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

[bozewolf]

Short background:

Ive been playing Axalon's Redux mod now and having fun. Now, since this mod severly changes some game mechanics it's harder (imo anyway) to spill out like crazy. In normal MTW that's what I used to do. Steamroller everything in a glorious conquest and then steamroller some more. I grew bored of that, read about the Redux mod, and now I'm technically playing a much smaller English kingdom, having fun as well.

Now to the point:

Since I always used to barge through everything I generally never really had problems with Monarch influence or General loyalty. The aforementioned steamrollering and all it's pleasant side-effects (having around 10 non-interesting provinces sure make accumulating those nice Builder and Steward virtues easier and faster) went a long way in accomplishing this.

Now I'm not invading factions' privacy left, right and center and I'm kinda stuck wondering:

What *do* you do in such a case? To be honest, despite years of playing this was never a side of the game I had to dig into.

What are some nice tips and tricks for increasing Influence in such a situation? General loyalty I'm worried less about, since some reshuffling and the odd title here and there to someone not very economically inclined but quite so on the military front, can often keep a lid on things. But with waning Influence many things seem to be in jeopardy.

Any help is beaucoup appreciated.

[caravel]

Start a crusade or two.

[bozewolf]

Which would involve getting into the thick of it with the Muslims. I don't mind war, you see, but I *know* that works.

Are there ways to accomplish what I want without extensive military "phun"?

[Knight of the Rose]

As long as you can keep a lid on things, then you don't have to worry. You don't get fancy heirs, but hey, then you have an extra challenge. What you don't want, is a general with at least a star, a little dread and 3 or less shields. Such a person coud become "ringleader" and start the civil war. Those who fit the description should be placed under your kings personal supervision.

So - there is no easy way to increase influence without millitary expansion, crusades, lifting enemy sieges to your allies and... well I think that is it, mayhaps Caravel knows more

/KotR

[drone]

This can be a problem with the Irish VI campaign. You can make good money turtling, but without conquest influence is hard to come by and your heirs get worse and worse. Try causing rebellions with spies and religious agents, then swoop in to take out the rebels.

Edit-> And help out allied factions. Relieving sieges adds to influence.

[Lokiss]

You can get a nice trait by building up agricultural. Forget the exact title but I think it's +happiness or loyalty.

[caravel]

Edit-> And help out allied factions. Relieving sieges adds to influence.

Gah, how did I forget that one?

[caravel]

Which would involve getting into the thick of it with the Muslims. I don't mind war, you see, but I *know* that works.

Are there ways to accomplish what I want without extensive military "phun"?

You don't have to crusade against the Muslim factions. You can crusade against orthodox and pagan in eastern Europe. Just ensure that you're linked up with shipping. Also if you're playing as the Spanish or Sicilians then crusades against the Almohad faction are very viable.

Edit: sorry for the double post, I totally missed the top part of the thread...

[bozewolf]

Crusade may not be a bad idea. My shipping is quite strong and I've been toying with the idea of pestering the Saracens since they barely have any allies, anyway.

But then it still boils down to military action.

That's the way it is then, hehe. Time to sharpen some axes me thinks.

[Roark]

Without war of some kind, your royal line will indeed stagnate. Your only option in a prolonged "peaceful" situation is to prune your family tree to optimise the gene-pool you've been dealt, via assassins. Many people consider this cheesy, though, including myself.

Reading the original post, I'm not quite sure I understand why you can't make war on one or more of your neighbours...

Could you explain?

[Knight of the Rose]

You can get a nice trait by building up agricultural. Forget the exact title but I think it's +happiness or loyalty.

D'ho! How could I forget that? Not building farms, though, but if you're in a pinch you can build watchtowers, pull them down, and build them again. After a while your king gets "builder" and later "great builder" adding to both influence and province loyalty. With farms you get "steward" adding to farm income across the realm, wich can be a quite nice bonus, but IIRC they don't give influence. Which is fair enough, I don't know any medieval kings who were excellent farmers.

/KotR

[bozewolf]

Builder line gives + General Loyalty and + population Happiness
Steward line gives Happiness and +% agric. production. Which is awesome. Even if you have a bunch of provinces not worth building up agriculturally, if you have mon-ay and a young Monarch, go wild on them, get your Monarch to the Magnificent one and hey presto, + 1/5th agricultural production. I'm well aware of these traits.

Roark:

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.

Now it seems there isn't, lal.

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.

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.

[Axalon]

Hi Bozewolf and everybody else,

First of all, I can't say I blame you for finding things hard in redux. I could probably come up with 7-8 good reasons as for why so it’s quite understandable that you do have that feeling. Now, here are some none-regular war and “peaceful” things you could do:

1. Invest heavy in your “rebel school”… He he! It will work to that end I believe, since you are steadily winning battles that way. That means influence will go up to some extent. Don’t know how the formula exactly works thou.

2. Relieve sieges is another way I guess, not sure how that exactly works thou but it should help as well. As suggested by: Kotr and Drone. Do some “policing” basically… The exact formula is unknown to me.

3. Do a token crusade in a none-catholic rebel controlled territory, Sahara is my favourite in that regard, playing as the English or some other faction that could easily get there by sea. The big question is if you got the florins for it? Do you? Oh, and if Sahara is under Moorish or Saracen (Almohad & Egypt in “vanilla”) rule, better use those spies of yours to stir things up there so you can swoop in for the big “glorious” win with a “pray and go” (declare it and strike at the target in same turn) crusade when it finally is under rebel management. +1 influence +1 Piety that way…

4. Keep being true, honest and loyal to your alliances. Backstabs will result in a penalty of -1 influence, that insight was provided by Ironside by the way.

5. Live long and prosper (Spock get out of here!), let your king rule long enough and having a steady surplus in income (don’t need much just make sure you have it) that should help as well. I strongly suspect that influence drops if you get a minus in your yearly income. Don’t know how much thou.

6. Keep a functional kingdom with lots of happy subjects, that might help as well. I don’t know if you might gain an influence for each “news-cast” you manage to headline as well. As in strongest military might, richest nation, happiest subjects that sort of thing. I honestly don’t know if this is the case, but it might be. Although I am uncertain here (I might even be wrong, oh horrid thought! )...

I hope these will help you out some Boz, remember the “rebel-school” that is key for you I believe. Good luck with the fairly peaceful management…


- Cheers

[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.