60 years in France.

[Vantek]

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

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

[gollum]

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]

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.

[caravel]

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!

Bishops/alims actually make the best "spies", whereas spies and assassins make the worst spies, despite the nomenclature. Spies are actually best used within your own provinces and should only be sent on daring missions for short periods and then brought home. This is due to their tendancy to eventually get caught. Border forts are the real killer. Send a spy or assassin to a province with one of those and he's already dead. This is why the humble bishop or alim is best for snooping on your rival factions.

Emissaries are not so good for spying as the AI loves to hunt them down with assassins. You can use this to your advantage however and train emissaries to keep in your own provinces as bait, with your counterspies lying in wait. If you're ever playing as the English, Scotland is good for this if you build a port as the AI seems to like to send all sorts of agents through there.

Despite this, one of the best ways to valour up your spies is to send them to a rival faction's disloyal/recently captured province and trigger a revolt. It is a good idea to send them en masse, because even though the highest valour spy is the only one having effect, all of your other spies will gain valour as well if he succeeds in instigating a revolt. I tend to send in my highest valour spy with as many 0 valour spies as you like. When the revolt is triggered all of those spies become valour 1. Rinse and repeat (the real problem is when you're getting on nicely and suddenly the AI builds a border fort in that province, so if you had 10 spies there, it's not uncommon to watch the "your spy was caught" info parchment 10 times in a row).

Does spies' loyalty bonus stack?

No, this is how it used to work in STW. In MTW it was changed so that only the highest valour spy in the province affects provincial loyalty (happiness).

I.e if you have 5 spies in a region, does that give +100% loyalty?

The maximum loyalty visible in MTW is 200%, though it can be higher than this it only ever displays "200%". In STW it displayed the exact loyalty figure, so if the province had 320% loyalty, it would display it (better IMHO). The maximum effective loyalty is 120%. This guards against loyalist revolts and faction re-emergences. Anything below that and a faction that was thought to have been wiped out can reappear.

If that was the case it could actually help military move faster on conquest.

It still does, but you need to train the highest valour spies possible. IIRC that is valour 2 in the 1087 - 1453 campaign and valour 3 in the VI campaign. This is because the VI tavern/brothel tech tree reverts back to something closer to the STW original in VI. In the main MTW campaign it is difficult to get spies early.

[Vantek]

So is the most important use of spies just loyalty boost everywhere (which improves economy and security against rebellions/civil war)? Anything else?

[caravel]

So is the most important use of spies just loyalty boost everywhere (which improves economy and security against rebellions/civil war)? Anything else?

Spies have two equally important uses: to boost provincial loyalty and to counterspy against rival faction assassins/spies. Assassins also do the latter. Effeciveness in both of these roles depends largely on the valour of the agent.

[sharpshooter]

Spies ... I'd have to agree with the comments above, and more. Spies are brilliant! I can't imagine playing without them, and find them the most useful of agents. I'd highly recommend that you tried them out.

First for the loyalty boost in your own provinces. It's hard to hold the more rebellious provinces, e.g. Portugal and Livonia, without them. Using spies in all your provinces almost does away with the empire wide loyalty drop that happens when you're around 50% of the all territories.

Secondly spies allow you to conquer much more quickly, as you can drop the garrison levels in new provinces rapidly instead of tying up an army while you wait for loyalty to improve. My armies always travel with a spy or two, who enter a conquered province on the turn after it's taken if the province has border forts. Otherwise they are killed if they go in on the turn you invade.

Thirdly, spies will warn you of impending rebellions, and identify the leader of the rebellion before it happens. This is another good reason to have a spy in every province. This is most useful with the factions like the Turks and the Egyptians, where you can't marry princesses to your less loyal generals.

Fourth, trying a general for treason, (and succeeding!) when you have a new king is a good tactic. If someone has been identified as the leader of an impending rebellion they will go down. Otherwise pick on a low level low loyalty unit leader. Success increases the loyalty of all other generals by 1. Failure decreases loyalty by 1.

