Vices and Virtues

[Hakeem928]

I've noticed in a few posts that I've been reading that people mention farming vices and virtues, which suggests to me that it's actually possible to control , at least to a point, the acquisition of these.

My question is, how do you do it?

[lancelot]

To be honest Im not sure that it is 'really' possible to control V&V's in a 'farming' sense

It is true that if your general develops the virtue 'educated' it is quite likely he will go on to get 'well educated', the same is true for vices- drunk-dead drunk etc.

If you give a general a title and develop his province he will almost certainly get 'builder' or something.

Basically, actions will determine v&v's. Killing prisoners increases dread, surviving inquisition improves piety (i think)

So, I suppose you could say you can increase the likelyhood of V&V's but there is still a big random element.

anyway you get the idea. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[ThijsP]

The Farming vice is actually the steward or great steward. You get it quite easely: Build some farms.

If you build them all over your kingdom your king will get it and if its just in one province the count will get it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

[MadKow]

The other day i was playing the Italians and i decided to do some nurturing of the dynasty by doing the cheesy tactic of leaving a province (in this case the island of Crete) to the rebels and constantly recapturing it and so on. I believe you can get most combat V&V (skilled attacker/defender etc) (and command stars) that way.
You can also get the negative ones. I found that if you order your general to attack and hold back at the last minute (or try to disengage?) he gets the Vice that says something like Likely to run that gives -2 morale. Ouch.

[Game Over!!!]

The best vice I like to see on enemy generals is 'Vacillator'. You see it on generals commanding crusades. They keep attacking the same province but retreat before you fight. If I'm not mistaken that vice is -6 to morale and -2 to command. Kind of negates the advantage of the AI when you play on expert. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-yes.gif

[Mablung]

It is possible to farm, and I don't mean the steward virtues http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif , for example, to get/progress killer instinct the leader of the unit has to kill over 40 men to get it (in 1 battle). This is the only way I know of that works as I have tested it by making Sherwood Foresters and 1 man unit with 100 attack/defence etc. I don't play like this but it did prove my theory right while giving the French almighty whoopins with 3 men http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[Borathor]

Some virtues is able to farm, thats for sure. Good runner when routing from a battle, Builder when building in a province. Other virtues I find harder to understand what to do, if there is anything you can do. This goes for example the one painting servants blue and like children instead of women.

[fruitfly]

You can farm the survivor -> strong security -> high security line (which ends up as +3 valour, -3 acumen) by dropping assassins onto your general.

If he gets survivor after the first failed assassination attempt (I think there are three lines that can arise due to failed assassinations), each subsequent one will cause this line to progress. It's a useful way of training up jedis.

The killer instinct line seems to be harder to advance, and most likely to happen when you autoresolve a battle between a small number of your units and a large number of peasants.

Builder, steward and trader can all be triggered by the player (builder by building anything when that general is the governor, steward by building farmland and trader by building mines) and can have a big impact on province income. The only way to get the steward and trader virtues well-developed on normal generals is to destroy and rebuild improvements though, which some people may consider slightly cheesey.

Failed inquisitions will boost piety, but can also trigger the atheist vice (which drops piety significantly), or born again vice (which boosts piety, but drops dread).

The fervent, zeal-boosting line will automatically appear in a general who spends a few years in a province with very high zeal (above 70-80% I think).

Dread can be boosted slightly by killing prisoners, but it's best to wait until a big battle where you've captured over 1000 to get butcher straight away - killing prisoners too often gives a morale penalty.