small corruption vices will always grow into the worse corruption vices, costing you more and more. The later the date, the worse corruption gets. It's one of the reasons why playing past 60% is such a drag for many people.

Also, as jas said, it's the principle of the thing http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Red Harvest]

When they start reaching 10% loss I start finding replacements. At 20% they are dead men. Never see 30% because I never let it get that far. I seriously doubt that reducing taxes will prevent those vices. Also, some vices like "materialist" actually help until they degenerate later.

I hold taxes at very high except when loyalty is low. I get enough extra income from it that I would much rather have 10% income loss from a vice, than run normal taxes. One of the things that helps prevents some of the negative aspects of a vice is to build rapidly in the territory and get your new governor various building and steward virtues. I'll keep a 10% loser around if he has six feathers...because his extra acumen overcomes the handicap.

[Oaty]

My experience is getting bad governors has nothing to do with income it has to do with how much spare florins you have in your treasury.

When I first started playing I just about trained a unit in every single territory I had. I always did get a high income but was spent right away on upkeep and new buldings leaving me with very little profit and as I got to owning over half the map I only had 1 governer once a year volunteering to help train my assassins or spies (oooooh oooooh pick me pick me I wanna train some of your agents)

Yes I was a newby at the time and 400-1000 was usually the minimum garrison for a non frontal territory

Should an attempt to fail via assassin or spie the governor may or may not become a goodboy but will typically turn to some other crime. The less florins you have in reserve the more likely he is to turn away from crime. An agent will only stop them from being an outlaw, family favourites, dubious accounting or the like. An agent will not make them get rid of there inbred vice poor steward or from being lazy, amounting to once there a lazy prick, always a lazy prick. Basically it only makes them stop robbing the kingdom from there various acts

The only thing I hate is a spy should have either 100 percent chance of treason on a governor that is robbing from the kingdom wich really is treason and only if he is good enough to get his stack of men to back him up should he revolt and the spy fail. This I would not consider a civil war as its only 1 territory and only a revolt. If he should get backed by his men and after his defeat, wich is likely to come there should be an option for severe punishment or once they revolt they are just like rebels but that would let another kingdom snag 1 of your territories while being allied if they have the opportunity.

As far as if you have plenty of reserves in your treasury your F*^%$#D

After reading this topic I think I will do a vote if CA should also throw this into patch wich I think or at least hope won't be that too hard. Basically giving a spy 100 percent chance of treason or revolt

[Kristaps]

In my experience, once you start to get messages like "You are the richest in the game" you start to get governor vices as well... I have a feeling it is a function of how much trade and territory you control...

[Doug-Thompson]

It's money: The richer a province is, the more trouble governors have keeping their hands off it. Things like being near a king or having a spy around discourages such thievery, but can't really control it.

============

I'm one of the relatively few players who routinely purge lousy governors.

Make militia, not peasants. Peasants cost 23 1/3 percent more to maintain. True, they also provide more men, but we're looking for talent here, not numbers. Militia produce significantly more high-acumen governors -- and a lot more four-star generals, which is a nice added bonus.

Slav spearmen, Nubian spearmen and some others make excellent replacement garrison units that aren't completely useless in an emergency, either.

A deep pool of good governors is archers. That type of unit has a high proportion of high-acument governors,. They aren't that effective against late-game armored units anyway. You can replace them with crossbowmen .
Sometimes, a particularly troublesome province requires a large garrison. I make that province a "governor's province." Whenever there's a unit that would make a good governor, I ship him there. That way, I know where the good governor's are.

[Crash]

Yup, unfortunately there's no alternative to micromanaging to maintain good governors. Sometimes it's not worth it to replace a governor that's getting -10% if he has high acumen, because they will balance each other out. But if the vices are causing -20% or more it might be a good idea to replace them.

[Doug-Thompson]

I don't like getting ripped off, just on principle.

Suppose I have a corrupt governor who's in direct command of an obsolete unit of peasants, and have a good replacement unit available.

I'd just as soon disband the peasants and save 37 florins a turn in maintenance in addition to ending the corruption.

[Hamburglar]

I really don't worry too much about the bad vices.

I try to keep every territory I have on Very High Taxes. Sure, it means I need a bigger garrison but with the extra revenue that garrison gets paid for. And I'd rather make 300 in a province and spend 200 on garrison than make 200 in a province and spend 100 on garrison. If the moneys the same I'd rather have more troops.

Anyway, its not always prudent to get rid of the governors. If a guy has 8 acumen and is ripping me off, he's still making me more money than a guy that has 4 acumen and is an angel. And hell, if I replace him with that 4 acumen guy he might turn into a 4 acumen crook, so I just leave him.



But guys, unless the unit is peasants or something don't disband it to get rid of the governor. That's just wasteful. Send an emmisary onto him and he's fired and you get to keep your troops.

[Sam Adams]

This is what ive noticed in my games. The onset of these vvs comes late in the game... i think it is also tied to larger empires but im not sure. When it occurs its total... almost all your governors get it and most of your new ones will as well. Nothing you can do. However, since Ive never seen it appear till the late game... when the extra income isnt needed and your victory is virtually assured, i dont really care about it.

[Doug-Thompson]

Obviously, "offsets" count in determining who's a good and a bad governor. For instance, it's possible for the same governor to have the "family above all" vice and the "good steward" or some other offsetting virtue at the same time. They balance out.

Nobody's arguing that an 8-acumen governor should be removed for almost any reason. That's a red herring.

When you clearly have a governor who's costing you money, you can strip him of his title -- reducing his loyalty too.

That might be worthwhile if he has a unit of high fighting value and if he's a good combat commander. However, I rarely make governor's out of good combat commanders or units that are better left in the field army.

You could assassinate him, I suppose, or send an inquisitor if you play Catholics.

My view is that if you disband a bad governor who's an urban milita, for instance, you save 30 florins a turn in maintenance costs. You've saved enough money for a replacement unit in seven turns, and gotten rid of a lousy commander. If you throw in the money saved from having an honest governor, the payoff could come in a couple of turns.

As for leaving stacks on provinces so the taxes can be driven to very high levels, that also means that those provinces will never be very loyal. Those troops are tied there. The province will revolt if they move. Furthermore, large stacks of obsolescent or obsolete troops don't have much fighting value. All those mouths to feed means the garrison won't last long in a siege, either.

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

Quote[/b] (Inigo Montoya @ Aug. 03 2003,06:19)]All right - just to satisfy my own curiosity (or neurosis, as my friends would have it), I tested my theory of "nerfing" and I'm convinced that this is what has to be going on. I reassigned ALL of my governors and had a gross income of 45,000. Two turns later my income was down to 39K and half of my guys had some newfound BS vice. In the first 100 or so turns of my game, I rarely, if ever, saw one of my governors turn into a crook. So I'm thinking that CA had to include something in the code that kicks in to limit the amount of income you can make. Has anyone else ever noticed this - or can anyone confirm or deny this?


Does anybody even care???
Were all your governors in their provinces in this experiment?

[Oaty]

Quote[/b] ]As for leaving stacks on provinces so the taxes can be driven to very high levels, that also means that those provinces will never be very loyal. Those troops are tied there. The province will revolt if they move. Furthermore, large stacks of obsolescent or obsolete troops don't have much fighting value. All those mouths to feed means the garrison won't last long in a siege, either.


This is not a bad tactic as I used this 1 when I first started. Where you get a real kicker out of it is when you need emergency troops. Take some of them guys out of the stack lower the taxes and you should never have a disaster from having numerically inferior forces. As far as the sieges go the whole idea is that you should never have to worry about being besieged as that tactic above will help you out very well.

As far as the tons of inferior troops I never use peasants (only in the beginning and money is tight do I use them) and make a good mix of troops for garrison and once rich enough I start garrisoning cavalry in the provinces

As far as how you want to garrison your troops verses the taxes is all a matter of taste

[Inigo Montoya]

Quote[/b] ]Were all your governors in their provinces in this experiment?