Fifth - well, I've never found that revealing the vices of an enemy general has caused a rebellion for them, but it can be fun to do. I've several times revealed the Pope to be secretly avaricious.

Lastly, they are effective at causing rebellions, given time. A spy left long enough in any province will cause one unless it's already rebel. The easy example is Denmark when held by the Danes. They never build border forts, so you can drop one there and forget him. It might take 100 years, but the rebellion will come. Usually the Danes will beat the first rebellion, but the second one happens much more quickly, and eventually they will be kicked out, or destroyed. That said, I now leave the Danes alone, because they almost never attack me, so will trade with me to the end.

If you get your spy into rebel territories without border forts, like Genoa, Portugal or Lithuania it makes it very difficult for another faction to take it.

As has been noted, border forts are instant death to zero level spies, but spies with 3 or 4 valour can travel pretty much at will as long as they don't stop in a place with border forts for several years.

I start building a spy centre right from the start of a campaign. Syria is an ideal place if you're in that corner, say as the Turks or Egyptians. Assassins produced there get +2 valour.

I do use bishops/religious agents to spy, but my impression is that leaving them in other factions provinces increases the loyalty dropping Blackmailer vice. For this reason I've reverted to spying with emissaries and princesses.

(The Byzantines are great assassinators of bishops. You can see this by making spies and assassins visible in the crusaders unit11 file. It's fun to watch everyone's assassins cruising about, and after a time they start to assassinate each other - and your spies! However, border forts don't seem to work when they're visible, and eventuallly they start assassinating high level generals and kings. Spies also don't catch them when they're visible, so when they go after your agents, bishops etc. there's no way to stop them. So it's not a thing to do for a long time. The Almohads also asssassinate bishops, and I believe this is why the Pope gets "discomfitted" and calls for a crusade against them.)

Spies can level up quickly if somewhere with action, which mostly tend to be border type provinces. They get 1 star at Citadel level, and 2 stars at Fortress level, and moving one of these into a rebellious province will give a noticeable loyalty boost.

As Asai said, Scotland is a regular drop in centre for assassins if it has a port. So are Naples, Valencia and Pomerania. If you restrict the number of ports you build you will catch more. There seem to be many more about in the early and middle parts of a campaign, and they're much more common when starting in High or Late.

I love Halbs and Arbs too - but do you really train units in newly developed territories? I find that I'm always making them in the same places - usually in my homelands where they get better armour and valour boosts from the Master buildings. You might also notice that generally the AI controlled factions only make one of a building type after the Keep level, and train all their troops of that type from that province.

Generally all agents cause a loyalty drop on other factions territory. Sometimes you can walk an agent, like an emissary, across several of an enemies provinces, and if loyalty is low a string of rebellions occur in his wake. Dropping all your agents on Portugal just after it's taken will often cause a rebellion. Fleets also cause loyalty drops even if not enemy, so popping a fleet next to Rhodes will can cause an eruption.

With Naples as the example, you will see loads of agents sitting there. Eventually, if nothing changes, there will be a rebellion there.

So when you've just taken a place, and a string of other factions agents drop in they are lowering the loyalty there. It's not just curiosity. Likewise, you can use your ordinary agents against other factions in the same way.

I get the impression that other factions "don't like" seeing your agents crossing their lands. If you're poking into a normally hidden territory, like, say, Arabia or Wallachia, then often it will flush out another factions "hidden" army, which then jumps into a visible province.

I suspect behind the scenes that there is a table with the attitude of other factions to your faction - a bit like the Senate table in RTW, or the Pope's table in M2TW. Using any agents in their territories probably causes their "attitude" to yours to be hostile - increasing the likelihood of an attack, decreasing the likelihood of an alliance, etc.

Spies are brilliant! :D

[Prince Cobra]

Naples.... I had an assassin there and he practiced his torturing skills a lot. He has already 5 stars and now is summoned back in Constantinople to protect the royalty replaced by a 3 star fellow.

