Lots of vices in my gov's

[Rufus]

Any tips on how to keep your governors from repeatedly getting annoying vices that impact economy? It seems that every turn, five or six governors have suddenly become gamblers or nepotists. It's a bit of a chore to go through and strip titles for several governors each year and then appoint new ones. Sometimes they get a vice after having been the governor for only one or two years

I'm close to winning, so maybe this is the AI's feeble attempt to throw obstacles my way. But it's more annoying than challenging.

Most of the time, the governors in question are in their province, and the province in question is a fairly high-income one.

thanks

[Blodrast]

hmm, you do know that once you get past 40% of the provinces, they start accumulating bad ones, and once you get past 60% the bad vices start pouring in ?
it's meant as a balance, because obviously by that time you're a superpower. however, i personally was not too bothered with that, because even a 10% decrease in the income of a province didn't make enough of a difference; or in the income of 3 or 4 or 5 provinces, either. i mean, 60% of the ninety-some provinces is some 50-odd provinces...who cares if some of them get -5 or -10 percent less...overall, you're probably outproducing everybody else put together anyway.

[Doug-Thompson]

Look at it this way: The more money that flows through a province, the more corrupt the governor tends to be.

Putting up with some corruption is better than being broke.

[Rufus]

That's what I figured - some sort of balance thing. Still annoys me because I still want to go through and take away their titles on principle. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

thanks

[katank]

At around 30-40%, I still bother with replacing them as I usually have a pack of peasants of 4+ acumen who I keep around in replacement province.

Once past 60%, I simply strip all govs and don't appoint new ones as it's no longer worth the trouble if they are going to lose me money in a few turns.

it's an annoyance but it doesn't really matter.

[Blodrast]

@katank:

sure, at 30-40% the game may still be far from over, and if you just blitzed your way to this point (as I'm sure you do most of the time *grin*), you probably don't have too solid an economy, and hence even small losses may be significant in absolute values.

re the 3-4+ acumen peasants: you're right, that's certainly interesting I do the same thing, since I use peasants for garrisons, most of my very good governors come from peasant armies...I'm pretty sure it's not accidental, either. Better units spawn with better generals, but where acumen is concerned, there's no better economist than John-the-poor-peasant http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

it is certainly interesting, your tactic to leave the provinces w/out an appointed governor, katank. However, I'm afraid that in most of my games it would be quite likely to have loyalty problems if I do so. Acumen is my main criterion for rich/trade provinces, but dread comes a close second.
I do build happiness buildings as much as I can, but still...nothing keeps the unruly peasants in the dust as fear of losing their stinking miserable life at a fit of my 4-5 skulled guy ;)

[katank]

I also keep some 9 skull fellas around for places like scotland http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

actually, I also keep 4+ skull govs. I build peasants in a province if I'm not building anything else and keep all those who have 4+ dread or acumen and send the scary guys to a province and smart guys to another province, then replace when necessary.

other fellas get disbanded.

BTW, you are mistaken, my friend. By the time I blitz my way to 40%, I already have 50k in my warchest at the least and a trading fleet from the black sea to the baltic.

money is not a problem and I actually build economy quite a bit.

my rushes are very low tech so mostly a spearmaker and bowyer is enough.

the rest of time is for economy.

[Sir Chauncy]

Katank,
Stripping the province of its govenor is actually a really bad move. If you can still get a positive income by removing the leader of each province then good luck to you, but the Acumen of each govenor is actually a percentange increase in the income of the province they are in charge of.

So if you had a 4 feather govenor, they would increase the output of that province by 40% (both trade and farming). Even if they got the worst possible vice for economics. (-30% I think) they would still be producing a net benifit of 10%. Obviously this is still a bit bad because you have plenty of people with two feathers or more in your army.

But in any good province I tend to have very good people running the show, with 6 or more feathers. If the loss isn't that great 5 - 10 percent say, then it really isn't worth the bother changing them.

