My tips on efficient campaign play

[Maeda Toshiie]

I wasn't sure about this, so I tried it out when I conquered a Spanish province - Castile, I think. I made sure I was taxing on "very high" and assigned a zero dread, four acumen governor. The happines rating went from 125% to 127%. Of course, when I re-loaded the game and used a four dread governor instead. happiness was a lot higher! However I can say for certain that using a 0 dread governors doesn't always make a province more rebellious. In some circumstances it may, fewer troops, more rebellious province etc.

+5% loyalty per skull. Have never seen a drop in loyalty from assigning a 0 dread governor. That 2% *may* be due to his piety, though I havent seen a concrete and exact corelation b/w piety, zeal and happiness.

[Blodrast]

Maeda Toshiie is right.
Even though dread is the main factor that influences loyalty, piety & zeal also account for some.
i.e., if your province is overzealous and you name a horribly heretic governor, you may notice a decrease in loyalty.

A couple of things that I noticed during my campaigns:
- if you appoint a low piety gov to a province and then try to increase the zeal to that province, it will be capped around 75%. I've tried this with lots of imams and alims, in 100% muslim provinces, without any change in zeal throughout more than 100 years. Once I got them a high zeal gov, zeal rocketed to 100% within a few years.
- The problem with high zeal province/low piety gov fixes itself over time; since your province has relatively high zeal, most of your troops that are produced in it and its governor will soon start getting plus piety/zeal vices.

[katank]

try it on a newly conquered province. a 0 dread is sure to drop the loyalty 5 or so.

I've often forgone a gov for a turn or two if I don't have decent acumen sufficiently dreadful fella around.

It's a tough decision as more cash always helps a rush but a big loyalist rebellion or the like can stop your rush cold.

so you captured a reasonable income province and have a 0 dread, 4 acumen fella around but not enough troops to garrison as you need to push on. what do you do?

[Blodrast]

hey, K., is that a rhetorical question ?
If I were you (i.e., blitzing), I'd forget the 0A 4D guy, and just appoint some geezer with 2-3 dread and noe significant acumen. This way I can happily whip about in a blitz of glory.
What I usually do (unless it's beginning of the game, when more or less everyone needs to rush), is just churn more troops and wait until the province is happy with a decent acumen gov and its peasant garrison. If I'm particularly bored, I'll let them rebel and see what funny VnV's I get from training a jedi...

[afrit]

I don't have MTW with me right now to test this, but I think that moving a governor into his own province improves loyalty a few percent, regardless of his qualities otherwise. That's one reason I tend to station them in their provinces (other than getting building virtues).

afrit

[Blodrast]

they get "builder" virtues anyway, they don't need to stay in their province.
AFAIK, this is not true for "steward" virtues, though.
But I most certainly have had builder/great/magnificent builder govs who were not sitting in their own province.

[katank]

yep, rhetorical.

I don't believe in govs staying in their own province.

I instead stack them together and move them around all the time.

I move them with the crown prince to where the buildings are completed next turn.

tons of completions means tons of good v&v's.

frequent travel also seem to reduce vice rate.

if they become a bit corrupt, I stick them into frontline stacks and keep em fighting until they are either brave beyond belief and reborn saints or dead.

[Maeda Toshiie]

"frequent travel also seem to reduce vice rate."

For laziness and drunkness only.

"if they become a bit corrupt, I stick them into frontline stacks and keep em fighting until they are either brave beyond belief and reborn saints or dead."

The vices that come along due to empire bloating is very irritating. I tend to get those money grubbing guys killed on the battlefield and appoint new ones (who again have short lifespans).

[Duke of Gloucester]

Originally posted by katank
try it on a newly conquered province. a 0 dread is sure to drop the loyalty 5 or so.

Sorry, Katank. I didn't explain myself properly. This is exactly what I did. I had just conquered Castile. The happiness went up, but not much. I suspect that MT's suggestion about piety matching the piety of the province provides the explanation.

Note, I am not suggesting that zero dread governors should be used, just saying that they don't always reduce happiness in a province. Your choice of governor should depend on the province and how rebellious and rich it is, how many troops you have and what you need to do next and your general style of play. I suspect I play more slowly than you, so I don't mind waiting while a province settles down before going on to the next one.