There is another trick with spies. You can use them to provoke civil wars or at least damage the general reputation gaining valour in the porcess. Attempting to reveal the general's vices (even unsuccessfully) generates Spynetwork vices in the generals (this hits loyalty). And if you keep on harrassing the general, the spy gains valour from revealing vice (Secret Spynetwork vices for example). That's an excellent way to train a spy.

Personally, I never use spies to try for treason since it can backfire in case of failure. I've had a 3 star assassin failure on zero star emissary (the emissary was mine own) and this shows that the high rank does not always guarantee a success.

[Roark]

What Sharpshooter said.

Spies are great at collapsing empires you're invading, fomenting rebellion and decreasing happiness. If you take two or more provinces from the same enemy in one year, and have spies in the rest of his empire, he takes a double hit of unhappiness and you'll soon see rebellion breaking out (obviously subject to the enemy monarch's influence and traits etc)

[PershsNhpios]

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[PershsNhpios]

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[PershsNhpios]

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[Vantek]

Umm... Why did you keep your king in Britain instead of the mainland?

[Prince Cobra]

Loyalty drops can be result of vices of the ruler, spy activity of the enemy, incompetent governors, isolation of the King (blockade),growing too big (did you get new provinces since 1236?, though I think this happens when you have about 60 per cent). How high were your taxes? Excommunication can also affect the provinces, I think.

Personally, I would create a re-emergence in one of the provinces, setting the taxes to very high and pulling out all of my armies there (it will also reduce the strength of the re-emergence). You should try to keep your other provinces above 120 per cent loyalty, though. Another way is to invade an island/ surrounded by loyal provinces that was kept by France in the past and create a reemergence there. And the best way to keep yourself far from reemergence is to keep your enemy alive. I practice it with the Turks in my early Byz campaign (Syria), though I control Aragon and Valencia that probably belonged to the destroyed Aragonese + bribed a rebel province from the dead French. But big enemies like France, Egypt, Turks (whenever possible), Spanish... and others should be kept alive if possible.

Stripping a title of a governor and disbanding the unit/putting it in a royal stack and finding the most dreaded general can also work.

Edited: Blame Jean D'Arc!

Edited2: If you have a high star assassin(s), gather all of them and pray they can finish the French monarch (you should destroy the border forts before you lose the provinces, though). This is a very desperate move, though.

[caravel]

Screenshots would help. You can post your actual size screenshots in spoilers (no need to scale down).

[Ironside]

As mentioned, we need screens to determine the cause.

By the sound of it, dead king + moved location. Or factions blocking the mainland. Did Iberia stay calm and France rebel or both?

[sharpshooter]

Hey Glenn,

Your loyalty drop sounds very much as a result of ship blockade.

If your capital was London (the province with the most buildings) then the continent would be cut off from the capital if, say, the English channel had an enemy ship in it. In such a circumstance loyalty plummets. An enemy ship in the Channel or North Sea will cause loyalty drops as far as Volgo_Bulgaria if the capital is in Britain. To check this you need to know firstly which is your capital, and secondly to press V and see if you have a line of green seas between your capital and the rest of your empire. If you do not you are in big trouble.

XL has the biggest re-emergences I've ever seen. Truly massive - I once had 100,000 HRE and 40,000Hungarians emerge simultaneously in an English campaign (screenshots available on request), when the English had already reached the Steppes. That did take 50 turns to put right - talk about Murderous Temper.

[Ironside]

XL has the biggest re-emergences I've ever seen. Truly massive - I once had 100,000 HRE and 40,000Hungarians emerge simultaneously in an English campaign (screenshots available on request), when the English had already reached the Steppes. That did take 50 turns to put right - talk about Murderous Temper.

Requested.

I mean my record army of all time (normal sized units) was about 150k and that was pure show off.

[PershsNhpios]

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[Prince Cobra]

Talking of France:

I decided to make the Italian re-emerge in the islands of Sardinia and Corsica and destroyed all of the buildings (the loyalty was still 135 per cent in very high taxes). Then I moved off my ships from the surrounding and the loyalty dropped to 0 and nothing could change it from that. This resembles to the Glenn case. Is it possible that Glenn forgot to put a ship between him and France. Anyway, it seems this has something to do with the King on island location.

In my campaign it is 1319. The Byzantine armies with the Varangian guards (I use them instead of regular infantry, though I am making upgrades so that I can get 1 valour Byz infantry) managed to conquer all of Italy (except Rome and Genoa) and reached Swabia, Burgundy and Austria. In 4 years there is to be a Citadel on Switzerland and I can activate my plan for the Swiss army. I need them, esp. the Swiss halberdiers, because despite my vast amount of Varangians (over 60 units, probably more) I will soon be no longer able to train them. This makes me sad since I was able to make into a horse meat all the knights around and fight the enemy even when vastly outnumbered. I plan to start my invasion at Hungary (unfinished business with Hungary; Croatia is now mine), Anjou, Ile de France and push the French out of the mainland. Now I have about 43 provinces

Anyway, I am interested in the loyalty drop once I reach the 50 per cent of the map. How many per cent is it? I still rely on sea to link my domain between Iberia and the other lands (there is only 1 neutral ship in the Med and it is full with my ships ) Basically, only Aragon, Switzerland and Burgundy can potentially re-emerge but this can also be a problem for me. I am also worried about my income. Large part of it comes from trade and now there is only Spain (5 provinces: Portugal, Tolouse, Aquitane, Algeria and Tunisia) to trade with me. My cash is about 82 000, though they have been 110 000 ten years ago, though officially there is still surplus. But once my trade partner disappears, I do not know...

Once I counquer Anjou, I should also fear of English re-emergence but these never re-emerged since their disappearance about 1150, even earlier, I think. This was so even when the provinces was held by rebels.

Btw, I should go for 60 per cent victory. The game has been too long.

P.S. I love spies. They already opened 4 castles and I got these provinces without any damages!

[Ironside]

The rebellion took place over three turns.

On the first turn, the Northern waters were blockaded, Iberia turned red, however I fixed this so that only two were on 98% loyalty. I survived this turn.
The next turn, the Northern waters were open excepting the North sea, and Iberia was 33% red, and all of aforementioned France was irretrievably red.
That is to say, even with very low taxes and reasonable garrisons, the loyalty ranged from 0 - 27%.
Because of this, when France re-emerged on the next turn, all of Iberia was red.
This meant that Castile, Portucale and Aragon were all returning.

Perhaps this would have been easily fixed had I not been at war with the second largest military in Europe!

Oh yes, and the King was in Wessex at this time because the elder had died, his old brother had taken the throne, then died two years later, and the nephew (Thank god) took over.

This is no doubt attributive.

Did you use the v button (I think that's the key) to see the intact sea lines? Because the channel line seems to be broken, perhaps from another faction than Denmark. Ship contact to Spain but streching by land through France was too much.

Anyway, I am interested in the loyalty drop once I reach the 50 per cent of the map. How many per cent is it? I still rely on sea to link my domain between Iberia and the other lands (there is only 1 neutral ship in the Med and it is full with my ships ) Basically, only Aragon, Switzerland and Burgundy can potentially re-emerge but this can also be a problem for me. I am also worried about my income. Large part of it comes from trade and now there is only Spain (5 provinces: Portugal, Tolouse, Aquitane, Algeria and Tunisia) to trade with me. My cash is about 82 000, though they have been 110 000 ten years ago, though officially there is still surplus. But once my trade partner disappears, I do not know...

Once I counquer Anjou, I should also fear of English re-emergence but these never re-emerged since their disappearance about 1150, even earlier, I think. This was so even when the provinces was held by rebels.

Btw, I should go for 60 per cent victory. The game has been too long.

P.S. I love spies. They already opened 4 castles and I got these provinces without any damages!

The loyalty drop is nothing more than that the "distance to king" factor is getting more important. For example Switzerland is usually getting unstable without spies simply because they're so far inland by province counting. That means that 3/4 of your empire might suddenly rebel because of one disrupting boat.
England should not come back, if they stayed dead for more than a generation the potential royal heirs should have died out. The game chooses royal heir that didn't had came to age when the faction was wiped out to lead the re-emergence, from what I understand.