Piety for Generals - How to improve?

[R'as al Ghul]

I couldn't find any tips on how to improve the Piety value of your Generals and Governors apart from the obvious one: Lead a Crusade.
As Crusades don't happen too often, there's to be another way.
Has anyone noticed any value increase when:
- you build a structure from the church line of buildings
- you let a priest/ cardinal join your army
- you did something else

Any tips are appreciated.

R'as

[Quillan]

I've read speculation that there is a chance a general's piety will increase if he's a governor when a church is completed, but I can't confirm that.

[R'as al Ghul]

As for chivalry and Piety. Their nearly one in the same. If your general is very chivalric he will be very pious most of the time. In order to be chivalric you must do chivalric deeds. Getting the bravery trait is important. Don't pansy foot around with a chivalric general, ensure he makes some charges in battles. Make sure he doesnt exterminate to many settlements. Make sure he releases all enemies, also the more he releases at one time is important, you will not always get a bump to chivalry but you will prevent a loss.

To be pious you again need to be chivalric. Sluaghtering a bunch of catholics is not going to make you very pious. Make sure their around settlements that have thealogian guilds. When building churches your governor will often get a bump to piety.

It seems I've missed that one.
Still, some experience reports would be nice.

[Kraxis]

Well, it sort of makes sense.

Dread gains you both loyalty (in settlements) and fear on the battlefield for the enemy. That is better than Chivalry whoch appears to only give loyalty in settlements. So if being chivalrous also gains you Piety, I think the two are pretty well balanced.

[MadKow]

Cheesy way, probably won't happen after a patch: join a crusade then leave then join then leave then join, even on the same turn or at least the turn after you first join. See what happens.
(Traits "Great Crusader" and "something something Ruler", lots of piety and authority and comand, and some report even the ocasional piety enhancing retinue).

[LegioScythia]

Complete A jihad or a crusade

[Bullethead]

Piety definitely increases when a general as governor builds a church. It's almost automatic for low-piety generals to gain +1 piety for building a small church at the beginning of the game. However, subsequent church upgrades and the recruitment of priests don't seem to help so much as time goes on. I think there's a fractional system of "piety points" between the levels shown on character cards, so that it takes increasing numbers of "pious deeds" to gain levels. OTOH, of course, as time goes on many generals pick up anti-pious traits and retainers so that might be why you don't see piety increase when building a cathedral--you might not have noticed its decrease beforehand.

I haven't seen any general gain piety just from having a priest around.

Unlike Big Tex, I don't see any real connection between chivalry and piety--they seem independent to me. You gain dread any time you do something "dreadful" like butcher prisoners and exterminate a city, regardless of whether the victims were believers or infidels of your religion. OTOH, you can gain piety for butchering beaucoup infidels, so it's possible to end up with high levels of both dread and piety.

I'm not certain, but I think giving LOTS money to the Pope and being his ally will give your king a piety boost.

This concern about a general's piety is out of fear of the Inquisition, but IMHO there's no real reason to worry about that. Inquisitors only seem to come around when either you've got the Pope hating you or you've allowed significant levels of heresy in your domains. If you keep His Venality well bribed, and you have sufficient priests roaming around to have all your provinces 95%+ Catholic, the Inquisition won't bother you. Then your generals are free to have low piety. But if an inquisitor does come around, high piety won't save them anyway. It seems to be a straight-up contest of piety between your guy and the inquisitor, and inquisitors all seem to have 10 piety, so even your 8-piety general's gonna burn. Hence, worrying about piety is pointless ;).

This all might sound a bit counterintuitive and frustrating, but only if you assume the *M2TW* Pope and your generals are actually sincere about religion. If you instead view them all as cynical men of the world, concerned only with money and power, then it all makes perfect sense. Piety is as you are seen in the eyes of the superstitious people, not the pope :).

IMHO, the best way to view the *M2TW* Catholic Church is as a huge organized crime syndicate. The pope is the godfather and all temporal rulers, including your generals, are his capos running territories for the pope. The primary purpose of the syndicate is to make the pope rich from the pyramid scheme starting with the collection plate in every parish church. It's your job as one of the pope's capos to ensure that the roots of this pyramid in your territory function smoothly. The pope hates heresy because that diverts the peasants' pennies from his cash flow into that of the rival sect. And of course your ruler, as a capo, has to render tribute and cuts of all his own deals to the godfather as well.

So, if you fail in either of these jobs, the pope/godfather will send his inquisitors/enforcers to rub you out. If you get into a fight with another capo, that's also bad for the pope's pyramid scheme because money's diverted to your arsenals instead of going to him. That's why you get excommunicated, so the other capos can beat on you, and you could well see some enforcers, too, and it will all be a strong lesson to the other capos. But if you do your job right, so the peasants are all dutiful tything Catholics and you dump a lot of your take in the pope's lap, then your generals can be huge sinners and the pope won't care.

So what's the purpose of piety in this arrangement? Like I said, it's how the common people see your ruler. The pope's goal, of course, is to make the whole world Catholic, so everybody will tythe to him. But making the world Catholic requires crusades, which in turn require cannonfodder, and that only flocks to the banner if there's an overtly religious overtone. Thus, you need some public show of sharing the public's superstitions ;).

[Bob the Insane]

IMHO, the best way to view the *M2TW* Catholic Church is as a huge organized crime syndicate...

That was a thing of beauty!!! :2thumbsup:

[Faenaris]

That was a thing of beauty!!! :2thumbsup:

Quoted For Truth, that was the best description of the Papacy I have ever read! :grin: I'll probably burn in Hell for saying that, but I was probably on my way to old Satan's joint anyhow, so ... Good stuff, Bullethead, good stuff.

[Quillan]

I'll be on the bus right beside you then, because that was the perfect description. I keep paying the Pope and I have no inquisition problems in my game. Those are his enforcers.

[Bullethead]

Thanks for the kind words. I was a bit worried when I posted that, thinking somebody would taking it as an insult in the real world, which is why I emphasized that I was talking about the M2TW papacy. But that said, I'll no doubt still be driving the bus for you all on our trip down hill :).

[MadKow]

And if the Bus runs out of Gas ill be further downhill, selling it.:spammer:

[Aenlic]

That's good, because I'm not pushing! If it runs out of gas, I guess we stick out our thumbs and hope for a ride. :grin:


Back on topic:

I've seen several threads mention that having a priest in the army stack improves piety. Can anyone at all confirm this? Possibly it only helps if the priest is in the stack when attacking and/or takes some time? I wonder also if having a priest in the army helps attract the "good" kind of retinue and reduces the annoying frequency of generals picking up piety reducing retinue members like magicians and astrologers? I'll try and remember to test it when I start the game up in a bit.

[Afridi]

Bullethead, that description fits perfectly. I've seen many inquisitors wander right past my Scottish cities having huge cathedrals and generals with 0 piety and adultresses, a pair of horns and what not, relaxing in the brothel instead. They never get burnt, thanks to very good relations with the papacy, and I keep sacking Milan's cities with these generals, and the French are almost destroyed now as well as the English. I keep these factions alive just to have some more fun before I end this campaign.

I actually requested a crusade against Milan who just got excommunicated, crusade for sacking Paris and then a couple other cities on my own. So I sent my faction heir and sacked Paris for 17000 florins, massacred half of the innocent population, got my general and the accompanying templars some buffs for completing the crusade, and the inquisitors just move along as usual. I pillaged several large rebel cities with majority of catholics in them and the pope never minds.

[Zoltan]

I started a French campaign on h/h yesterday that I dedicated to having as much piety and chivalry as possible. I'm still in the early stages, about 30 turns in, but it did no pay off too badly.

I used the following tools to implement this policy.

- 1st round : big round of church building all around. All generals who don't already have it see to gain the "Religious" (+1 pi) trait automatically upon completion of a church building. Further improvement on that trait "Dutifully Religious" (+2 pi) seems to have a small chance (20%?) of appearing upon comleting a church building.

- Stick a priest with each of my generals, or at least the important ones. Stick my starting cardinal with my heir. Does not seem to increase piety directly, but seems to reduce the chance of them getting a "pagan magician" follower. In this campaign I had only a couple (including my king, damn) whereas the last one, almost everyone ended up with one. I think those I got were because I left some heretics go unchecked (see next)

I got the "Conforming" trait (+1 piety) for a couple generals, which I never saw before. Maybe that's from having the priests around. Anyone can confirm or infirm this?

- Be good buddies with the Pope (yah the vatican mafia dude!). That has not been shown to increase the piety of my king or generals, but is quite useful all around: my enemies tend to get excommunicated pretty quick, and then I can crusade their sorry ass.

- No brothels, except in one or two settlements in which I didnt put a governor. Avoids getting the "adultress" retainer (why does it have to be a bad thing?)

- Burn the heretics! as soon as you find them. After missing a few of them due to FoW, I build watch tower in all the remote areas of my territory just to be sure. Burning heretics is good for you. Avoid your gens getting bad traits, and gives your successful priests the traits "Servant of god" (+1 pi) and then "Enemy of Heretics" (+2 pi)

- Visit the infidel with educational pamphlets: I tried to have all my new priests do a "tour of duty" in north africa, for 8-12 turns until they get the "Purger of Heresy" trait (+3 pi and stuff). I havent confirmed this, but it seems if you pile up many priests in an infidel area, they convert people faster, and therefore get the good traits faster. After they get that trait, I move them back home to escort my generals, and replace them with the next priests. After a few rotations I had enough 5-6 piety priests to escort most of my generals, and win most cardinal seats as they come up for grabs.