No - at this point in time, they were scattered all over the map and i just assigned the offices to the best possible candidate available, regardless of where they were located. Some of them were in the correct province, though, and all provinces had a garrison of at least 200 men due to me never disbanding any of the original peasant troops I used to suppress rebellion.

[Hamburglar]

With the Big garrisons and VEry High taxes, as another poster said you just lower the taxes if you move the troops, but for the most part its best to have a lot of troops around. I don't plan on them ever getting besieged and if they do its oftentimes GOOD (since VI) to have a large garrison since the AI usually assaults your castles now.

[kataphraktoi]

TRY THIS METHOD ON CORRUPT GOVERNORS.

When a governor develops a corruption vice strip him of the title, he'll eventually lose the vice or take awhile.

I've done this several times and its worked, and saved my a lot of money too. A healthy 62000 florin profit is made by strict enforcement. It means more micromanagement but are you an EMperor who wants every legal florin?

[TheLastEuropean]

This is very annoying. It is something 'coded' into the game and set to happen sometime in the Late period. It virtually never happens in Early or High (excepting strong mitigation such as constant high taxes) and happens almost every single turn once it begins in the Late period. This has nothing to do with capital, income or choice of unit for governor but is obviously an inbuilt 'feature' designed to ramp up the difficulty towards end game. I wouldn't mind a random feature that happened constantly and consistently throughout the game but this is just pure annoying simply because it's impossible to counter. All your governors turn bad sooner or later once in the Late period and their replacement follows suit very soon after - sometimes within 1 or 2 turns. Personally, I just give up and leave my provinces governor-less. Keeping track of the bad ones and constantly replacing them, sometimes 5 or 6 a turn, is NOT fun - it's an annoying chore that simply impedes game-play.

[AgentBif]

Quote[/b] (Inigo Montoya @ Aug. 04 2003,03:19)]All right - just to satisfy my own curiosity (or neurosis, as my friends would have it), I tested my theory of "nerfing" and I'm convinced that this is what has to be going on. I reassigned ALL of my governors and had a gross income of 45,000. Two turns later my income was down to 39K and half of my guys had some newfound BS vice. In the first 100 or so turns of my game, I rarely, if ever, saw one of my governors turn into a crook. So I'm thinking that CA had to include something in the code that kicks in to limit the amount of income you can make. Has anyone else ever noticed this - or can anyone confirm or deny this?


Does anybody even care???
The problem you are describing happened to me when playing English once. Yes I care. In fact, I found it highly aggravating and really pretty stupid design, IMO. At that point the game ceases to be a game and becomes more an inane, tedious fight with the computer.

I really really wish they'd shoot the guy who put that code in there. Ok, maybe just confiscate his computer and demote him to janitor. He can keep the other guy company who put that mass-mega-rebellion code in there.

Don't get me wrong, MTW is one of my favorite games, but these two april fools pranks have no business being in a professional product...

[Inigo Montoya]

TLE & Bif -

I completely agree with both of you. It takes a lot of the enjoyment out of the game when you have to spend half and hour each turn reviewing and replacing governors - then turn right around on the next game turn and have to repeat the entire process all over again. I finally just built up huge armies and auto'ed out the rest of the game. The aggravation of dealing with the governors took all of the enjoyment out of the rest of the game.

When I first started playing, I diligently searched all of my commanders and assigned titles to anyone with 4 acumen or better. I can remember how excited I was to find a guy with 6 acumen to be governor of Flanders and Chamberlain (giving him 8). I can remember the first 7 acumen I found (I held him because I was getting ready to conquer Antioch)

I probably wouldn't mind it as much if there was some simple way to review the governors. However, it's tedious to go through every single province, locate the governor, open up his V/V's, pull him out of an army if he needs to be replace, locate the nearest emissary, etc., etc. ad infinitum. Of everything in this game, this is the thing that I hate the most.

[Old Bald Guy]

I guess Total War means it. Try to live a quiet, peaceful life and see how far you get.

All week, I've been playing the Hungarians and have not gone to war with anyone. I've been building infrastructure for the arrival of the Golden Horde. I've kept taxes at normal. I've built churches and monasteries. I had the largest army for a long time. I bribed rebels in Antioch, Switzerland, Burgandy, Milan, Venice...etc. I had enough florins to cover expenses.

My loyalty has trended downward. My govs have picked up bad vices. I have few decent generals. I've got a lot of citadels and a lot of excellent armies, led by dogs. My king is down to three influence.

It says Total War, not Man of Peace, I guess. Some of us have complained the diplomacy part doesn't work. It certainly is given short shrift. The game would be improved if there were more than one way--all-out war--to win the game, or at least PLAY the game.

OBG

[ichi]

Great thread, and yes, I care

Lets summarize the discussion so far.

First, this is nerfed, for all the reasons mentioned.

Second, it can be a real pain.

But its all good with me.

The problem of corruption in a large empire is very realistic. The reduction in income is an effective method of balancing gameplay. Two reasons I like it.

I do not play simply to beat the code. That is simply too mechanical. I like to create a world (you psychology majors can write your thesis on this) of my liking. And for me, that means a nice place, except for the constant slaughter.

In other words, taxes aren't very high, and good conquers evil.
As a benevolent diety, I refuse to allow too much vice. A little adultery and sodomy maybe, but not too much. When a six-toed chinless wonder starts to become a monopolistic trader or begins to cheat his subordinates out of their hard-earned cash, I set the world straight (something much more difficult to do in the real world) by removing him. Even if he is a 7 acumen dude.

The secret is carefully review the announcement of V&Vs at the start of each turn. Click on the name of a reprobate and you will see which province he is in. Now comes the tough part. Either remember where he is, or write it down on a note pad.

Disband them, try them for heresy, assassinate them. If you view this as a hassle then you are missing one of the deeper aspects of the SP game - that of ruling an empire. If you want to simply fight, join me in MP, and we can simply fight.

The fun is in the journey, the destination is a bonus. I enjoy making a civilisation that can produce Lancers as much as I enjoy sending those Lancers into battle.

Some of you may find this foolish. oh well. Try dropping an assassin on me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

ichi

ps i found myself agreeing with most of frogbeateggs comments. I think he was pretty much right on.

[AgentBif]

Quote[/b] (ichi @ Aug. 10 2003,07:18)]The problem of corruption in a large empire is very realistic. The reduction in income is an effective method of balancing gameplay.
While political corruption is often a feature of reality, this does not mean what CA has implemented is "realistic".

If they want to force the user to fight with the computer over finding and maintaining quality governers, then they are obligated to:

1) Ensure that at least SOME governors have sustained integrity

2) Design the vice/virtue bonus generator to average out to 0% governor bonuses (that is, 0% when each vice/virtue grows to it's final value).

3) Provide a sortable list of units where "governance" is a rating which can be selected for sort. What I am calling governance would be the total income bonus percentage for that leader incorporating not only the accumen bonus but the sum of all vices and virtues.

If they wanted to make the game more challenging, they should have made the AI more reasonably capable: able to sustain a viable budget (disband excess peasants, etc), able to avoid mass rebellion, able to set up trade networks, etc.

So, no, the 100% guaranteed corruption system is NOT a desirable means for balancing gameplay. Directly nerfing the user through such an obviously artificial contrivance just causes frustration and annoyance among users.... It's really just cheating AI, a design principle which is almost universally loathed among gamers.

[The_Emperor]

Quote[/b] (AgentBif @ Aug. 10 2003,17:22)]
Quote[/b] (ichi @ Aug. 10 2003,07:18)]The problem of corruption in a large empire is very realistic. The reduction in income is an effective method of balancing gameplay.
While political corruption is often a feature of reality, this does not mean what CA has implemented is "realistic".

If they want to force the user to fight with the computer over finding and maintaining quality governers, then they are obligated to:

1) Ensure that at least SOME governors have sustained integrity

2) Design the vice/virtue bonus generator to average out to 0% governor bonuses (that is, 0% when each vice/virtue grows to it's final value).

