Trait Building?

[drone]

The main methods of increasing loyalty are:

• Bestowing titles.
• Marrying princesses to the general (the incest vice is possible if the general has royal lineage).
• Keeping the general in close proximity to the faction leader. A general in the leader's stack gets loyalty pretty quickly, and cannot lead a revolt since the faction leader is always the commander of his stack. But keeping a general in the same province or within a couple of provinces from the leader helps.
• Increasing the Influence of the faction leader. This is key, a low Influence king is a prime target for a civil war.

[Gaiseric]

Ok, Thanks!!!

Does proximity raise loyalty or just reduce the chance of rebellion? I have been getting some 4 acumen generals but with only one loyalty. If I give them a title, it can bump their loyalty up to two. I would like to use these generals as governors, but I dont know how much I can depend on them even if my King is 1 province away. I am also unfamiliar with how to raise my kings influence?

I have tried using spies to give a trial to my low loyalty generals for treason. This is actually an easy way to increase spy valor early in the game. If the trial is successful, the low loyalty general will be executed and replaced with a random general, and the spy gains valor.

I think the quality of generals that are recruited in terms of loyalty and acumen in a game is random too. I have had some very successful early games and other early games where my generals were all poor quality. I am unsure if certain buildings can give any bonuses to the acumen and loyalty of the generals I recruit?

As far as trait building goes, In one of my better early games I was able to keep my governors vice free by leaving them out of stacks and at the same time build up their traits for the buildings I constructed. It was also interesting to notice that if you leave governors out of stacks they still can get good traits and good trait improvements. I haven't noticed any bad traits appearing in out of stack governors, but it was still early game. The kings traits must be global because for some reason I was able to build up my governors traits on the same province the king was in.

I'll keep trying to build up my governors and generals traits and reply to this thread on how it is going. Right now I am looking for good loyalty generals with at least 4 acumen to govern. My success at recruiting generals like this varies from between 1 in 10 to 1 in 20. It can be quite frustrating to go 10 to 20 turns in game, recruiting generals in each province, every turn, and still not have many qualified candidates. I am playing a country with a good economy and safe start position. I imagine it is very difficult to try to develop governors with some factions, although it does pay off if you are using the default settings, where generals are replaced by someone with the same traits and stats when they die. What strategies do you use for assigning and training governors?

[caravel]

Ok, Thanks!!!

Does proximity raise loyalty or just reduce the chance of rebellion? I have been getting some 4 acumen generals but with only one loyalty. If I give them a title, it can bump their loyalty up to two. I would like to use these generals as governors, but I dont know how much I can depend on them even if my King is 1 province away. I am also unfamiliar with how to raise my kings influence?

For governors, proximity has no bearing. The only proximity factors you need to consider is the distance of a province from the faction leader and keeping the most disloyal generals with otherwise good stats in the same province as the faction leader - this will prevent them revolting. A governor's loyalty doesn't factor into provincial loyalty. IIRC the only way a governor effects provincial loyalty is through the dread and piety stats. Higher dread = higher happiness (provincial loyalty) in the governed province, higher piety = higher happiness in in the governed province of the same religion / lower happines in the governed province of a different religion. So for example if you're the Almohads and invade Portugal, you want a high dread, low piety governor to keep order - he can be a temp governor until you've used other means to restore order (town watch, watch towers, brothel, church, spies, garrison size, converted the province, etc). Once the province is stable and you want to make money you can send an emissary to demote him and assign someone more suitable.

I have tried using spies to give a trial to my low loyalty generals for treason. This is actually an easy way to increase spy valor early in the game. If the trial is successful, the low loyalty general will be executed and replaced with a random general, and the spy gains valor.

Yes, this works but if your faction leader is already low influence the victim will be replaced with another low loyalty general. I tend to orchestrate the treason plots in combination with other influence boosting measures - i.e. a few invasions or a jihad/crusade.

I think the quality of generals that are recruited in terms of loyalty and acumen in a game is random too. I have had some very successful early games and other early games where my generals were all poor quality. I am unsure if certain buildings can give any bonuses to the acumen and loyalty of the generals I recruit?

All generals stats are based on the stats of the ruler with an added random factor. Loyalty in particular is based on the faction leader's influence. If you have a low influence faction leader, expect low loyalty generals. In the case of such a faction leader (i.e. a 0 - 3 influence leader) you can literally "train" yourself into a state of civil war - because all new units you train will be low loyalty. Once the number of disloyal generals outnumbers the loyal ones, civil war can erupt.

As far as trait building goes, In one of my better early games I was able to keep my governors vice free by leaving them out of stacks and at the same time build up their traits for the buildings I constructed. It was also interesting to notice that if you leave governors out of stacks they still can get good traits and good trait improvements. I haven't noticed any bad traits appearing in out of stack governors, but it was still early game. The kings traits must be global because for some reason I was able to build up my governors traits on the same province the king was in.

Yes leaving out of stack builds up vices/virtues for the governor, but personally I don't see it as worthwhile as not every general governs and some can progress on to worse vices while they are just sitting in a province. It does happen in time - many vices are related to treasury size as well.

I'll keep trying to build up my governors and generals traits and reply to this thread on how it is going. Right now I am looking for good loyalty generals with at least 4 acumen to govern. My success at recruiting generals like this varies from between 1 in 10 to 1 in 20. It can be quite frustrating to go 10 to 20 turns in game, recruiting generals in each province, every turn, and still not have many qualified candidates. I am playing a country with a good economy and safe start position. I imagine it is very difficult to try to develop governors with some factions, although it does pay off if you are using the default settings, where generals are replaced by someone with the same traits and stats when they die. What strategies do you use for assigning and training governors?

