Consequences of Transgression Issued to Brutii by Dacia

[Praetor Rick]

The Bachus aren't "trash", because they gain governers influence. Avoid the bad traits by keeping young governors in Ceres towns, where they can usefully sow their oats. But, you need to have the older governor in Bachus towns, and shift the Priest Retainers, to add influence to the younger ones, taking on roles in more sober cities. Early in game, the Ceres tempes are good, boosting population, and encouraging larger family. The Jupiter are best for far provinces which become very prone to corruption.

A balance of temples, allows you to grant retainers to gain Influence, making Senate appointments more likely and help the Marian reform along.

The problem with the temple model, is that they exaggerate the tendencies of factions, Brutii has access to rich resources, so it has the trading bonus line.

All the fiddly micro-managing of these details, becomes annoying once your empire is large.

I have to disagree - Bacchus really is trash. Yes, the Priest of Bacchus is a great retinue. The Drunken Uncle is also quality - NOT! Yeah, you might want one or two temples of Bacchus to be tended by some loser too lazy, cowardly, or insane to ever amount to anything who runs out and distributes the few worthwhile retinues every so often while not carring a whit for his own traits because he's already worthless. Then again, you might realize that even in a VH/VH game, some things are too nitpicky to fall on the favorable side of the effort/reward ratio.

Also, don't the reforms happen at the first imperial palace in italy, which has nothing to do with influence? Patavium will hit huge city size soon enough no matter what. A high influence governor will help maintain public order Patavium, but I've never had major issues with public order in culturally Roman cities that are a days march or so from my capital.

[RLucid]

The older mature governors don't pick up the bad traits. You need the mix to gain retinue to boost influence, you can only have 1 Priest of X of each type, so optimum is a mix, to gain maximum influence with those retainers. Have impression that Jupiter benefits come slower than the other temple types anyway.

You get far more, fun influential charactheristics with Bachus than the other temple types. I suspect that's deliberate design balancing decision.

There's also one that's useful for the battlefield generals giving a +1 Morale boost.

It may not be the "best" temple, and I'd rather have Mercury or Mars, but it is not "trash", and ought to be used in cities near to capitol, with high growth.

When a Governor does acquire an undesirable trait, it's not the end of the world is it?

[Quirinus]

I don't know..... the drink and gambling vices pretty much negates any advantage the Bacchus retinues give, IMO..... as Praetor Rick says, it doesn't give more public order than the Jupiter temple, and without the corruption-reducing bonus of law. I do build Bacchus temples late-game, though, in backwater cities, and stick my most degenerate family members that I'm not likely to use, just to see what kind of vices they rack up. =D

What is the age above which family members don't pick up bad traits?

[RLucid]

Those vices aren't a problem if they don't do you any harm. Hence cities that are near capitol and easy to control in heartland. Fairly often a trait which permits you to lower taxes, benefits you by encouraging population growth.

There's some kind of balance to it all, and part of strategy is finding the right spots to minimise the downs and max the benefits.

What they do allow you, is access to another line of Retainers, so you can boost Influence of Governors post-conquest in tricky areas, and give +1's to newly blooded Generals and such.

Unless you've got a Puritan streak, and are in high dudgeon over a spot of gambling or drinking, I can't see how those traits do significant harm.

An example is "Poor Farmer" can be very annoying, but if that Governor is put in a city subject to over-population it almost becomes a benefit.

The only one I really hate is "Useless Assessor", can't see any upside to reduction in tax income.

With Bug Fixer, I think a General with a +ve trait is immune to the flip. So someone "sober" will not benefit from becoming a drunkard. Someone with "social drinker" should probably be one with Ceres, or Jupiter though...

Anyway I think the game designers, intend a mix of Temples as being the optimal strategy, and the double-edgedness of a temple line is compensated by it being free with benefits.

Where it falls down, is that it just becomes far too tedious to manage all this properly once you've grown an empire.

[Praetor Rick]

Where it falls down, is that it just becomes far too tedious to manage all this properly once you've grown an empire.

To each his own. I find the incredibly marginal benefits of the Bacchus retinues to be not worth the tedium of managing them when I'm sitting on less than a dozen settlements, much less later. I also don't like having massive influence penalties on any of my family members. I want my generals to be able to eventually retire to be useful governors, not just have to charge them into spearmen to get rid of them so I can get a family member who isn't weighted down with horrible traits to replace them.

I'll stand by my opinion on the Julii temples. Jupiter is great. Ceres is OK in some towns, but would be better as a farming or healing temple line. Bacchus is, if not completely worthless, at a bare minimum inferior to literally every other temple in the game in nearly all circumstances. I might be inclined to use Bacchus if Jupiter weren't available - playing Germania has led me to appreciate the real benefits of a temple that does well at squashing public disorder. But as long as Jupiter is available, building a temple of Bacchus just seems like a way to have a bunch of extra work to do for an unbelievably tiny benefit.

[Quirinus]

I don't get what you mean by the vices not causing any harm. AFAIK drink vices reduce command, influence and management significant.

The only advantages I see to having drink vices is that their sons have a chance of getting 'sober'. In one of my Greek Cities games, all my starting family members were drunkards, but most of the family members after that were sober.

An example is "Poor Farmer" can be very annoying, but if that Governor is put in a city subject to over-population it almost becomes a benefit.

It only reduces the income from farming, correct? It doesn't reduce the base farming rate, which is what drives population growth.

The only one I really hate is "Useless Assessor", can't see any upside to reduction in tax income.

Yeah..... that and 'Poor Farmer'. It's ridiculously common, even in VBM.

[RLucid]

I don't get what you mean by the vices not causing any harm. AFAIK drink vices reduce command, influence and management significant.

If they don't hurt you (by causing serious tax revenue loss or a rebellion), they don't matter. Many towns cope fine, despite the Governor being a raving loon, things go on, simply because closeness to capital, and shared culture make them hard to screw up. Some places are easy to manage, and your great Governors best deployment is in the hard places, not the easy ones.

To maximise influence, you need retainers, from all the 3 Temple types. So mixing things is optimal. Then because Bach, seems to dole out retainers faster than other types, you can gift the retainers, to improve influence of the Governors with the hard jobs (or to the main man who's gonna play Marius).

It only reduces the income from farming, correct? It doesn't reduce the base farming rate, which is what drives population growth.

My understanding was that it lowered production and cost 0.5% growth, I've used a "poor farmer" in Patavium few times as a result, and got them out of places like Segestica where the 0.5% cut in growth is very harmful. I distinctly remember the growth rate moving as a result.

Look it's a bit like, turning up on the battle field with, some low quality troops. You can say, this is undesirable, be better to have the perfect army. Not fight, and wait until you can fix. Or you can deploy in such a manner to minimise the weaknesses, maximise the strengths and carry the field.

Weaknesses (like having an old soak in charge) don't matter if they aren't exploitable and don't cause anything to go wrong.

Jupiter's weakness is the low rate of retainers. Also you tend to get very staid, non-influential governors, who ppl don't like much. You don't get the entertainment retainers, to move to places where you need influence, and increase chances of getting senate jobs.

Having Bacchus in 1 or 2 towns near your long term capitol, where you can shift Govs in and out, is better than just using Ceres & Jupiter. I agree that the micro-managing is tedious, unfortunately features and graphics, and immediate impact to get great reviews, are a priority over long term playability in commercial games.

[Quirinus]

My point is, is it worth it, though? i.e. Is a drunkard, gambler governor with Bacchus retinues better than a regular ol' governor without the Bacchus retinues?

Using all three Julii temple types may improve immersion in the game, but it's hard to vouch for their effectiveness purely gameplay-wise.