Piety stronger than dread!!!!!!!

[Oaty]

It came to my notice that I assigned a 4 piety governor in 1 province and a 4 dread in another and both had no vices effecting happiness. Funny thing I noticed is the 1 with 4 piety got the bigger loyalty bonus. The reason I noticed this I figured I would do a test to see how much of a difference the 2 made on 2 newly conquered province. When I did this I cleared all units out of the territory and then assigned the new governor to see what would happen. The one getting the dread governor actually had the loyalty drop a bit (if you don't know when yopu assign a new governor to a territory for some reason the loyalty drops almost always and occasionally on odd occurances the loyalty goes up probably usually due to vices) The 1 with 4 peity actually increased the loyalty even though he was a new governor(guess dread has a better long term effect as hes governor longer the more they respect his dread).
Anyways I guess since it was mostly catholic and playing as a catholic faction made that difference but maybe if he was thrown into an all muslim province the effects could have been quite the opposite.

This makes me wonder if a piety governor is a much better governor as long the province matches your religion and 1 that has the opposite religion would do much better with a dreadlord

[hoom]

I only assign governors based on acumen.

But I generally would prefer to not have high dread guys.

In reality, dread can scare people into obeying, but sooner or later someones gonna try to get rid of that murdering bastard.

Good governance is gonna always be the better long term plan.

High piety is probably gonna give you big problems when you get excommunicated.

[pdoan8]

For me, dread is the most useless stat of all. AFAIK, it doesn't have any effect on the battle. High dread seems to make the discontent among the people build up.

Dread only makes the people fear so they won't rebel right away but it won't help raising the loyalty of the people in the long term.

[Longasc]

PIETY works well in Provinces with high religious zeal.

But in general: Dread makes a much better stat for Governors and Generals.

Try to keep the Portoguese or the Scottish happy with a HIGH Piety Governor, then try again with a high DREAD Governor... they really do not need acumen to be ruled, but HIGH Piety and HIGH Dread cows them well.


Obedience is more important than productivity.

Damn, I am an ass... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[Eastside Character]

I definitely agree with you Longasc - high dread generals make very good governors. I think piety is not as important as dread ,because it doesn't affect regions with the population being not of your religion, and dread does. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[el_slapper]

Acumen rules. It usually geives you a benefit enough to pay the garrison that makes up for you lack of dread.

Drad & Piety has to be thought at at every time. Depends on the situation. Rebellious regions(Scot, Port, Prussia, Lith) NEED dread. Zealous need piety.

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

In places like Scot/ Portugal it doesnt matter who the governor is (steward, builder, charitable, approcahable - sum of +40 happiness) you will still need a big army.

I generally prefer piety over dread though - if you look at the description at 4 piety, it says somehing like familiar with prayer book, some of the faithfull will support you. With 4 dread its a generally jovial fellow.

I dont think the usefullness of dread really kicks in until you get to six skulls (very rare except with butcher generals), then you get things like people fearing the very shadow etc.

But acumen is always the main requirement.

[Kristaps]

Quote[/b] (o_loompah @ Sep. 20 2003,10:29)]In places like Scot/ Portugal it doesnt matter who the governor is (steward, builder, charitable, approcahable - sum of +40 happiness) you will still need a big army.
Wrong Places like Portugal and Livonia need 100 peasant garrisons and 3+ spies in them to become as loyal as your most trusted provinces. A little bit of dread observed with the assigned governor character helps a bit too.

[Cebei]

1)Dread is not a value on its own. Dread affects province loyalty together with the place of your king. Dread is good when your king is away. Dread is bad when your king is near.

2)I doubt whether piety has to do with loyalty. I guess it affects the jihad-crusade "enrollments".

3)In order to avoid vices, keep your governors near the king, all in the same army. Keep them all in a central province of your kingdom so that kings influence spreads equal throughout the kingdom.

[katar]

sorry http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif double post http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

[katar]

Quote[/b] ]3)In order to avoid vices, keep your governors near the king, all in the same army. Keep them all in a central province of your kingdom so that kings influence spreads equal throughout the kingdom.

that sounds like a very good idea, i`ll have to try it out. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Cebei]

Adding to number 3;

This works when your kings influence higher. No governor can be drunk and imbecile near a king with a force. If your king has low influence, governors dont care him.

[motorhead]

For each level of dread a governor has it produces a 5% loyalty gain. Distance to your ruler doesn't matter.

As others have mentioned, a governor's piety only has an effect on loyalty when a province has the same religion as your faction and a fairly high zeal.

The problem with governors gaining bad vices (poor steward, outlaw, etc.) has nothing to do with a King's influence, distance between a governor and the ruler, or the activity (or lack of) by a governor. The bad income vices appear as your empire grows larger and you have a positive cash flow. Around 40-50 provinces you'll start seeing them more freqently, once you hit the magic "60% of map" threshold is when all hell breaks loose. Early in the game, if your per-turn-income becomes very low or negative you will see your governors gain income producing virtues. I have observed this over my past 4 games and that is how I've seen it work. Poor and small = good virtues, big and wealthy = bad vices.

