Valor and Morale

Hi guys, I was wondering if any one had posted this question before, but couldn't find it anywhere so I am starting a new thread.
Could someone explain to me how do you get valor in battle? Obviously if the unit just stood on the battle field, it wouldn't get any valor, but I use all my units and hardly any get valor. Sometimes the unit with most kill wouldn't get any valor, but another one with 4-5 kill would. My archers hardly ever get any valor. Also how do I get my general promoted? Once I had a general with 400 men defeating a 1200 army and losing hardly any man, I was expecting to get the Good defender virtue and a promotion, but got nothing.
Also does emissary valor maters? I've had a 5* emissary proposing alliance and the other king kept refusing for no particular reason (we weren't even with a common border). I try to get my assasin high in valor too, but the highest ever I've reached was 5* and he died trying to kill a princess (chances where like 90%). My spies seldom get 2* and they never reveal anything.
Any tips on how to better this part of my game. I really want to explore the other possibilities out there, since I have a bad computer and can't fight large battles and even the smallest ones have really bad graphics, so the enjoyment of battles is like licking a lolipop without removing the wrap?
Also how do I know what the morale of my troops is? I know were to look for the valor, but where is the morale shown? Thanks for your input

To get a valor in battle, a unit has to kill enough enemy soldiers, and not to lose too many of its own men. However, killing peasants wont give as much valor as killing eg. varangians. Archers of any type gain valor in the same way as any other unit, they just have to shoot down enough enemies (try to aim at those vulnerable to missiles for better results).

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]Also how do I get my general promoted? Once I had a general with 400 men defeating a 1200 army and losing hardly any man, I was expecting to get the Good defender virtue and a promotion, but got nothing.

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The reason why your general didnt get promoted might be that enemy army was rather weak one, compared to yours (in terms of units' value). In general, system of promotion of generals works fine to me. The fact that you dont always get promoted, is good I think. Itd be a way to easy to get your general promoted and gain virtues automatically after every such victory.

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]Also does emissary valor maters? I've had a 5* emissary proposing alliance and the other king kept refusing for no particular reason (we weren't even with a common border). I try to get my assasin high in valor too, but the highest ever I've reached was 5* and he died trying to kill a princess (chances where like 90%). My spies seldom get 2* and they never reveal anything.

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A 5* emissary is not for making alliances (which is a bit weird in this game), hes a guy you cant send to bribe almost any army, and you can be relatively sure he wont get killed too soon. There comes a time in game, when your offers of an alliance wont be accepted by anyone, and your emissaries can do nothing about it. I train high valor emissaries just to be able to bribe, without producing all those unbribable generals...
As for assassin valor, remember that even when the chances for eliminating target are 90%, there is still that 10% probability of failing, plus your assassin might simply get caught. Training assassins is a mass production, and my advice is dont be too much concerned about them getting caught or killed, just produce new ones.

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]Also how do I know what the morale of my troops is? I know were to look for the valor, but where is the morale shown? Thanks for your input

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When in battle press F1, a window with your army composition pops up, and you have there everything you need: valor, number of men, defense, attack, armor, morale...

Regards,
EC

Thank you

A unit gains valor by killing enemy soldiers. But it also depends on quality of the enemies killed. It will gain less experience if its killing routing enemies and if enemies are of lower valor than your unit.

The logfile for a battle (found in the folder Logfiles) shows how many kills made by each soldier in a unit. If the men that did most of the killing also died then the experience is lost. A unit's valor is an average of the all the soldiers valor.

You can sometimes see a unit with few men left having gained lots of valor. The survivors having all fought and killed many enemies. A 100 men unit that didnt take any losses but killed say 50 enemies wont have gained overall the same experience compared to a 40 men unit who also had 50 kills.

So you can have a unit that killed a lot but didnt get much valor because they either killed low quality enemies or that the survivors wasnt the ones that did the killing. The front rank of your unit will most likely have done most of the killing and they are of course also the ones risking to die first if your unit was unlucky and took a cavalry charge for example.


CBR

A hint about alliances, if you're at war with one of thier allies then it's close to impossible to get an alliance with that faction. They seem to value thier current alliances more compared to new ones.

Another hint: In Sword-units just the front-line is able to fight - thus to gain valor. The men behind them get normally just the opportunity to fight/gain valor if the men in the frontranks who fought and got valor die..

As usually the great majority of your man have 0 valor, the overall valour is very low, even if some of your frontline troops are battle-hardened high-valor vets.

So your unit resembles has a though front and a soft core

This is also the cause why level 4 valor swordsmen are soo good in MP; They are all elite and the frontline can easily become even more deadly as they easily kill http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...icons/wink.gif

Re: Assassins

Keep in mind that killing the enemy faction leader is the goal, but other worthwhile things can happen.

Even failed assassination attempts can give rulers the nervous vice, which impairs his health.

I assume that worsening a king's health shortens his lifespan. I wonder if it and reduces his chance of producing heirs?

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Maybe it's all in my head, but I've had considerably more luck with assassins when I stalk my target carefully rather than just auto-assigning them.

The common fire-and-forget method of attacking somebody is to drop a bunch of assassins on him and hope for he best.

I move my groups of assassins province-by-province until I have several in the same province as him, then attack.

Yes, it's very tedious, but you can't tell me the AI doesn't know when somebody's a target. He immediately starts moving.

In fact, one of the best uses for assassins for Catholic factions is to use them to great hostile inquisitors. They'll run.

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Doug-Thompson @ April 02 2004,10:21)]In fact, one of the best uses for assassins for Catholic factions is to use them to great hostile inquisitors. They'll run.

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Another question I have. How do you use Inquisitors? Someone said don't leave then in your provinces. I never do. When an Inquisition starts it kills a lot of people. I thought that should have some effect on that province, but to my oppinion there is none.

If you drop an inquisitor onto a general, prince or king belonging to any catholic faction (including your own), the inquisitor will try him for heresy. If he is found guilty, he is executed. The probability of a guilty verdict depends on the valor of the inquisitor and the piety rating of the general. If the general is found innocent, he will become either more devout or an athiest, which makes him more vunerable for a second attempt. Unlike assassins, an inqusitor will not die if he fails in his attempt.

Inquisitors are most useful for killing high command/low piety catholic generals, who tend to be hard to assassinate.

The presence of an inquisitor in a province increases zeal, however if he has nothing to do, he may become bored and start burning the population which reduces zeal. So if you want to increase zeal in your province, keep your inquisitor busy trying unit leaders for heresy.

As far as I can tell, the only effect the health of a king has on him is that it makes him more likely to get killed in battle.