Making your King look good and your subjects lick your heels...

[caravel]

I *can* go to war and I have no problems going to war but I was wondering if there's any way to go about it *without* going to war.

The game is based on STW, so the whole game engine and game design is based towards "going to war".

Is it cheesy to remove the bad apples from your royal line? Maybe. But if you are an actual King you get to CHOOSE who your heir is.

I don't think it is. Doing this has it's ups and it's downs. By removing unsuitable princes you are cleaning up your royal line, but you're also making it smaller and less secure. It's a trade off.

When bumping off unwanted heirs, if the victim has very low loyalty, first try a treason trial with a spy and use assassins as a last resort. This is a good way to train up your spies.

They should've implemented that in MTW from the get-go. Makes much more sense. Plenty of actual Monarchs have done so, altering their heir.

Well personally I prefer that the game chooses it for you. I like the fact that you sometimes have to live with these useless kings and heirs and make the best of them. Turning a bad family line around can be a good challenge as well.

In RTW you can choose your own heirs but you can't assassinate them if they seem somewhat lacking. Also your pool of generals is restricted to only family members that all command the same faction specific heavy cavalry or chariot unit. You cannot simply take a unit out to battle and have it gain a star and become a general. These unit leaders are known as "captains".

When playing MTW I will often "reboot" my ailing family line with a civil war. It is a case of ensuring that a disloyal general with great stats is leading the rebels and that you back him. This requires some preparation. You need to ensure that the disloyal are many and that they are controlling your major provinces. The loyal should be isolated in your minor provinces or placed in separate stacks in smaller numbers in provinces with larger stacks of the disloyal. Personally apart from choosing the heir and making sure that the "capital" and any other key provinces are reasonably safe, I just risk the rest.

[Martok]

Second Caravel's comments on instigating civil war. They're an excellent way to start a new, stronger royal family, as well as being just darn fun.

[gollum]

Hi,

instigating civil wars is indeed good fun, unless... you are the Byzantines.

I remember playing a campaign is a home modded vanilla (nothing major just minor modding points to get the peasant armies and other such out), in which i decided to play very aggressively with the Byzantines in early/hard.

I could muster one stack with some mercenaries and droped the taxes to very low, and went on a blitz against Turks and Egyptians, leaving token garrisons when necessary. By the time i had reached the Syria/Palestine line i spread out so thin that i got a glorious civil war out of the blue and was forced to back the rebels. Maybe the bloat effect works not only at 60% but as a ratio of sorts relative to the forces available over the land conquered or something, because i swear that my generals were loyal just a few turns ago... This is however pure speculation.

The Comnenian family that gets the jedi stats, was replaced by the Angeli, that as in real life were... worthless. The plus two influence plus one command bonus also dissapeared, and all this just in 1110 or something...doh!

!it burnsus!

[_Pontifex_]

Attach auxiliaries to him that will increase his chances of gaining good traits such as priests, and build structures in cities he governs that are beneficial to the city, but that are morally upstanding. This can include churches, markets, ports, and wholesome places. Not so much taverns and the like.

Crusades are great for status as well, as you already know.