3) Provide a sortable list of units where "governance" is a rating which can be selected for sort. What I am calling governance would be the total income bonus percentage for that leader incorporating not only the accumen bonus but the sum of all vices and virtues.

If they wanted to make the game more challenging, they should have made the AI more reasonably capable: able to sustain a viable budget (disband excess peasants, etc), able to avoid mass rebellion, able to set up trade networks, etc.

So, no, the 100% guaranteed corruption system is NOT a desirable means for balancing gameplay. Directly nerfing the user through such an obviously artificial contrivance just causes frustration and annoyance among users.... It's really just cheating AI, a design principle which is almost universally loathed among gamers.
Actually it is historically accurate for corruption to take root in any nation during that period.

During the Hundred Years war the English Kings knew that war was the vocation of the nobility and that good trustworthy help was hard to find... By fighting a war against an external foe, the king would have less trouble at home because his Lords wouldn't be sitting there planning their own personal rise to power. Instead they would be gaining personal wealth through the spoils of war and too busy killing the enemy abroad to engage in rebellion and political intrigue.

Corruption and rebellion was as commonplace during the medieval period as the slaughter and battles were.

Good trustworthy help is a rare thing and as such Generals and Governors rightly get corrupting vices and virtues... and like any good King its up to you to sort it all out year after year.

I think its a good thing and adds an extra depth to the game.

[AgentBif]

Quote[/b] (The_Emperor @ Aug. 11 2003,08:44)]
Actually it is historically accurate for corruption to take root in any nation during that period.


To say that there was corruption in the past is not the same thing as demonstrating that CA's code is realistic.

The corruption thing in the game is simply a wildly unrealistic contrivance: At some time in the history of your empire, income suddenly just plummets. It's like money all of a sudden is worth only 60-70% what it was for the last 300 years. Hell, if they want to help the AI out, why don't they just suddenly convert 30% of your sectors over to the enemy or something? Or why don't they just give the AI a freebie 30-40% bonus on income? Or why don't they just give you an across-the-board penalty on any sector just because it is you that owns it?


Quote[/b] ]
I think its a good thing and adds an extra depth to the game.


Dude, I'm happy you're not on the design team. A lot of novice devlopers often put clumsy oafish features in games with the thought that they'd be KEWL when it turns out they are really just tedious algorithms that abuse and frustrate the users. It's unfortunate that CA let this get away from them (along with the mass uber-rebellion thing).

It might be possible to implement some kind of corruption feature that had some semblance to reality and at the same time actually added to the quality of gameplay ... This would involve including thoughtful, non-tedious measures that enable the user to handle the problem through some kind of tradeoff mechanism. Instead, CA chose the bad-game-design technique and as a result a lot of users are pissed off about it.

Some designers seem to think of users as slaves for abusing, somehow assuming that the slaves actually enjoy punishment. Others of more sophisticated mind know that what users actually enjoy are substantial problems along with a variety of tools that can be put together to solve them. In MTW there is no plausible means of handling the corruption problem, it's just an inane beating administered to the user.

[WesW]

I read an interview with Sid Meier, I believe, a couple of years ago where he talked about his attitude towards this type of thing. He said that the purpose of making the games was to intertain and challange the player, not frustrate him, and that if you are going to add random events to the game, add positive ones rather than negative ones. CA should have given the AI bonuses to off-set growing human power, not penalties to the player.
Or, if they wanted to simulate the inflation that occurred in Spain when the Inca treasure flowed in, they could just state that things will start costing more once you reach a certain income level or treasury limit.

Btw, I thought of Sid's comments when I found out that the new people who designed Civ III had made it impossible to change the outcomes of combat roles by re-loading the game. I wondered how this fit with the basic law of commerce that the purpose of any product is to satisfy the customer. I mean, if the customer wants to re-load, who are the designers to tell him he can't because it's a cheesy tactic. (Which I frequently indulged in.)

Anyway, I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I just thought it's interesting how this attitude of deliberately frustrating your customers is so prevalent in the game industry, where it would be abhorred in any other.

[frogbeastegg]

The corruption in MTW reminds me of the corruption in Civ 3 in that you really get hammered once you get a large empire. In the early running you can take steps to minimise corruption, but once you get a large empire you're doomed. The whole point of Civ 3 (in my eyes anyway) was to build a large empire but the limit was something like 30 cities (I haven't played in ages, it was just too flawed to be fun) and then Wham This left the expansionists stuck and killed off conquerors when they captured too many cities. In MTW it's the same effect.

The end result of all this is that I no longer play Civ3, instead I play Alpha Centauri which allows you to build hundreds of cities if you so desire and is a much better game all round. In TW I don't play MTW's main campaign now (there are other niggles involved such as the length, the tedium of micro-micromanaging, the many skipped turns while you wait for the good troops to become available, the foolish camp map AI and the general repetitiveness of normal play. I usually like micromanagement and teching up but MTW is a step too far.), I play the Viking one or Shogun. I could try the mods but honestly my heart is no longer in it.

[Inigo Montoya]

Quote[/b] ]In other words, taxes aren't very high, and good conquers evil.

In the game that spawned this whole complaint from me, I left my taxes at the Normal level after about the first 30 years. I struggled for a long time - not able to build anything, but finally my trade income caught up. And I don't feel that the aim of the game is to "beat the code" - I didn't take advantage of any specific loopholes, nor did I specifically avoid them (mainly because I'm new to the game and unaware of them). However, having a new and bizarre behavior hard-coded into a game in order to artificially ramp up the difficulty as the game goes on is extremely sloppy programming. Basically, it says "we can't figure out a clean or logical way to do this, so let's just throw this switch and let the user figure it out." I disliked it so much that I have not even started MTW up since finishing my first campaign - which sounds extreme, I'm sure, but this game committed two of the three Cardinal Sins of Computer Games, as far as I'm concerned: 1) It bored me at the end (like the last 50 years), and 2) It arbitrarily frustrated me without allowing me to fix things.

I don't mind frustration - one of my all-time favorite games is Grand Prix Legends, which is arguably the best driving sim ever made, and it's extremely frustrating to start to learn a new track or car. But once you've reached a level of proficiency, the game doesn't suddenly turn off gravity or decrease your car's top speed. The AI gets faster on the track, and you have to keep improving if you want to win. In the case of MTW, while I don't like the nerfing of my income, I wouldn't mind it so much if there were a less tedious, or more logical, way of dealing with it.




Quote[/b] ]The secret is carefully review the announcement of V&Vs at the start of each turn

Are the V/Vs announced at the start of a turn? I've never noticed this - but maybe you have to have something turned on.

[Doug-Thompson]

I don't have widespread corruption when my empire gets big.

Seriously.

I'm not trying to be cute or contrary. If I had the type of corruption being described in this thread, I wouldn't be able to disband and replace governors fast enough to keep the empire clean.

I think it must be because I keep my taxes very low.

One could reasonably ask what practical difference there is between losing revenue to corruption and being starved for florins because your taxes are very low.

I'll spare everybody my views on the value of province loyalty and simply say that I like to play an early, agressive game. My idea of a tax increase is to grab somebody else's province. This is why I play mostly Muslims, some Byzantines and a few Catholic factions that border "heathen" lands available for conquest: Spanish, Hungarians, even Danes.

I'm not trying to claim I've found the "cure," or anything. I'm just pointing out that the idea that corruption is an inevitable outcome lumped in there by oafish designers seeking a meat-axe cure for balance problems is not really fair. Corruption can be avoided. The question is, is the cure any better than the disease?

[ichi]

This has turned out to be a very good thread, making me think about why we play and what is 'good' and what is 'bad'.

Inigo, please don't think that I was saying that you were just trying to exploit code loopholes, as that was not my intent.

You ask a good question with this whole thread. I find it interesting to read about how other players view these issues.

