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Thread: Rome 2 Tips and un-/under-documented features

  1. #61
    Senior Member Senior Member Oaty's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Quote Originally Posted by benjywa View Post
    afternoon chap.



    I haven't had gravitas issues yet, you can't control the first ones you get so don't sweat it. I would like to know the answer to this too, I have asked for definitive answer but not found anything yet. From playing I have the following assumptions but would like them verifying

    1 - leaving you faction leader in the pool seems to give decent + gravitas return
    2 - having family member go killing in your main army means levels and + gravitas
    3 - doing the same as 2 with other families isn't a great idea
    4 - not using any other families is a non starter - they get grumpy and it gives you a -gravita penalty

    So how I am rolling at the moment:
    youngest family member is main general going out getting levels
    trying to put competing family members in small homebound reserve forces so they are in armies but not fighting
    recruiting young generals to go fighting and adopting them when they are up and running and have 3 traits
    Funny thing is I have a 60% rating with the senate, playing as Rome. I wanted to put someone from my faction in the lead army but the game doesnt always show where the army is at where u are replacing the general, so I was never sure which army was getting what. I now know you have to remember the army by name to know which is the lead army. Plus I didnt pull any tricks on the other family memebers. Where as the other families are pulling dirty tricks on me all the time. For whatever reason I seem to be getting a lot of gravitas!

    It isnt really a trick but coincidence, where a faction is at war with the same faction you are. What happens even if you don't have any treaties going on, the AI will attack and the other faction will join you in the battle if they are within reenfocment range. Quite nice if you aske me. I think the AI can opt out but I'm guessing because it was a weak faction it did it to try to get good terms with me. So I'm guessing you could strategiacally park an army near another AI army and double team the enemy. How it happened for me was there was an army of a neutral faction on ships next to one of my cities and the opposing faction attacked my city and the rest is history.
    When a fox kills your chickens, do you kill the pigs for seeing what happened? No you go out and hunt the fox.
    Cry havoc and let slip the HOGS of war

  2. #62

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Quote Originally Posted by Myth View Post
    Also, the champion unit itself will level up and you can take a skill that improves movement points WHILE he trains your army.
    Yeah, and this is actually true of all one's agents.

    A rather passive approach to using agents, but nonetheless effective, is to just stick ALL of them in your armies.

    PROS:
    - Keeps them all employed every turn, at no cost to treasury.
    - Keeps them "auto-leveling" in skills.
    - Every army always has an agent available if one does want to pull them out for a turn and execute a specific action vs enemy.
    - Your general/army benefits from their passive traits...almost as if the general has an extra "super household member" slot.

    CONS:
    - Skill-ups take several turns, and therefore an agent levels slower than if performing successful actions several turns in a row.
    - Tends to diffuse agents across the map, and able to concentrate for multiple agent actions only in areas where your armies themselves are somewhat concentrated.
    - Obviously, lessens agents' independence and range.

  3. #63
    Member Member Sp4's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Incase anyone is still wondering (I only just now found out =X)

    Normal shot for ballistae is better at killing lots of stuff quickly as everything that is touched by the rocks they fling at people, dies. Literally everyone who gets knocked over by a normal shot stays on the ground. I am not sure if this is supposed to work that way because I have seen explosive shot land in the middle of a unit of heavy infantry, throwing them all around and making them fly everywhere just so everyone could get up and continue walking.

    I am not sure about the advantages of using explosive ammo. I guess it has more of a morale effect, allowing you to use artillery as more of a close fire support for your own infantry without risking too many deaths from friendly fire but I am not totally certain on that. The casualties from explosive ammo are a lot lower than from standard shots. Either way, I wouldn't really use them to shoot at things that are close to your own units.

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  4. #64

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Sorry if these have been posted already:

    Campaign:
    It doesn't work well to try to have Tier 3 or 4 buildings in all of your settlements as these can be very costly in terms of squalor, food, or public order. Since food can be imported from other provinces, specialization by province is possible e.g. military, financial, etc. The beta 3 patch reduced some of the higher-level building penalties somewhat.

    The strategic overview also has overlay toggle buttons to see: population growth, wealth, public order

    If a third party is blocking the port of one of the enemy settlements you wish to take, you can place your army in the combat zone and wait for the third party to initiate an assault. Then just decline to take part. The third party is defeated and runs off and you can assault the settlement.

