Regarding governors...

[warwaffle]

I've read over the FAQ and now, realizing that having governors is a bad idea, how do I get around this? Governors are needed to manage cities, but if they aren't in there, then the CPU is managing them.

[Flavius Gonzo]

So, it's not totally obvious at first, but you can set you cities up so that every city is managed like it has a govenor, regardless if you've got a general in there.

Somewhere on the contruction screen there's a checkbox that says "Manage All Settlements". Take that off.

Then, for each city on the construction screen there's a checkbox that says "Manage Settlement" or something similar, if you uncheck that, building, recruitment and taxes work just like they do with a govenor. Sorry, I'm at work now so I can't look at the game to see exactly what those boxes say -- but there is a way to do it, and it should be straightforward if you are looking out for it.

Also, I don't think govenors are useless. If I am lucky to get a general with Intelligent, BuddingBeuracrat, etc, I use them as a govenor for sure -- especially if I can easily get them through a few battles to bump up chilvary or dread. The trick is this -- most of the bad traits they can pick up will only happen if you just leave them languishing in a city without moving them. If you move your govenor in and out of their city ever 1-2 turns, they can turn out to be a pretty solid chap. And hanging out in a big city, they often get good ancillaries like Treasurer, Scribe, etc that boost their govenor capabilities even more.

[A. Smith]

1) click the "manage every settlement" button before your campaign
2) if you dont want to abandon your campaign, uncheck the "automanage" button. do it every time a governor exits a city in the future, so you dont have ballistas coming out every other turn.

[The Stranger]

you can toggle manage all cities on, when you start a campaign... also meaning cities without a governor... i guess... since MTW2 isnt much different from RTW

[King Bob VI]

if you uncheck that, building, recruitment and taxes work just like they do with a govenor.
AFAIK you can't change tax rates in cities without a gov. Is this true? Are the default taxes the best anyways?

[Foz]

AFAIK you can't change tax rates in cities without a gov. Is this true? Are the default taxes the best anyways?
As long as you've set it up so you can manage settlements that are governor-less, you should also be able to change their tax rates. I'm almost certain I've been doing so all along.

As for default tax rates... heck no they're not the best! Taxes control some things that aren't as obvious as "how much you make from taxation." Each higher tax rate notch lowers growth by 0.5% and lowers public order by about 20%. Similarly lowering it gains 0.5% growth and 20% public order each time. Setting your tax rate low can gain a governor chivalry if the people are happy, but it also makes him prone to some bad traits like bad taxman. Very high rates can possibly cause dread, but make a governor eligible for good taxman and likely other things as well. So it's not so much that any particular setting is better than the others... just that you will likely want to tweak it fairly regularly to manage order and growth against profits.

[sapi]

Don't quote me on this (i never play without manage all settlements on so don't have first hand knowledge) but afaik you can disable automation of settlements in the faction details screen at any time during a campaign.

[katank]

If you want good traits for your governors (works only in early game), then tax rate of high is best. It gets them chivalrous in rule and all that. Normal or lower gives bad taxman traits while very high gets them bad traits too. Otherwise, tax them as much as you can without them rebelling.