Any tips on nurturing loyalty?

**Suetonius** · 03-05-2016, 11:55

Hi

Playing 2.1b as Hayasdan and having a great time. I think my style is a little cautious(!) as around turn 100 I have about eight more family members than I have "jobs" for. Generally these characters are starting around 3-4 loyalty, but I've noticed that ebbs away fairly quickly (I now have two with 0 loyalty and two with just 1). I tend to either park the new characters up in the capital (having built a school and in the hope they will develop) until I have roles for them, or carry them around with top generals to gain them some battle experience and/or to bolster the army.

What tips to keep these people loyal? Interested in how other players manage this.

**anubis88** · 03-05-2016, 13:51

Adding agents to the armies helps; but the main factor should be the authority of your faction leader. Altough you are supposed not to have everyone loyal to you. In those times there was a lot of powers that generals held, and with most factions had a certain degree of independence.

**Suetonius** · 03-05-2016, 14:49

Thanks: I'll attach some spies to the miscreants!
You're right: I certainly wouldn't expect them all to be fawning.... but I do want to do all I can to stop them defecting.
Does an authoritative faction leader need to be with the character, or will I get the same benefit "at a distance"?
I'm also wondering whether underemployment saps loyalty - perhaps I need to give them more to do.

**anubis88** · 03-05-2016, 15:48

I can't tell you mechanicaly how it works since i have no idea, but from my experience the higher the authority of the FL, the higher the loyalty of every general. It's at a distance as you put it. Also what i've noticed is that that the bigger your empire gets, the harder it is to find loyal generals. Again a very good assesment of the real life politics.

**Suetonius** · 03-21-2016, 22:09

Seems to me that it's possible to lift the average loyalty of the faction (or at least some factions) by winning some victories... trying out Sabau wa-gawwum I found that everyone cheered up after we conquered our first Eleutheroi city......

....and I think billetting a disloyal FM with an influential FL or another character with high loyalty seems to prevent defection?

**aljaskuszobab** · 04-20-2016, 20:16

Hey, I recently started a campaign with Carthage and I just had the most extreme case of generals turning traitors so far in EBII.

I beat pretty much everyone in North Africa, Spain, Italy and France and then I reached Britain. Until that point I had no problem with traitors. I decided to invade Britain so I built up 5 full stacks and shipped them over on the island. In 5 turns, I had only 1 stack because of generals turning traitors every turn. My faction leader did not die, he has been the same for a while.

The only thing that I can think of is that distance influences the probabilty of becoming traitor but it's pretty much game breaking if the effect is so extreme.

Can someone who knows the mechanics of the game better confirm or deny this?

**aljaskuszobab** · 04-20-2016, 20:22

Originally Posted by aljaskuszobab

The only thing that I can think of is that distance influences the probabilty of becoming traitor but it's pretty much game breaking if the effect is so extreme.

Can someone who knows the mechanics of the game better confirm or deny this?

Distance from the capital.