    Great way to move troops really far: Have a forced march "relay" with your generals. One with bunch of troops force marches to merge with another general that has no or little troops. He takes them the rest of the way.

    Battle:

    Fun: hitting "Insert" or clicking the cinematic camera button after selecting a siege weapon allows you to control its shooting personally.

    The "N" key is by default how you zoom from far away and how people are able to see the zombie faces. Doesn't work in cinematic mode, it kicks you out of cinematic mode.

  5. #65

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Quote Originally Posted by TarheelDan View Post
    Great way to move troops really far: Have a forced march "relay" with your generals. One with bunch of troops force marches to merge with another general that has no or little troops. He takes them the rest of the way.
    Nice find, I hadn't caught on to this...probably because I don't have any generals sitting on the map without troops. I could see where this could be useful, however, in getting some new troops from one's home army-production province up to the front. That said, I gotta say this strikes me as a bit of an exploitable bug, and obviously shouldn't be in the game.

  6. #66

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Quote Originally Posted by Bramborough View Post
    Nice find, I hadn't caught on to this...probably because I don't have any generals sitting on the map without troops. I could see where this could be useful, however, in getting some new troops from one's home army-production province up to the front. That said, I gotta say this strikes me as a bit of an exploitable bug, and obviously shouldn't be in the game.
    Very true! I remember that movement points for any army used to be limited to the unit within the army with the minimum number of movement points. Since individual units no longer have movement points, only generals...

    Now that you point this out, I see it would be more sporting to refrain.

  7. #67

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    if you use the dignitaries ability Cultural Propaganda ( http://dsi0fanyw80ls.cloudfront.net/...ies_corruption ) the cultural penalty when taking over the settlement will be less, if not doing this the penalty when taking over a settlement is at normal differculty -15 depending a lot of things i dont understand it can go down alot most of the time i have it down to -9 in stability but one settlement i got it down to -3 after 2 or 3 successes (my army had a way to go before taking the setlement and i had my dignitary already there leveled upp only on zeal)

    i will check if i can ad some pictures for a better explanation but i hope you guys understand, (not at hope right now)

    the first screenshot is without the dignitaries notice the cultural differences is at -14
    http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/...416F7F2571DA5/

    And in this it is at -8
    http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/...C27E3D2D5754C/

    might be small but every bit help for you guys on harder difficulties then me :)
    Last edited by Merak; 09-21-2013 at 18:18. Reason: spelling

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  8. #68
    Senior Member Senior Member Forward Observer's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Here's a little graphical option detail that maybe some have overlooked. I know I didn't understand what it did until I made the following comparisons by pausing the game and changing the options back and forth--then stopping to take a shot of each setting.

    This has to do with the unit detail option in the graphics setting. The tool tip in game say that it determines the amount of detail of units, which is misleading.

    See the shots below

    The shot at the top is on the "low" unit detail setting while the shot below it is on the "extreme" unit detail setting. You will notice that there is absolutely no difference in the detail of the units in the foreground. However, if you look at the units in the distance you will see a difference. Sorry, but I had to reduce these pictures quite a bit to get both shots together.




    Anyway the point is that changes in the unit detail setting have no effect on the detail of the units that are in the foreground. The effect has to do with the 3D draw distance of the units further away. What it really determines is at what point the 3D units are changed to 2D sprites. I'm guessing that the last two or three centuries (units) are all 2D sprites

    Even though I have a beefy PC, by changing this setting to very high (below Ultra and Extreme) I was able to substantially increase frame rates with no real discernible decrease in how the game looks during a battle. One might be able to really notice it if they were playing the game on a large screen TV, but I have a 24 inch IPS monitor and can hardly tell the difference between the settings.

    It's worth playing with just to see if it get you a few more frame rates.

    Cheers
    Last edited by Forward Observer; 09-22-2013 at 01:48.
    Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.

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  9. #69
    Member Member Sp4's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    As far as I know, reducing the unit detail settings to anything below very high also makes corpses disappear at some point ^^

  10. #70
    Senior Member Senior Member Forward Observer's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Quote Originally Posted by Sp4 View Post
    As far as I know, reducing the unit detail settings to anything below very high also makes corpses disappear at some point ^^
    That's possible, but since I am using "very high" I wouldn't have noticed it and of course I did this test in a static mode prior to any battle.

    Cheers
    Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.

