AI management settings?

[Terry]

I am curious to know what most of you guys are setting your beginning game setting at for the AI in regard to management. Do you have the manage all settlements box checked or no..? Also, along with that, do you micro manage settlements if there is no governor present, or do you play the game with the idea that the governor has to be present to issue build orders/adding troops?
I've been doing that and moving family members from city to city in order to issue future build plans..

Another thing. Where are most of you putting the AI spend policy slide bar setting?

Terry

[Epistolary Richard]

Manage all settlements... very much so! I can't trust the AI even to take out a lone general even when I've ambushed him with a full stack army, so I'm not going to let it near my cities! ~D

[Dutch_guy]

Always manage all settlements..don't want to wait till i get a general with good management to a core frontline city, just to retrain or built troops
plus de AI has weird priorities in what it wants to build, and train.
so don't trust the AI

[Ulfang]

I'd be surprised if anyone trusted the AI for anything!

It would be like Trusting your Girlfriend/Wife with Brad Pitt!

Nah I manage all my own settlements!

[Grand Duke Vytautas]

One tip about management I noticed: When you have quite a large empire (say 25 provinces) it is just so hard to remember to check every city (for building, training and order) - you spend much time on that stuff. So I prefer to assign city building plans when the new turn starts and those boxes pop down on the left side then I open building report and assign building projects, training and manage order from there. So it's much easier and quicker to manage settlements. Btw, I don't trust AI and do everything by myself (damn I'm the factions leader, not stupid AI). Cheers ~:cheers:

[Terry]

Then how does the concept of governor fit into all of this? I will put a general into a settlement and his info box will list him as governor. Then, I move him out to deal with a bandit threat, and this title disappears from his listing.

How do you deal with governor management and how does it affect the game? Do you leave people inside the city for a while and if so, I suppose his traits then come into play, right?

Terry

[Epistolary Richard]

There are three benefits a governor brings when you're managing all your settlements:

1) As you say, any governor-related virtues he may have come into play.
2) His management skill increases the revenue you draw from the city.
3) (Most importantly I find) His influence adds to public order, making it useful to have them in newly conquered cities with high unrest or larger cities with high squalor.

I tend to have few characters with decent management so any I have I'll leave in cities (unless rebels pop up nearby). The faction leader (high influence) tends to be a good one to leave in your capital as that will tend to be the largest city you have. The rest go off on campaign, hire mercenaries, capture towns and then get killed in shipping accidents.

[Quietus]

Hey Terry,

A family member must be inside the settlement to be the governor. Outside, he is a general. As a rule of a thumb, just put the governors in the richest cities (which should be coastal and port-bearing).

In your poorer inland cities, be sure to leave a cheap, depleted unit (i.e a single unit of 20 peasants or 3 horses etc.) so you won't get a "no-governance" public order penalty. That simply meant you don't have a single peacekeeper/guardian in the settlement (not necessarily a family member/governor).

Just click on the Settlement Details button on lower left of your province parchment.