I just disagree with your statement that they threw this at us but did not give us a solution. I think the solution is a big part of the game, and allows us to imprint our own sense of morality and style on the empire we build. Maybe thats not what others are looking for, but for me the decisions I make about who governs, who lives, who dies are a big part of the game. And I think I have most of the tools. I wish there was a better interface for checking governors, generals, and agents. But I accept it is the way it is, until something better comes out.

And Wes, its good to see you weigh in on this. As someone who has contributed rather than complain, your voice carries weight (with me, anyway).

and Doug, you ask a great question. I think that if one wishes to reduce the XSBS associated with this nerf, then they should do what you do and avoid a lot of the trouble (and get the same income essentially).

Frogbeast egg has it right. If you don't like it, don't play it.

As I have stated before, an easier interface to check on governors and agents would improve the game. But I don't feel like I am a slave being abused by the programmers. As my empire grows, some guvs turn bad. As the diety/emperor, it is my job to decide how to deal with that.

The V&V announcements are in the VI version.

ichi

[Nowake]

I wish there was a better interface for checking governors, generals, and agents. But I accept it is the way it is, until something better comes out.

Very true. As much as I want to keep coruption out of my realm, it is a very exhausting bussines.

But, what I've saw is that this happens after a long period of continued peace. So strech the legs of your dukes and amirs more often http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Inigo Montoya]

Quote[/b] ]. As my empire grows, some guvs turn bad. As the diety/emperor, it is my job to decide how to deal with that.

The V&V announcements are in the VI version.


Crap. I only have the original game....

although hearing this makes me think that CA realized how irritating the phenomenon was and at least tried to add something to ease the pain a little. I know that it would not bother me so much if two changes were made (only 2 ):

1. Don't develop instantaneous vices (one turn in office and suddenly he's a crook) - or some way to get a feel for a man's character before I grant the title

2. An easier way to review governors (which I've said many times now, but really this is the thing that bugs me most). This is the process that turns this whole (minor) problem into an exercise in futility. I hated losing income, but I quickly learned to hate the endless search/review/remove/search/replace (second search to find the new gov) process even more - especially when the new guy had to be replaced on the very next turn. This was the main reason I found the game to be both boring and frustrating (the two Cardinal violations http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif )

Ichi - I take no offense at anything anyone says. I think all the POV expressed here have been interesting, and certainly show that there are a couple of very different camps with regard to this issue. I happen to be in the "this feature needlessly turned a great game into a long, boring slog" camp.... and everyone else, of course, is wrong. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

I realize it's too late now to add a better review system to MTW or VI - and I will eventually play it a bunch more, regardless (I'll just play GA or take the lesser victory). Hopefully someone at CA will make title management a bit more user-friendly for RTW.

[Crash]

Quote[/b] (Doug-Thompson @ Aug. 12 2003,10:12)]Corruption can be avoided. The question is, is the cure any better than the disease?
Good point. Maybe the "corrupt governors" complaints are little bit of "whining"? If we don't want corruption, set taxes to Low or Very Low all the time. No wonder the governors get the "Greed" vice, when the players are greedily setting the tax level to Very High. The corruption problem comes along with gaining your revenue through high taxes rather than conquest or trade. Seems fair to me. If you want to maintain a very high tax level all the time, then you deal with the consequences.

There's going to be different kinds of challenges in the game depending on what tax rate you want to use. So you need different strategies depending on what methods you use to fill your treasury. If you want to depend on very high tax revenue, then you may want to keep your empire smaller and more manageable, so that you can easily keep a close eye on the V&Vs of your governors. If you use Low tax rates, then you will need to use conquest and/or trade to generate revenue. Using a Trade strategy, you can't conquer your trading partners. Using a conquest strategy, don't bother with building a big navy, because you're going to conquer your potential trading partners anyway.

I would agree, however, that the UI should be improved for managing provinces and governors and agents.

[Doug-Thompson]

First off, thanks for the nice feedback to my post.

Here's a purely mechanical feature that most people probably know about already. When you right-click on a province, note that the governor's name is on the screen.

Click that name, and it takes you right to the governor, or to the stack he's in anyway. Then you can right-click on his unit and bring up his information.

I don't "purge" bad governors every year, but when I do I right-click the province, check the governor and use the arrow by the province name to go to the next province and repeat. Assume it takes 5-10 seconds for a province, including the lousy ones in that average. That's thousands of florins more in revenue for less than 10 minutes work in a 50-province empire.

That does require keeping up what I call a "governor's school," a stack of decent "governor's candidates" in a province that requires a large garrison anyway, such as Portugal. The search for a replacement is what takes all the time.

[AgentBif]

Quote[/b] (Doug-Thompson @ Aug. 14 2003,15:17)]Assume it takes 5-10 seconds for a province, including the lousy ones in that average. That's thousands of florins more in revenue for less than 10 minutes work in a 50-province empire.
I don't think you have a realistic sense of the passage of time here. It's more like 30 seconds to a minute per sector. Total time suckage is like 15-30 minutes per turn. Over 100 turns we're talking like 1-2 days of purely wasted not-fun play time.

Many of us have very little liesure time just to do fun things as it is... So we have little patience for lazy programmers who think it's ok to let 1000's of gamers blow off their time fighting with a poor, barely adequate user interface and witless AI rather than spend a week or two implementing it right.

Anyway, to strip a governor of his title, you have to drop an available emissary on him and wait a turn. Then you have to find all the ungoverned sectors the next turn and replace them.

If the guy has a trade penalty, you have to drop him in the farm governors pile. If he's got an agricultural penalty, you have to drop him in the trade governor's pile.

If the sector in question is both a trade and farm sector, you have to find a totally clean governor.

Even if you just do it simple like you describe, the utter tedium of it all is way above the pain threshold of most gamers. This is what I mean by no plausible solution.

Brainless, repetitious tedium like this with a bare-bones interface has no place in a game. IMO, anyone who enjoys this sort of gaming should just go play some accounting software or something.

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

[ichi]

Bif:


Quote[/b] ]I don't think you have a realistic sense of the passage of time here. It's more like 30 seconds to a minute per sector. Total time suckage is like 15-30 minutes per turn. Over 100 turns we're talking like 1-2 days of purely wasted not-fun play time.

When the turn starts the vices are listed; I review the list and click on the names I have concerns about (to see where they are). If there are several, I make a little note on my pad.

Once the turns starts I do what Doug said, check on the bad guvs as I go province to province. I either drop an emissary or assassin, or (quite frequently) I just disband the offender.

This takes less than 3 minutes per turn, nowhere near 15 as you state.


Quote[/b] ]Even if you just do it simple like you describe, the utter tedium of it all is way above the pain threshold of most gamers. This is what I mean by no plausible solution.


Keep your taxes low. Disband them if assassinating them is too much work. Yes, I agree the interface is poor in some ways, but there are solutions.


Quote[/b] ]Brainless, repetitious tedium like this with a bare-bones interface has no place in a game. IMO, anyone who enjoys this sort of gaming should just go play some accounting software or something.

You feel it is repetitive and brainless. I like it cause it allows me to role-play a little. I fight hard in the real world and think that a lot of the human condition sucks. So in the game I get to exert moral authority (again, cheaper than paying an analyst).

You have the right to not like a portion of the game, and to state why. I just stated my reasons why I like this game.

But then you go and insult me and those like me. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/argue.gif

OK, I can deal.

IMO, anybody that plays a game that they think sucks and then spend time arguing about should just go play a game that they think doesnt suck, or better yet, design and develop a better game or mod.

I propose that we agree to disagree on this.

ichi

[AgentBif]

Quote[/b] (ichi @ Aug. 14 2003,21:50)]I like it cause it allows me to role-play a little. I fight hard in the real world and think that a lot of the human condition sucks. So in the game I get to exert moral authority (again, cheaper than paying an analyst).

You have the right to not like a portion of the game, and to state why. I just stated my reasons why I like this game.

But then you go and insult me and those like me.

