Hiya Brew Nice name

I went over some highly related stuff here. Please take a look... I don't want to retype a bunch. Still there has been a ton of good stuff here. Thanks for that long list, Socio... whoa And that's probably not everything

Maeda, a couple of corrections if I could - Taxes vs. Happiness (Loyalty) is +25 Very Low, +10 Low, -10 High, -25 Very High, versus Normal. It is the opposite of how much taxes increase income: -25% VL, -10% L, +10% H, +25% VH. You can readily see it in the game (turn off autotax). The income change is best seen with farms - trade has a lot of rounding, but approximates the above. Mine and cathedral income is not affected by tax rate (or anything else, except mine level). Also, in my CRUSADER_BUILD_PROD13 (with MTW/VI 2.01) I see some variances vs. your list in buildings vs. happiness:

Watch Tower +20, Border Fort +30
Church/Mosque +20
Monastery +10
Reliquary +30
Town Watch line: All are +10
Brothel line: All are +10
Cathedral/Grande Mosque +40
College of Surgeons +40

I tested it some in the game; it's easy to do with a QuickSave, then wiping out some buildings.

Increases in a given line are not additive - a Border Fort only adds 10 to what the Watch Tower gives. Additional Town Watch buildings just hold the 10 that Town Watch gave, so they don't add any more Happiness (although at least it doesn't go away). So, Town Watch is all that matters for happiness, in that line. The different kinds of religious buildings are not in the same line, though, so they do add together - a province with church, monastery, and reliquary will be +60 Happiness in total.

It can be a little messy to to understand how loyalty and tax level interact if you use tax collectors and have auto-tax on. This is because (1) different tax levels cause different drops in loyalty (10 or 15, depending on what increase it was, as said above); (2) each peasant increases loyalty by 16.00 to 16.67 (it's 16 2/3rds but is rounded down, so 1 peasant gives 16 but 3 give 50; also as pointed out, a 60-man unit adds 10 loyalty); (3) since a peasant adds more loyalty than is needed for a one tax level (16+ vs. 10 or 15), a peasant might cause two tax-level increases if it wraps around; and (4) auto-tax has a window of 20 loyalty so that the province won't hover around rebellion, which means you have to have 130 or 135 loyalty before it will move to the next tax level (so that the next one will be at 120; it needs 10 or 15 extra, depending on how much the next increase will drop loyalty).

Socio, in a quick test, I didn't find that my happiness changed if I killed my trade building and farms in a province... you sure that they (or income) matter?

I used to have big stacks of peasants, to increase taxes and ward off rebellion, but now I play a lot leaner, only making just enough to not revolt, and only increase taxes if the province income is worth it (see my other thread). Or at least, early in the game... later in a game, it's too much work to fine tune. Right, I don't know why some folks say you always need somebody in each province. I can't recall ever having a rebellion if loyalty was at least 120 (often much more), even with nobody there. Or that you have to have a fort. But maybe I just wasn't paying attention enough. If it does happen, it's pretty rare though, esp. if you usually at least make a fort, and a lot of times I will give a title to a 4-acumen peasant and let him stay in the castle (so I readily know what Lord just went dumb, in the v&v summary).

Still, something stupid could happen with your king or whatever (cough), causing an sudden drop in loyalty, so it can be wise to have some extra peasants laying around. Unless you are really careful and/or micromanage it to death.

Thanks for the tip on spies on your own soil, TGI... I always forget them due to how they take a little effort to make. One of these days I'll try a game where I make plenty... since they have no maintenance, they could be good tax collectors. (Can someone test how much they affect loyalty?) And, using priests as spies on enemy soil is smart... they don't get hit by border forts, yet are both a pain to the enemy and an aid to you (if the province is a different religion).

Constable, you touched on something I've always wondered about - whether peacekeepers accelerate the normalization of a newly-conquered province. That is to say, will 10 peasants for three turns be more effective than 3 peasants for 10 turns? I don't know, but I'll test it some day.

Conquer on