The random acumen of newly trained unit leaders is based on the faction leader's acumen. This is why the French in Early get lots of high acumen generals from the start and throughout the first king's lifespan.

-Edit: Drone has summed it up better than I could have.

[drone]

Now we are digging into the cobwebbed portion of my MTW memory, but here goes:

Does proximity raise loyalty or just reduce the chance of rebellion? I have been getting some 4 acumen generals but with only one loyalty. If I give them a title, it can bump their loyalty up to two. I would like to use these generals as governors, but I dont know how much I can depend on them even if my King is 1 province away. I am also unfamiliar with how to raise my kings influence?

Just to clarify, there are 2 flavors of "loyalty". One is the loyalty of your generals, this affects their bribe costs as well as their involvement in civil war plots. The other is province loyalty (happiness), below 100% can lead to local uprisings, below 120% leaves the province vulnerable to faction reemergences. A civil war (revolt of generals) is different than a province rebellion/uprising.

The following actions affect faction leader influence (I think this is the entire list):

• Losing two provinces, -1 influence
• Capturing two provinces, +1 influence
• Losing a crusade/jihad, -2 influence
• Successful crusade/jihad, +1 influence
• Relieving the siege on an ally, +1 influence
• Attacking an ally, -1 influence

I think the quality of generals that are recruited in terms of loyalty and acumen in a game is random too. I have had some very successful early games and other early games where my generals were all poor quality. I am unsure if certain buildings can give any bonuses to the acumen and loyalty of the generals I recruit?

Buildings do not affect acumen or loyalty of new generals, just the VnVs that get triggered from building them. When a unit is recruited, the general's attributes are a function of the faction leader's stats. A high influence tends to attract better generals. This is another reason why the leader's influence is so important, a low influence (3 or less?) can cripple an empire. Turtling can lead to low influence, since provinces are not being conquered.

As far as trait building goes, In one of my better early games I was able to keep my governors vice free by leaving them out of stacks and at the same time build up their traits for the buildings I constructed. It was also interesting to notice that if you leave governors out of stacks they still can get good traits and good trait improvements. I haven't noticed any bad traits appearing in out of stack governors, but it was still early game. The kings traits must be global because for some reason I was able to build up my governors traits on the same province the king was in.

In the end-turn phase, when all the VnV triggers are computed only the commander of an army stack is eligible for a VnV. So either the guy with the most command stars or the king. If you don't want someone to get a vice, stick him in a stack with a higher star general (of course, he won't get any virtues either...). If things are going well for a faction, I imagine tons of single unit stacks would create plenty of VnVs.

There is no need to keep a governor in "his" province, it doesn't affect how his stats influence the provincial loyalty or income. Supposedly, not moving a general for a while can lead to bad vices as well.

Edit->beaten by Caravel!

[Brandy Blue]

Buildings do not affect acumen or loyalty of new generals, just the VnVs that get triggered from building them.

OK, but maybe Gaiseric is thinking of buildings that allow you to assign a new title. I don't remember anything about them except that they exist, and I think that cathedral and grand mosque give new acumen offices. I've no idea what buildings Hellenic Total war has of what additional titles they might allow.

[caravel]

Some titles do come from the official buildings (palace, etc) and from the grand mosque/cathedral.

I think building the University increases the acumen of all of your newly trained generals, but don't quote me on that one. It definitely has some kind of global effect anyway.

[Gaiseric]

Thanks for the help Caravel and drone!!! This really clears things up!!! I have played some more game starts and gone a bit further than I had before. As time went by, I had plenty of 4 acumen and good loyalty generals to choose from. I set the generals/units that have good stats and loyalty, and that I want to govern, off to the side not in a stack. I actually had a waiting list because the further I went in the game, the better quality of generals I was recruiting. The recruitment of 4 acumen, good loyalty generals still seemed random though and really did not depend on the total number of generals I recruited. The reason the basic leader improved the more I played was probably due to my influence and other king stats increasing. I would say that the first 10 turns or so was very hard to recruit any decent leaders and that is true for all the game starts I have played. After that it greatly improves.

For building governor stats I leave them in their province and outside of a stack. From what I have seen in my games they rarely will get bad traits this way, but they can still get good ones in addition to the traits they get from the buildings I construct. I have seen multiple instances where governors got building traits while they where in the same province as the king. The king however, did not get the same traits as the governor, so I think the good building\farming traits for the king are global. This is actually a good thing because then I can have multiple governors get the steward trait, and then the king can get it too, doubling the provinces bonuses. General loyalty was also less of a factor the more I played because the building traits the king can get will add to all generals loyalty.

I am planning to go further into the game now and will post more observations, and questions about traits as I go. I am playing The Ancient:Total War mod, but I think the traits are mostly the same. Thanks again for the help!!!

[Gaiseric]

Another double post. Trait building is going well. This time I got a quick question on trade.

Where can I find a trade buildings max trade value in the game files?

In the past two or three campaigns I have gotten some nice little empires set up. Each time I tried trading but ended up bankrupt because my trade buildings have hit their max value of trade allowed. I kept sending out ships unaware that I hit the max trade mark. Meanwhile these ships I sent halfway around Europe, are not bringing in any profits and their upkeep is killing me. It would help me very much to know if there is a place in the game files or anywhere else where I can find this number or an approximate range.

This post is regarding The Ancient:Total War Mod. When Installing the mod some of the vanilla files may have been deleted, overwritten, or modified. If you can point to where the max trade values are in MTW, I can probably find them in ATW. Thanks!!!