How to get good governors?

[Servius]

When I start a new campaign I usually have 1 pretty good guy (the Pater Familias) and 2-3 so-so guys. When I stick any of them in a city, over time, they become GREAT governors. By the time they're 50 they have like 10 Influence and 10 Management, and even though most of them have never faught a single battle, somehow they even manage to rack up 5-7 Stars.

But after that it's almost all downhill. The next generation also seems to have the ability to garner general's stars without fighting any battles, but they seem completely unable to get any Management or Influence even though governing a city is all they've ever known. I build academies as soon as I can, but even then the governors just seem to blow. They have an amazing ability to accumulate vices and virtues though, and there are so many of them I have no idea how they got them.

It seems to me that, if I put some dolt in a city, especially if he has a whole university of teachers to help him gain ability, that guy should, over time, automatically become an excellent governor. The principle generally applies to combat generals (the more they fight the better they become at it) so why is the inverse usually true of governing?

Why do I often find my governors LOSE Command, Management, and Influence over time, rather than gain it? What does one have to do to train a good governor?

[Sin Qua Non]

From what I've experienced, the easiest value to increase is command. You can do that without any ancillaries. Take a general with a natural command talent, fight 20 battles, and mix in some ancillaries, and soon you'll have several 9-10 star generals. But stars don't do much for the governor.

Influence seems to be a bit harder, mainly because you can' beat higher influence out of your enemies. Management is even tougher to get and maintain. Vices and virtues play strongest with influence, and due to several triggers inherent in the game (temples, money, etc.), you can find yourself with a lot more vices than virtues. Since all generals gain ancillaries in time, you can place 3 or 4 generals in 1 city, and then swap around their ancillaries to "build" an optimum governor. Especially late game, when you have 30+ family members running around, by pooling them into a few major cities (with academies and scriptoria) you can build them up and send them off to govern elsewhere. And keep an eye on family members with progressive V&V's. If you see one who's showing promise as an excellent administrator, you know he's going to be a 4-5 managment on his own, so load him up with a nice retinue!

It might also be worthwhile, especially mid-game, to decide early who will be generals and who will be administrators. Sure, you'll have a few who are all- around greats (good heir material), but most family members will benefit from specialization.

[Servius]

Hmm, that's not good enough. Not your advice, I'm sure it's accurate. I mean that the level of control I have over my generals is not acceptible. I'm considering deleting many v&v. They accumulate so quickly and seem to be too easily triggered. Case in point, a gov who doesn't do anything but sit in a city and govern really shouldn't be accumulating too many v or v's. Given how powerful Influence is in countering the bad effects of squallor (and thus how necessary Influence is) it's really not okay with me to leave so much of it to chance.

Used to be that a king could execute prisoners, get a high Dread rating, and that would cow the populace in every city. Hmm, the good old days

[Finnbat]

The game is builded up for 5 years players, so stop wondering how to manage family, you cant.

[*Ringo*]

They accumulate so quickly and seem to be too easily triggered. Case in point, a gov who doesn't do anything but sit in a city and govern really shouldn't be accumulating too many v or v's.

I totally agree, too many V&V is just annoying. Looking through the export_descr_character_traits.txt there seems to be too many triggers, especially for the drinking line. I'm a bit of a perfectionist so get quite annoyed when i get a family member coming of age with 6 or 7 bad vices, granted they should be tested on the quality of their fathers but this is just ridiculous. I wouldn't mind one or two problems as they can be countered by the right behavior; it's just when you get 6/7 i can't even be bothered, they just end up on suicide missions or roaming the empire putting up watchtowers!

I really like the V&V system in RTW, there is so many new vices etc. Which ultimately is good but i do think the triggers and probabilities need some major tweaking!

*Ringo*

Drunken Lout
Strong Language
Womaniser
Poor Disciplinarian
Morbidly Fearful
Rather Lazy
Likes Strangers
Administratively Inept
Boring Speaker

[Leodegar]

Build academies and their upgrades! I normally keep new family members the first few years (until they are in the early 20s) in cities with academies. they will get useful retinues, like mathematicians, librarians, histrorians,....
from cities with temples, they can also get a priest, who is most useful. I tend to have 3 cities in my heartland with academies and my three different (!) temples. then shifting my "governours in training" around these cities, so they will pick up each type of priest...
In my expereance, it works quiet well and I normally have around some good governours.

[Sin Qua Non]

I know how you feel, Servius, especially when 50% of my family are prime AA candidates. You definitely don't have the control you did in MTW, but the retinue can definitely make up for some of it. I personally don't find it as asnnoying as I thought I would have, just because it allows me to get more involved with my sometimes huge family. I find myself giving them special missions to improve scores, and following them over the course of 20 years, to see if I have a new governor of the capital. Before in TW games, I would have one or two heroes, and then the rest of the pack. With the way familys are in RTW, I actually remember their names. It may just be the roleplayer in me.

Agree about the V&V triggers, though. There is a text file that allows you to easily change triggers, but the name escapes me.

[Servius]

Hmm, I should read the V&V file and get some understanding of what's going on in the background. I think I'll do some weeding, taking out some of these, tweeking the triggers for other maybe. I'm just not looking forward to it as, from what I hear, the number of these is enormous and weeding it will be very time consuming.

I also think there is some other factor going on here. I mean, my progenitor and his sons manage to be kick ass governors even at a time when the cities they are managing have no academies, low level temples and merchant buildings... The third generation, with a lot more developed cities and retinues, manages to be worse than their fathers who had less. That doesn't make sense, which is why I think there is something hardcoded that forces the first generation to be great, the second to be good, and the rest to be base.

I hadn't thought about building the three different temlpes and doing some rotation to get three preists. I'm also pursuing the possibility of carrying out more Senate missions, to get more senate offices, which grant (permanent?) Influence bonuses... My last new tactic is to (for the Julii) build up the four major cities in N. Italy and always have governors in them, but Exterinate every other city I take and jack the taxes up as high as I can in order to make them grow extremely slowly, thus hopefully reducing the amount of management headaches they cause later on. I'll have to do a lot more transporting of troops back and forth, but it will hopefully significantly reduce the number of good governors I need AND the amount of micromanagement I have to do.

EDIT: For the record, I shouldn't have to do all this crap. I'm going out of my way to undo or counter the natural processes within the game. This game should allow me to manage cities easily (almost automatic good governors and hardly any squallor), transport troops more quickly, and thus focus on fighting battles and micromanaging my SimCities.

[ToranagaSama]

Since all generals gain ancillaries in time, you can place 3 or 4 generals in 1 city, and then swap around their ancillaries to "build" an optimum governor.

OK, I missed this capability.

HOW do you "swap around" ancillaries?

Especially late game, when you have 30+ family members running around, by pooling them into a few major cities (with academies and scriptoria) you can build them up and send them off to govern elsewhere. And keep an eye on family members with progressive V&V's. If you see one who's showing promise as an excellent administrator, you know he's going to be a 4-5 managment on his own, so load him up with a nice retinue!

Again, if you would be so kind as to explain in detail how this is done. I know Acadamies are *supposed* to be helpful, but, "build[ing] them up"???!!

Thank you in advance for helping a dummy. :)

It might also be worthwhile, especially mid-game, to decide early who will be generals and who will be administrators. Sure, you'll have a few who are all- around greats (good heir material), but most family members will benefit from specialization.

Quite right!

[Servius]

If you have two gens/govs in the same stack or city, you click on one, find the ancilary you want to give to the other guy, click on that ancilary, drag it down to the bottom where all your units (including the other gen/gov) are, and drop the ancilary on the other gen.

It's just dragging and dropping, just with people now.

I'm very leary about choosing heirs. My experience has been that every time I choose who should be the next leader, that person has ZERO chiildren. Even when I find one who has the Fertlile v/v, they still don't have any kids. Like literally, I've choose an heir who was 18, had the Fertile v/v. He was married by the time he was 20, to a girl of similar age, and for fourty years they didn't have one kid... I really hate how few of the integral game mechanics are explained in the manual or in the too-rare dev posts.

[Sin Qua Non]

I'd be pleased to elaborate!

You can switch ancillaries by having both generals in the same stack or city, so that they both show up under the army tab at the bottom. Right click on the general wiancillaryilliary you want to take. Click and drag the picture oancillaryilliary onto the portrait card of the other general. And there you go!

