Province Governors and Acumen

[Ldvs]

Personally I never use peasants as governors, because in case there are no other higher ranked generals in the same province and you get attacked, then you have to deal with the assault with a general who is very likely to flee as soon as you take casualties.

I normally prefer giving titles to already high ranked generals, unless none of them get at least 3 acumens when they spawn. I've never heard of any penalties a governor would receive for working abroad.

If you want to keep a good loyalty even though you have very low garrison in one province, just use spies. They help you keep the population under control.

Once you empowered a governor, don't strip him of his title, unless he gets bad vices (also note that with farmland 40% you get the steward vertu which boosts the agricultural income by 10%).

[Emren]

It seems that when governors DO stay in their provinces, they gain more acumen rather quickly through virtues. Is this true?

[Tomcat]

Thanks, but I am really talking about Provinces where you just have a garrison force i.e. you are not expecting it to be attacked since it is not on the front line but you need to ensure loyalty. Like the English Provinces of Mercia, Wessex and Northumbria (once you have secured Wales and Scotland).

Again spies are not available in the early stages of the Early Campaign.

I have certainly seem some Virtues which are only gained when the Governor is governing - which I presume to mean "in residence" in the Province.

Tomcat

[Tomcat]

One other point - when a Governor gains V&Vs, does it show up directly on his profile stats or are the V&Vs in addition (positive or negative) to the displayed stats i.e. if he is shown to have 3 Loyalty shields and he has a Virtue giving him +2 Loyalty, does that mean his current loyalty is the displayed 3 plus the 2 for the Virtue totalling 5 Loyalty, or is his total Loyalty the 3 displayed which includes the +2 Virtue Loyalty?

Thanks.

Tomcat

[ThijsP]

Its directly shown at the stats.

Once a province is loyak enough for about normal taxes I never use garisons. And for titles i just search in a unit stack with the most acumen and use him, it doesnt matter if its the leader of the stack. Exept for titles with special attributes especially command, those I use on my generals in border provinces.

[hdarpini]

It seems that when governors DO stay in their provinces, they gain more acumen rather quickly through virtues. Is this true?

My question as well. I'm a newbie in my first game (England, Early Period, Normal), and in 1107 and 1108 experienced an upgrade in acumen to a couple of my governors. I never thought to note whether these were governors that I had garrisoned in their respective provinces or whether they were governors that I'd sent to other provinces to help out against the wicked French faction (the more I play, the more I learn that it can be useful to jot down these types of details).

If being a stay-at-home governor wins more Acumen plumes more quickly, I may be less likely to appoint a general with a high Command rating as governor, even if he does has a high Acumen rating, preferring to reserve him for combat duty. This is especially true if I remember correctly what I've read in the MTW literature, that Command is only secondary, if that, when considering a general as a governor, that the critical traits to consider are Loyalty, Dread, and Acumen.

The same question applies to V&V added to governors, generals and faction leaders throughout the game. I know that certain vices are "awarded" to a general or faction leader if they flee a battle scene, but are other V&V awarded to governors during campaign play likewise based on a character's location, circumstances, or actions or are they merely the products of the computer's random number generator?

Another facet of this question is whether faction leaders based on historical monarchs receive V&V consistent with their real-life counterparts. The Norman king William II, for example, was an unpopular king because of his angry disposition, and when he was my faction leader he received V&V consistent with these traits. Maybe this was just a coincidence, but it would be interesting to know either way.

I know I've drifted slightly off topic, but sometimes if I don't ask questions when they occur to me, I forget to ask them later.

[Sethik]

This is a bit off topic, but can you demote govenors? How?

[Blodrast]

just a few quick points:

- you should probably always have a garrison of 100 men; keep less, and you may get bandits.
- Upkeep for peasant garrisons has never, ever, ever been a problem for me. It's such a small fraction of your total upkeep that it's not workth bothering with it. Normally, by mid-game, you should be churning some 20-70k per year...who cares about 2-3k for peasants ? It's much much worse when the province rebels for some cause (as Doug-Thompson pointed out: disasters, death of influential king, fleet blockade, and you lose half of your empire just because you didn't have 10 or more peasant units in your garrisons...
- There is a way to increase the probability of new units with higher acumen: by having an influential king. When you do, new trained units spawn with higher stats: command, acumen, loyalty (not sure about dread). It's not a big difference: you get, let's say, 3-command generals instead of 1 or 2 stars, or 4-5 acumen instead of 2-3 ones.

[lars573]

The way MTW+VI works if you get a king with the same name in the same time frame as a historical king they will have the same VnV's as the real guy, it's a neat little touch CA added. As for provincial governors leaving them in their provinces makes the populace more loyal and happy. This leads to more income in the province. Also leaving the governor in his province makes him catch VnV's quicker. If you leave the taxes on normal the VnV's he gets are average if taxes are low he gets good ones, if high he gets bad ones. To strip any general of any title you use the emmisary. Word or warnig though if you strip a general of his titles he not only loses the loyalty bonus and other title bonuses but he also loses about half the loyalty bonus of the title from his inborn loyalty. My advice is if you give the title to the wrong guy strip him of the title then marry your daughter to him, or just delete him. No matter how good he was the loyalty hit you take from stripping him of title is not worth keeping him if you can't get it back up.

[Blodrast]

hmm, i've heard reports that it might make a difference whether the governor sits in his home province or not, but i can't recall of anything that was actually tested and verified thoroughly.
My govs get relatively random vices, pretty good (acumen-wise) most of the time. And I always, always, keep all taxes on Very High. Everywhere. All the time. And believe me, I don't have any trouble with my governors (except when reaching the 2 thresholds, of course, but that happens no matter what).
Now the only vices I DO know you can get for sure by sitting in a province are Steward and Trader. There have been threads about this before, keep leader & govs in province while building and demolishing mine, rinse, clean and repeat, etc.

As for provincial governors leaving them in their provinces makes the populace more loyal and happy. This leads to more income in the province.

would you care to elaborate on this, please ? I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
I see no difference in keeping my gov in his home province or not. The difference is the same for adding/removing any garrison unit, be it governor or not.
And as for the income, why are you saying more happiness/loyalty means more money ? The taxed income is the same regardless of the level of loyalty...

[Ludens]

As far as I know it doesn't matter if a governor is in his home province or not, his vices have the same influence. Only the location of the King matters, and only for loyalty. There is a 'absentee landlord' vice, but I have never seen it. It might just be an extension of the 'bad steward' line.

I find that governor who sits still in their castle gains virtues faster, but also has a tendency to develop vices. Moving them around slows both down in my experience.

Something that can distort the image is the fact that the commander of a stack gets all the virtues the governors in that stack have earned. So I always keep governors apart from my army stacks, unless they are the senior officer.

hdarpini, yes, you can get other vices except the cowardly ones, for example 'expert attacker', 'skilled last stand', 'retreats often', 'captured', etc. There are also virtues related to building: 'builder', 'trader' (acquired by building mines, for some reason), 'good steward'.

[ichi]

It seems that when governors DO stay in their provinces, they gain more acumen rather quickly through virtues. Is this true?

I was told by a developer that there is no impact from keeping a Governor in 'his' province.

However, placing a Governor in a stack with the King or other higher ranking General will cause the V&Vs to go to the higher ranking guy and not the Guv.

This is a bit off topic, but can you demote govenors? How?

Not really demote, but you can:

Disband the unit
Drop a Spy on the Governor - try him for treason
Drop an Inquisitor - try the Guv as a heretic
Drop an Emissary - remove the title
Drop an Assassin - try to kill
Send the Guv on a suicide mission

I agree with Ldvs that using Pez has a risk - if there is no other General around the army is led by a low morale weak unit. Same with using archers as Guvs.

Just curious at the Governors people use, and why, as the most effective at bringing in increased income for a Province while keeping your expenses to a minimum?

I use a quite simple strategy - the highest acumen guy gets to be Guv of the richest province. Rebellious provinces get Guvs with high Dread. I try not to use high acumen Guvs in risky or difficult fights (don't want them killed), but I don't force Guvs to stay at home. I garrison interior provinces with at least 100 men; rebellious provinces get a few more. I try to use obsolete depleted units as garrison.

Again Ldvs is correct in recommending a spy in each province, but I use Spies, Border Forts, troop garrisons, and a religious agent (Bishop or Cardinal) in combination.

Got a high acumen Guv with low loyalty? - assign him a title and keep him with your King.

As for provincial governors leaving them in their provinces makes the populace more loyal and happy.

Again, I have been told personally by developers that this was an intended feature (hence it is in the manual) but was dropped out, and that the location of a Guv has no impact on the province.

Although peasants are the single most useless unit ever invented, my opinion here would be no. A garrison's size is the only factor in its effect on province loyalty. No unit provides a bunch of warm bodies at a more economical rate of upkeep than peasants.

Absolutely right on! Doug, you've written a lot of intelligent comments over the years, but I think that is one of the best. Not only do Pez have only one redeeeming feature (cheap bodies for garrison) but the worst thing about the game is that the AI builds so damn many Pez

ichi