  11. #71
    Praeparet bellum Member Quillan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    I am not certain anymore that the campaign has a time limit at all. The original Rome would end in 14 AD. So far, I've heard speculation that the game would end at 0 BC, 14 AD, or 24 AD (300 turns from campaign start). However, I've been dragging one out just to see if this is the case (and also to see if it's possible to research all technologies), and at 28 AD the game is still going without a message and with victory still listed as possible.
    Age and treachery will defeat youth and skill every time.

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  12. #72

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    I'm sure I read somewhere, possibly in the pdf manual, that there is no end date for the campaign. It also doesn't list an end date in the ultimate victory conditions, so I'm pretty sure there's no time limit.

  13. #73

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Yup no time limit, official end date for cool events and such is 28 AD: 300 turns.

    In my Sekigahara campaign 4tpy Domination till 1700 owning 40 provinces; it's only 436 turns till you loose though it's easier compared to vanilla so far but it's still a enjoyable experience.
    Lets play Divide et Impera, Ptolemy Campaign. Link to full playlist down below!

    https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...2oIDsmGrPrKpzM

  14. #74

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Here's something that I don't think is documented.

    An AI agent poisoned my army in the field and that army started the next turn with only half of its movement points available.
    The next turn they hit me with either "harass" or "assault patrol" and my army didn't have any movement points that turn.

    I couldn't find anything in the encyclopedia or the tooltips saying that agent actions reduce movement points.
    Here's a link to the encyclopedia section on agents
    http://dsi0fanyw80ls.cloudfront.net/en/characters

  15. #75

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Quote Originally Posted by phred View Post
    Here's something that I don't think is documented.

    An AI agent poisoned my army in the field and that army started the next turn with only half of its movement points available.
    The next turn they hit me with either "harass" or "assault patrol" and my army didn't have any movement points that turn.

    I couldn't find anything in the encyclopedia or the tooltips saying that agent actions reduce movement points.
    Here's a link to the encyclopedia section on agents
    http://dsi0fanyw80ls.cloudfront.net/en/characters
    At least since Patch 3, the AI is capable of being fairly sneaky with this capability, appearing to actually coordinate agent actions with their armies.

    Yesterday, I landed two Roman stacks in Sparta. I figured with two 16-unit stacks working in tandem, they'd be able to beat anything that Sparta threw at them. A Spartan champion-type (hero?), however, moved against stack #1 and sabotaged...not only removing its movement points but also rendering it incapable of reinforcing. THEN, a full 20-unit Spartan army, reinforced by another large army (something around 15 units or so), hit my now-unsupported stack #2. The balance-of-power bar was way to the left, maybe 15-20%ish. It's certainly possible to win outnumbered, especially as this is just Normal difficulty...but I figured being outnumbered that severely by Spartan phalanxes was certain defeat. So I retreated....which then left Stack #1 without support.

    The two Spartan stacks now fell on these guys, who were unable to retreat, so had to fight the battle. I was pleasantly shocked to somehow win the thing, in a "close victory". Yeah yeah, the battle AI wasn't very smart on the attack, but pretty epic nevertheless just from the sheer numbers - of decent-quality troops - coming against the legionaries. Win or not, this legion was severely mauled and unable to replenish, so I was willing to concede the strategic victory to the Spartans and get these guys out, started moving my legions back to the coast. Next turn, however, the Spartan champ rolled in and they pulled the exact same tactic AGAIN, once more isolating my now-depleted legion against their two stacks. Of course, they had lost quite heavily in the previous battle as well, but they had a turn's worth of replenishment in friendly territory, so now the odds were even longer. Result: heroic victory. Not sure how/why...the legionaries just didn't break.

    Bottom line, I was pretty impressed with the way the Spartans coordinated their agent/army actions. The fact that they did it two turns in a row seems to indicate that it was not a mere coincidence. And their tactic resulted in the two most interesting, adrenalin-pumping battles I've yet experienced in R2...and among the best I've encountered in any TW game.

    Screenie from the first battle here. Added mainly just so I understand the process of saving, posting to Imgur, and then linking here.

    Last edited by Bramborough; 09-28-2013 at 10:49.

  16. #76

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Quote Originally Posted by Bramborough View Post
    At least since Patch 3, the AI is capable of being fairly sneaky with this capability, appearing to actually coordinate agent actions with their armies.

