Governor and general guides: 'Kob Tsu's The Art of War' and Kobavelli's 'The Prince'

Hello again. You've all been expecting it, here it is at last : the follow up to the acclaimed Kobavelli's The Prince guide (well, I acclaimed it, at least), ladies and gentlemen I give you... yet another foot long thread. Hurray :2thumbsup:.



A] Who to train ? a.k.a. Hi kids ! Do you like violence ?


In the first guide, I wrote "fighters are a dime a dozen, keep the new kids for governing". This is, on the whole, true - because truth be told, you don't really *need* that good generals in order to beat the average AI on the field. But of course, it's much more gratifying to do so with the ultimate fighter than with Captain Anonymous. And building up the bestest of the best is a challenge in and of itself.
With that in mind, I'll repeat myself and state that if you're going to subject one of your generals to the gruelling training process I'm about to explain, you'll probably want a 16yr old general just the same. After all, the younger he is when you start training him, the longer he'll fight for you once fully develloped.

That said, some kids are better than others at that shouting orders business. Here are the traits that you should look for in your future conquerors : Born Conqueror (duh !), Disciplinarian (at birth it's usually at level 2, "Drillmaster"), Sobriety, Energetic ("Eager" at birth), Stoic ("Reserved" at birth), Upright ("Honest"), either Loyal Beyond Question or Actively Disloyal (depending on wether you intend to follow the Chivalry or the Dread route), any hatred of another faction (though I'm told these traits are broken), Ugly (usually "Plain" at birth, but can start all the way up to "Cruelly Deformed" depending on your family's genetics), Pragmatic ("Mostly Rational"), HaleAndHearty ("Healthy"), Intelligent ("Smart"), either Winning First or Fair Fighter (again, depending which route you're planning for him), Gregarious ("Sociable"), Anger ("Easily Riled") ; the bold ones being especially good.



B] Chivalry or Dread ? a.k.a. Stupity or Smartitude


The first thing to understand is that Chivalry and Dread are two extremes on the same scale, meaning that a character's final chivalry/dread value is equal to the sum of his chivalrous traits minus the sum of his dreadfull traits. In fact, Dread doesn't really exist in the game : it's just negative Chivalry.

Both have their good points, and downsides. As a rule, Dreadfull characters inspire fear in their enemies (making them easier to rout), and chivalrous types inspire courage in their men (making them fight to the bitter end if need be). Obviously, Dread seems better, since a routed enemy will not make you have to fight to the bitter end, but chivalry has its point, especially if you're taking on factions that are richer than you are, and thus can expect to be outnumbered, or if you're facing another chivalrous type whose troops will be less susceptible to Dread.

Generally, it's easier to gain Dread on the battlefield, but in the long run it'll also mean you'll have to exterminate a city or two, which is bad for your world cred', and bad for your economy. On the other hand, unless your general started with it, Chivalry is bloody hard to get in battle, but fairly easy to gain on the strat map, with no downsides.

There is however a slight downside to Chivalrous types : they hate serving a Dreadfull king, and will lose loyalty over time. Dreadful characters don't care one bit who they're butchering for.

Lastly, following the middle road (neither chiv, nor dread) has absolutely no benefit, so make up your mind double quick.



B.1] Chivalry, a.k.a. Prithee, fire first noble enemy !


There are three ways to up your general's chivalry : on the battlefield, by governing, and miscellaneously (is that even a word ?).

BattleChivalry is the battlefield side of the picture. 5 levels, thresholds 1/3/6/10/15. As said earlier, it's a difficult trait to get, but once you've got at least one point in it, it's all gravy as all BattleDread triggers check for it first. The most used trigger is "fighting in a battle and killing 8 or more enemies". The catch is that this trigger can also give BattleDread, and in fact, because CA coders can't do probabilities worth a damn, it's way easier to get Dreadfull this way. That said, if you do wind up with BattleDread instead of the wanted BattleChiv, you can wipe your general's slate clean by having him attack a stack, deploy, and then withdraw before blood has been shed. The catch is that it'll also make you a Coward if you're not already Brave.
Other ways to gain BattleChiv include : attacking muslims (if you're catholic or orthodox) and catholics (if you're muslim), but if you do so, remember not to let your general fight in that particular battle, lest he get BattleDread first ; winning a defensive battle with odds <0.8, winning AND fighting in a defensive battle with odds <0.5 (this trigger stacks with the previous one), and winning any battle with odds <0.95 by killing/capturing less than 20% of the enemy force (nope, I don't see how that's possible either).
Note that you can lose points in BattleChiv if your army is routed or beaten and the general has not fought.

CaptorChivalry and RansomChivalry are the other way to gain Chivalry through battle. Both have 4 levels, thresholds 1/2/3/4. You gain points in CaptorChivalry when you release 80+ prisonners in one go. You gain points in RansomChivalry when you pay a ransom for your own men that is >1000 florins (and there are more than 80 men of yours included in that ransom, but that should be the case).

StrategyChivalry is the easiest path to Chivalry on the stratmap. 5 levels, thresholds 1/2/4/8/16. You can get points in it by building churches, building tourney fields, resisting a bribery attempt, spending some time in cities with low taxes and high happiness (must stay at least 4 turns, 25% each turn for 1 point), spending some time in cities with low taxes and high happiness AND treasury in the red (same thing, but 33% chance), occupying a captured settlement (as opposed to sacking or exterminating it), and lastly by joining a crusade.
Be careful though : unlike BattleChivalry, you can lose points in StratChiv fairly easily if you start doing stuff that gives StrategyDread. See the part about it to know what to avoid. Also, you'll lose one point in StrategyChivalry each turn if your treasury gets over 50k florins.