[dimitrios the samian]

I hear you loud and clear Afrit , .. IDENTIFICATION is what you ARE SAYING the maps need moddifications done as they get very cluttered and annoying ..
you mention the word "REMEMBERING what province etc etc ,YES .. we shouldn't have to use a memo pad for this part of the game .
MARKING : armies , injured, artillery, etc : SO WE KNOW THEIR NEXT MOVE/HEADING etc etc , a flag would be usefull for this , i had the same idea many months ago .This requires modding skills , I have none do you afrit ?
How about anybody else ? ... I hope RTW has a joystick option as well
_________________________________________________________________

I invite you all to check threads/topics started by me ..

[Ulair]

Hey, thanks for the tips on the C, X and Z keys, Afrit. They're not documented in my manual (MTW 1.0) and they're darn useful...

[katank]

@D of G, precisely my point.

for rushing, it's often best to wait 2-3 years before assigning a gov if you don't want to micro and all you have is high acu low dread ones.

[Marquis de Said]

This is a really good thread. Nice little details that I had wondered about but wasn't completely sure.

Marquis

[Ulair]

@ D of G, katank:

Having read this thread I took note yesterday as I assigned a new gov on turn conquest+one to Portugal. He was a couple of dread, four acumen, zero piety and... Portugese loyalty did drop, quite significantly, enough to cause a drop in autotax rate from Low to Very Low and slip 2-3 points as well... Portugal was c. 60% zeal, so maybe it was the piety factor kicking in. It's also Portugal, of course - maybe that makes a difference?

I've also seen loyalty rise by the +5%/dread elsewhere too - clearly there's a wee function at work somewhere in the code...

[katank]

I usually don't have the time to muck with religion stuff and just mark the assignment of 0 dread govs as risky and quite likely to lower loyalty.

I can confirm that religion is a biggie and that a combination of king and gov's dread gives loyalty indications just as how king and gov's piety with latter's more gives weight to how a zealous or not so zealous population responds and what the religion is

[maestro]

I've noticed that the loyalty of a provincial leader has more affect than dread. If you assign a guiy with 7 loyalty and 1 dread, you'll get a good bonus, even though they're a nice-guy. But try assigning a 1 loyalty guy to a province and watch that loyalty go dooooown.

[ichi]

Good thread, afrit. Glad to see that you have changed your mind on auto-tax. Simply set each province - I try to never use Very High - and then check using the shift key before each turn ends.

I never use auto-merge units feature as I want to be able to manage the recomibination process. Remember that valor/morale is tracked by individual, whle armor and weapons upgrades are tracked by unit, so how unis are combined is very important. Once I have taken care of the important recombinations, I just hit M on the province and the rest recombine automatically.

Peasants as garrison. OK, but there are better options. Peasants are worthless in battle, and with only peasants as garrison you are vulnerable should an enemy break your main line. Never lose your main line??? Then you are probably overbuilding armies on the frontier, which quickly zaps your savings from leaving peasants behind.

I try to garrison interior provinces with a high acumen governor (unless he is a good general) and another unit. This usually means I have a 60-man Urban Militia or Archer unit along with a slightly depleted Slav Warrior unit or some similar group. I add an archer or other odd unit to those provinces that generally have loyalty issues (Portugal, Scotland, Arabia, etc).

My tip for a successful campaign is to build money first, the upgrade provinces, then build the best troops before expanding. Of course there are endless variations, but I find it best to get trade and province $$$ upgrades like mines and farms and trading posts FIRST. Economy is the engine that drives your empire.

Once the money is there, then upgrade the provinces. I like to use small armies of very high quality troops. The AI uses a Soviet style strtegy of buildings lots of cheap units. Properly used, a few high quality troops will sweep them fields of masses of rabble. And it is a less expensive army to maintain. I frequently disband obsolete units unless I think they can serve as garrison troops, and I rarely build peasants or other militia.

ichi

[Ludens]

Remember that valor/morale is tracked by individual

How do you know that morale is tracked per individual? From the log-files?

[maestro]

My tip for a successful campaign is to build money first, the upgrade provinces, then build the best troops before expanding. Of course there are endless variations, but I find it best to get trade and province $$$ upgrades like mines and farms and trading posts FIRST. Economy is the engine that drives your empire. Once the money is there, then upgrade the provinces. I like to use small armies of very high quality troops. The AI uses a Soviet style strtegy of buildings lots of cheap units. Properly used, a few high quality troops will sweep them fields of masses of rabble. And it is a less expensive army to maintain. I frequently disband obsolete units unless I think they can serve as garrison troops, and I rarely build peasants or other militia.
ichi

Wise w0rds. Thass what I do, too. The only problem you get, of course, is that the game is too damn easy.

