FM development - maximize their potential

Hello.
Since most people here have an expertise on the "RTW subject", I think many should have tried to build "uber FMs" - me included.Before I continue I want to state that I don't have any deep knowledge (game files) just my experience from playing the game.

Let's start our discussion with some possible facts:

- FM development is greatly influenced by his character traits (Sharp, Charismatic, Vigorous, etc)
- FMs have a secret potential value (?)
- The starting Ancilliary (Clerk, Spear Carrier, Family Retainer) is relevant to the career favoured to them (?)
- Could an FM go against his character or ancilliary and become something else (?)
- City government affects development (traits in general) but how
- Battles: the moves the FM orders for his units, his own behaviour also affect his development
- Battles: the type (being on the offensive or defensive), their outcome (eg Heroic Victory) also affects their reputation

just some that came into mind.Please add yours and let's discuss how is it possible (if...) to maximize our FMs' stats.

At least the AI is managing to accomplish that (building great FMs most often), unless of course he cheats which I am unsure of.

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Originally Posted by Ksifos

Let's start our discussion with some possible facts:

1) FM development is greatly influenced by his character traits (Sharp, Charismatic, Vigorous, etc)
2) FMs have a secret potential value (?)
3) The starting Ancilliary (Clerk, Spear Carrier, Family Retainer) is relevant to the career favoured to them (?)
4) Could an FM go against his character or ancilliary and become something else (?)
5) City government affects development (traits in general) but how
6) Battles: the moves the FM orders for his units, his own behaviour also affect his development
7) Battles: the type (being on the offensive or defensive), their outcome (eg Heroic Victory) also affects their reputation

just some that came into mind.Please add yours and let's discuss how is it possible (if...) to maximize our FMs' stats.

8) At least the AI is managing to accomplish that (building great FMs most often), unless of course he cheats which I am unsure of.

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1) Yes, the six primary personality traits determine how easily a character can acquire certain traits. For example: uncharismatic characters have a lower chance of gaining "good leadership" traits, and are barred from reaching the highest level of leadership.

2) Yes: each of the primary personality traits has six levels, but you can only see the broad trend. High or low levels in one of these traits can usually be discerned through a character's other traits.

3/4) I don't think it's quite so black-and-white; but I am sure the starting ancillary is used for something. The objective of the EB team is to create realistic characters; and locking someone in a "career" on his sixteenth is not realistic.

5) There's dozens of triggers relating to buildings present, buildings constructed, tax rates, happiness. Mostly, their effects are what you would logically expect, though the primary personality traits are also taken into account.

6) No, the trait-engine belongs to the strategic-map portion of the game. Traits are not changed in-battle, but updated afterwards on the basis of information passed on by the battle-engine. This information includes whether the general has routed, his kill-rate*, the number of hitpoints and bodyguards he's lost, and obviously the outcome of the battle and battle-odds. The game does not have a concept of a second-in-command, so non-commanding characters will not gain command or leaderships traits, nor will their traits affect anything but their own units. I am not even 100% sure if these characters have their traits updated after the battle is over.

7) Yes, and not just the outcome. The initial odds for the battle are also taken into account. If your victories come from battles where the odds were slightly on your side, your general will gain command stars more slowly. (At least, it used to be like this in the early versions of EB1; characters even had a trait saying whether he'd fought mostly easy or hard battles. They removed this trait, but I don't remember them changing the calculation).

8) Yes, it cheats. A.I. characters get bonuses to traits to make them competitive with the human player.

* Kill rate may refer to his unit, but possibly to the general himself. I've had two Casse chariot generals gaining "coward"-traits because they didn't kill enough. This in spite of the fact that I had used them very aggressively, and their units had killed a reasonable number with their javelins. The trait always disappeared after another battle, so it may have been an unusual bug.

On a final note: it's not possible to gain all good traits for one character. EB's trait system is about realism: it takes time and talent to develop good abilities, and not everybody is able or willing to do so. You may want your young leaders to spend all morning in the Academy and all afternoon in the Gymnasium; but they may prefer to hit the tavern.

don't forget ethnicity, it's not as evident in, let's say for a Babylonian, but Macedonians are almost pains in the asses to have in your family. Drunken, incestual, idiotic, uncultured louts who if they weren't the best cavalry commanders in the western world, would never be in my family. Keep them out of cities! only good for their great tactical minds and their ability to make babies, which will grow up to be an incestual drunk just like daddy!

- City government affects development (traits in general) but how
can't say the specifics because i don't know but like you i can infer from playing the game. It's pretty simple, using the Koinon Hellenon as an example since i think they were specifically in mind when the system was put in place. Since the Koinon is far more loose than almost any other faction, its literally just a league, government styles more or less retain the Spartan, Athenian and third (Rhodian?) styles which are run differently like night and day. I'd say pretty simply that an Athenian governer, who is used to a certain form of economic laxity, freedom and democracy will get a higher % chance of obtaining bad and uncomfortable supervisor traits while governing a Spartan Klerouchi which is true to name, very rigid and conservative. It's pretty cool, i mean, would you be more in touch governing an Iranian province or (lets say you are American) a county in your own state?

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Originally Posted by fomalhaut

don't forget ethnicity, it's not as evident in, let's say for a Babylonian, but Macedonians are almost pains in the asses to have in your family. Drunken, incestual, idiotic, uncultured louts who if they weren't the best cavalry commanders in the western world, would never be in my family. Keep them out of cities! only good for their great tactical minds and their ability to make babies, which will grow up to be an incestual drunk just like daddy!

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HAHA, true :)

Well, to the questions:
Basically a lot has been said already...

to 5) Well, it's important to always, if possible without risking revolts, have high tax rate, because otherwise he will get traits like "Bad with numbers" and such... Very high encourages corruption traits so that should be avoided too...

to 6 and 7) have him kill and battle with the group. As long as he doesn't die only good things come from it. He will get more hitpoints, better morale and such. Cowardly generals aren't an option in EB ;)

How can i avoid that my parthian governors gains the "Nomadic Nature" trait when making the reforms...?

Well EB has a system to guide you through with "bonus traits" like:

- Uncomfortable Supervisor where basically the FM gets penalties in his attributes because he wants to stay in a city
and becomes
- Attuned Supervisor with bonus to management, unrest handling, etc

This can happen NO MATTER what his Ethnicity is - I only have Argeades atm but in my other games I have noticed it can happen to anyone.

The same goes for Warmongers who become Bored, when staying long enough in a city.

But I would like to hear if anybody of you has found any "formulas".For example:

- I try to keep Public Order above 100% (no yellow face)
- I look at Settlement details and try to balance public order.Meaning FM influence, happiness, law and military having about the same effect overall.
- When FM influence is the dominate factor in public order, most of the times the FM gets good traits as if he is the locals' man.
- When FM has + law and is sent to a settlement with high corruption then he battles it and most of the times he benefits of it (getting good traits)
- When FM has - to Unrest and is sent to a settlement with high Unrest ...the same as above
- When FM has + to Farming Output is good to be sent to settlements with poor harvests
- When FM has the Inventor Ancilliary is best to be put on a province with a mine

Also there is the population growth, where sometimes it is beneficial to keep it low, other times you become the "developer of the province" helping expanding it.This is something I want to look further, since in EB works both ways - IIRC in Vanilla if you keep pop growth under 3% you get negative traits.

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Originally Posted by The_Blacksmith

How can i avoid that my parthian governors gains the "Nomadic Nature" trait when making the reforms...?

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by marrying Persians, basically. Parthians, Arsacids, Dahae are going to be nomadic basically no matter what. once you begin your true transition into sedentary lifestyle, the best thing to do is to marry Persians into your family. they are great administrators, and in my roleplay world its basically the logical answer. Persians know how to rule their old lands better than Nomads

What you choose to build and recruit also influence the development of the FM. If your FM lives long enough to go through mines construction and upgrades, he might get the "Excellent Miner" trait, which is great for the economy. If you neglect farms and build them after every other type of building available, the "poor farmer" trait could appear.

If you recruit lots of spies and assassins who perform sucessful missions, you also get "spy recruit", "master of assassins" and others. If your FM recruits lots and lots of mercenaries, he gets the "Mercenary Captain" one, which gives a bonus on recruitment.

His ethniticity and the location of the city he governs will also influence. A Saka/Pahlava FM who is a good trader is likely to gain the Silk/Spice Merchant in his retinue. An Hellenic FM left in the wilderness or guarding some fort for most of his life is very likely to be ignorant or a country bumpkin.