[motorhead]

sure, you can squeeze out a few more florins with a gov, but I admire katanks no-gov policy once you've passed the 60% threshold. I don't think i could do it though (I'm just a micromanaging freaka). Once you break 60% and head towards total domination, you've most likely got 1mil+ banked, all you really need is enough cash to cover support. Post-60% i've had turns with 15+ negative income vices, and it takes every ounce of self-control not to strip 15 titles. I usually just weed out the govs with large negative income/happiness vices.

On another note - i've tried every suggested remedy for eliminating negative income vices and nothing has ever worked once you hit 60%.

[katank]

@sir chauncy,

I'm quite aware of this fact.

have you considered the happiness decreases?

I rather have less garrisons and also less chances of reemergences.

besides, in the late game, there isn't really a need for that 10% although I contend that it would likely be 0% or 5% at the most since extra garrisons to offset the happiness bonus is necessary.

also, no dread govs cause a loyalty decrease compared to no gov and sometimes, no gov really has very little if any opportunity costs so late in the game.

[mfberg]

I don't bother stripping gov's, I dismiss them, Less hassle for me, and I can kill them later when my enemies hire them as mercs.

mfberg

[Blodrast]

Quote[/b] (katank @ June 17 2004,18:54)]BTW, you are mistaken, my friend. By the time I blitz my way to 40%, I already have 50k in my warchest at the least and a trading fleet from the black sea to the baltic.

my rushes are very low tech so mostly a spearmaker and bowyer is enough.
wow, then you must be a hell of a manager, katank, i envy you ;)
you must tell me your secret, must tell me your secret ...
*puny attempt at hypnotizing katank*
seriously now, i'm afraid i'm also a micromanagement addict, and after i get a decent economic base i try to delay the moment of confrontation as much as possible; i'd rather attack with 2k units all upgraded with the last weapon/armour than 10k people of all sorts...

hmm, ok, now 40% is quite a bit, i reckon by _that_ time my economy is good too...but i thought you *blitzed* your way to 40%, right ?
how on earth can you do that just with spearmen and archers ?
(ok, and HA, i know you love'em http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif )

[katank]

well, ransoms and mucho farming.

be amazed at how much 5 or 6 king's ransoms does for a fledgling economy.

also prioritize farming in rich provinces as well as teching straight for ships in poorer ones.

rush means I can usually devote 6-8 provinces to ship building as I have plenty of other provinces to build troops from and that makes a huge trade networks go up quite quickly.

[Blodrast]

hmm, ok, well, how do you manage to actually capture the king ? i usually kill them (and ofc i don't mean by shooting at him...). can you bias the outcome towards capturing or killing ?
still haven't told me how you manage to blitz for such a long time with low quality troops...I mean, it's ok if you're plaiying in Early, but in High or Late it might be a lot trickier...is it just sheer numbers then ?

[katank]

I usually play early.

if high, then it's halb and arb spamming.

arbs kill, halbs do the delay.

capturing the king would be best done on the strategic level where you make sure that he has no adjacent provinces to retreat to.

then, try to simply rout him off the field.

pin with spear while routing the rest of his army and when that occurs, hit him form rear with some cav while keeping huge numercial superiority around him (don't actually have to fight).

shooting at him with archers etc. also helps and stacking morale penalties would get him to rout.

also, autocalcing seems to always capture instead of kill.

[Blodrast]

thanks for the insight, katank.
btw, although as far as i can tell when you're chasing a routing unit, chances are you'll just capture most of the runners (as opposed to killing them), it does happen to kill them as well. it happened to me with routing RK's...and i killed the poor bastard ;(
have any of you noticed anything special about this, i.e. if there are special circumstances/units which you kill instead of capturing, or is it just totally random (biased towards capturing) ?

thank you

[soibean]

I really havent gotten alot of bad vices for my governors at all besides the hedonist trait which just about every other guy gets...
I rarely get the traits that lower income... most just target the general's unit such as the hedonist thing or sometimes I'll get the whole drinker routine (all the way up I mean) but besides that I rarely get any others
Im not really sure why but I think it has to do with the happiness of my provinces and alot of the time my provinces arent led by men with high dread so maybe that has to do with something

I dont think that helped but ya know