My Kings always go downhill

[smoogs]

It seems the stats (dread, command, piety, influence) slowly decline with each new King. Is it possible to maintain or gain these stats without invading other peoples territory and mass executing their armies? It seems whenever I spend a few years building up instead of invading, my king's stats always take a nose dive.

The only way I know of gaining influence is to accomplish a successful crusade, or win a few wars.

As for piety, what raises it? I think if my King wins a battle and prisoners are released instead of slaughter, it goes up.

And are there other ways of gaining dread, other than constantly invading enemy territories and executing each prisoner?

Thanks in advance

[smoogs]

The other thing I wanted to know, but forgot to add. When letting the computer auto resolve a battle, is it possible to make the AI auto execute prisoners instead of selling them back to their ruler?

[Blodrast]

I am not sure if you can raise your influence w/out crusades or wars. I think I've read that when you get events like You control the largest military force/You have the largest income/etc., those increase happiness, but they might also increase your king's influence (but I am not sure).

As for piety, killing/not killing prisoners only influences dread, not piety, i.e. you will gain VnV's that increase or decrease dread, and possibly happiness.

One cool way to increase piety _fast_ is to have some inquisitors/grand inquisitors trying to judge your king. Use inquisitors that have a lousy chance of success. After a few failed attempts to burn him at stake, he will gain the Devout or some other virtue that increases his piety significantly.

Alternatively, look for threads regarding VnV's and the farming of.

[katank]

lifting sieges for allies and helping them take territory all help your influence.

piety by inquisitor doesn't really work as you often get atheist whic is -8 to piety and is enough to even cancel out born again which is +6.

successful jihads and crusades are onyl reliable ways to add piety.

I personally can't imagine games without crusades or wars.

this isn't called medieval: total turtle for a reason http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[Kaatar]

Quote[/b] (smoogs @ June 08 2004,16:53)]The other thing I wanted to know, but forgot to add. When letting the computer auto resolve a battle, is it possible to make the AI auto execute prisoners instead of selling them back to their ruler?
Impossible. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif Very stupid of the MTW dudes.


You could make one of your provinces rebel by hiring their taxes and burning their buildings. You could then defeat them and execute the prisoners without going to war with anyone. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/ceasaryes.gif

[Blodrast]

Katank: from your experience, do you believe that what specific vice/virtue is gained is completely random, or are there specific weights (or possibly some other factors that bias the decision to one way or another) ?
e.g., is it more likely to get devout rather than atheist, etc. ?

[katank]

not particularly.

odd number of toes and chinless wonder are often.

I think that traveling aorund may reduce vices and you can always reload until you get only good vices for the character you are trying to farm.

it's really a moot point really. I just keep my king's influence maxed and also suicide my worthless heirs so that the best one takes the throne and I try to get him married before he hit the throne so more kids with decent stats but nothing is guaranteed really.

there was a funny post in the vice farming thread about penguin people etc.

I quite agree. it's not worth that much work in the end and it's just a game.

[Gregoshi]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif Welcome to the Org smoogs. Yet another Pennsylvanian joins the ranks.

[Simovek]

I've found that even completeing one Crusade can make your heirs good to go for a long time. I'm playing Spanish right now and I sent a Crusade to Palestine when the Pope called for it in 1095 (i think?). That one crusade brought my kings influence up really good, from the battles I had to fight to get their and completeing the Crusade. All my heirs now have been really good heirs. All of them have great warrior, educated and other good things. All have 5-6 command. Laziness seems to run in the family though :\ I got rid of one of those heirs though.

So if you want your king to be good and your heirs to be good go on a crusade and make sure you win ;) Win a couple battles and your King's V&V and everything will rise. These seem to be carried over to his sons somewhat. Just kill off the sons that aren't good and improve the ones that are good. You'll always have good kings

[Tricky Lady]

Related to this.

How come that i.e. Byz emperors almost always start out with 7 or 8, and Catholic kings usually start as losers with 3-4 influence?
Is this just hardcoded or what?

Or is it just some good/bad luck?

[MadKow]

Hi,

It's hard coded, the stats of the King you start with are always the same. Some for historical reasons, some for game balance, i imagine.

Spain for example is a catholic faction that starts with a high command King, and since the strategy for the Spanish involves always a lot of fighting and crusading you consistently have a nice blood line. Until the day you stop fighting.

The Byzantine if played conservatively (Turtle) will probably show a decline in the dynasty.

[ah_dut]

welcome to the Org http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
these things are hard coded but with good influence and a lot of sucessful wars anybody can get good

[katank]

In the startpos files, there is a few lines with the leader stats for the factions and I think that controls the influence and command of the starting kings.

also, there are some stuff about heirs which means the number of starting heirs and their ages (albeit most are unborn) and probably seeds for random num generator for stats.