Improving Agents

[Agent Miles]

In my campaign as Egypt (VH/VH, no mods), I had a Jama and a Master Theologian’s Guild in Jerusalem. I had made a couple Imams and they started with 2 piety. Well I left them inside the city walls and over time they each got a monk and then some traits that increased their piety, even though they were not out converting heathens. I thought that the guild’s only improved agents at creation, but it seems that, at least with religious agents, they can improve them over time as well. I’m going to try this with merchants and spies/assassins, unless someone can confirm or deny this.

[anweRU]

Wouldn't it be easier to look into the unpacked text files?

[FactionHeir]

Ancillary gain is pretty random, but being in a town with a religious buildings helps a lot (no use for other agent types iirc, though spies do get pet monkeys from higher marketsand assassins get pistols from gunsmiths at creation only)

As for traits, they shouldn't get getting any outside of Orthodox if in a 100% region.

[Agent Miles]

anweRU, I have Vista, so I can’t actually see inside the game’s text files without DLing a program that allows me to do that. I am not a modder, so I don’t like unnecessary DL’s on my laptop. Perhaps you could clarify the text files?

FH, I believe that Jerusalem was 90+ Muslim, but I understood (or misunderstood) that the religious agents had to be out actively converting and not hanging around in a city to improve their piety.

[FactionHeir]

Anywhere in a region is fine, including city. Usually city is better due to religious buildings.

[Agent Miles]

Here’s what I found out last night. The imams no longer gained any piety from the guild after Jerusalem was 100% Muslim, so I do not think that the guild increases piety for imams inside a city, they only get it for converting, which they do better outside a city. The imams I had in the city did however gain a Monk ancillary within about 5 turns, whereas an imam I had in a city with no guild did not ever get a Monk ancillary. I also tried keeping a spy and a merchant in a city with their respective guilds and they also gained no additional ability after they were created, although about half of the spies got the Dancer ancillary.
Curiously, I did discover this. I had a Master Theologian’s Guild in Jerusalem, but all of the cities around Jerusalem also gave the “Theologian’s Guild Apprentice” trait to Imams trained in their cities, even though there was no such guild in these cities and only first level mosques.

[anweRU]

anweRU, I have Vista, so I can’t actually see inside the game’s text files without DLing a program that allows me to do that. I am not a modder, so I don’t like unnecessary DL’s on my laptop. Perhaps you could clarify the text files?

FH, I believe that Jerusalem was 90+ Muslim, but I understood (or misunderstood) that the religious agents had to be out actively converting and not hanging around in a city to improve their piety.

I have Vista as well, and I'm not a modder. If you have patch 1.2 / 1.3 installed, there is an unpacking utility under its own directory in the main METW2 directory. Beware though, if you unpack the whole thing you will get a nice ~2GB addition to your hard drive (could be more for the main game, I only unpacked the Crusades campaign from the expansion).

[FactionHeir]

That's all working fine then, since you get the apprentice/journeyman type traits from higher guilds on creation only.
And no, monk is given by the religious building, not the guild.

[Agent Miles]

Thanks to you both!