Other stratmap gained traits which give some Chivalry are : Spy and AssassinCatcher (fairly self-explanatory traits), Just (which self-propagates, and is gained by building the town_hall line of buildings if you already have at least 1 point in StratChivalry), LenientJustice (20% chance to gain 1 point by occupying a settlement), KindRuler (4% chance to get every turn if you already have the Trusting trait), TourneyKnight (100% chance for 1 point if you build a jousting list, 10% chance for 1 points each turn you stay in a castle that has one), and finally CrusaderHistory/Jihadhistory (again, fairly self-explanatory).

Also, note that Chivalry is "genetic" in a way : a general with 4+ chivalry will bear sons with +1 chivalry, a general with 7+ will have sons with +2 chivalry. Honour runs in the family.



B.2] Dread, a.k.a. festooning the trees with their corpses is the true spirit of Christmas.


As can be expected, Dread is the mirror image of Chivalry, it's evil twin, and as such most of the Dread traits are the exact opposite of the Chivalrous ones.

BattleDread can be gained in three ways : the first is by fighting in battle and killing more than 8 enemies. Yup, same as BattleChiv, but easier. The other triggers are : winning a battle in which the odds were >1.5 in your favor and you were the attacker, or killing/capturing more than 70% of the enemy in a battle with odds <0.95. As with BattleChiv, you can lose points in it if you're routed or withdraw without your general fighting. You can also lose 1 point if you win a battle without killing at least 20% of the enemy.

CaptorDread and RansomDread are, as expected, the opposite of the equivalent Chiv traits : you gain CaptorDread for killing more than 80+ prisonners in one go, and RansomDread if you refuse to pay a ransom <5000 florins for your own men taken prisonner by the enemy.

But Dreadful lads have more ways to gain Dread on the battlefield than their chivalrous brethren, through :

Berserker : 3 levels, 1/3/8 thresholds, gained by killing more than 10 enemies and losing more than 1/3rd of the general's total hitpoints, but lost should the general not fight in a given battle,

and

Bloodthirsty : 3 levels, thresholds 1/2/3, 10% chance for killing more than 8 enemies in one battle, 10% for exterminating a city


StrategyDread is gained in a variety of ways : first, your faction leader will gain lots of it if you're using assassins. A governor will also get some by training spies and assassins in his city. You get 1 point for exterminating the population of a captured city. Lastly, a governor who sets taxes to Very High for 4+ turns, while the treasury is >10.000 florins and the region happiness is not in the green will get points in it.

Other traits that give Dread include : Feck (5% chance for not moving outside a city, bonus for Scotland births), high levels of the Girls trait (mostly gained by staying in a town with Brothel line or having a gay dad, but careful with those brothels because they also give Drink, which is mondo bad for a general), Unjust (6% chance to gain each turn if sitting in a town without the town_hall line, 20% for razing a building while the treasury is above 10.000 florins, self-propagates), the last level of the Harsh_Justice trait (need 7 points, gained by building Town_Halls while already having at least 1 point in StrategyDread, also 20% chance to gain 1 point for exterminating a conquered city), HarshRuler (8% chance to get if taxes set to VH, spent 4+ turns there, happiness is less than green and treasury is over 10k), Anger (can only get at birth, bonus for Hungary and Spain), Genocide (exterminating cities) and Pope'sEnforcer (mission-given, gained when the pope asks you to assassinate a cardinal).

Finally, like Chivalry, Dread runs in the family, with 1 points to offsprings for 4+ Dread, and 2 points for 7+.



C] Command Stars a.k.a. Let's start with the basics


In earlier TotalWar games, a general's command stars meant a LOT on the battlefield. Each one gave all the units present a bonus to morale, but also (and most importantly), for each 2 stars the general had, all units in the field gained 1 point in both attack and defense. That's pretty huge. And that made a 10 star general pretty much unbeatable without your own 10 star one.
In M2TW, units do not become more efficient when their general is good (as far as I'm aware, in any case), but they do get a good morale bonus, which stacks with the effects of Chivalry. High stars may also have a fear effect akin to Dread.
But whatever they really do, you want them, you want them all.

As a side note, once your general reaches 5 stars (or wins a night battle), he'll get the Night Battle Capable trait, which allows him to fight night attacks.

The easiest way to get stars is to be born with them. Any general can start with up to 4 stars through the NaturalGeneral trait.
The second easy way is to be either the King, or his Heir, as both get one free star. It's good to be the king :yes:.

Winning battles is the next obvious step.

GoodCommander has 5 levels with 1/2/4/8/16 thresholds, and you'll get 1 point in it for any and every battle you win with odds <2.25

Then you've got
GoodAttacker, which gives stars only when you attack, and which has 4 levels (2/4/6/8). 2 points for a Heroic Victory during an offensive battle with odds between 0.5 and 1.5, 1 point for a Clear Victory.
Same goes for GoodDefender, only it gives stars in defense obviously, and GoodSiegeAttacker/Defender

While we're on the subject of sieges, you'll get points in GoodEngineer if, while you're sieging a settlement, you build more than 3 siege engines (that is : rams/towers/ladders). Conversely, you'll get BadEngineer if you don't build more than 2 and just wait for the town to surrender/sally.

You also have 10% chance to get 1 point in TacticalSkill for each Heroic Victory you get (either defensive or offensive, but always within 0.5/1.5 odds), which gives command bonuses when ambushing


Then there are the army-specific bonuses, GoodInfantryCommander and GoodCavalryCommander, which both work along the same pattern : if you win a Heroic Victory with more than 80% infantry (or 50% cavalry) in your army, you'll get 1 point in it. Those traits give command stars when commanding an army with either 80%+ infantry or 50%+ cavalry
The traits GoodGunpowderCommander and GoodArtilleryCommander exist, but they aren't triggered for some reason.
Note that you can also get points in CavalryCommand by being a TourneyKnight or HorseRacer (which are triggered by building and then staying in settlements with jousting lists or race tracks (but not bull rings, in case you wondered))

Lastly, we have GoodRiskyAttacker and GoodRiskyDefender, both having 3 levels (2/4/6). You gain 1 point for winning a Clear Victory or better with odds between 0.16 and 0.5, and 2 points for a heroic victory with odds <0.16. I wouldn't try to get those willingly, as they're obviously hazardous to your general's health :sweatdrop:.


On to the trainable stuff :

StrategicSkill has 3 levels (1/3/5) and you gain points in it by : winning a defensive heroic victory with odds <0.16 (25%) or sitting in a castle that has either a drill square or better (4%. The city trigger is bugged and should read drill square as well, but is set to "library" or better, and since library is a castle only building, it can't work)

Sitting in town with a military academy will give you 10% chance each turn to get AcademyTrained(2 levels, 1/2) and 5% chance for TacticalSkill, which helps for ambushes.

Intelligent can give up to 3 stars, and can be gained either by sitting in a town that has academias, buy building said academic buildings, or by being born in a faction that has built some academic buildings.

The first level of Drinkgives 1 star, but I wouldn't recommand that, as the higher levels can remove up to 5 stars, and it goes up by itself.

Feck gives Command and Dread, and you get it by sitting on your bottom outside of town. It goes up by itself once you have it, and it also provides funny speeches.

Disciplinarian gives 1 star at its last level (4 points in it), but the only way to get points in it is to govern a rioting (10%) or revolting (15%) settlement, so I reckon it's not really a worthwhile use of your time, unless you're keeping one town for the specific purpose of letting it revolt all the time so that you can put down the rebellions (training your general both in this trait and any applicable battle-earned trait, and upping your troops' valor. It's a bit on the exploit side though.).

Bloodthirsty also gives command, see Dread section.

Berserker gives a bonus to attack, but a malus to defense, see Dread section


Lastly, the birth stuff :

Sobriety gives Command, but you will only get it if daddy's a drunk, or by marrying/having children

all levels of Ugly save the first and last give 1 command star, and it's very likely an ugly father will give birth to an ugly son.

Anger gives command in its early stages and self-updates, Hungarians and Spaniards have more chances to get it.


Finaly, traits to avoid like the plague are :

BadCommander/BadAttacker/BadDefender/BadRisky/BadSiege, which you obviously get by losing battles

Drink, which you get mostly by sitting in town with a brothel or worse

Arse, which you can get mostly by sitting in boats, having a funny dad or having a new adopted brother

Most witch hexes will give big maluses to command, so stay away from them. And ducks, to be on the safe side.



D] Movement, a.k.a. Ah yes, mere infantry... poor beggars.


A killer general is good. A killer general who can forcemarch his army through half the map in one turn is better. In fact, I'd say that movement bonuses are the very first thing one should strive to give one's generals, simply because it makes them that much better from a strategical point of view. And when the strategy is in the bag, the tactics follow. So let's see what we can do :

First of all, we've got the aforementionned Disciplinarian trait. It's quite hard to train, so be sure to look for it in potential husbands, adoptees, men of the hour and sons.

Energetic is another birth trait to look for, but this one cannot be trained in the field. It does self-update as long as you spend all your movement points though, and as a mental trait can be passed down to offsprings (but it can also turn into Laziness in the son. Thankfully, the reverse is also true, in that a Lazy father can give birth to an Energetic son).

LogisticalSkill is another good one. You've got 5% chance to get it every turn you end without any remaining movement points. It also wards your general against Ignorance (but by the same token, an Ignorant general won't get it)

Finally, and that's probably the best chance you have, the Muslims are advantaged in this department, because their RaceTracks have 10% chance each turn to give generals the Horse Racer trait, which is 5 to 10% bonus to MPs.



E] Personnal Security, a.k.a. It's not paranoia when they're really out to get you


Another easy-to-overlook stat, Security helps shield your generals against assassinations. Nothing sucks more than losing your best prodigy to one of those cowardly bastards and their snakes.

Obviously, the best trait for that are AssassinCatcher and CounterSpy, but the drawback in this strategy is quite obvious :sweatdrop:. Same goes for HighPersonnalSecurity and Paranoia, both of which are triggered by assassination attemps. That, plus paranoia can spiral down into unadulterated Insanity, which is Bad(tm).

SpyMaster and MasterOfAssassins help also, but can only be gained by the faction leader.

Sobriety gives points towards Security, as well as command, and wards your general against Drink so it's a very good trait to have, but sadly it can't be trained and your best bet is to have a drunkard dad.

Finally, there's something to be said about Xenophilia. By itself, it's a bad trait that you can get either at birth or by sitting in a town that has a port or better. The good thing is that xenophiliac daddies have a 1/10 chance to have xenophobic sons, which is good. Also, they can have tolerant princesses, who'll have more charm as a result. So keep an eye out for this trait and hope you'll get racist sons.

All in all, the best thing to do until you get any of those is still to keep a spy attached to your general at all times - the bonus LoS is always good, plus he'll open gates when need be.



F] HitPoints, a.k.a. It's just a flesh wound !


We've seen earlier that many good general traits require him to take an active part in battles. This is obviously dangerous, and a crossbow bolt right in the head is always an option. Therefore, pumping up your general hit points is a Good Thing, and it can lead to a rebirth of the Jedi Generals of old. There are only 3 traits which ups those, and 1 which detracts from them.

The good ones are :
Berserker (which has already been explained)
HaleAndHearty : kind of hard to get. You can have it at birth (with a bonus for Scotland, Denmark, Sicily, Hungary and Byzantium, with 5% and 10% more chance if your faction has a public bath or an aqueduct, respectively), and you have a low chance to get it (2%) for sitting around out of cities, 3% chance if you stay in a city that has a bimaristan, 3% for public baths. As you can see, Byzantium is very much in the lead for this trait.
BattleScarred is the last one (because yes, oddly enough, the more generals get beaten up, the healthier they are), and you'll get it if your general loses more than 30% of his HPs during a battle. And that's hard to judge, obviously - when you see his bodyguards dying in droves, you have a natural tendency to have them run the heck away.

The bad one is Hypocondriac, and thankfully you can only get it at birth (3%) so it should be very rare. It's self-propagating and really cripples your generals though, so if you wind up with one, gently push him towards accounting and watchtower-laying :sweatdrop:.



G] TroopMorale, a.k.a. They may tak' our liiiiiives...


The last factor we'll consider, there's a *slew* of traits that affect it positively or negatively. I won't list them all for 2 reasons : the first is that, well, there's a slew of them, the second is that between command stars and chivalry, your troops shouldn't have much trouble in this department except in the most dire of circumstances. Even the proximity of a mere captain can lead militias to fight to the death. The only time you'd have to worry about getting positive traits there is when an otherwise good general finds himself stranded with a couple bad ones.

In which case you'll mostly be looking for :
Brave : 20% chance if your general loses more than 1/3 of his hitpoints in battle, 60% if he lost more than half AND killed at least 6 enemies
Berserker : see above. It's a really good trait :yes:
LogisticSkill : see above
RansomChivalry : see above
Gregarious : 3% chance to get for sitting outside of cities, self-propagates.



H] Loyalty, a.k.a. Come over to the Dark Side !


This stat is much less important that it might look. First of all, it's easy to give any general an instant +3 boost to loyalty by marrying them to one of your princesses. Secondly, no general will ever revolt who is in a city or a fort. Thirdly, it's easy to make generals "feel appreciated" should you need to.

Which is why you shouldn't overlook characters offered for adoption even if they are actively disloyal, in fact it gives them a serious boost to dread from the get go.

Generals will otherwise get points in "ContentGeneral" for winning battles with odds >= 1.5 (which is good for the actively disloyal guys - they're dreadfull, so they're gonna be fighting lopsided battles anyway), for spending time in either Fortresses (or Citadels) and/or cities with Large or Huge Stone Walls, and for serving a Chivalrous (>3) king if they themselves are chivalrous (>3 again). On the other hand, they'll get discontent if you have them sit in crummy cities or send them on battles they're likely to lose, or if the king is evil and they're chivalrous. But that doesn't matter anyway, because as long as they're in a city, they'll never revolt.
The only time you need to worry about a general's loyalty is when he's planning to lay a long siege and your king doesn't have much Authority, or if enemy diplomats are roving around. Otherwise, keep your potentially roguish elements penned in camps at all times and you'll be fine. 500 florins a turn is nothing in return for a superdreadfull general. Plus, I have a soft spot for lads who naturally resent all forms of authority :sweatdrop:.



I] Ancillaries, a.k.a. the cherry on top


Again, I will only list the most interesting ones here, as there really are a LOT of them, and that's even without counting the unique ones.

For Dread :

One of the best ancillaries is the torturer (+3 Dread, +1 Authority, +2 Security, +3 Law, +1 Unrest), 8% chance to get him for each settlement exterminated


For Command :

For chivalrous types, the order knights you get from taking a crusade target are very nice (+1 chiv, +1 command, automatic). The muslim get the same with a chivalrous knight for successfull Jihad warriors (chivalry 2, command 1)

Dreadfull characters can get the Berserker Knight (+1 command, +1 morale) for winning a battle with odds between 0.5 and 1.5 if the general has fought (15%), and the dread knight (+1 command, +2 Dread for winning a battle with odds <1.2 and killing more than 66% of the enemy force (25%)

Both types have 50% chance to get a Veteran Warrior (+1 Security, +1 command) for winning a battle with 5 or more kills to their name, and 50% HP lost.

Byzantium, Eastern European and Mediterranean factions have 10% chance to gain a runner (+1 command) for each battle heroically won during which the general has not fought.



For Movement :

An assassin trained in a city or castle with stables/racetrack will get the Black Stallion, which is transferable to anyone for 25% bonus to movement.

For the Moors, Merchants have 50% chance to be created with a caravan driver (+25% move) which is also transferable if the faction has a caravan stop built.

All characters have 5% chance to get an intrepid_explorer (+15% move) for each turn they spend in a town with an explorer's guild or better

Generals with 3 stars or more have 20% chance to get a quartermaster (+15% move, +5% loot) for each turn they spend in a settlement with an army barracks or better, northern europeans excepted.



For HP :

A great item is the custom armor, which can be gained quite easily : 75% chance for building an armourer or better, 15% chance each turn spent in a city with armourer, 30% chance for castle armourer (but must have 4 command stars or better). The trigger is bugged, as it ought to be "armourer or better", instead of merely armourer. So either fix the trigger yourself, or keep one city/castle with only an armourer.


And there you go. With that knowledge, you should now be able to raise the most powerfull generals since Alexander the Great ! Happy crushing of your enemies !

ADDENDUM
J] Size matters a.k.a. No Jimmy, it's not how you use it. It's really not.

I forgot an important aspect of generals in the guide, and that aspect is the number of bodyguards that come with them. The thing is, I'm really not sure what affects this. It seems that being the King or the Heir always implies having more general retinue, so maybe it's a factor of Personal Security ? In Rome it used to be based on Authority, so that might be worth consideration as well... Frankly, I have no idea. I'll edit this part of the guide should new data come in (read : if someone bonks me on the head with a clue-by-four)

Kobavelli's The Prince : a guide to breeding the perfect statesman

The question pops up fairly often on all TW boards : "how do I make more cash FFS ?!". Us grizzled veterans almost always answer "well, build roads, ports, farms, mines, and send merchants to Timbuktu". But there is another, or rather, an additionnal way to make teh $$$ : governors. Good, honest governors. They alone can almost double your cities' income, if well trained, fed and groomed.

We all know that dumping a governor inside a settlement boosts its income somehow. Some are better than others at this game, and with so many traits and factors to take into account, it's not always easy to find out who to use where. Some use the empirical method : get him out of his city, then back in, and check the difference, and most of us don't know, or don't really care, what makes a general better at governing a given city, nor how to make him even better.

Because yes, just as base iron becomes sword or ploughshare, verily I tell thee, there's a way to train and breed the perfect statesman.

EDIT : there's obviously also a way to train and breed the meanest, most savage fighting machine this side of the Terminator. And you can find how in this thread

But first things first, some basic considerations :



A] Who to train ?, a.k.a. Suffer little children to come unto me.

Don't use the few starting generals you're saddled with at the beginning of a campaign for this, no matter how good they might be. Use those only to boost your early income, but do not train them actively.

Considering the time needed to train them, the costs involved and the simple fact that you'll want to profit from their skills to the fullest in their appointed region, you will want a 16 year old boy for your budding governor, and nothing else. Untill your faction has a few of these young bucks, don't build anything except military buildings and armorers. No churches, no farms, no roads, no mines, no town halls and for the love of god no priests nor merchants. Get your early cash through missions, selling trade rights/alliances and sacking.
Yes, that means a slow start. Consider it a good thing : the AI will be that more challenging :beam: .

Also, generals who are born with interesting traits should definitely be set aside for training.
Fighters are a dime a dozen, but good governors are rare. Traits to look for are : Smart/Intelligent, Good Trader, Servant of Heaven, Energetic, Mathematician, Rabblerouser, Austere, Sober, Honest, Miserly, Rational, Cheapskate, Stoic and Prim, the bolded ones being especially good.

If you are lucky enough to get a princess with the "Intelligent" trait, be sure to flog her to a governor as well, as it will give him the Wife is Wise trait which is a great boost. Otherwise, read Durallan's guide to pruning your family tree, he's written a very good article on the use and care of princesses.



B] Chivalry or Dread ?, a.k.a. Killing them with kindness

All other things being equal, it doesn't really matter wether your governors are saints or bastards. Chivalrous governors usually get traits giving them more population loyalty, but Dreafull ones often get bonuses to law, and with militia slots public order isn't usually a problem, except in regions far away from your capital or with religious issues.
That being said, piety is important for governors, and chivalrous traits often give piety as well and vice versa. Meaning chivalry is probably the way to go except for Muslim factions and Byzantium (see ancillary section to get why)



C] Where to govern ?, a.k.a. The right tool for the job

Hammers are for nails, screwdrivers for screws. To get the very best out of a given governor, and considering that you'll be hard pressed to train them to be good at every single aspect of getting you more dough, you need to know your provinces, in both their good and their bad points, and to specialize their governors accordingly.

A province's income comes from four things :
- Taxes. That's only related to population, and not an important factor in the decision, as it's easy to get generals good at taxing, and population sorts itself out in time.

- Trade. While every town and castle generates a modicum of trade through imports and exports both by sea and land, some provinces are clearly at an advantage in this field. Provinces with a coast, provinces bordering another faction, provinces with multiple ressources, provinces with rare and expensive ressources, all of these factors make a good trade region. Considering how hard and expensive to get are good tradesmen, you need to identify the very best trade regions in your empire. Antioch, Vienna, Venice, Naples, Constantinople and Cairo are good examples. The New World too, obviously.
Note that you can make these regions even more profitable by building a Merchant or Explorer's Guild there as well.

- Mining. As of 1.2, quite a lot of provinces have now access to mines, but only a few of them are really worth it. It's somewhat easy to get a good mining governor, but the cost is steep, and you'll only want one if the mining ressources are worth it in the long run. Vienna, Timbuktu, Zagreb, Stockholm are good examples of mining cash cows.

- Farming. Easily overlooked, and harder to train than mining or taxing, some provinces can make twice more money through farming than through taxes. Plus of course developping farms means getting more taxable peons, a win-win situation. Good farming regions are those which have a high base_farming value in the descr_regions.txt file. The good farming regions are : Cairo, Paris, Cholula, Tenochtitlan, Budapest, Constantinople, Milan, Venice, Marseilles, Naples, Baghdad, Antioch, Nicosia and Alexandria ; and while building farms is always a good investment in and of itself, you'll want governors good at farming in those specific places. Incidentally, those regions will also grow faster, hence yielding you that more in taxes.

Also note that while early on you can pretty much build every building available and are only hindered by population (i.e. wall) levels, as your cities grow and buildings become more expensive and take longer to build you will definitely have to specialize them. Guilds only compound the issue. So identify your key cash provinces, those with good growth, good farms, good trade or good mines, build cash buildings and academias there and have them governed by pros at all times. The rest can be devoted to spying, improved militia training, armories, military academies, priest training, assassination, fleet building, canons and siege engines or whatever, and governed by lesser governors, i.e. ones who only need Good Taxman and are not utter loons.


D]What to train ?, a.k.a. Eugenics 101

The first and most obvious (and easy) thing to look for is piety. In M2TW, piety is the equivalent of the Acumen stat from RTW, each additionnal Piety "halo" giving a bonus to the city's global income.

Then there are specific, learned traits boosting each aspect of a province income, that is Taxes, Farms, Mines and Trade, each by 10 to 30%
Academic skills can be learned that also boost Taxes and Trade, but not mining nor farming

Some genetic/family traits which can not be learned in any obvious or safe way give slight boosts

Finally, you'll want traits which counteract or stave off the umpteen bad traits that can turn a brilliant administrator into a drunken gambling wretch with expensive tastes, and which more often than not come from the same sources which make you truely wealthy.



E]How to train ?, a.k.a. Finally, he's getting to the frickin' point.

The meat and potatoes of this thread, let's review the traits and attributes that make a good governor, and how to get them.

Note that throughout the text, when I say "build something" it means the general has to be in town on the LAST TURN of the building process. That is to say if you want your general to profit from the building of a small farm which takes 2 turns to build you can put it in the queue without the governor being in town, then bring him next turn. This is an important mechanism, as you can optimize a governor's training process by having him cycle between 2-3 close towns and synchronize building completions so that he can hop in, get credit, then ride off to the next town etc... Especially important later in the campaign when buildings take longer to get built.



E.1] Piety, a.k.a. "We'll need priests. Lots of them."

Piety is fairly easy to come by. First of all, any and all generals start with 3/10 piety barring any bad trait like Superstitious, Feck or Public Atheism, and there are five main ways you can get more : crusading, ReligiousActivity, PublicFaith, ForcedReligious and TouchedByTheGods.

Crusading is fairly straightforward : answer the call, ship off to whatever den of cursed heretics has earned the wrath of the man in the funny hat and hopefully conquer it will get you the Grand Crusader trait, for a whopping 3 Piety and assorted Chivalry. Muslim factions have an equivalent trait for successful Jihad leaders.

PublicFaith has 4 levels, each giving one point in Piety. It can be gained by sitting around in a town that has a religious building (15% chance for 1 point every turn), by having a father with the trait (20% for 1 point) , by being born with a cathedral or better (or jama or better) anywhere in your empire, and lastly simply by being born (4% flat, with increased chances if you're playing as HRE, Spain, Milan or Poland, and always one point for all Muslims). This cannot really be trained, you'll have to rely on that 15% chance each turn. Expect 2 or 3 points from that over a governor's lifespan.

ReligiousActivity also has 4 levels, and is gained through building all kinds of churches as well as training priests, one point for each. Note that you'll also get chivalry by building churches. The max level is reached with 12 points, meaning you can get there by building 4 small chapels, training the 4 priests, then upgrading all 4 to small church. You can also build a small chapel, destroy it then rebuild it on next turn but beware if you're playing a catholic faction, as the pope is not too keen on destroyed churches.

ForcedReligious you get by getting tried for heresy and surviving. A general can also get it randomly by surviving a disaster, and a bug in the game somehow makes generals check that trigger each and every turn, albeit it's a very low chance (5% of 4% IIRC). Sadly, the same trigger can also make them Superstitious, which is bad, and can pass down to their offsprings, which is why you want the Rational trait. All in all, this trait cannot really be trained, but welcome the sight of an inquisitor in your region : in 1.2 they very, very rarely succeed their trials, so if one gets close to your governor, you can gamble on it and evict every other possible target for the inqui and hope for the best.

Lastly, you can only get TouchedByTheGods at birth, but not only is it a very good trait (giving +2 to +4 Piety), it's also self propagating, meaning it gets better all by itself over time. The bad news is that having it means you can get neither Rational nor Sane, and you could very well wind up with a Superstitious or even mad governor.

EDIT : pete101 has found out that the King's piety influences the income of EVERY city/castle you own. Send him on a crusade already !


E.2] Taxes, a.k.a. The second certain thing in life.

At least early in the campaign, this is the main way by which you get cash. It is also the skill that all governors should try and devellop no matter which province you want them to eventually rule. Thankfully, it is also very easy to get the main trait which helps with them, GoodTaxman. Other good traits are Austere, Intelligent and MathematicSkill, Cheapskate and Miselry, while Sobriety, Prim, Austere and Upright will ward your governor against negative tax traits like gambling, drinking, embezzling, expensive tastes etc... Let's see what we can do about that.

You have 75% chances to get one point in Good Taxman every time you complete a building in a settlement that also has taxes set to Very High and disillusioned loyalty (the little blue face), and you only need three points in it to get to the last level which gives 30% bonus to taxes. It's a huge bonus. Get it ASAP by sending the militia out when you complete something and keeping a modicum of religious unrest in your regions.

If the governor has a Wise wife, that's 5 to 15% bonus to taxes as well.

Intelligence and MathematicSkill are very hard to come by early in the campaign as you'll have to rely on pure luck at birth (with a bonus there if you're Danish or Muslim), but can be gotten easily by having academic buildings later on. Not only do they increase a general's chances of being intelligent at birth, but staying in a settlement that has them has good chances of giving them both traits, as do completing the buildings themselves. They also give good ancillaries, so make sure your would-be governors spend a few turns in an academic town or castle if they have no better stuff to do.

The bad news is that unless your empire reaches a population level that allows you to build City Halls or academias, all your generals will have a chance to become Ignorant each and every turn - but a Cruelly Exacting Taxman who's also Blissfully Ignorant still provides a 20% tax bonus, so it's not too bad.

Prim and Upright both come mainly from staying in a town or castle that has a religious building in it, and since you're already doing that to get more Piety, your governors shouldn't become corrupt arsemonkeys too easily, though you'll also need Austere and Sobriety to be totally safe from the worst of traits.

Tough luck on Austere: you can only get it at birth, from the father, or by sitting in enemy lands. Your governor has better things to do with his time, which is why I marked it down as a trait to watch for earlier.

Sobriety is so-so : you'll likely have it if your father is a drunkard, but the only other way save being born with it is to get married of have children while already having a drinking problem. But since Drink is probably the easiest bad trait you can wind up with, and one of the worst with Gambling and ExpensiveTastes, count yourself very lucky if you get a Sober, Austere general at birth. You might even consider training and adopted or married general if he's not too old and he comes with theses traits.



E.3] Mining, a.k.a. Things that go *clink* in the night

This one will be short, as there's only one trait which gives a bonus to it (GoodMiner), and no trait whatsoever that comes with a negative.

GoodMiner has three levels, and you'll need 5 points in it to reach the third level. You get 1 point every time you complete either a basic mine or a mining complex. That's it, it's that simple.
Obviously, there are two ways to get the points : travel around like a door-to-door mine salesman, or building a mine, destroying it, and re-building it.

The first solution has no downside : your general will get his points, and all mines more than buy themselves in the long run, no matter how meagre their income might be.

For the second solution you have to compute wether a governor with 30% bonus on a given mine will offset the cost of building/destroying a basic mine during his lifetime.
A basic mine costs 2000 florins. IIRC, destroying a building gives you back 1/3 its building cost, 650ish florins in this case. You'll need to build 3 basic mines, destroy them, then build one more and finally the mining complex.

Easy math : Good Miner costs 4*2000 + 3500 - 3*650 = 9500ish florins.

A governor getting Good Miner at age 20 and dying at 60 will give you 80 turns' worth of that 30% mining bonus. Say you park him in Vienna, the mining complex of which yields a bit more than 1100 florins per turn. 30% of that is 330 florins. 330*80 = 26.400 florins. Definitely worth it.
The same Good Miner governing an average mining province (350 for a mining complex) gives us 110 florins per turn, or 8800 florins. Not worth it, better to just let him get the basic 10% bonus he'll get for building the mine complex.

Please feel free to redo my math if I'm wrong about the 1/3 refund thing.

! IMPORTANT EDIT !
All of this is completely correct, and a testimony to my intellectual brilliance, except for one thing I forgot to check : you can't destroy mines once you've built them.
And considering how relatively rare they are, and they only have 2 levels (compared to farms, which have 4) makes this trait at least on par with GoodFarmer on the difficulty scale, and once again once your first generation keels over, it will be extra hard to train another.

Which leaves us with only two options : the door-to-door pick salesman thing, or modding mines to be destroyable somehow (I just checked the export_buildlings.txt file, and there's no toggle for it there, so I'm stumped for now).


E.4] Farming, a.k.a. The fat of the land

Another easy one, but a bitch to train. Only one trait helps with this (GoodFarmer), and you'll need 12 points in it to reach the last level. You get 2 points for building any farm level, plus whatever points you're born with (Egypt has a bonus to GoodFarmer at birth). So build any 6 farms and you're set.

The trick is that unlike churches, mines or ports, you cannot destroy farms by any means whatsoever, and as farm levels go by each level gets increasingly longer and more expensive to build.
Thankfully the AI doesn't seem to invest much in farms, so conquest can be a way to get more farmland to improve, although obviously not always in convenient regions that are close to your governor's final target.

All of that means that while it's a very easy trait to come by early on when you only have to build slash-and-burn then communal in three cities, when your first generation of GoodFarmers die off, you'll have a tough time breeding another. So make sure you build only what farms you REALLY NEED, and make sure there's a strapping young lad in town when you do.

As a sidenote, sitting in a town that has farms+3 or farms+4 has a good chance of giving the Overseer ancillary, which also helps with farming and mining.



E.5] Commerce, a.k.a. Outright Theft

That's one's the real pain. The main trait, Good Trader, has insane thresholds. GoodAdministrator is very chancy. The other good trait (Epicurean) comes from buildings which also give you a slew of bad ones.
Then again Trade is probably the cheesiest path to wealth, it gets so huge.

Let's deal with the bad traits first, since they're the same that get in the way of taxation : once again you'll want a Prim, Upright and hopefully Sober and Austere kid for the job to avoid Corruption, Gambling, Drinking, Expensive Tastes etc...

Good Trader, like I said, is insane, and quite possibly a trait overlooked in the 1.2 overhaul.
Like the other Good Such-and-such it has three levels, but you'll need no less than 48 POINTS in it to reach the third, and 12 for the frickin' first. You get 2 points per merchant trained, 2 points per market-type building, 3 for ports, 1 for roads, 3 for merchant banks, 3 for caravan stops and 1 for merchant docks (80% of the time only). Oh, and you'll lose one point for each turn you spend in a town that hasn't at least a corn exchange, to make things interesting.

Now let's review that. Imagine you have a clear Huge Town at your disposal, unlikely as it is, with only a corn market in place so that your governor doesn't get Bad Trader before he's even gained one point.
- Stone roads, that's 2 points in 3 turns
- Merchant's quarter, that's 10 points in 22 turns
- Naval drydock, that's 12 points in 16 turns
- Merchant Vault, that's 6 points in 10 turns
- Docklands : 2,4 points in 14 turns
- caravanersary : 6 points in 6 turns

Total : 38 points in a whopping 71 turns, and that's only if you're playing the Moors as they are the only faction with caravans. Meaning you'll also need to train at least 5 merchants to finally reach the last level of the trait. But then you'll only get to reap its benefits for approx. 10 turns, before the governor dies.
On the upside, if you get the trait at birth, you'll start with 12 points in it, meaning you only need 30 more (12 for the second level). A few factions have more chances of getting good traders at birth, namely the Venitians, Milanese and Portuguese.

The fastest way to accrue points in this trait is to build the basic port and destroy it, over and over again. It'll take you 16 docks and 32 turns to get there, plus 8.800 florins, and that's without factoring in the loss of trade you incur by not having a basic port in a coastal province.
Forget about doing that with the corn exchange, as every turn without it will give your governor one point of Bad Trader.

Frankly, I'd say don't bother. Building markets, ports and banks as you're wont to do and training a bunch of merchants will give you the first rank (10% bonus), and that's probably as good as you're going to get unless your governor was born with said 12 points. If he was, you might want to have him do the port thing a couple of times in a castle to speed him up on his way to level 2 (20% bonus), but that's about it.

Good Administrator will net you a 10% bonus when you have 12 points in it, but the only way to get points is to crank your taxes to Very High : 3% chance every time a unit is trained, 7% every time a building is built, 7% each turn if loyalty is in the green and your governor has spent at least 3 turns in town (preventing your from training him over several towns), 5% if loyalty is in the blue. So you see, it's very hit-or-miss, and you'll be very lucky to get those 12 points. Get your taxes to Very High, now, and keep an enforcer around for when the brigands spawn.

Intelligent, Wife is Wise and MathematicSkill we already covered.

Epicurean will give you 10% with 8 points in it, but also reduce your bribe resistance by 30%. Beware those roving diplomats.
You'll eventually get points in it by sitting in a town that has Public Baths, Artist Studio, Theatre or a Pleasure Palace (5% chance each turn) or by letting your treasury get over 50.000 florins, and once you have it it'll also get better over time.
The downside is that all those buildings can give you such lovely traits as Aesthetic (ruins command and increases squalor, countered by Austere), ExpensiveTastes (a whopping -30% in taxes and trade when full blown, countered by Austere), Girls (ruins Chivalry and popularity, countered by Prim or Upright), Gambling (-20% trading, no counter) and Drinking (-10% taxes, countered by Sober). The worst offender in the list is the pleasure palace, so keep your spying off your trading. Once your governor has that first point in Epicurean, feel free to destroy those buildings if you don't need them.

As you can see, getting bonuses to trade is quite hard, and you'll probably have only one or two trading governors at any given time, if that, so you have to identify your best trading regions fairly often (trade is fickle, it changes with your own trade buildings as well as those of other factions, trade agreements and wars, disasters etc...) and ship them there ASAP.



F] Ancilliaries, a.k.a. Can I bring my friend ?

Finally, let us deal with notable ancillaries. I won't detail every single one because there's a LOT of them, and most only give a marginal bonus. Here are the easiest and best ones :

Academic Advisor gives 5% to trade and taxes, and you have 33% chance to get him when completing any academic building, so make sure whenever you finish one, a good governor is around.

Mathematician gives 5% to trade and taxes, and you have 10% chances to pick him up each turn you spend in a town/castle with any academic building, but the northern european factions can't (France, England, Scotland, Danes, HRE).

Money_Counter gives 10% to tax and 5% to trade, and you have 8% chance to get him each turn if in a city with a fairground or better, but middle eastern factions can't.

Treasurer gives 5% to tax and trade, you have 10% chance to get him each turn in a city with a merchant quarter, but northern european factions can't.

Overseer gives +1 farming and +1 mining, and you have 10% chance to get him in a town/castle with farms+2 or better

Scribe gives 10% to trade, and you have 10% chance to get him if in a town with both an alchemist lab or better and a town hall or better

Muslims and the Byzantines also get a 20% chance to get the awesome Slaver (+15% trade) for each building completed but only if the governor has 4+ Dread.



F] Short Version, a.k.a. What should have been on top of this thread

- check your good provinces to determine what their main source of income is.
- select a newborn general and train him extensively in Good Taxman plus whatever Good fits said province
- dump him there and have him build churches and train priests. Lots of them.
- roll in the dough.


And that's all you have to know to GET $RICH$ QUICK !!1$!1 :egypt:

On to part deux : Kob Tsu's Art of War : the guide to breeding the perfect warmonger.

excellent - ive put this in my bookmarks - hope it gets stickied somewhere

Too... long... read... dehydration... kicks... in.

To be honest, I can't afford reading all of it before going to bed (heck I still have a few buildings to think about), but I already have one little comment:
The main trigger to get BattleDread is the picking on weak one, the main trigger for chivalry is the bad odds win one.

Seeing your general kill 8 foes in one battle is a very rare occurence. I checked my log file some time ago and that is only responsible for a very small number of the BattleDread/BattleChivalry results for me, and for the AI it's even less because it's too stupid to charge properly.
Trying to get this trigger is also a pretty good way to risk your general unless he's got a fine armour or some other extra hps

Well, have a look yourself, all triggers are logged ;)

You know what ? I never realized those "generalnumkills" triggers meant that the general HIMSELF had to do the work - I always assumed his bodyguards also triggered them, and wondered why they were set so low since a BG unit can rack up hundreds of kills in one battle.

Yeah, so I'm a moron. What's new ? :shame:

Still, I often use my generals to wade knee deep in archers and crossbowmen, so... it can go either way I suppose.

outstanding guide :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup: :2thumbsup:

Moved to the guides forum ~;)

great job!!!

Ah, c'est fantastique!

</bad french accent><queensland accent> Good on ya, maaaaaaate :yes:

i rarely use my general to charge enemy unit. i just put him there to lead. i fear that when i campaigning in a distant land with only one or two generals, and both killed, replacement would take almost forever to get to the troops. not to mention the lot of mishaps that might kill the replacement on the way.

Awesome guide! Thanks.

great guide, consider yourself a scholar! aye aye!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by alpaca

Seeing your general kill 8 foes in one battle is a very rare occurence. I checked my log file some time ago and that is only responsible for a very small number of the BattleDread/BattleChivalry results for me, and for the AI it's even less because it's too stupid to charge properly.
Trying to get this trigger is also a pretty good way to risk your general unless he's got a fine armour or some other extra hps

Well, have a look yourself, all triggers are logged ;)

---

What is this log file you're talking about?
Haven't ever heard of such a detailed log, sure you're not talking about MTW instead?

it seems chivalry add bonus population growth and public order by showing as governor's influence...
and piety seems add bonus to admin incomes...

Hey guys, dumb question: what is strat map means :D