I always make sure my field generals get the merc captain, the benefits are too great for such a low input. just hire some auxila, kretan archers or balearic slingers, and you will get +1 attack, discount, other stuff. plus i like the idea of having a badass merc captain in my retinue, scaring off the clerks

another important factor besides the schooling and the diferent parts of university life (like 1st agoge then athenian for the eleusians) is making sure your general is selfish if you´re going to send him on punitive slash and hack campaigns unselfish people make amazing freedom defendors but as generals they get terrible traits when they´re forçed to decimate a city and raze it to the ground

also many traits depend on the culture he is part of in keltik society influence and management trump military skill while for the ptolemaioi it seems the most important part is influence while for the makedonians military skill rules above anything else (just like the casse wich are diferent from other kelts)

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Originally Posted by fomalhaut

by marrying Persians, basically. Parthians, Arsacids, Dahae are going to be nomadic basically no matter what. once you begin your true transition into sedentary lifestyle, the best thing to do is to marry Persians into your family. they are great administrators, and in my roleplay world its basically the logical answer. Persians know how to rule their old lands better than Nomads

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i just had 3 persians with normadic nature... because they were in a city douring the build of either "Settled Aristocracy" or "Warlords Herds" or "Settled Community"

Three words:- Education, Education, Education (or is that one word);)

As for producing a very unusual character, I once experimented with an FM. He never entered a city after he came of age, and spent his entire life chasing, fighting and ambushing armies in the general Illyria/Thrace region. He picked up some ancilleries I hadn't seen before, and eventually became some mythical "ghostlike" figure, that was spoken of but never seen. If he ever entered a city at that point, he'd cause massive unrest. Great RP charcter, and amazing general by middle age.

At the moment in a Rome campaign, I have a bribed Luso general (23,000 mnai! the utter cheapskate). He had 3 stars and no ancils. Taken him to Rome, and he's already become semi-educated with some decent followers. My pet project :)

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Originally Posted by Drewski

As for producing a very unusual character, I once experimented with an FM. He never entered a city after he came of age, and spent his entire life chasing, fighting and ambushing armies in the general Illyria/Thrace region. He picked up some ancilleries I hadn't seen before, and eventually became some mythical "ghostlike" figure, that was spoken of but never seen.

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That sounds interesting to test.Thanks Drewski.

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Originally Posted by Drewski

As for producing a very unusual character, I once experimented with an FM. He never entered a city after he came of age, and spent his entire life chasing, fighting and ambushing armies in the general Illyria/Thrace region. He picked up some ancilleries I hadn't seen before, and eventually became some mythical "ghostlike" figure, that was spoken of but never seen. If he ever entered a city at that point, he'd cause massive unrest. Great RP charcter, and amazing general by middle age.

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so basically he was never used to conquer a city ? all my generals have to enter cities in siege total war :\

boy do i wish bribeds generals retained their original bodyguards

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Originally Posted by moonburn

so basically he was never used to conquer a city ? all my generals have to enter cities in siege total war :\

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No I'm pretty sure he didn't. I'm a little sketchy on the exact details (was a while back). Things I do remember, was that I was Rome, he was only allowed mercenary armies, and that he mainly fought brigands, and Epirotes; but lots of them. He started out getting hermit like traits, then became some kind of great prophet/oracle. If anyone wants to try this, I'd suggest ONLY using a vigourous character. Probably helps if he's a little weird to start with too ;)

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Originally Posted by moonburn

so basically he was never used to conquer a city ? all my generals have to enter cities in siege total war :\

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There is no "city effect" at the turn your FM conquers the city and enters it.Only if he stays a whole turn inside he becomes affected.At least that is what happened in Vanilla.

Some effects, traits, and even ancillaries, iirc, are not tied to 100% movement points ( stayed in town for 1 full round ), but to 75% or smaller number.

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Originally Posted by The_Blacksmith

i just had 3 persians with normadic nature... because they were in a city douring the build of either "Settled Aristocracy" or "Warlords Herds" or "Settled Community"

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does noone want to answer this?

All my Parthian FM used to have "Lives on the move" trait at the start. After a while spent gouverning the town which i was developing to a settled community ( i think it may start with "Pastoralism" thing ), they all wanted to settle, except some really stubborn Dahae freaks, but...even those have changed their opinion after about 10 years gouverning a Persian city.