On the Feeding and Breeding of Governors and Generals

I've now double-checked sunsmountain's criticisms and found them to be correct in every respect - so my Treatise has been edited to reflect the correct position. The only section that was affected was the one headed 'Build Wisely' in the chapter 'On Raising Good Governors'. I've also clarified information on the Temples of Love and of Trade in the section above.

The problem arose because I'd misinterpreted the condition called 'SettlementBuildingFinished' in the file export_descr_character_traits.txt - I thought it referred to whether the building had ever been finished in the settlement (which would actually make it the same as SettlementBuildingExists). In fact it refers only to the building that has just been completed. This post makes it clear, as well as explaining in a bit more detail how trait changes are triggered.


Just to clarify one area:

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Originally Posted by sunsmountain

Because of no going back its good strategy to have every governor build:
- 3 farms
- mines when necessary (destroy and rebuild once)
- 4 traders or 2,5 ports or 2,5 roads (or 1 trader and 1 ports and 1 roads)
to get into the safe zone.

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This strategy will not get you into the positive 'no going back' zone (except in the case of mines), as it takes 24 points to reach the 'no going back' levels for 'Good Farmer' and 48 for 'Good Trader'. This strategy will, however, provide enough 'credit' to prevent you reaching the 'no going back' levels of the bad traits. Exception: bear in mind that 'Good Trader' points cannot be guaranteed - you have only a 50-80% chance of getting them when completing 'trader', 'road' or 'port'-type buildings.

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Originally Posted by sunsmountain

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Originally Posted by MajorFreak

now then, my question is this: how do i get a certain infertile line of my family to start popping out adoptees? and how do i check who's adopting?

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Get him to a temple of fertility*! (duh)

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Temples of Fertility won't increase your chance of acquiring adoptees, only of acquiring children. I have yet to discover how adoptees are assigned. It's a small nitpick, and I feel churlish correcting someone who has done me such a great service - hat off to you, sunsmountain!

I had the same misunderstandings with those triggers, only after browsing a good deal on these forums, did I find helpful insights here and there, which i'm happy to share.

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This strategy will, however, provide enough 'credit' to prevent you reaching the 'no going back' levels of the bad traits.

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Exactly what i had in mind: since most of my governors are not going to get enough points to get into the positive zone, i might just as well prevent them going into the negative.

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Exception: bear in mind that 'Good Trader' points cannot be guaranteed - you have only a 50-80% chance of getting them when completing 'trader', 'road' or 'port'-type buildings.

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True. The number of buildings i advise to build will get you the correct level to prevent the negative level on average, and trader is indeed a bit of an exception compared to farmer and miner.

To further complicate matters, sometimes governors have already acquired some + or - points in trader/miner/farmer when they come of age. Luckily, in the case of trader and farmer, you'll immediately notice this, since they already show up as negative traits at -1 point level. However, if your character doesnt pick up Good Miner after building 2 mines, build 2 more!

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Temples of Fertility won't increase your chance of acquiring adoptees, only of acquiring children. I have yet to discover how adoptees are assigned. It's a small nitpick, and I feel churlish correcting someone who has done me such a great service - hat off to you, sunsmountain!

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Oh, i misread the initial question, he asked about adoptees. As far as those are concerned, the only tip i have is the one i gave: Fight with your captains against the odds.

Thanks, and thank you for sharing this guide for good governing. May all our Governors become Jedi's (well..) :book: ~:)

I've updated the Treatise to include a table of 'Top 21 Ancillaries' - Top 21 for Governors, Top 21 for Generals, Top 21 overall, and Top 21 to get rid of! Also mentioned the concept of using 'useless' characters for transferring retinue - the Garbage Collector or the Travelling Salesman.

@Aesculapius:

Your work really rocks! Thanks for all the infos:bow:

Wow, that was one of the most informative, helpful and detailed post I've ever read.

Cheers! ~:cheers:

Thanks for that! So are things such as 'Mathematical Expert' and 'Intelligent' usually reliant on passing down by fathers? So would this mean that with a low chance of passing traits on, the family will undoubtedly decline over time?

Thanks Tiberius! Well for those two examples, no: neither "Intelligent" nor "Mathematical Expert" have any hereditary component to them - both have a random chance of being assigned at coming of age or adoption.

Several other characteristics CAN be inherited though. These are:

- Aesthetic (15%)
- Austere (5%)
- Black bile (5%)
- Blood (5%)
- Corrupt (15%)
- Drink (30 - 66%, depending on how bad Dad's drink problem is)
- Epicurean (25%)
- Expensive Tastes (25%)
- Games Fan (25%)
- Games Hater (10%)
- Generous (10%)
- Girls (20%)
- Handsome (50 - 95%, depending on what a looker Dad is)
- Hates X (25%)
- Inbred (50 - 98%, depending on how incestuous your ancestors have been)
- Infertile (75 - 87.5%; stands to reason............)
- Kind Ruler (50%)
- Miserly (25%)
- Natural Military Skill (30%)
- Paranoia (20%)
- Perverted (20%)
- Phlegm (5%)
- Politics Skill (20%)
- Pragmatic (20%)
- Prim (20%)
- Public Atheism (20%)
- Public Faith (20%)
- Races Fan (25%)
- Rhetoric Skill (20%)
- Slothful (20%)
- Smooth Talker (20%)
- Stoic (20%)
- Strategic Skill (20%)
- Superstitious (20%)
- Tactical Skill (20%)
- Ugly (50 - 95%, depending on how revolting Dad looks)
- Upright (20%)
- Xenophilia (20%)
- Xenophobia (20%)
- Yellow Bile (5%)

Of these traits, all can be gained in other ways. However, for some of them, the only other way to gain them is by a 1-2% chance at coming of age (or by self-reinforcement); those traits, which will therefore probably die out if not inherited, are marked in bold above.

By the way, all of this applies to the original R:TW with Patch 2. No idea how or if any of this has changed with BI.

P.S. I see my tables, which once displayed so nicely, are all haywire now - not sure whether this is a temporary or permanent problem with tags. If permanent, I guess I may have to go back and redo them as images.....

i know the guide says that academies don't have an effect on traits, but from my observations, my characters spending a lot of time in a city with one (more often the scriptorium and ludus magna) tend to develop good political traits (like oratory and such). and not all of their forefathers had these abilities, in two instances, the fathers were actually tedious speakers. is this just coincidental?

Gandinquisitor: apart from inheriting traits, there is also the chance of inheriting an antitrait, eg. if your father is a total drunk you might be 'sober' at birth. Did the oratory trait develop after being 16? (ie he wasn't oratory before coming of age) If that's the case, traits may actually develop in the academies..

Oh most terrifying Grand Inquisitor (may you live forever!):

What version/patch/mods are you playing? This guide was written as of 'vanilla' (unmodded) RTW Patch 2, and I am 100% certain that in this version no traits arise from the academies - only ancillaries. Certain mods (for example Player1's Bug-fixer) have assigned new trait triggers arising from the academies. Also, I have no idea whether BI generates traits from the academies (my BI is still sitting in its box unplayed! One day...........).

Tiberius' point is true in principle; however, none of the 'speechifying' traits are inherited as anti-traits. Which makes sense: I can understand how having a drunkard for a father could put you off a brew for life, but having a bore for a father is unlikely to make you eloquent........

oh...i forgot about the patch version. mine's unmodded 1.05. i forgot about that bit. if that doesn't make a difference, as a rule i forgot to mention that my general's in the field become boring speakers, vs. those who stay at the academies that become much better political traits

Strange, it's usually the great commanding generals who get inspiring speaker trait. Unless of course they're mainly losing or just standing around barbarian lands doing nothing.

There are lots of different types of eloquence in RTW. They are:

INSPIRING SPEAKER
Levels: Outstanding speaker / Great orator / Famous orator
Triggers: Adoption (9%) / Comes of age (4%) / Father has Rhetoric Skill (20%) / Father is Smooth Talker (20%) / Wins battle (4%)

RHETORIC SKILL
Levels: Fluent speaker / Skilled debater / Rhetorical expert
Triggers: Comes of Age (6%) / Father has Rhetoric Skill (20%)

SMOOTH TALKER
Levels: Plausible / Slick / Smooth Talker
Triggers: Comes of Age (2%) / Father is Smooth Talker (20%)

So as you can see, being a good speaker is largely a matter of luck, genes and/or military success. Although a 4% chance after a victory might seem small, you can win many battles in your career, whereas you only come of age once and have one father!

Could one character have all three traits to make an incredibly influential character? Or can you only have one of the three?

I was wondering how barbarian invasion differs in traits and breeding governors. Your guide has been very useful for the origional. The christian shrines and loyalty issues are hust begging to be expanded on.

Hmmm. I bought BI about three months ago, and have yet to take it out of its box. With a new job in a new country (and of course a new house) my gaming time has been severely curtailed..........

I shall certainly put the matter 'in the queue', but no promises on when I can deliver!

Left NZ Aesculapius? Hope you have a nice time wherever you are.

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Originally Posted by Aesculapius

Also, I have no idea whether BI generates traits from the academies (my BI is still sitting in its box unplayed! One day...........).

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BI, as well as RTW patched to 1.5 gives traits from academies.

I didnt even know you could trade members of the royal entourage!:dizzy2:
I hope this gets preserved because you put a lot of good time into it and it shows in the quality.
I'm going to spend some time reading it now since it is so dense!
Good job!~:thumb:

The Guide is indeed excellent for RTW, but it seems to me that some of the rules have changed with BI. I have a hard time breeding good governors and the generals command stars is as ellusive as "The evil mother in law"-ancillary was in my RTW games (one i never was able to get).

I have read somewhere that you can train generals that is not family members but have not found out how to do this? Any ideas?

In my first BI campaign (ERE) i try to haul up som bad traits chars in capital with faction leader and various buildings (cathedrals/academys)... i will try to monitor any progress (hope they convert from pagans to christians after a while).

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Originally Posted by Aeneas

The Guide is indeed excellent for RTW, but it seems to me that some of the rules have changed with BI. I have a hard time breeding good governors and the generals command stars is as ellusive as "The evil mother in law"-ancillary was in my RTW games (one i never was able to get).

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Yeah it's deliberate their is also a link between loyaty and skill as a general.
It's partly to make the game harder by making sure that you can't rely on general juggerkill to squash to the oncoming horde with his 4 legionares and an 3 legged donkey

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I have read somewhere that you can train generals that is not family members but have not found out how to do this? Any ideas?

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The highest stable in any faction will allow you to create bodyguard units which come with a general, it should noted they can't lead factions.

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In my first BI campaign (ERE) i try to haul up som bad traits chars in capital with faction leader and various buildings (cathedrals/academys)... i will try to monitor any progress (hope they convert from pagans to christians after a while).

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No they will not convert under any circumstances they'll just pick up negative traits by the truckload (hates christianity, has doubts about paganism) and vice versa for christians, you'll also probably cause social unrest in your capital by having that many pagans in one place through their conversion influence. Once a character reaches coming of age nothing you do will affect his religion. Prior to this who your emperor is and the overall religious demographic of the factions seems to affect your religion.

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Originally Posted by Mithras

The highest stable in any faction will allow you to create bodyguard units which come with a general, it should noted they can't lead factions.

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(this is about my BI experience)

I just did this for the first time in my current (about to be given up on, I suspect) Sarmation campaign. The general is definitely not of the family line, but I suspect they tend to get 1-2 command stars which makes them pretty useful in leading armires, leaving family members for governors.

The open question (for me) is whether they can "man of the hour" and be adopted. I don't see why they cannot, and it's even lilkely to happen (if possible) since they are probably going to be fighting a lot. I've been wondering how to pull off successful conversion and this may add possibilities...

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Originally Posted by Mithras

No they will not convert under any circumstances they'll just pick up negative traits by the truckload (hates christianity, has doubts about paganism) and vice versa for christians, you'll also probably cause social unrest in your capital by having that many pagans in one place through their conversion influence. Once a character reaches coming of age nothing you do will affect his religion. Prior to this who your emperor is and the overall religious demographic of the factions seems to affect your religion.

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Maybe training these "made" generals in captured cities with the target religion's buildings will produce (or give higher odds of producing) followers of that religion. Then with man of the hour they could be adopted and made "heir." Fathers of a given religion seem to always produce sons of the same religion, and that appears to hold true for adoptees too (from my cursory study of the files), so there's no easy way to breed another religion into a line that I can see so far. But this might work.

I think I'll capture a Christian city and give it a try.

I think MOTH can only apply to captains, not generals.

I don't know if it has been written anything about the number of men in the Generals unit. I have myself been wondering about what decides the number, and so far I have come the conclusion that it mostly depends on personal security. It makes sense that more bodyguards would give better security. For example I once met a normal family member in combat who had 38 bodyguards (24 is normal on large setting), and he had +6 in personal security, while a negative number has given me only 17 bodyguards for one of my own generals.

I guess there are more factors involved in determining the exact number, but so far I don't know which those are. Anyway, for generals I am sending out in combat I always try to give them some more personal security, like giving them a wrestler or something else, since more bodyguards make a stronger unit. :2thumbsup:



Edit: After having written this I found a Ludus Magna thread that explains the case much better. Sorry for that.

Thanks a lot, a very useful topic ~:cheers:

Sunsmountain,

On getting new adoptees: I've actually gotten adoptees where my captains fought with 'even odds' or slightly better. I used to believe you had to fight against odds, but now I think RTW has some kind of formula based on the number of faction members vs the number of cities your faction controls on the board that determines when you get an offer to adopt. If you fall below a certain proportion of family members vs cities, you start getting adoptees offered to you. And, I'm not even sure that I'm right about that rule either. The game's adoptee rule I find a bit mystifying. I've done no measuring. Perhaps I should play a game from scratch and then monitor the number of faction members vs. the number of cities I control.

I guess the safest conclusion is that CA designed the game with a fascinating amount of sophistication.

GG,
this "fascinating amount of sophistication" has more than once left me wondering if anything in this game was not random...
Let's say sophistication can easily make a complex system seem erratic, even chaotic. Since 1.5 I can't seem to get my diplomats to do me any good whatsoever. And every time I try, they pick up bad traits (not very courteous, or whatsitsname, being a prime suspect) from failing, just because the AI doesn't allow anything it doesn't come up with itself.
The same seems to hold true for governor traits. I usually don't rely on governor training anymore - it's too much micro work and doesn't pay off enough. If I can conquer 40 provinces in 60 turns with only fools for governors, while my generals turn into heroes on the battlefield because I fight so much and so hard, I can skip caring about governors.

I don't want to sound destructive of the fantastic work done by Aesculapius, Sunsmountains and others. I just think that these "soft" parts of the game - governing, diplomacy etc. - could have been made better by streamlining. Where there're so many variables in an equation, it's virtually impossible for a player of the game to actually see results in a simple, yet satisfying cause-and-effect-chain.

I understand your point, Empi, about governors. I don't tend to design my building strategy around grooming governors either. I tend to build what appears to be the military, economic or public order necessity of the moment. I find that I tend to avoid building too many farms, which means my governors are almost always developing 'poor farmer' traits. If my faction member has stars, I immediately post him with an army and start giving him combat experiences to groom him for command. The stars and influence laurel wreaths that he earns in campaigning will give him some advantage in governing from a public order standpoint, which is usually enough to suit me. It all depends on my priority of the moment. But, it is good to know what choices and what buildings influence the various traits that a governor acquires. So I've found Aesculapius's work extremely useful for the background info he provides, as I'm sure you agree. I have reassigned faction members to other postings when they seemed to be starting to acquire bad traits from a city post with say, a temple of Bacchus. I do remember literally saving the career of a young Julii faction member by reassigning him to a different city after he started developing a drinking problem. He actually turned out all right after the change of posting and lost the bad trait.

There are definitely limits to how much micro-managing one can do when the game starts getting involved and you have 30 cities and 25-50 faction members to manage. I just can't keep track of everything after a while.

I haven't really noticed the diplomat issue you mentioned. But, I've only played RTW under 1.4 and 1.5, so I have no other prior experience to contrast it with. I've always felt that the diplomatic choices in RTW are extremely limited, and in some cases a bit nonsensical. In one sense they are too predictable. You will never keep an ally through an entire game. It's guaranteed that whatever faction you ally yourself with, they will eventually stab you in the back. I suppose up to a point that's true to life. But if I treat an ally with respect and give them lots of money gifts, you would think that they would find that beneficial enough and of sufficient good faith that they wouldn't want to stab you in the back. But the game doesn't work that way. Oh well . . . C'est la vie. I've literally come to the rescue of some allies who were besieged by an enemy. They joined me in the combat. We whooped up on the enemy and won the day. Then two turns later, the faction I rescued attacks me. Go figure. :inquisitive:

The faction I've been able to do my best governor training with has been the Julii, for some strange reason. With the Seleucids, I usually have Alexander from Sardis on patrol immediately, buying up mercenaries and preparing to defend the west end of the empire from Pontus and Greece. Demetrius in Damascus, I have buying up mercs for the eventual attack by Egypt. With Carthage, Theages in Lilybaeum, and Theodokles (sp) from Palma, are almost worthless as combat generals. But Theages can become a great governor. I just finished a Carthage game. He ended with about 6 pillars and 5 laurel leaves, was my faction leader, and was known as Theages the Killer because I recruited lots of assassins. He managed Carthage well. But I can't say I planned my management of Carthage for his benefit.

As a general rule, if my faction member has laurel wreaths and/or management pillars, I will groom him for management. Then I pay some attention to the building priorities for his sake. But if he's got stars, he's going to be campaiging for the most part until he captures that big city that requires his administrative attention. I won't keep him there unless he's close to retirement age. :) If my faction member has no good character traits at all to start with, he's cavalry fodder. I may try him at a couple different jobs to see if he will develop. If not, it's off to the front. I can always use him to police rebel bands.

Not all your experts - spies, assassins, diplomats - are going to be good at their job. And that's true to life in many ways. Sometimes they will develop if given the right opportunities. I've trained some good assassins. But some characters, be it diplomats, assassins or governors, will never become good at anything. Like Theodokles of Palma, for Carthage. He's never developed into a star for me in any game. So I use him to babysit a city and pray that he doesn't breed too many offspring. :)

blahdeblahdeblah I talk too much. :dizzy2:

Regards,
Guyus

I agree with Empirate on this one. I have left any family member with a single management point in cities to rot and in some campaigns it went badly but now with seleucia, I have a ton of money coming in and my govenors aren't corrupt, but instead I have a guy with the highest management rating I have ever seen.
I don't know why this happened. My diplomats have walked all the way from Susa to Spain and haven't become anymore adept at squeezing money from people or getting the romans to ally with me.

in relation to adoptees and M.O.T.H's, For Seleucia, I have produced about 6 altogether, and I'm not that far into the game. For carthage it was the same, I did have a lot of offspring but my Captains were regularly beating bigger armies easily so I had good generals popping up all over the place.

**** - > GG

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I do remember literally saving the career of a young Julii faction member by reassigning him to a different city after he started developing a drinking problem.

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That hilarious. Fair enough, If i ever developed a drinking problem I'd like an intervention as well.

Hi

I receive 'Man of the Hours' regulary. Have expanded fast. The game gives me MotH irrespective of the odds whenever a captain leads and wins an open field battle.

For the last two turns Ive also received an adoption at the end of the turn.

I think its the game mechanics trying to restore some form of balance between leaders and regions.

For 'Clear Victories' MotH is typically age 20 and 2* command.
For Heroic its often age 20 and 4*