I try to aim to have a massive annual profit with a 1/4 million in the bank and all the upgrades you need to build the good, high era troops like CMAA etc, with upgrades where possible by the time high comes around in 1205. Keep things small, but extremely high quality and then as 1205 arrives you're ready with a load of dosh to build some serious kick-ass troops that'll just wipe the floor with anything the AI will throw at you for some time. Then you can get onto massive expansion

[afrit]

I never use auto-merge units feature as I want to be able to manage the recomibination process. Remember that valor/morale is tracked by individual, whle armor and weapons upgrades are tracked by unit, so how unis are combined is very important. Once I have taken care of the important recombinations, I just hit M on the province and the rest recombine automatically.

Peasants as garrison. OK, but there are better options. Peasants are worthless in battle, and with only peasants as garrison you are vulnerable should an enemy break your main line. Never lose your main line??? Then you are probably overbuilding armies on the frontier, which quickly zaps your savings from leaving peasants behind.

ichi

ichi,
good replies. I agree with you on the auto-merge. At the time I initially posted, I was not aware of the M shortcut. Now I do exactly what you suggest.

As for tax, in the early stages of a campaign you can do custom-tax, but later on I think auto-tax is way easier. I personally still use auto-tax.

Peasants as garrisons. The one advantage of peasants is that they can always be produced by the conquered provinces with just a fort. I nowadays have a "spearhead" of good quality troops that I use to conquer new provinces followed by waves of peasants for garrisoning and keeping loyalty. Then move on to next provinces. When my main frontier gets breached, I scramble a defense as needed.

While that may not be the best, in sense of winning, strategy, I prefer it for its efficiency. And by efficient in the initial post I meant strategies that shorten the real-life time of a campaign so they take days instead of weeks.

cheers,
Afrit

[Sir Toma of Spain]

I know that to get the steward virtue the governor has to be in his provence and you have to build a farming upgrade but how do you get the trader virtue, i find it impossible.

Oh and by the way great thread learnt a lot of stuff

[Ludens]

I know that to get the steward virtue the governor has to be in his provence and you have to build a farming upgrade but how do you get the trader virtue, i find it impossible.

You get the trader-virtue for building mines.

[katank]

I prefer cheap troops like spears and archers. I save on maintenance and can defeat AI knights and MAA very cost effectively.

@ ludens, I hope by high quality you don't mean crank BG units like crazy. I found that perhaps the number 1 mistake players make in bankrupting themselves.

Economy is key. good farming and mines to finance ships and major trade boom.

[Sir Toma of Spain]

You get the trader-virtue for building mines.

Really, i'll try that hope it works

[katank]

pick a province with salt mine (ie. not worth much) and build the basic mine and strip it down again and again to get the trader virtue easily.

[Ludens]

@ ludens, I hope by high quality you don't mean crank BG units like crazy.

I am sorry but I have no idea what you are refering to. Perhaps you are confusing the post of another member with mine?

[katank]

sorry ludens, I think it's ichi's post.

just wanted to clarify as often people think BG units like RKs or Ghulam guards as high quality and pump them out like crazy while turtling and that just kills the economy like nothing.

[ichi]

sorry ludens, I think it's ichi's post.

just wanted to clarify as often people think BG units like RKs or Ghulam guards as high quality and pump them out like crazy while turtling and that just kills the economy like nothing.

I'd rather have 16 high valor/upgraded CMAA, Civ Knights, OFS, Longbows, and Pavs than 48 Urban Mili, vanilla spears, archers, Mounted Sargs, and Woodsmen. I see folks with huge stacks of obsolete units and their economy makes 789 florin per year despite having a ship in every sea.

ichi

[katank]

that's true. your lineup is good.

I just hate it for people to misinterpret it as "garrison yer provinces with RKs" and then complain how they can't keep their economy afloat.

I'd still like to say that even lower quality troops can often be good. in competent hands, spears and archers can hold off AI forces for a very long time, enough to muster up high quality troops to counterattack.

that's why I personally have relatively low tech standing forces but good warchest and facilities when I need them.