Ok, yeah, what I said looks like an insult to you, but I actually meant it as an insult to the developers. As in... they've managed to design a feature that's as much fun to play as a spreadsheet. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif

(Not that I take anything away from CA's great accomplishment in this game, I just think that they stopped short at the expense of their customers... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif What's worse is they received LOTS of feedback on improving the user interface starting right after the game came out and they almost totally ignored all of it.... Little was improved in any of the patches or in VI which we PAY for.)

In actuality I don't think that you or others who (incomprehensibly) enjoy dealing with this feature are somehow less worthy as human beings.

I apologize for that remark, it was not aimed well.

In any case, there's no way you are doing this in under 3 minutes per turn unless you have something like 10 sectors or whatever. Go time yourself a bunch of turns after you get something like half the world under your domain. Include all the time you take writing down the sector names each turn, all the time you spend collecting good governor piles, all the time you spend replacing those units you had to pull away to become new governors, etc. And don't rush yourself because you're trying to prove something. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif I think you'll be surprised how much time you're wasting fighting with the poor user interface...

Finally, keep in mind that not everyone has VI and gets the summary list of vices every turn. Much of my anger over this bogosity derives from having to fight it in my pre-VI days.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Oddly enough, I have yet to see somebody complaining about all the positive V&V that all governors are bound to get (magnificent builder and the like)... Those are coming even faster than the bad ones...

The opening V&V screen in VI solves the problem, as far as I am concerned....

Louis the Simurgh,

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (AgentBif @ Aug. 13 2003,23:21)]Even if you just do it simple like you describe, the utter tedium of it all is way above the pain threshold of most gamers. This is what I mean by no plausible solution.
Assume that it really took 15-30 minutes per "purge" to switch out your governors — only for the sake of argument. I still consider that figure absurdly high. For one thing, all but a few of my governor's are kept honest. I can skip right over them.

Why do that every turn? Every fifth turn, for instance, will keep the empire quite clean. Every 10th's turn is acceptable. Do it at the beginning of every decade.

Say it really does take 30 minutes. Divide that by 10, and now the average is 3 minutes per turn.

As for not finding the leisure time, hey, I have four kids who never go neglected and a full-time job. I wouldn't do this if it sucked away my time.

As for emissaries, I admit that I often just disband the unit rather than use emissaires to strip titles simply because disbandment is about 20 times faster. I replace them with generic, "clean" new governors.

I'm going to agree with earlier comments: Rulers can't look at provinces as lemons to be squeezed for every last drop of revenue, requiring big garrisons just to keep the oppressed population in line, and hope to avoid corruption.

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe @ Aug. 14 2003,11:55)]Oddly enough, I have yet to see somebody complaining about all the positive V&V that all governors are bound to get (magnificent builder and the like)... Those are coming even faster than the bad ones...

The opening V&V screen in VI solves the problem, as far as I am concerned....

Louis the Simurgh,
Good point, well said.

[Inigo Montoya]

Quote[/b] ]Oddly enough, I have yet to see somebody complaining about all the positive V&V that all governors are bound to get (magnificent builder and the like)... Those are coming even faster than the bad ones...

However, the positives don't all just suddenly develop over a (relatively) short period of time as the negatives do. I wouldn't even complain about the negatives, if they occurred throughout the history of the game. But these are imposed (they don't develop) all of sudden across an entire empire - which I find both arbitrary and unrealistic. But I could even live with that... IF TITLE MANAGEMENT WAS EASIER

I don't have VI, so I don't see the announcements at the start of a turn. I'll admit that that piece of knowledge would make me a little less irritated with this "feature". Still, even knowing who is turning into a thief, you have to search them out and disband/assassinate/strip them and then find the best replacement and title them. While keeping "governor farms" somewhere might make this process a little easier, doesn't that seem just as artificial as the problem I'm already complaining about?

And please note (as the starter of this runaway thread), I do NOT set my taxes on High or VH and leave them there. I've stated a few times that my taxes stayed on Normal pretty much throughout the course of the game - even Low in some of the troublesome provinces or areas I'd just conquered. This is not a problem caused by gameplay choices. I think that is obvious when you consider that you can appoint a new governor in a poor province with low taxes and have him turn into an "Exclusive Trader" (or whatever) on the very next turn. This situation is imposed on the player by something hard-coded into the game.

Anyway, this discussion has been pretty good. I've seen a couple of suggestions for things that will reduce my pain somewhat - including the "governor farms" and VI. Plus, I've come to realize that even "bad" governors might not be so bad if you match them with the correct province. The thing is, this only comes into play when the size of an empire becomes rather difficult to manage in the first place, and this makes it even more unmanageable - without adding anything significant to the actual gameplay, other than a slowly spiralling sense of frustration.

[Crash]

You could try playing the campaign game on Easy, the AI acts a lot more rationally than in Hard and Expert levels as far as the strategic game - no suicidal wars and unreasonable diplomacy. You can defeat the AI in battles with smaller armies and lower value troops. If you miss the more challenging battles, then play the custom and historical battles.

Ideally for me, I would like to have choices of difficulty levels in two different aspects - tactical and strategic. There could be Easy, Normal, Hard, and Expert for battles, plus Easy, Normal, and Hard in the strategic areas (rebellions, loyalty, alliances, pope, revenue, etc). Then I could have the best of both worlds - Hard in battles and Easy on the strategic map.

[AgentBif]

Quote[/b] (Doug-Thompson @ Aug. 15 2003,11:56)]Why do that every turn? Every fifth turn, for instance, will keep the empire quite clean. Every 10th's turn is acceptable. Do it at the beginning of every decade.

Say it really does take 30 minutes. Divide that by 10, and now the average is 3 minutes per turn.
Straightforward logic applied to the computation would reveal that if you neglect doing the work for 5 or 10 turns, you will have 5 or 10 times the amount of work left when you get around to it dude Moreover, you would lose what meager benefit the VV summary list gives you (assuming you own VI).

Attempts to pull fast ones like this don't really contribute much to the discussion.

[AgentBif]

Quote[/b] (Doug-Thompson @ Aug. 15 2003,11:58)]
Quote[/b] (Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe @ Aug. 14 2003,11:55)]Oddly enough, I have yet to see somebody complaining about all the positive V&V that all governors are bound to get (magnificent builder and the like)... Those are coming even faster than the bad ones...

The opening V&V screen in VI solves the problem, as far as I am concerned....

Louis the Simurgh,
Good point, well said.
Unfortunately, not well said at all.

For example, the virtues "magnificent builder", etc are deterministic ... If you build structures/farms while the governor in question is in place, you will gain a loyalty and happiness bonus. But happiness and loyalty have absolutely no bearing on income. To deal with sector loyalty, one just leaves peasants or spies in the sector. Furthermore, it takes something like 8-16 years of building to generate builder virtues on a governor; But with the corruption problem we're talking about, very few governors remain in place that long.

The whole point of this issue is that the game artificially generates FAR more negative income vices all over the board every turn (specifically on the governors) than you can ever hope to compensate for by the very occasional positive virtues that trickle in at a rate of 1 or 2 per turn on some random units (98% of the time these virtues don't land on governors and when they do, they are rarely income oriented virtues).

So his comments about positive virtues were almost entirely irrelevant.

Otherwise the point about the VV summary has been made numerous times in the discussion and in fact this feature does not deal with the problem, it only tells you where it's occurring (and you have to write down the sectors on paper anyway&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Quote[/b] (AgentBif @ Aug. 14 2003,23:33)]
Quote[/b] (Doug-Thompson @ Aug. 15 2003,11:56)]Why do that every turn? Every fifth turn, for instance, will keep the empire quite clean. Every 10th's turn is acceptable. Do it at the beginning of every decade.

Say it really does take 30 minutes. Divide that by 10, and now the average is 3 minutes per turn.
Straightforward logic applied to the computation would reveal that if you neglect doing the work for 5 or 10 turns, you will have 5 or 10 times the amount of work left when you get around to it dude Moreover, you would lose what meager benefit the VV summary list gives you (assuming you own VI).

Attempts to pull fast ones like this don't really contribute much to the discussion.
What takes time in micromanaging governors? going throught all the provinces...

