Allied states and client rulers.

[TKaz84]

Other than fast building times and the ability to recruit the best regional troops, what are the benefits of creating allied states? Also, how do client rulers work? Do you have to recruit a mercenary general and put him in an allied state?

[DaciaJC]

I find client rulers to be useful when I am suffering from a lack of suitable family-member governors.

Basically, recruit a mercenary general (one of his traits will say that he has a path to choose). To make him a governor, simply leave him in that settlement. If you want him to be an allied general, move him out.

[paramedicguyer]

Allied generals I think are good to use if you want to focus on city management (that is, you want your cities properly governed). This is especially helpful early on, when family members are far and few. I find client rulers a a blessing and a curse. To effectively use a client ruler, that means keeping that city an allied state for up to 50 + years (ive gotten 16 year old client rulers). Of course you could still change government at any time, but you still have a rather ineffective (can't move very much) general. I personally hate allied states (when not-roleplaying), instead I find a nice easily accessible city and make it my one allied state (for romans my favorites are bononia or massalia). Here you can pump out generals and locloa troops once in a while. of course if you are roleplaying you will end up with many allied states so then all of this post was for nothing. My best advice is just don't abuse the quick fix of Type IV's and be more aware of the payoff of a type II or I (if applicable). Oh yes, andbe mindful that allied generals cannot recieve triumphs (while really not that important in terms of gameplay, it is nice to see ur FM as triumphators.

Oh and be careful if an allied general is sitting in a city and the Type IV government building is completed during that time, he automatically becomes a client ruler. Additionally if you can afford it, allied generals are an effective means of providing self replenishing cavalry or infantry to an army. I actually tested this out with an army consisting of both allied general cavalry and infantry, incredibly expensive (admitadly i had to cheat to maintain it, just testin tho), but incredibly effective.

[A Very Super Market]

It'll also keep rebellious settlements under control. A client ruler immediately gets at least 5 influence once you determine his path.

[godsakes]

2 main reasons:

quickly control an area - client rulers make a huge difference in keeping a province happy, extremely handy when you're in a situation where you need to move your army on and are unable to quickly reinforce the area. Also when your ruler dies of old age you can easily replace them and not mess around shipping family members across the world

types 4 govts get the +1 experience bonus, when combined with blacksmith/temple bonuses (and assuming the region is capable of producing worthwhile troops) they can become some of your best troop production centres.

[Andy1984]

I believe the allied settlement gives you +2 exp, but the core territory (lvl 1) gives you +2 morale. Lvls 2 and 3 give you a single morale and a single exp point respectivly. So yes: units from the allied regions fight slightly more efficient, but the difference isn't that great.

Main reasons to make a settlement allied:
-if you need to control hard-to-control regions: my allied governors seem to be having at least a bit influence.
-if you need a specific mercenary general unit (heavy cavalry for greek mercenary general, heavy infantry for celtic generals, and heavy ranged cavalry for nomadic generals)
-if you want to be able to build out the regional barracks. I often find myself building the highest level regional barracks (mostly for the sake of it), before changing the government level. That way: you can build (and use) both factional and regional barracks. Though, by the time any of these are at a decent level, you're unlikely to still need them.

[Apázlinemjó]

For roleplay purposes, you can use the mercenary generals as your only generals and leave your FMs in the cities, making the camapigns a bit harder and expensive. :P

[mitfox]

Can someone clarify this: in the recruitment viewer, allied generals show up as level 5 units. Yet, you can recruit them as soon as the level IV government is in place. This seems like a cheat -- one can produce these top-level units from the start ofnthe game. Plus, since they self replenish, they pick up experience, and quickly become killing machines. Also, they are not more expensive than elite factional units. This seems like an easy short cut, which really changes the gameplay, was it intended to be like this, ornshouldthe generals become available only with level V regional MIC?

[Sylon]

I can't say for sure because I'm not a team member, but it seems to me that allied generals are fairly balanced. They are powerful, no doubt, but they also have an extremely high upkeep- the average allied general costs about ~4000 mnai to recruit ~1000 mnai per turn to maintain. That's a lot of money that can be used for infrastructure, or more cost effective units.

Basically, allied generals are largely meant to represent client rulers and the like, which is why they're recruitable from the beginning in client states (Type 4 governments).

[Ca Putt]

"WololooooOOO BOO" - *banishes undead*

The RV was not updated with the 1.2 update which changed their recruitment from the lvl 5 regional MIC to the lvl 4 government and disabled their automatic spawning when instating the latter.
In 1.1 you needed a lvl 5 regional MIC(which for most factions needs a lvl 4 government) to train Generals "en masse", you got one for free in the beginning but when he died it was the best idea to change the government to lvl3. In general this was a good system, it caused a lot of bugs however and thus was replaced with the current one, sure now you can train lots and lots of FMs with only investing 600 bucks into government all around the map(almost) which at times is a bit like cheating, however EB is a game for people who like roleplaying or taking a game slow, so it's no major issue. Afterall if EB was fairly balanced romans would not have such dirt cheap troops.

[seleucid empire]

2 main reasons:

quickly control an area - client rulers make a huge difference in keeping a province happy, extremely handy when you're in a situation where you need to move your army on and are unable to quickly reinforce the area. Also when your ruler dies of old age you can easily replace them and not mess around shipping family members across the world

types 4 govts get the +1 experience bonus, when combined with blacksmith/temple bonuses (and assuming the region is capable of producing worthwhile troops) they can become some of your best troop production centres.

Its not only for quickly controlling an area blitzing and good troops. Some regions you just have to have one or you will never hold them unless you want to keep your faction leader in the town for 10 years :/