Do any strategic units affect loyalty?

[nindustrial]

I was just curious (and didn't see mention of it in the beginner's guide) as to whether or not any of the strategic agents can help to boost loyalty over time in a province you control, or whether any of them can lower loyalty in an enemy province?

[Sinner]

If by loyalty you actually mean happiness, then yes - a happy region is a loyal region.

A spy directly influences the happiness of the region they're in, raising the happiness for your own regions & lowering it for enemy regions. The higher the rating of the spy, the greater the effect. As I recall only the highest rating spy in a region has an effect, so swarming multiple spies into the same region is a relative waste.

Religious units such as bishops and imans have an indirect influence on happiness. If the majority of the population in a region have a different religion to that of the controlling nation, then there is the risk of a religious revolt.

[The Grand Inquisitor]

Swarming spies definitely works, both offensively and defensively.

Note that unlike garrisons, you can't see the effect of placing a spy in a province until the next turn.

[Chimpyang]

I've never Spy swamped in MTW, The ease of building watch towers to get rid of masses of them dettersm e from paying for them. Their effect has never really been much for me.

[Tamur]

Loyalty = happiness, Sinner's right. Anything you can do to make a province happy is a good thing. A few I try to do:

-- spies in own provices (usually border provinces)
-- build a tavern, a church, an inn in every province and upgrade these
-- make sure the governor of the province is a nice chap

And if all else fails, park a very large army of lower-tech units in a province. That's guaranteed to perk things up a bit.

Tamur

[HicRic]

In MTW:VI, only the highest valour spy in the province has an effect. Introducing 100 spies or 1 spy will make no difference.

If you're playing pre-VI MTW, then by all means, mass produce those spies.

[The Grand Inquisitor]

Ok I've just checked using my current game, hard difficulty, full patched invasion, starting in early period, and moving spies in and out of the province:

Prussia:
no spies - loyalty 84
1 V0 spy - loyalty 124
2 V0 spies - loyalty 124
3 V0 spies - loyalty 139
4 V0 spies - loyalty 144

Seemed to have no effect with the second spy, but subsequent spies did.

[HicRic]

That quite remarkable. I've read many a time on the forums that multiple spies in one province in VI made no difference, but never tested it myself.

I'll be sure to remember that. Cheers, The Grand Inquisitor! Please don't burn me at the stake for my error.

[Kagetora]

What about the inquisitors, do they help out the loyalty, or do they help cause a revolt by murdering the people, its always been something that I never could nail down because it seems that after a long time of leaving an inquisitor in a province, it becomes uncontent and the people start to drop in loyalty?

Any suggestions...............

[eadeater]

I think that the inquisitors lower zeal and reduce heresy, as well as sometimes deciding to prosecute your generals (is they've been bad boys), which always annoys me, so I tend to send my inquisitors to enemy provinces once I've finished with them.

[The Grand Inquisitor]

I think that the inquisitors lower zeal and reduce heresy, as well as sometimes deciding to prosecute your generals (is they've been bad boys), which always annoys me, so I tend to send my inquisitors to enemy provinces once I've finished with them.

I think inquisitors increase Zeal and reduce heresy, until the zeal reaches a critical point (not sure what this value is), and then go on a burning rampage, which drastically reduces zeal (and happiness).

I also tend to keep inquisitors on foreign soil and go after low piety generals in packs.

[nindustrial]

How about emissaries? Are they only good for alliances and spying on enemy provinces? And what does it mean when it says that they are "counterspying"?

[Sinner]

I think inquisitors increase Zeal and reduce heresy, until the zeal reaches a critical point (not sure what this value is), and then go on a burning rampage, which drastically reduces zeal (and happiness).

I also tend to keep inquisitors on foreign soil and go after low piety generals in packs.

A rather appropriate discussion for you, Grand Inquisitor

I believe that the threshold is turn based rather than zeal based. I've had inquisitions begin in regions at 80% zeal that started off high zeal (50-60%) while other times they've begun at just 50% in regions that originally were low zeal.

I do recall somebody mentioning the tip that picking up your inquisitor & placing them down again restarts the whole process and can help avoid inquisitions although I haven't yet tried that since I'm currently going through a no-crusades mood - my troops fight for their king, for glory, plunder and pillage. And the king always provides dancing girls and an amusing retinue of fools and jesters.

[motorhead]

Ok I've just checked using my current game, hard difficulty, full patched invasion, starting in early period, and moving spies in and out of the province:

Prussia:
no spies - loyalty 84
1 V0 spy - loyalty 124
2 V0 spies - loyalty 124
3 V0 spies - loyalty 139
4 V0 spies - loyalty 144

Seemed to have no effect with the second spy, but subsequent spies did.

Did you reload for each test? Turn-to-turn variances (distance to ruler, V&Vs of ruler and gov, religious conversion, general quieting of newly conquered prov, etc.) can affect a linear test. I've run tests with VI 2.01, reloading constantly to test with the same exact conditions, and only one spy has any effect. IIRC, I ran tests with V0, V1, V2 and V3 spies in various combinations and the one spy rule always held.

As others have said, pre-VI multi-spy effectiveness was real, but not so with VI.

From a post by Phatose earlier this year:
In VI a spy affects loyalty by the following formula: 40% + 20% per valour. So, a 5-star spy has a 140% happiness effect. This can either boost the happiness in a domestic province or reduce it in a foreign province. (Be aware that the AI will reduce taxes to compensate, so the next turn their prov may not fall below the rebellion/re-emergence threshold of 120% due to lower taxes.)

The biggest news is loyalty is only affected by the highest valour spy in a province. Additional spies have no effect on loyalty whatsoever. So seven 1-valor spies have the same loyalty effect as one 1-valor spy, not a 7-valor spy.

[Ludens]

About spy swarming: it doesn't work in enemy provinces anymore since VI, but it increases loyalty in your own.

Inquisitors raise zeal until they start burning the populace, but keep them occupied with burning generals and they are not as likely to do so. I understand the the presence of a bishop or cardinal slowes down inquisitors but I am not sure if this applies to 'inquisition of individual'. Anyway, in my case the bishops and cardinals rose the zeal so high that the Papal Grand Inquisitors could fry a general every turn. The only thing that kept them from staying permanently was my horde of Syrian assassins watching around for people with odd-looking hats.

[The Grand Inquisitor]

Did you reload for each test? Turn-to-turn variances (distance to ruler, V&Vs of ruler and gov, religious conversion, general quieting of newly conquered prov, etc.) can affect a linear test.

Damn, your right, I didn't think other factors would be so big over a few turns. Ah well. Strange that I hadn't noticed increased problems in places like Livonia, since installing VI. This is going to increase the level of micro managagement required for me as I'll now have to search around for my best spies to stick in rebellious provinces. (And my major gripe with the strategic interface is the agents list - I mean even a scroll bar would make it useable, tabbing it by agent type as well would have been better - I can only assume the play testers didn't churn out the agents the way I do.)

[nindustrial]

Sorry to bring up such a simple point, but what exactly is zeal good for..

[Soulfly]

It increases the number of units you pick up when moving into that province with a Crusade or Jihad. I belive it also increases the chance of getting better crusade units from that province (eg: Getting Hospitaliers instead of those damned Fanatics).

[motorhead]

Sorry to bring up such a simple point, but what exactly is zeal good for..

+ crusades/jihads will gain/retain more troops when passing thru a province
+ for catholics, improves the odds of a successful inquisition
+ higher zeal can affect province happiness. High zeal, low piety gov == less happy, high zeal, high piety gov == more happy, high zeal, medium piety == neutral.