- Recruit selectively: When a new candidate comes up for adoption/man of the hour/wedding I only accept if they meet my piety/chivalry standards. You can always get new candidates later, especially to wed your noblewomen, so you don't have to accept the first idiot that comes up. The "religiously active" trait (+3 pi) seems to come up only at character "birth". Anyone knows if it can be acquired too?

- Crusading : gives your guys the crusader line of traits (for +1 to +3 pi and chivalry) + some cool retainers and sometimes holy relics (esp. in Jerusalem, Antioch). I think holy relics can be passed down to other generals. The milanese next door got excommunicated attacking me, so I requested a crusade on Genoa, got it and put half my generals on it, and wiped them out in a few turns with the cheap & uber crusader armies. Big boost to the generals involved, esp. my heir, who led the crusade.

- Recruit all priests in the same town. I chose marseille because of it's easy access to North africa for priest "training", so I got a theologian's guild there pretty early in. Waiting to see now if it has some influence on the generals I station there.

And that's it, all my generals are now piety 4 or more, my heir is at a whooping 9. and I'm going to rule over the next papal election.

So, anyone knows of a trick or trait I may have missed to make my generals more pious? Does executing a lot of infidels really help?

[Werner]

I'll be on the bus right beside you then, because that was the perfect description. I keep paying the Pope and I have no inquisition problems in my game. Those are his enforcers.


~:thumb:

https://img216.imageshack.us/img216/3898/tohellck2.jpg

[Ralek]

I've read a lot of misinformation on this thread so I guess I'll offer my own research into the piety gaining traits.

First, some general info about traits. Traits function in levels. The first level of a trait is pretty easy to gain, but to gain additional levels you need to do more.

Relevant traits, their levels and how I've noticed them to be gained:

Respected by Pope (+1 Piety, +1 Command vs Muslims)
Adored by Pope (+2 Piety, +2 Command vs Muslims)
Exalted by Pope (+3 Piety, +3 Command vs Muslims)

This trait category seems to be gained by the faction leader if you do several crusades during his reign (dont need to be led by him). The first level needs at least two crusades during the same reign but so far three crusades is almost full proof.

Crusader (+1 Piety, +1 Command vs Muslims, +1 Chivalry)
Great Crusader (+2 Piety, +2 Command vs Muslims, +2 Chivalry)
Grand Crusader (+3 Piety, +3 Command vs Muslims, +3 Chivalry)

Acquired by participating in a crusader. Leading a sucessful crusade (meaning you actually take the target city) almost always gives you the third level.

Conforming (+1 Piety)
Reverend (+2 Piety)
God-Fearing (+3 Piety)

These seem to be aquired by sticking a priest with the general's army IF he doesn't have any other religious traits. If you have ANY other religious traits you will not gain this one. You can gain the others later though and will still keep this one. My SOP when a family member comes of age is to stick him with a priest at least until he gets the conforming trait.

Growing Conviction (+1 Piety)
Strenghtened Resolve (+2 Piety)
Feeling Invulnerable (+3 Piety)

I've only seen this trait category being acquired on one campaign so I don't have enough research data. The growing conviction one was gained after an Heroic Victory against Muslims with the English. I gained the the 2nd Level a few battles against the Moors with the same general and the last with another Heroic Victory against Egypt with the same general where he was caught alone but since his bodyguards had 2 gold chevrons he managed to rout the enemy army single-handedly. Like I said, not enough data to confirm the triggers.

Holy Soldier (+1 Piety, +1 Command vs Catholics, +1 Chivalry)
Holy Defender (+2 Piety, +2 Command vs Catholics, +2 Chivalry)
Holy Warrior (+3 Piety, +3 Command vs Catholics, +3 Chivalry)

These work exactly like their crusade counterpart.

Religious (+1 Piety)
Dutifully Religious (+2 Piety)
Religiously Active (+3 Piety, +1 Chivalry)
Devoutly Religious (+4 Piety, +2 Chivalry)

These are gained as governor both for building church line buildings and priests. The first level is very easy to gain, the others are increasingly hard. The only ever general I managed to get to the 4th level was the governor of antioch who crusaded there when he was 17. He built antioch all the way to Huge Cathedral, had a Theologian's Guild HQ there and must have recruited in excess of 10 priests before he died a peaceful death. Adding all his traits/retinue he had 17 Piety and yes, the game does seem to keep track of levels higher than 10 as I kept seeing admin bonus changes in the city whenever he gained a point over 10.

Servant of Heaven (+2 Piety)
Dramatic Visions (+3 Piety)
Visions of Prophecy (+4 Piety)

I've only seen this trait category ONCE. The general was born with the first level and gained the others as governor of the city where he was born. He was the son of the general described above, was born in Antioch when the city already had a cathedral and a master theologian's guild. No idea how to trigger it. Might be bloodline related (son of a pious general type of thing).

In addition to traits there are retinue and items that add to piety but myself and a few of my friends who are also playing have been focusing and sharing info on traits only.

[BigTex]

That's good, because I'm not pushing! If it runs out of gas, I guess we stick out our thumbs and hope for a ride. :grin:


Back on topic:

I've seen several threads mention that having a priest in the army stack improves piety. Can anyone at all confirm this? Possibly it only helps if the priest is in the stack when attacking and/or takes some time? I wonder also if having a priest in the army helps attract the "good" kind of retinue and reduces the annoying frequency of generals picking up piety reducing retinue members like magicians and astrologers? I'll try and remember to test it when I start the game up in a bit.

I can confirm that having a priest in an army seems to help with gaining religous traits. After having a solid priest in my main army for awhile the general continues to gain alot of piety, while not even being in a settlement.

Maybe there's some confusion about the post in the earlier subject. Chivalry and Piety have nearly the same variable's. Exterminating catholic's will kill both chivalry and piety. For the most part retinue's and traits will usually give a bonus to both at the same time. It's not to say that it isnt impossible to have a high dread high piety general, its just going to be alot harder.

I'm not certian about this, but can anyone confirm the existance of a "Pious Legacy" trait for sons born to fathers with high piety? I've noticed this with dread and chivalry. In RTW also most of the variables for new sons were linked to the fathers traits and abilities. Maybe some tests are in order.

[Zoltan]

Wow, huge piece of work ralek, looks like you and your friends have pretty much nailed this down.

I guess getting the "religious" trait for my guys early on was not optimal, and that's why all my priests had no effect. Thanks!

[Shahed]

Good stuff. Thanks !

[Kobal2fr]

Ray "Pope" Liotta stuff that'll get us all excommunicated, thou marke mineth wordeth

With all due respect, you being a made-man of the Holy See and all, sir, Piety isn't only for surviving inquisitions.

A highly Pious general will have big order bonuses when governing provinces sharing your faith (and maluses when governing provinces of another faith, I've just seen in my Moorish campaign. Had sent a 7 piety general to capture Timbuktu, and his mere presence in the city caused them pagans to revolt.).

More, if not most importantly : Piety is M2's acumen. God brings home the bacon, what can I say ? Must be the peasants are happier thinking that although one of their Lords is a skinflint who taxes them to near-death then sends them to full-die in Poland, the other died on the cross for their sins, so maybe those two can meet halfways :laugh4:

[Shahed]

BTW just an FYI that stick a Imam with the General thing does'nt always work. I just got yet another Pagan Magician in a General's retinue, with Imam attached. Granted the Imam was piety 2 so maybe that's the issue.

Kobal you sure piety is like acumen ?

If so this is definetly to be trained up. have you done any tests or this a hunch you got ?

[Kobal2fr]

Oh most definitely. Even generals with only battle traits will boost city income when they have high piety. Of course, taxman/trader/intelligent traits go even further, but I'm quite confident piety has an effect as well.

I'll admit, I haven't watched closely enough to tell you how/why, or if it only cuts down on corruption and so on, though. No hard testing on my part, just repeated empirical results to "tests" as highly scientific as "Hmmm, what if I put that guy there ? Income up ? You, stay there. Read a book or something. But no mistresses !"

Which is why I'm a bit miffed that mere hyperactive spying will turn your king into a cruel madman stringing peasants up for kicks and giggles... Can't you stomp on people's privacy in a proper, caring judeo-christian way, dammit ?!

[Kraxis]

Well, shouldn't he be able to do that if you only have spies trained in a few cities? Wouldn't he just gain the trait and retinue and then that would be it. Actually, to me it sounds pretty nifty.

Btw, I got the Conforming trait when my crusading prince got tried by an inquisitor.

[Kobal2fr]

I don't know, 8 spies (for 5 provinces total) turned my Moorish king into Adolf Tepès somehow, when I had plans to turn him into Muslimdom's Galahad. Going for Chivalry and the Piety coming with it doesn't have much point now that he's sporting like +8 dread already... without ever budging from his court in Cordoba. What can I say, I like my cities saboteur-proof.

But bah, that's veering towards hijack.

[WineCape]

Sir Bullethead,

Are you the same gentleman that that visits the www.Battlefront.com forums?

Cause you DO sound as entertaining as him ;)

Sincerely,
WineCape

[Aenlic]

Wonderful informational posts, gents. Well done, Zoltan and Ralek, and thanks for the confirmation, Big Tex!