Whether you did it every year or every ten year, it will take the same amount of time.

Straightforward logic don't really contribute much to the discussion, it seems... Or is it logic?

Louis the Simurgh,

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Quote[/b] (AgentBif @ Aug. 14 2003,23:43)]
Quote[/b] (Doug-Thompson @ Aug. 15 2003,11:58)]
Quote[/b] (Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe @ Aug. 14 2003,11:55)]Oddly enough, I have yet to see somebody complaining about all the positive V&V that all governors are bound to get (magnificent builder and the like)... Those are coming even faster than the bad ones...

The opening V&V screen in VI solves the problem, as far as I am concerned....

Louis the Simurgh,
Good point, well said.
Unfortunately, not well said at all.

For example, the virtues "magnificent builder", etc are deterministic ... If you build structures/farms while the governor in question is in place, you will gain a loyalty and happiness bonus. But happiness and loyalty have absolutely no bearing on income. To deal with sector loyalty, one just leaves peasants or spies in the sector. Furthermore, it takes something like 8-16 years of building to generate builder virtues on a governor; But with the corruption problem we're talking about, very few governors remain in place that long.

The whole point of this issue is that the game artificially generates FAR more negative income vices all over the board every turn (specifically on the governors) than you can ever hope to compensate for by the very occasional positive virtues that trickle in at a rate of 1 or 2 per turn on some random units (98% of the time these virtues don't land on governors and when they do, they are rarely income oriented virtues).

So his comments about positive virtues were almost entirely irrelevant.

Otherwise the point about the VV summary has been made numerous times in the discussion and in fact this feature does not deal with the problem, it only tells you where it's occurring (and you have to write down the sectors on paper anyway&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif.
Happiness bonus has an impact on income by allowing for higher taxation rate and possibly reducing garnison duty. So yes it's cash. Not to mention other V&V you can get by building the right improvement which improves trade or agriculture income (or acumen).

What issue do you have with corruption vices exactly? They reduce your income? Too many of them when empire get large? So what? At this point one crawl throught so much money, that I usually don't care anymore... They are some positive and some negative; they are balanced to make the game challenging, although not really challenging in our case... It is still way too easy... Same thing with uber faction reappearing, civil war, and uber revolt; at some point, I create them on purpose, just to see if I survive it, and add some spice to the game.

Louis the Simurgh,

PS; and yes, I am going OT, and losing the all remaining 'relevance' left, if any.

[AgentBif]

Quote[/b] (Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe @ Aug. 16 2003,08:13)]What takes time in micromanaging governors? going throught all the provinces...

Whether you did it every year or every ten year, it will take the same amount of time.

Straightforward logic don't really contribute much to the discussion, it seems... Or is it logic?
Logic, or the lack thereof can make or break the quality of a discussion.

If you delay dealing with bad governors in VI, you don't save any time (you still have to do all the work, you just do it later rather than sooner) and you suffer two new bad affects that you wouldn't have if you dealt with them each year:

1) you are forced to write down the province names when they are listed at the beginning of each turn (assuming you have VI to begin with)

2) during the time you are delaying handling the problem, you are suffering diminished income because you're not dealing with the problem

Granted, in pre-VI you would save yourself a fair bit of effort if you avoided doing the full province search each year.

Anyway, examining each province is only ONE of the tasks involved that takes time. Maintaining governor piles is another (especially if you separate them into trade and agriculture types). Building units to replace disbanded governors is another. Extra time and effort spent in tracking and building armies due to units pulled out for governorship is another ill effect. Maintaining emissaries to strip titles is another.

This whole artificial mess would be totally unecessary if they just gave the AI a cheat income bonus, made the AI more capable (lots of somewhat easy ways to do that), or implemented some kind of elegant game mechanism to deal with the aspect of corruption throughout the entire game... IE, made it a fun aspect of the game with non-tedious tradeoff measures you could take to handle corruption when it occurs.


Quote[/b] ]
Happiness bonus has an impact on income by allowing for higher taxation rate and possibly reducing garnison duty. So yes it's cash. Not to mention other V&V you can get by building the right improvement which improves trade or agriculture income (or acumen).


Sigh. Go back and read my post. I anticipated someone might try making this tired, specious argument which is why I pointed out that all it takes to sustain sector loyalty is simple garrison and spies... 1 peasant and 2 or 3 spies for a total of 37 maintenance. Furthermore, the agricultural virtue you mention falls down under the same argument regarding the other deterministic virtues: It takes many years to develop them but with the problem in question, governors rarely remain in place long enough for this to happen. Moreover, by the time this corruption bogosity hits, all your sectors will already have 80% farms and there will be no further opportunity for new govs to develop the virtue anyway.

Geez, please try to confine yourself to arguments of genuine relevance...

[ichi]

Dear Bif;

Dude, its just a game. Why do you attack and insult everbody?

Louis and Doug are both right about what they say; their points are well made and relevant.

I go through my provinces from time to time (about every fifth year) anyway to check on EVERYTHING. So its no problem to deal with guvs. I do not maintain piles of potential guvs, I have emissaries readily available anyway, so there is no big effort for me. At the start of each turn I review the list and deal with really bad stuff right away, but only have to write down things rarely, cause usually its only a couple (at most) of badV&Vs that appear each turn.

You have greatly overstated the amount of time required, IMHO, and yes, if one choses to deal with it every ten turns then the total amount of time spent goes down even further (thus reducing average time per turn).

I choose to garrison with more than peasants. I'm not trying to max out the code. It just seems to me that a province of several hundred sq. miles would require a few professional soldiers of different types. So, I keep some archers, some swords, some cav, some poles in each province. When times are tough I may draw on these as reserves, so happiness bonuses equal cash (as stated by Louis) when I reduce my garrison to minimum.


Quote[/b] ]This whole artificial mess would be totally unecessary if they just gave the AI a cheat income bonus, made the AI more capable (lots of somewhat easy ways to do that), or implemented some kind of elegant game mechanism to deal with the aspect of corruption throughout the entire game... IE, made it a fun aspect of the game with non-tedious tradeoff measures you could take to handle corruption when it occurs.

OK, we get it. But they didn't do that. As in life, I deal with it the best way that I can. It is like a marriage, or a job. No one is perfect, but you marry someone expecting to take the good with bad. Lamenting that your spouse is imperfect and dwelling on it does not help. Dealing with it does.

Bif, I think its OK that you have raised these issues. Maybe it will help make a better game someday. But don't take it out on me or Louis.

ichi

[AgentBif]

Quote[/b] ]
Dude, its just a game. Why do you attack and insult everbody?


I don't. That's a ridiculous assertion.

Louis and Doug have been almost completely mistaken all throughout their posts. I pointed out precisely how using rational arguments. Just saying "they're right" does not constitute a rebuttal. If you want to mount a credible counter post, you must employ reasoning rather than empty affirmations.



Quote[/b] ]
but only have to write down things rarely, cause usually its only a couple (at most) of badV&Vs that appear each turn.


Clearly you aren't even suffering from the problem we are discussing Late in the game when the strat AI decides all your governors are corrupt, you get hit by at least half a dozen vices a year


Quote[/b] ]
When times are tough I may draw on these as reserves, so happiness bonuses equal cash (as stated by Louis) when I reduce my garrison to minimum.


Almost all provinces are easily garrisoned by 1 peasant and 2 or 3 spies to guarantee full loyalty. So no, happiness does NOT equal cash. There are a few provinces that are particularly rebellious, requiring like 3 or 4 peasants and in those particular cases perhaps a +10 happiness bonus might allow you to reduce your garrison by 1 peasant. But as a general rule, this is not the case. So that's a savings of 37 gold per year on a few provinces but in contrast a bad governor costs hundreds or even as much as a thousand or so per year Moreover, for all the other reasons I stated the point is STILL irrelevant.


Quote[/b] ]
yes, if one choses to deal with it every ten turns then the total amount of time spent goes down even further (thus reducing average time per turn).


Dude, if you don't do the work now, it must be done later. It's that simple. You can't just suddenly vanish the work by delaying it. So no, time spent does NOT decrease by delay, that's the procrastinator's myth you are spouting there.


Quote[/b] ]
It is like a marriage, or a job. No one is perfect, but you marry someone expecting to take the good with bad. Lamenting that your spouse is imperfect and dwelling on it does not help. Dealing with it does.


Hehe. Dude, you're losing perspective here.

We're talking about a comercial software product produced by professional developers. The feature in question is distinctly amaturish, sloppy coding which inflicts an unreasonably tedious burden on gamers trying to finish a campaign. As paying customers, we are completely entitled, even expected to complain about poor quality in the product we pay for; In fact we need to do so in order to make sure that problems like this get handled in patches. As paying customers, there is no moral obligation on our part to bear with the bugs and bogosities in the code as if we made a lifelong vow of love and loyalty to CA

Are you not comfortable with the principles of free enterprise economics or something? It's simple: as customers, we buy the right to gripe when quality is not up to par.



Quote[/b] ]
I think its OK that you have raised these issues. Maybe it will help make a better game someday. But don't take it out on me or Louis.


If you make bogus arguments, I'll jump all over that. You need not take it as a personal attack.

If I get unreasonably personal, point out precisely how and I promise you I will evaluate it honestly and retract the comment in question with an apology if necessary. Otherwise, I reserve the right to disagree strongly when people make poor arguments.

[Guthwyn]

Since I usually start games on early, by the time the late period roles around, I pretty much have Western Europe all wrapped up. By that point, I'm probably not even regrouping my battered units into whole units, and I'll just stick em in a garrison somewhere. So I don't really care about the bad governing vices that pop up; as a matter of fact, I think they're some of the more unique and sometimes funnier, and I wish they would appear more often on otherwise good generals (to give personality). I'll take a "philisophicaly inclined", "gambler" "outlaw" over ANOTHER "perverted" "chinless wonder". That's one think I noticed after the 1.1 patch--no more fine, great, or legendary leaders ever pop up. I want my "hideous scars"
But some provinces are too valuable just to leave to some bandit just because he had 4 acumen. So any time I haven't played in a while, I'll start a session off by disbanding the dangerous generals, and trying the less troublesome ones for treason. Won't mess with it until the next session. I look at it as kind of like trimming a Bonzai, or pruning houseplants.
And if I'm playing the Turks, and a general really ticks me off, I'll just slap the "Chief Eunuch" title on him--THEN I take away the damn title. Doesn't really affect game mechanics, but it makes me feel better.

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

[ichi]

Bif:

Bif, Bif, Bif.


Quote[/b] ]If I get unreasonably personal, point out precisely how and I promise you I will evaluate it honestly and retract the comment in question with an apology if necessary.

Go back and read your posts. You have already retracted and apologized for the "go play accounting" comment, which reflects well on you. But then you continue to throw $ht. I find several comments about irrelevance from you, but the one I like the most is "Not well said at all". This adds unnecessary attitude and is little more than bickering. I'll discuss other disses in more detail.


Quote[/b] ] Just saying "they're right" does not constitute a rebuttal. If you want to mount a credible counter post, you must employ reasoning rather than empty affirmations.

Go back and read my posts. I have made quite a few cogent arguments, in detail. I have felt like it does not any good to repeat my points.

But, if you insist.

You overstate the problem (and again disrespect me in the process). I play a lot of SP through to the end. I have played as every faction except the French, to the end.


Quote[/b] ]Late in the game when the strat AI decides all your governors are corrupt, you get hit by at least half a dozen vices a year

You overstate this, IMHO. I have found that, on average, I get one or two, three or four at most. So I do 'suffer' from this, I just think you exaggerate the extent.

The way (style) you play may not allow for a relationship between garrison size, cash, and happiness, but many others do not play the way you do. To simply say that this IS THE WAY to play does not take into account different styles (coming from different goals and reasons to play).

For me, there is a relationship. I understand that if I wanted to simply garrison peasants I could, but I chose not to. To me, there is much more to the game than shaving every corner, maxing out every consideration in order to put more troops on the front line.


Quote[/b] ]
Quote

yes, if one choses to deal with it every ten turns then the total amount of time spent goes down even further (thus reducing average time per turn).


Dude, if you don't do the work now, it must be done later. It's that simple. You can't just suddenly vanish the work by delaying it. So no, time spent does NOT decrease by delay, that's the procrastinator's myth you are spouting there.


Dude, I prefer the term 'spraying' over 'spouting'. ROFL.

This is no myth, I'm no procrastinator, and despite your aversion to listen. I shall try.

If I replace bad guvs every turn then some of their replacements will get vices. So, if I replace a guy I may need to replace his replacement in a few turns. If I leave a bad guv for 5 or 10 turns, I will only replace that provinces guv once in ten turns, not twice or even three times. So there can be a reduction in effort if you wait.

Dude, I have not lost perspective. Rather, I think you have. (see earlier posts so I don't get accused of making simple declarative statements again, please) But as I stated earlier, perhaps we can agree to disagree here.


Quote[/b] ]Are you not comfortable with the principles of free enterprise economics or something? It's simple: as customers, we buy the right to gripe when quality is not up to par.


Please go back and read my posts. Specifically where I say that I support your right to gripe. Where I say that it may lead to a better product. Read the above swipe at me and think about how it sounds.

All I said, and this is the last time I shall repeat this, is that I don't mind it. It is fun for me to micromanage my empire. I wish the interface was better, but I get to impose my moral will on the empire. If I wish to, I can persecute homosexuals and pedophiles (by disbanding those with the 'prefers young boys vice&#39http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. I can only give titles to Knights, or make a Gallowglass the governor of Ireland. This, to me, is the fun of SP.

For battles I play online.

I went back to an old Aragonese campaign that I had saved in about 1420. Played it to the end again. Took 2-3 minutes per turn (they way I play) to keep my vice-ridden thievin bastards in line.

I think you are off base on this. I know that you think that is a ridiculous assertion. Maybe we should just leave it at that.

ichi

[Doug-Thompson]

I'll reply in more detail when time allows. Right now, I must repeat some simple statements.

Again, I simply never suffer from the degree of corruption described in this thread's horror stories.

Why don't I suffer from this supposedly universal, unavoidable, built-in problem?

Maybe my immunity has something to do with playing Muslim factions, although I doubt that.

Maybe God looks out for fools.

I'm not a particularly plodding, perfectionist player. I have fun and it doesn't take an eternity to finish one turn.

[Inigo Montoya]

Quote[/b] ]Quote
Late in the game when the strat AI decides all your governors are corrupt, you get hit by at least half a dozen vices a year


You overstate this, IMHO. I have found that, on average, I get one or two, three or four at most. So I do 'suffer' from this, I just think you exaggerate the extent.


I do have to jump in here....

Bif's assertion is not off base - or at least, not in my experience. Playing as the English with taxes set on Normal or Low, with only one or two (at most) units garrisoned in each province except Portugal and 200% loyalty everywhere, starting on Early and playing Normal difficulty. OK - there's the setup.

I had about 60 provinces conquered and it was somewhere around 1175.... Up until this time, I was seeing only 1 or 2 bad vices develop every 10 years or so - and most of those were happiness or loyalty or piety effects. Then suddenly I had a massive outbreak of income-reducing vices, and this was all the way across the board. Within about 5-8 years, 80% of my guvs had some version of an income vice.

That's what prompted this topic.

So, as previously detailed here, I spent the time on one turn to remove ALL the bad guvs and replace them with new, "clean" guys. At that point, my income was 45 or 46K. Within two turns, my income had dropped below 39K due to vice. This can't be accounted for with only 3 or 4 guys developing vices per year. So I'm firmly on Bif's side as far as the rampant and illogical corruption that suddenly hits large empires.

However, maybe this only affects the English, so maybe you wouldn't see it playing a Muslim faction. I don't think it has much to do with playing style, because I spent a long time just building up my provinces - not building any troops except as necessary for new garrisons, and only building agents (each province had at least one of each).