[Cebei]

Sorry but they do. Playing on expert for quite a longtime, I got ahead of bad vices with the tactic I mentioned. And governor's piety produced massive religious armies and increased zeal. And dread is very dangerous if your king is near that province. Higher dread produces dicontent if your kings near. I would have written the opposite, but thats the way I am getting some enigmatic aspects of the game solved.

[motorhead]

Cebei, what faction did you see your results with? I'm wondering if there is a difference among factions. I've been playing at expert for almost a year, I've played around 15 campaigns on expert (some with Medmod, some w/o), English, Aragonese and Turkish mostly. Tried to centralize govs in king stack with English - king in flanders, governor candidates in Wessex, and once I hit 60% of the map, newly minted govs were getting vices in transit to Flanders, and the govs with the King were a bunch of family-first/art-loving/outlaws. For about 10 turns this kept happening until I gave up and only changed titles for really, really bad vices. King's influence was 9 as I was conquering much of eastern europe, and IIRC his other stats were in the 5-7 range. And I've seen the same thing recently as the Turkish. I kept partial units with high acumen with my king in Constantinople, as i gained new lands I'd pull one out, title him, then move him back with the Sultan. Hit 60% of map and those with the Sultan (a good ruler, can't vouch for piety/acu/cmd, definitely had 8/9 influence) got vices just like the rest. Only govs that were immune were those who'd already obtained good virtues early in the game. Have the fiends at CA given each faction a different corruption base??

I've never seen high piety govs increase province zeal unless those govs already had a religious virtue which gives zeal bonuses. I've played some very intense religous wars as the Aragonese and saw that inquisitors increased the "natural" zeal, govs increased zeal only due to a virtue, and govs located in a zealous province picked up religious virtues. But, a high zeal province (Aragon - 86% zeal, 100% catholic), gov with zealot virtue (+20% zeal), 9 piety gov in province, high piety king also in province, but w/o inquisitors the zeal didn't move. I was watching very carefully as i was trying to get 100% zeal before launching a crusade. It just sat on 86% until I moved inquisitors into the province.

Most of my high dread govs get assigned newly conquered border provinces away from the core of my empire where my ruler sits to maintain loyalty. But, I know i've had some uber generals with 8/9 dread who've governed rum/treb/constan for the +command titles, and I've not noticed any drop in loyalty with my king usually in Constan or Nicaea.

[motorhead]

I couldn't help myself so i ran a test on a Aragonese save from August. I hold 94 provinces, with titles to 90 (other 4 are under siege). Remaining provinces held by pope, sicilians, french and rebels. Auto-tax on, running VI, using MedMod(none of the changes affect this test).

King: 9 Influence, 3 piety, 3 dread, 5 command, 2 acumen
Venice gov: 9L/3P/7D/2C/3A, also fanatic (+40 zeal).
Rome gov: 9L/8P/6D/7C/2A.
Both govs fairly high dread in my book.

For both Venice and Rome: destroyed religious bldgs, border fort, and town watch. Reduced garrison to 100 peasants, moved any agents out of territory.

Both governors happened to be in Egypt. First turn, king in Aragon, next three turns king in Tuscany (borders both Venice and Rome), last turn king moved to palestine.
[loyalty followed by zeal in ()'s]

Venice: 132(53) - 134(53) - 134(53) - 134(53) - 125(52)
Rome: 131(68) - 133(68) - 131(68) - 131(68) - 124(67)

When the king moved closer, loyalty ticked upwards. Rome did drop 2 points for next two turns but not below what it was before the king moved closer. As expected, loyalty dropped more when the king moved 4 oceans away. I don't see a clear correlation between a king moving closer to a province run by a high dread gov and a drop in loyalty.


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


Decided to see if govs with king eliminates/reduces bad income vices. Only for last 2 years of the test as I had to search around for govs w/o any bad income vices then move them to king. Moved 21 govs to king (17 govs in king stack, 4 in another stack in same province). Only watched for income reducing vices. Turns occured during previous test.

Turn 4: 6 bad vices, 2 occurred in king stack
Turn 5: 11 bad vices, 2 occurred in king stack

The vices to govs occurred in the kings stack, not the stack of 4 govs following him. Total of four of seventeen bad vices (23.5%) were to govs in king stack. Twenty-one of ninety govs (23.3%) were with king or in same province. Granted, this is just a 2 turn sample, but there was no vice immunity to govs stacked with the king as 4 different govs went bad. Further, the distribution indicates being with the king had no effect on whether a gov gains a bad income vice. However, I didn't test if the overall number of vices went down because a portion of the govs were with the king. It's possible more vices occur per turn when the govs are away from the king. Heh, I don't have the motivation to go back and check this. And nobody is going to read this claptrap anyway http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

[Cebei]

Whoaaaa long posts http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

You have provided concrete info, so I really dont have much to say.

