General's Traits

[Didz]

Has anyone produced a guide on how to encourage certain traits in Generals?

If so could someone post me the link. I am particularly interested in how one acquires and maintains Chivalry as a trait. All my generals seem to attract Dread, which probably says something about my style of play, but I thought I might try to keep a couple of them Chivalrous if I can.

The manual mentions a few things like low taxes, releasing prisononers and herioic behaviour but I suspect there a bit more too it than that.

[Kobal2fr]

First of all, I just posted a loooong guide about this. Only I don't talk much about chivalry (or dread) in it, as it's about breeding good cash governors. So it's not really about this.

Ahem.

Chivarly, chivarly, chivalry.
Well it's pretty simple :

Short version : low taxes, heroic deeds, releasing prisonners and being religious :sweatdrop:

Loooong version :

- you can get 1 to 4 points through the "BattleChivalry" line of traits, which you get by winning defensive battles in which you are outnumbered, or by killing 8+ people yourself in any given battle.

Beware though, as if the general doesn't have any point in BattleChivalry at all, he's got better odds of getting BattleDread instead through fighting himself. If that happens, you're screwed on the BattleChivalry front.

Once he's got his first point in BattleChivalry, all battles become fair game and he'll only get points in chivalry from then on.

Winning battles against factions who have a different religion also give BattleChivalry.



- you can get 1 to 4 points through the StrategyChivalry line (the "Fair in rule" trait). Building churches gives some points. Setting taxes to low can give some but beware, if taxes are not High or Very High when a building is completed in the settlement, he might get Bad Taxman which is.. well, bad. Joining a crusade also gives StrategyChivalry.



- you get 3 points for leading a successfull crusade, and a few for joining in but not succeeding.



- you can get a few points through the highest levels of ReligiousActivity and/or PublicFaith (forget which one) that you get by, yes, building churches, training priests and staying in religious towns.



- Being in a castle in which you build a Jousting Lists give some in the form of TourneyKnight, as does sitting in said castle over time.



- having a highly chivalrous father (4+) gives one point at birth, and one more if father has 7+.



- catching spies and assassins give chivalry at the higher levels of the Spycatcher and Assassincatcher lines.



- building the town hall line of buildings IF YOU ALREADY HAVE STRATEGYCHIVALRY ("Fair in rule" or better) will usually give you the Just trait, for some more



- occupying conquered towns not only gives StrategyChivalry but also LenientJustice (bonus to Chiv, malus to PO)



- releasing more than 80 prisonners at a time give some through CaptorChivalry, and paying expensive ransoms for your own troops can also give some through RansomChivalry



That's about it.
Also, things to avoid when building your perfect knight :

- training spies and assassins in his city. If he's the faction leader, training/using them AT ALL
- killing prisonners
- refusing to pay a less-than-5000 florins ransom for your own men
- Exterminate conquered cities (sacking is OK, though obviously Occupy is better)
- having your taxes on VH even though your treasury is full to the brim
- abandonning a crusade
- building town halls before you have points in StratChiv

[Zarky]

For Dreadful General (they keep peasants in order better but don´t give governors influence growth bonus to population)
Exterminate settlements (you gain eventually Brutal Conqueror and lately Exterminator +dread and cash gained from looting) Executing prisoners, and exterminate also gives StradegyDread, which can wear off if you build churches or anything that´s "too helpful" to peasants or something...
And BattleDread by attacking with more troops than enemy has (2-4:1 or so)
And by killing people in battle gives Fine With blood and such...
Some buildings give change to gain good traits such as Master Theologians guild might give priest (+1piety) and Explorers guild Intrepid Explorer.
Military Academy for Spanish and French could give +1 command and all that kind of things, Being handsome/ugly or chivalrous/dreadful or good commander usually depends on father and smart/Intelligent(eventually genius)
will come from building Universities and Alchemy lab or so...
micromanaging generals is just fun if you know what to do ^^

[HoreTore]

Joining and finishing a crusade always does the trick. You'll get 3 points of strategychivalry, max crusaderhistory and a bunch of ancillaries. Also, you'll probably want to build some religious buildings of your religion in the province, as well as some priests/imams, which will all make you chivalrous.

[Shahed]

This is a very good idea for a guide. You can do different types of generals e.g Cavalry Generals (doh!?), High Dread, High chiv etc. For n00bs like me it'll have to be point by point for me to understand anything.

[Thurak]

In another thread around here I found this useful link:

http://noctalis.com/dis/totalwar/m2tw_traits.shtml

[ninjahboy]

ive noticed if your faction is particularly militaristic or the family is (having a long line of noble and successful generals), the sons tend to get insta-command stars from the fighting genes :P Also, their loyalty gets passed on.

Quick way to get generals powered up and popular ensuring loyalty for generaltions: send a few on crusades against your mortal enemy (such as milan) they end up with full chivalry, abour 4 extra command stars etc,

[Didz]

In another thread around here I found this useful link:

http://noctalis.com/dis/totalwar/m2tw_traits.shtml
Damn! its a shame that list isn't organised the other way round.

It would be much more useful if it listed the trait and then the triggers that cause it, rather than the trigger and the traits caused.

[Kobal2fr]

I'll do that as part deux of The Prince when I have some bored time (also known as "work") on my hands.