At any rate - I started this to see if anyone could tell me how to prevent it from happening, and it seems that there is no prevention.... Either people have the exact same problem and similar feelings about it as me (that it is a nerf coded into the game to artificially increase challenge, but really only increases the frustration and boredom of the player and cripples an otherwise excellent game), or they have no experience with this scale of corruption at all.

[Doug-Thompson]

Inigo Montoya, if you are willing to stick with this, I'm willing to work to get to the bottom of it.

I'm no expert, but please e-mail me a saved game either just before or during these corruption outbreaks. I doubt they can be stopped once the rot has set in, but it's worth a look. My e-mail address is hussar_gone_mad@msn.com.

This issue isn't going to be settled by debate. We're going to have to look closely at the conditions and see what factors are in play when governors go corrupt.

Even if this is a "nerf," or whatever, it has to have conditions that trigger it. Somehow -- quite by accident -- some of us are avoiding those triggers and other people are hitting them. There must be ways to lessen the damage.


===========
Before Inigo Montoya's last post, I loaded an old Almohad saved game of mine that was near the end. I hit the "next year" button.

The purpose was to time myself and see how long it took to check my governors.

Three governors out of 53 developed vices. I checked the time with my watch, then clicked on each name in the "virtues and vices gained" list. That showed me which provinces each was in. No need to write them down -- three provinces were easy to remember.

I got to each province by clicking it's vicinity on the mini-map instead of scrolling, then right-clicked each of the three provinces, clicked the governor's name, then the governor's unit, and then scrolled down his virtues and vices list.

All three had virtues gained that more than offset the new vices.

Total time spent: 41 seconds.

===========================

Some important points here:

1. I have the expansion kit, which allows me to click directly on the governor's name in the "v&v" list. I don't think that was available before.

2. All my provinces were set to very low taxes. Also, my king had enjoyed a long and prosperous reign, which may or may not have had an effect.

At the end of the year 1279:

Projected income - 30,923
Projected expense - 21,199
Projected profits - 9,734
Treasury - 86,395

[ichi]

Right on Doug, let's figure this out methodically.

I keep my taxes at normal late in the game for the most part. I keep a a good garrison so happiness is at 200% for the most part. I keep a bishop or iman, spy, and assassin in most provinces. I build as much as I can, starting with happiness-making building, money-makers, castles, and training buildings.

My king is a fighter (unless he has no heirs), and I try marry my kings outside of the faction as much as possible. I think this keeps the royals form developing some vices like 6 toes and weak chins. It also keeps up his command. I rarely break treaties so my influence stays high.

I do not use the Green Generals mode or autotax or autoassign.

I select governors based on acumen first, then dread, then piety. When I select govs a major factor is any happiness modifier or vice.

I rarely marry off my daughters to other factions, preferring instead to marry them to guvs (and leading army generals).

I did not notice a diff between Catholic and muslim vice rates, but I really wasn't paying attention to that. I watch closer in the future.

It seems based more on income and number of provinces than on succession, but again, I'll have to start looking at this more critically.

Finally, I just wanted to mention to Guthwyn that the next time I play a Muslim I think I'll yield that Chief Eunuch axe in the manner he described (pretty good pun, eh). First gen to p$$ me off gets the title, then get stripped of the title and sent to Cyprus to think about it

ichi

[andrewt]

This is my experience. I have VI but haven't played the main campaign on it yet.

I set some of my richest, most loyal provinces to very high taxes at the beginning of the game so I'll have more money to build infrastructure. I set the newly conquered, rich provinces to very high when their loyalty is high enough. My governors rarely get any vices (almost none at all, in fact) during the early-mid game even when the provinces have high taxes. I get a lot of virtues, though, even in the high tax provinces, since I keep building improvements.

Once I get way too much florins, I usually move all provinces to normal taxation at the most. My governors still don't have any -% vices at this point.

Once I get to near the end game, my governors start developing the -% vices all of a sudden. Most of my governors start developing something, some having more than 1 type. I think it has something to do with provinces, maybe around 30%-40% of the map conquered.

A problem with the game for me is that infrastructure takes way too long to build and gets destroyed way too easily. That and the fact that the AI isn't very bright kinda hampers the difficulty of the game and makes battles wherein you give and take battles annoying. Most of the difficulty, like this one, is artificial. The better games make the AI play as close to a human playing as possible, not getting help from triggers as the game goes on to make it artificially more difficult.

[Hamburglar]

Honestly I don't think this bad vice crap is really a big deal.....


By the time it ever happens the game is already won. At the time it ever happens you're going to still have a hard time spending all your income in one turn. It really isn't a big thing.

And it does have historical precedent. When empires get huge, they get corrupt, often because they can get away with it.... MTW illustrates this quite well. It's a big bother to go around lookign for the corrupt govs and in the real world it was often the same.


Anyway, I'm just chalking it up to realism. MTW could have pulled the historical route and ONLY let you give government titles good generals, nobles, and "friends of the family".

In real life a king would take a LOT OF FLAK for putting a measly little peasant in charge of hundreds of miles of territory, regardless of how good at math he was.


I understand people's points here, but I just don't think its that big of a problem.



And about the work time.....

It doesn't necessarily build up over time. Half the time spent replacing the governors is bouncing around each of your provinces and armies looking for the bad guys and looking for the replacements.

Doing this once a year for ten years is defintiely going to take a hell of a lot longer than doing it ONCE per ten years.

[AgentBif]

Quote[/b] (Hamburglar @ Aug. 19 2003,00:27)]
Hamburglar, you haven't been paying attention to the conversation. All of your points have been refuted or addressed in detail, some of them multiple times.

[Inigo Montoya]

Doug -

Thanks for the offer.... Unfortunately, I was so fed up with the game after about 20 years of dealing with this that I just built massive armies and auto'd the rest of it out. I don't have a save game from before the corruption hit - or one from after. And no, the direct link to gov's names is not available on the original game. In order to check v&v on my game, I have to go to each province, click on the gov's name to locate him, then right-click to open the information panel.... It really is a pain, and it really does take a long time - especially since clicking on the name jumps me across the map to wherever the unit happens to be, which means that I can't proceed through the provinces in any sort of methodical manner - and also makes it about 5 times as difficult to keep track of exactly which ones I've checked.

Any way - I appreciate the offer. Next game I play, I'll keep better track of the tax rates and when (if) the outbreak occurs. I had the feeling that it triggered according to the size of my empire, but it may have been time-related. Also, I don't think my king was the problem, as he was the most influential ruler in the world and had about 8 dread and 7 or 8 acumen.

The notion that larger empires have more corruption does make sense. However, the way it was modeled in my particular game went far beyond the realm of reason - and reality, imo. I remember playing Civ and having more corruption occur as you got further away from the capital. But there were also things that could be done to reduce the amount of corruption. In MTW, there is nothing you can do other than appoint a new governor - who quickly ends up just as corrupt.

Oh, well - I guess it's just my burden to bear - or at least mine and Bif's. And we fully plan to bitch and moan about it every step of the way... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Doug-Thompson]

No problem, Inigo Montoya. I'll leave the offer standing if you ever want to come back after a future game.

I'll also keep an eye out for corruption outbreaks in the future.

================

Since I play Muslims, my empire is always centered around the Mediterranean.

That means no province is very far from my king, since distance is counted from the king by either provinces or seas. I always build up a good navy.

If my king is sitting in Tunisia, for instance, he's only four or five "spaces" away from his farthest provinces as long as he controls the seas.

Also consider how Serbia and Hungary are great big provinces that reach all the way into Central Europe, and can be easily reached through the Adriatic Sea. Also, look at how the Black Sea touches eight different provinces, if memory serves.

If proximity to the king discourages corruption, then maybe that's why I don't have this problem to the same degree as others.

[ShaiHulud]

I don't have anything to add.... it's just that this thread title cracks me up every time I see it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif