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

Kobavelli are you using vanilla 1.20 btw ?

Nope, I recently switched over to LtC (with it's increased build times and costs which frustrate my optimization urges to no end :sweatdrop:), but this is based on the vanilla files so it applies to 1.2 as well as any mod that doesn't fidget with the traits and ancil files too much.

I played 2 campaigns in 1.20 tilll the end. Egypt & Byzantine, never (or rarely) got any farming traits, hence I was wondering.

My general view of 1.20 VnVs after those 2 camps is that Carl's (YEAP! you saw that one coming !) PureFixer 1.13 is much better (have'nt tried 1.14 yet). Many more traits appear, and disappear, more logical.

Great work.

Soon my empires will have "good taxman" - governors only :yes: :yes:

Well, when I say faction this or faction that gets a boost to something, it means that the trait appears in their cultural birth trigger.

Every faction now (as of 1.2, before only half of them did) has a specific random_birth trigger in addition to the usual ones, and the Egyptian one has 25% chance of giving them 3 points in GoodFarmer (so the first level, Farming Knowledge).

They're only checked when a kid comes of age though, not for adoptions nor potential suitors.

Build farms and you get two points in GoodFarmer. The best thing is building three farms per character which results in GoodFarmer 2 without wasting any points.

By the way, I thought of a new exploit: Build small churches and destroy them again (although be sure to bribe the pope a bit as he doesn't like that too much, gives -0.1 faction standing). It will give you looting but that isn't a bad trait, and will give you the ReligiousActivity, StrategyChivalry, Upright and GoodBuilder traits while you lose 400 and a turn of building each time.
The same goes obviously for the grain exchange where you lose even less (nothing except for maybe 300-500 florins and two turns)

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Originally Posted by alpaca

Build farms and you get two points in GoodFarmer. The best thing is building three farms per character which results in GoodFarmer 2 without wasting any points.

By the way, I thought of a new exploit: Build small churches and destroy them again (although be sure to bribe the pope a bit as he doesn't like that too much, gives -0.1 faction standing). It will give you looting but that isn't a bad trait, and will give you the ReligiousActivity, StrategyChivalry, Upright and GoodBuilder traits while you lose 400 and a turn of building each time.
The same goes obviously for the grain exchange where you lose even less (nothing except for maybe 300-500 florins and two turns)

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Yup, I mentionned the small church thing in the guide, but nope, doesn't work with the grain exchange : since you never technically have it, you get 1 point in bad trader every single turn while you're doing this (I'm still reluctant to trust the NoGoingBackLevel thingy, considering that you can have traits and antitraits coexisting already...). Plus doing it with a port yields more points anyway. Castle ports give very little trade, so they're usefull for this, as long as you don't need Grande Carracks RIGHT NOW :sweatdrop:.

In another thread I learned that you can exploit this with a Leather Tanner to get the Swordsmith guild faster too. I never thought of that :yes:

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

Yup, I mentionned the small church thing in the guide, but nope, doesn't work with the grain exchange : since you never technically have it, you get 1 point in bad trader every single turn while you're doing this (I'm still reluctant to trust the NoGoingBackLevel thingy, considering that you can have traits and antitraits coexisting already...). Plus doing it with a port yields more points anyway. Castle ports give very little trade, so they're usefull for this, as long as you don't need Grande Carracks RIGHT NOW :sweatdrop:.

In another thread I learned that you can exploit this with a Leather Tanner to get the Swordsmith guild faster too. I never thought of that :yes:

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Uh-uh, it triggers on building completion, and when the building is completed it will also exist if I'm not mistaken (I think I tested this a while back).

Sorry for not reading your thread thoroughly enough with the church though :laugh4:
The advantage of the grain exchange over a port is that it's cheaper, although the port gives you an additional 25% for GoodBuilder
I don't use any of these anyways :laugh4:

Me neither, I figure making sure of this or that parameter is just optimizing, but taking advantage of them by doing something you wouldn't do otherwise is "cheating".
And I'm sure about the market thing, I tested it during the writing of this.


Now to find the way to make mines destroyable.

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

Me neither, I figure making sure of this or that parameter is just optimizing, but taking advantage of them by doing something you wouldn't do otherwise is "cheating".
And I'm sure about the market thing, I tested it during the writing of this.


Now to find the way to make mines destroyable.

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Ok then, another thing to keep in mind when designing triggers :inquisitive:

How about building up your royal line? Does it make sense to take every marriage you can find to get those babies popping? And also, should I kill off unused generals to increase odds of adoptions etc?

That's a good question. I'm not 100% sure about the best way to go. I never adopt as a matter of house rules, so my experience in this is limited, but I'll try to answer as best I can.

- Marrying generals early to get toddlers exponentially fast is good. More babies means more coming of ages, mean more chances you'll get born governors (and that Austere trait...)
That is, unless said general is in line for succession at some point. For heirs and would-be heirs govs, waiting for an Intelligent bride (no matter what her other traits are) or a high charm (more babies who'll have some of the good traits you've painstakingly given their fathers) makes more sense, so for those I usually wait till they're 40 before marrying them to any old noblewoman who's interested. Before that, it's open season on royal chicks :)

- unused generals you can always use in battles as better than average heavy cav, no ? Even a cowardly gambling arse-a-holic can swing a mean sword, as long as you don't let him command the army. And there's always a chance his sons will learn from his failings and be born with their opposite. And if they don't... well, that's just more regenerating heavy cav for you, it's win-win !
The only time I actively try to kill generals is when they are the current heir and I have another in mind/I just spotted an Intelligent princess and I want some of that smart booty for my govs.

- adoptions are no good for the purpose of government.
First, like I said you want to start training at 16 to maximise the return on investment, and adopted generals are always older than that.
Then, the "trait pool" for adopted generals and suitors is much shallower than the coming of age one, with lots and lots of traits that only babbies can get at birth. This includes cultural traits, which are most often very good.
Lastly, adopted sons won't have the good traits of their "father", nor any chiv/dread or victor legacy.

Meaning the only good use for adoptions is to get fighting generals, or very early in the campaign to multiply the number of sons exponentially down the road.

Well, Adoptions CAN be useful, if i want good change to handsome/ugly sons in start i might adopt, even if it may give DiscontentGeneral to all other sons. I rarely adopt Man of Hours thou, since they go to random family member, which might be just the one you didn´t want to have son adopted. Easiest way to get good generals without too much micromanage is to play Muslims, they don´t get girls or drinking (not sure about Gambling), so free to build Sisha House series. Just need to make sure father is proper, and not even Princesses to bother with (yes max +15% trade and tax and increased popularity and children change but no one is perfect)

Hopefully this will be added to the Guides section! Thanks for the labor of love!

Dear French Master of the MIITW Training Academy :2thumbsup:

I translated your guide into german and have putten it onto Looki .de
I gave you Credit of course.
Know you're getting famous in Germany, too :smash:

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Originally Posted by BL4DE

Dear French Master of the MIITW Training Academy :2thumbsup:

I translated your guide into german and have putten it onto Looki .de
I gave you Credit of course.
Know you're getting famous in Germany, too :smash:

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Wow ! Das ist doch unexpected geworden wird werden gehaben zu gewerden sein !
Kidding aside, all I can say is "wow". Thanks a lot, both for the plug and for letting me know !

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

Wow ! Das ist doch unexpected geworden wird werden gehaben zu gewerden sein !
Kidding aside, all I can say is "wow". Thanks a lot, both for the plug and for letting me know !

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The word you're looking for is "gewesen" :no:

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

Wow ! Das ist doch unexpected geworden wird werden gehaben zu gewerden sein !
Kidding aside, all I can say is "wow". Thanks a lot, both for the plug and for letting me know !

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Naturellement qui s'appartient quand même ainsi :sweatdrop:

College was good for ONE thing. Never to steal another persons text's, pictures and stuf. Wheter original or not :whip:

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Originally Posted by pete101

does your king's piety have a global effect, (like acumen did in medieval 1)

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i did a test and king's piety does have a global effect, increasing the income of all settlements slightly

noticed that a governor's chivalry increases loyalty, but i haven't tested the king's chivalry yet

someone said that authority increase's loyalty (globally), is that true ?,
i thought it influenced diplomacy, is that also true ?

what about a general's stars, in previous games i recall it increasing attack and defense, in the manual it says that it increase morale (the same thing chivalry does), is that all it does ?

(just to be clear my understanding of morale from the manual, is that it keeps your soldiers in the fight, nothing else)

would like to point out the fundamental flaw in creating "the perfect statesman",

the upkeep of his body guard is quite high, and often you need close to ten just to be paying the bills,

then all you have left is a high chivalry to increase loyalty, but surely if he has high chivalry he'd serve his nation better on the battlefield,

probably the only time i might use such a person even if i had one is perhaps in a distant city like constantinpole or jeruslem, where you need all the loyalty you can find

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Originally Posted by pete101

would like to point out the fundamental flaw in creating "the perfect statesman",

the upkeep of his body guard is quite high, and often you need close to ten just to be paying the bills,

then all you have left is a high chivalry to increase loyalty, but surely if he has high chivalry he'd serve his nation better on the battlefield,

probably the only time i might use such a person even if i had one is perhaps in a distant city like constantinpole or jeruslem, where you need all the loyalty you can find

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That's why you don't want them in every crappy little backwater hole in your empire. But when a governor ups the income from a city by a factor of 2 just by sitting there, and when that city is Venice or Antioch or whatever city makes crazy cash even without building anything in it, his bodyguard upkeep is the last thing I care about :sweatdrop:

But great find on the king's piety thing ! Didn't think it would matter as I'd never really noticed it back in RTW. I'll edit the guide accordingly.

i had a guy with 6 piety in novgorod and he wasn't paying the bills, (although he was the heir and therefore had a bigger body guard)

is the effect of higher piety additive or exponential,

i know you've given tips for increasing piety but how can you get it so high,

the church thing only works once, (or does it repeat at higher level churches), and when i made a couple of priests that didn't up my piety neither, maybe i need the update or somethin, and as for building a cathedral, well that's quite expensive, are their any other ways to up piety,

i had a guy with 6 piety in novgorod and he wasn't paying the bills, (although he was the heir and therefore had a bigger body guard)

is the effect of higher piety additive or exponential,

i know you've given tips for increasing piety but how can you get it so high,

the church thing only works once, (or does it repeat at higher level churches), and when i made a couple of priests that didn't up my piety neither, maybe i need the update or somethin, and as for building a cathedral, well that's quite expensive, are their any other ways to up piety,

how much piety did the factor 2 guy have? ten,

what were his piety traits, what was his story, what decisions did you make +/ lucky events

Was he a Cruelly Exacting Taxman ? That +30% to taxes is much more important than piety (of course, having both is even better)

As for upping Russian piety, well, both Orthodox factions get the shaft since the easiest way to boost it fast is by crusading/jihading. But they have no pope to worry about so they can build/destroy/build small churches with no penalty (if one is so inclined, it IS a bit of an exploit). Besides that, well, train priests, send them alone in high heresy regions so that they turn heretics themselves and you can train some more, and hope you get points in PublicFaith by staying in town :/

just read the part in your guide about finishing a building in a settlement with low loyalty and high taxation to become good tax man, that's a neat trick

i tried building a second church for the same governor and it did not increase his piety, was this because higher levels of the same trait are not a %100 chance ?

:juggle2:

building churches and training priests are both 100% chance for 1 point, and the trait thresholds are 1/4/8/12 so yeah, it gets harder.

Edit : and that governor was in Venice, with +30% to taxes, +20% to trade (I really made a LOT of merchants with him), 7 Piety, +2 to farming and a tutor for +5% tax. And OK, so I exagerated about that factor 2, but he did make the town go from 3200ish to 4800ish.
Then it all went to hell because both the HRE and Milan jumped me in the same turn. But that's another story :)

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Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

you will want a 16 year old boy for your budding governor, and nothing else.

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Oh man did I read that wrong at first... Here was my initial response:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And just how is giving your governor a 16 year old boy going to raise his piety?

Roflmao!

^_^

It only raises your piety if you're Catholic, and that's only if no younger ones are available.

Great guide Kobal :2thumbsup:

I never knew piety boosted income...
Little did i imagine that lazy CA used the "Management" scrolls from RTW to implement 'Piety' but also leaving in the boost to income... and not letting us know :furious3:

Atleast there is something to simulate more income by having a governor (= possible better management)... though i am struggling to wrap my mind around how being pious can boost income???????? :inquisitive: