60 years in France.

**Ironside** · 11-24-2009, 11:04

Originally Posted by Vantek

Goodness me!

Could you explain this? I totally do not understand what is going on here! I guess it must mean that in my own English campaign I have been playing with fire all along! Just one war with a strong naval kingdom, and my whole empire rebels from reasons I didn't even know existed!

BTW, from the map it honestly looks like you've won :)

The XL mod removes the landline between Britain and Flanders AFAIK. Not that bad in vanilla, but you would still suffer a notable loyalty drop (at least +2 in loyalty lane= notable drop). Correct king placement is vital during wars with major naval nations.

You're familliar with the "distance to king" loyalty factor? It's vital for handling larger empires.

**caravel** · 11-24-2009, 12:47

If the king get's cut off on an island without a port, or where the port is blockaded, your entire kingdom can revolt. This is because in such cases the "distance to faction leader" parameter goes to maximum, causing loyalty to plummet in the cut off provinces. This is why you should never send your king abroad to lead i.e. an invasion of Ireland. If you invade Ireland with another general/heir, they will suffer loyalty problems there, due to being cut off, though this is much more preferable to having it the other way around.

To be honest, the removal of the wessex/flanders landbridge (or any other landbridges for that matter) is bad design. I have added more landbridges to the game rather than taking the existing ones out. In Glenn's campaign for example where your king is likely to be based in either Ile de France or Wessex, the situation is damaging either way.

**Vantek** · 11-24-2009, 19:02

Crikey!

I knew about the distance to king factor, but I assumed it worked simply based on how many provinces/sea regions are between the king and the province in question, without taking in account wether the inbetween provinces belong to you or wether you even have ships in the sea regions at all, nevermind wether there's a blockade or not!

I had absolutely no idea that sea blockades have any effect at all, let alone cause the distance to be maximum! On the same line, I take it that if a landlocked province is cut off from the empire by enemy territory, it has the same effect? I didn't even know about that! I must have been unbelievably lucky with my career so far, because I have never lost a game due to revolts or civil war

And I often ignore the Pope altogether, so excommunication is an everyday thing for me...

You have been sleeping on a powder keg!

Tell me about it! Not only that, I have been smoking and playing with fire while sitting on the powder keg!

**gollum** · 11-24-2009, 19:43

Excommunication raises the rebelliousness of the catholic flock, this may be particularly a problem if you hold regions like Portugal that have high rebeliousness.

Beware of the Holy Father...

**caravel** · 11-24-2009, 20:24

Originally Posted by Vantek

Crikey!On the same line, I take it that if a landlocked province is cut off from the empire by enemy territory, it has the same effect?

Exactly the same.

The king can get cut off in ways that you wouldn't expect. For example, if you're playing as e.g. the Turks and you capture Malta. Let's say that it turns out that Malta is your most teched up province even after razing a Citadel down to a castle and demolishing the port (which always seems to happen about 99% of the time). The next thing your Sultan passes on to the next life and Prince Orhan takes over as Sultan. He is immediately teleported to the most technologically advanced province (assumed by the game engine to be the "capital", Malta. This means that Sultan Orhan is now in Malta without a port. The result is that all of the provinces back home get hit by the maximum distance to faction leader penalty, and loyalty drops dramatically...

This is why I always build/train in every province:

1) At least one, usually two high valour spies.

2) Watch Towers (and border fort upgrade if needed*)

3) Town Watch (first level only, do not build the later levels unless you want to train any units they provide)

4) Church/Mosque

5) Brothel (first level only, do not build the later levels unless you want to train high valour spies there)

In addition to the above, for the problem provinces (e.g. Norway, Portugal, Lithuania etc):

1) Monastery

2) Reliquary

3) College of Surgeons (unique)

Grand Mosque/Cathedral is also a very good provincial loyalty booster, but you should really build this in your troop producing centre (for the +3 morale bonus) and not some rebellious backwater province.

-Edit: The Ribat should probably have had some kind of provincial loyalty bonus attached to it. Unfortunately this is not the case, so the muslim factions are sold short when it comes to these types of buildings.

*I tend not to upgrade border forts as I prefer my spies to do the counterspying, as they gain valour from it. It's best to wait until you have about 50% of the map and then upgrade all of the watch towers to border forts in one go. By then your spies should be good enough and the addition of the border forts will raise your security to the highest level.

**Vantek** · 11-24-2009, 21:46

To add to the disaster, I forgot to mention...

I don't think I've ever made a single spy!

**gollum** · 11-25-2009, 00:08

Spies are really fun to play with. You can reveal vices of your generals or even trial them for treason. You can also catch enemy spies/assasins and improve the loyalty of your lands while undermine loyalty in other kingdoms. Just try it out.

**Vantek** · 11-25-2009, 09:59

I know, I know! I just always need that next Arbalester, that next Halberdier, that next ship... XD Really hard to find time for agents! Except Bishops... Which I make in useless provinces and use to spy on enemy XD But Spies require Castles, and Castles can make Halbs/Arbs!

Does spies' loyalty bonus stack? I.e if you have 5 spies in a region, does that give +100% loyalty? If that was the case it could actually help military move faster on conquest.