    Yesterday, I landed two Roman stacks in Sparta. I figured with two 16-unit stacks working in tandem, they'd be able to beat anything that Sparta threw at them. A Spartan champion-type (hero?), however, moved against stack #1 and sabotaged...not only removing its movement points but also rendering it incapable of reinforcing. THEN, a full 20-unit Spartan army, reinforced by another large army (something around 15 units or so), hit my now-unsupported stack #2. The balance-of-power bar was way to the left, maybe 15-20%ish. It's certainly possible to win outnumbered, especially as this is just Normal difficulty...but I figured being outnumbered that severely by Spartan phalanxes was certain defeat. So I retreated....which then left Stack #1 without support.

    The two Spartan stacks now fell on these guys, who were unable to retreat, so had to fight the battle. I was pleasantly shocked to somehow win the thing, in a "close victory". Yeah yeah, the battle AI wasn't very smart on the attack, but pretty epic nevertheless just from the sheer numbers - of decent-quality troops - coming against the legionaries. Win or not, this legion was severely mauled and unable to replenish, so I was willing to concede the strategic victory to the Spartans and get these guys out, started moving my legions back to the coast. Next turn, however, the Spartan champ rolled in and they pulled the exact same tactic AGAIN, once more isolating my now-depleted legion against their two stacks. Of course, they had lost quite heavily in the previous battle as well, but they had a turn's worth of replenishment in friendly territory, so now the odds were even longer. Result: heroic victory. Not sure how/why...the legionaries just didn't break.

    Bottom line, I was pretty impressed with the way the Spartans coordinated their agent/army actions. The fact that they did it two turns in a row seems to indicate that it was not a mere coincidence. And their tactic resulted in the two most interesting, adrenalin-pumping battles I've yet experienced in R2...and among the best I've encountered in any TW game.
    I had something like that happen against the Nasomenes (sp?) in North Africa. I had been steamrolling everyone, got to their province, they assassinated my general and hit me with 2 1/2 stacks. I lost big time, remade my stack, protected my general and they did it again. They missed the assassination attempt, but they were able to swarm me with their two stacks.
    I came back with 3 fully developed stacks and took care of them. it was fun.

  17. #77
    Strategist and Storyteller Member Myth's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    This is how Macedon destroyed my two experienced legions after I had conquered Athens and Sparta. Denying reinforcing is someting the AI does well and I want to be able to do it too, gotta learn how it happens.
    The art of war, then, is governed by five constant
    factors, to be taken into account in one's deliberations,
    when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.

    These are: (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth;
    (4) The Commander; (5) Method and discipline.
    Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"
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  18. #78

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Quote Originally Posted by Myth View Post
    This is how Macedon destroyed my two experienced legions after I had conquered Athens and Sparta. Denying reinforcing is someting the AI does well and I want to be able to do it too, gotta learn how it happens.
    Yep, me too. As usual, the encyclopedia is no help, and in-game tooltips aren't either. BUT...I seem to remember a couple times when a post-action pop-up report said something like "Your agent was successful, and their movement has been hindered"....even though "hindering movement" wasn't the action I'd actually tried. So I think the movement hit is a side-benefit of a successful Sabotage action vs an army (or Manipulation action vs an agent).

  19. #79
    Member Member Jarmam's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Hindering movement is a side-effect of successful sabotaging. You can mouse over a "buff" icon on the stack that has been sabbed and get an overview of how hard you've been hit by the sab. Its quite counterintuitive, but there is a system there somewhere that needs discovering (because, you know... can't just write it in the encyclopeadia)

  20. #80
    Strategist and Storyteller Member Myth's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Actually I feel pretty dumb about this, but when you try to perform the action and mouse over the option above assassinate (with a champion) it says you cut off the army from being able to reinforce and also inflicting ADDITIONAL effects based on what you choose (Show Strength/Assault Patrol etc.)
    The art of war, then, is governed by five constant
    factors, to be taken into account in one's deliberations,
    when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.

    These are: (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth;
    (4) The Commander; (5) Method and discipline.
    Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"
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  21. #81

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    I saw this posted at the .com site.
    It's an interactive map showing all the Roman auxiliary troops and where they can be recruited.

    http://tallmyr.se/rome2/

  22. #82
    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Since the last hot-fix (patch IV beta; now already out of beta) navies blockading cities suffer attrition.