I used to suffer a lot from vices some long time ago. By then, I always kept governors in their respective provinces, which transformed angel govs into monsters in no time. I then decided to centralize the government and governors were angels again (though they werent gaining much virtue either). My finding is not a rule, it is an experince; perhaps I am doing something else right, I really dont know after what you have written. Did the governors get the same vices when you loaded and tested without bringing them to the king? (and two turns arent enough to test that)

As for piety, I have an English experience. I assigned high piety govs to provinces on my crusade path. My border was Wallachia. When the army reached Wallachia, both the number and quality of troops were colossal. EVeryone from Wallachia to Jerusalem retreated. Perhaps this has another cause too.

As for dread thing, such govs do not produce low-loyalty uprisings. They produce stupid rebellions in which loyalty is %200 but still the rebel army decides to attack. You know, the agonizing "no reason" rebellions.

[motorhead]

I don't know when I'll have the patience to run a test like that again. But just from casual observation over the whole 5 years, it did _seem_ like centralizing govs reduced the average number of nasty vices. Not by alot, but maybe 2 or 3 less per turn. Still, you'd need a much longer test to eliminate normal turn-to-turn variations.

With your uber crusades, are you sure that province zeal along it's path wasn't high before you assigned high piety govs? I can't recall the specifics, but I know there are some events (relics being found, religious scholars publishing some paper, etc.) that will boost zeal across a bunch of provinces. If you space barred through a turn you'd miss the pop-up announcing the event. I've also noticed the Papacy sometimes sends out alot of Inquisitors across Catholic lands - i usually call it assasin training season when they cross my borders.

Loyalty 200% rebellions? Sounds like a 'nobody home - where's the 100 man garrison' rebellion.

[hoom]

Quote[/b] ]As for dread thing, such govs do not produce low-loyalty uprisings. They produce stupid rebellions in which loyalty is %200 but still the rebel army decides to attack. You know, the agonizing "no reason" rebellions. How about 'Sick of being oppressed by that butcher bastard rebellion'?

[Terrax]

I thought provincial governor's were supposed to stay in the province they were governing, not follow the King around. When the governor is in the province, the $$$ from the province goes up, so why would you have them follow the King around?

[motorhead]

Quote[/b] (Terrax @ Sep. 22 2003,12:29)]I thought provincial governor's were supposed to stay in the province they were governing, not follow the King around. When the governor is in the province, the $$$ from the province goes up, so why would you have them follow the King around?
Ran a test and didn't see any difference in province income because the governor was in his province. The only possible benefit (according to the manual at least) is increased provincial loyalty when their governor is present.

[Pedders]

Terrax - the position of the governor has no effect on the income he generates for that province. He's better off fighting at the front lines than garnering vices in his palace.

[katar]

i have played 25 turns as the HRE and did as was suggested here.

i grouped ALL of the govenors in the same province as the king and kept them in the king`s stack.

at the moment most of them have the Builder virtue and only one has a vice (secret perversion).

most have four quills, are high in piety and with dread at two or three.

the amount of vices they have got so far is leading me to favour doing this as standard.

anyone else tried it out yet? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Oaty]

Katar 1 thing to note here with only 25 provinces bad vices only occur occasionally the bad vices seem to roll in more more as you have more and more territories and only becomes noticable when you own 1/3 of the map and anooying when you have 60 percent of the map

[katar]

oaty [/QUOTE]1 thing to note here with only 25 provinces bad vices only occur occasionally the bad vices seem to roll in more more as you have more and more territories and only becomes noticable when you own 1/3 of the map and anooying when you have 60 percent of the map
[QUOTE]

thanks for the tip man, i`ll keep your advice in mind during the game and see what turns up. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[bighairyman]

Quote[/b] (motorhead @ Sep. 20 2003,18:06)]For each level of dread a governor has it produces a 5% loyalty gain. Distance to your ruler doesn't matter.

As others have mentioned, a governor's piety only has an effect on loyalty when a province has the same religion as your faction and a fairly high zeal.

The problem with governors gaining bad vices (poor steward, outlaw, etc.) has nothing to do with a King's influence, distance between a governor and the ruler, or the activity (or lack of) by a governor. The bad income vices appear as your empire grows larger and you have a positive cash flow. Around 40-50 provinces you'll start seeing them more freqently, once you hit the magic "60% of map" threshold is when all hell breaks loose. Early in the game, if your per-turn-income becomes very low or negative you will see your governors gain income producing virtues. I have observed this over my past 4 games and that is how I've seen it work. Poor and small = good virtues, big and wealthy = bad vices.
i agree, look at the roman empire for example. back when it was a weak force in italy, i read they were good, hard working people. look at them 700 year later, drink wine, releaxe at the pool, don't care for anything ecept power, and golry. look how many civil wars were there when the romans' land strecth from gaul to egpyt

[Aelwyn]

I don't worry about much other than acumen. I try to have at least 1-2 dread, but my basic requirement is 4 acumen, the higher the better. I don't worry about battles, I don't worry about rebellions, I can beat the AI in a 4 to 1 defecit easily as long as my troops aren't peasants. As long as my loyalty stays around 140% or above, and I'm making money, I'm happy.