    A tip: use your dignitaries rather than champions with your active armies (use champions to train up the armies not presently being active). A dignitary can give a huge boost to the authoritas of the general: way more than the general can expect to gain over the life-span from battles. Sometimes the dignitary's effect is so large that my general's battlefield aura can cover the whole 20 unit stack. The authoritas boost from the dignitary allows one to invest in alternative qualities of the general (cunning for example, which unlocks night battles, improves ambushes, improves general's defenses against agent actions, political assassinations, etc.). As a bonus, dignitaries significantly reduce the upkeep of your armies.
    Last edited by Slaists; 10-11-2013 at 15:56.

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  23. #83

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Quote Originally Posted by phred View Post
    I saw this posted at the .com site.
    It's an interactive map showing all the Roman auxiliary troops and where they can be recruited.

    http://tallmyr.se/rome2/
    Dang, that's actually pretty cool. Bookmarked this one.

  24. #84

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Quote Originally Posted by Slaists View Post
    Since the last hot-fix (patch IV beta; now already out of beta) navies blockading cities suffer attrition.

    A tip: use your dignitaries rather than champions with your active armies (use champions to train up the armies not presently being active). A dignitary can give a huge boost to the authoritas of the general: way more than the general can expect to gain over the life-span from battles. Sometimes the dignitary's effect is so large that my general's battlefield aura can cover the whole 20 unit stack. The authoritas boost from the dignitary allows one to invest in alternative qualities of the general (cunning for example, which unlocks night battles, improves ambushes, improves general's defenses against agent actions, political assassinations, etc.). As a bonus, dignitaries significantly reduce the upkeep of your armies.
    There's a lot to be said for embedding all one's agents in armies, which I did in one of my campaigns. Each agent type has some pretty decent bonuses for its parent armies (spies maybe not quite as good...I don't really see how extra LOS helps that much). Another nice benefit is that every army always has an agent handy to pop out of the stack and go sabotage an enemy or town before battle. Just makes agents "easier" to manage, especially late in the campaign during 4th/5th imperium levels.

  25. #85

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    That actually really does help explain where the units are grouped.

  26. #86

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Back to agent actions for a moment.

    Any 'military sabotage' action by any agent against any army has the reduced movement effect on success. Not sure about the re-inforcement one, that may be champion specific. If you critically succeed then the army cannot move at all. THe flaw is that not only does it not tell you this anywhere useful (tooltip over the army effects is the only place I have found it) but it doesn't tell you whether your succes was normal or critical in your own agent success screen. Sigh.
    I was trying to find some help in the ancient military journals of General Tacticus, who's intelligent campaigning had been so successful that he'd lent his very name to the detailed prosecution of martial endeavour, and had actually found a section headed "What To Do If One Army Occupies A Well-Fortified And Superior Ground And The Other Does Not", but since the first sentence read "Endeavour to be the one inside" I'd rather lost heart.

  27. #87

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Quote Originally Posted by Sociopsychoactive View Post
    Not sure about the re-inforcement one, that may be champion specific.
    Yep, the reinforcement nerf is available for all agents as well, and is really the best part of the action in many cases. As far as I can tell, it only requires normal, instead of critical, success to accomplish.

    I agree with you that all this ought to be more readily visible than it is.

  28. #88

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Don't know if it's documented but the replace button in army details (general's table) allow you to choose the right commander fo an army among your statesmen. The best way to compare their caracteristics is to open the faction's table though.

  29. #89
    Member Member mbrasher1's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    A. Provinces with gold and purple dye boost public order at higher levels. Of course, they still cost food.

    Since gold cities have the highest industrial income, it is good to increase the industrial base and bonuses with both industrial buildings, and the industry boosting temples that many civs get.
    Since purple dye provinces offer a large base income from commerce, in those provs build ports, and commerce boosting buildings like the commerce boosting temple and amphorae factory)

    B. Provinces with lead and "market" boost the wealth from all buildings within the province (just like the main city in the province).

    This means that lead and "market" provinces are ideal locations to put high income buildings (trading ports, the income producing temples and high income city center buildings like wine trader, brickmaker and unique high income buildings like the Ptolemaic Great Library and the Roman Colosseum).

    C. The glassware cities give big boosts to research rates at higher levels.

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  30. #90

    Default Re: Tips - Unit buffs

    Regarding dignitaries, I've found them to be VERY useful late game keeping corruption minimized. Using their dignitary skill (the one that increases authority) allows you to eventually get to the demagogy skill, that reduces corruption by as much as 15 percent. I was making around 10000 a turn with sparta before I recruited some dignitaries and powerleveled them, after which my income returned to a respectable level (because 10000 a turn goes quickly when you've got 100+ settlements to manage)

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