A couple caveats, of course. Each family member can only have 8 ancillaries. You can't have duplicate ancillaries. The retinue also seems to be loosely categorized, such as priests, accountants, slaves, etc. You can't for example, have 2 priests from 2 different temples. There are also a few ancillaries that are non-transferable. I don't have a full list, but they usuallyally those associated specifically with the faction leader, such as spymaster and tender of the royal backside. Probably wouldn't want to swap the last one around too much without washing his hands anyway.

As buildingsings, i meant to build up the family members, not the actual building. Poor choice of words, sorry. One of the functions of academies, scriptoria, and the ludus magna is that they all speed up the number of ancillaries awarded, sometimes to extreme levels. By placing several family members in a city with an academy, you can gain several ancillaries a turn to place where you see fit. The upside of academies is that you get a nicretinueue quickly. the downside is that there isn't always a nice diversity of ancillaries, and if you don't watch it, you can end up with tons of ancillaries and nowhere to dump them. Hope this helps.

[MajorFreak]

You can't have duplicate ancillaries. The retinue also seems to be loosely categorized, such as priests, accountants, slaves, etc. You can't for example, have 2 priests from 2 different temples. There are also a few ancillaries that are non-transferable. I don't have a full list, but they usuallyally those associated specifically with the faction leader, such as spymaster and tender of the royal backside. Probably wouldn't want to swap the last one around too much without washing his hands anyway..

i respectfully disagree. I've swappred spymasters around. i've also gotten more than one priest from different temples. (perhaps you tried switching spymaster/priest and some OTHER ancillary blocked you?)

[Servius]

Yeah, I know you CAN have a priest from different temples. I have not experimented with having two LAW priests (one from a Roman Law temple and one from, say, a Carthaginian law temple).

[geraldtan]

There is a good explanation as to why the first gen leaders ROCK at governing, but the later ones just SUCK, and it has nothing to do with it being hardcoded in. Let me explain:

1) Most governing virtues actually come from BUILDING stuff, rather than sitting around existing buildings. Naturally, it will be your first gen leaders that do most of the building.
2) Even worse, sitting around fancy buildings is actually BAD, contrary to what you think. Taverns, Theatres, Arenas, City Plumbing will give you traits like drunk, corrupt, expensive tastes, girls, etc. And believe it or not, an Academy doesn't give your guy any traits at all! (If you don't believe me, do a search for "Academy" in export_descr_character_traits-triggers.txt - you won't find it there!). So your later leaders who are sitting around your capital are acutally picking up boozing and flirting tips rather than learning to govern!
3) The Corruption trigger is also activated once Treasury > 50000. It gets even worse past 100000 and maxes out once > 150000. Naturally this doesn't affect you at the start, since you are so broke.
4) Sitting around not building anything also gives vices (eg. BadBuilder, BadMiner)
5) Many bad traits are self perpetuating. Once your guy has a bad trait, it's usually downhill from there, even if you move him away from the big town.
6) Inherited traits are really quite few and far between - only some traits can be inherited, and even then the chance is quite small. If they are inherited, it will show up when your character comes of age (ie. 16years). If it's not there then, it hasn't been inherited, full stop.

I've summarised and calculated and compared all this in an Excel/PDF file. You can find it at http://www.geraldtan.com/rtw/

Cheers!

Poohbear

[Sin Qua Non]

I've never been able to switch around some ancillaries, but it may just be because of another incompatibility. I haven't done any hard experiments on it. I'll give it another try. For all I know, I didn't drag the spymaster to exactly on the card. The game can be finicky that way.

[ToranagaSama]

Sin Qua Non and Servius1234,

THANK YOU!

Somebody s/b arrested for perpetrating that pamphlet as a "Manual". Unbelieveable!!

geraldtan, gotta make some time, as well as load Excel on this system, but once I do your info should be quite useful, thanks as well. BTW, ahhh, what's with the Pooh Bears? Not very Total Warish. ;)

Yeah, I believe I've noticed good traits when building a lot. Right now, I've got a just of age Govenor sitting in Palevtium (sp?) with NO traits whatsoever, none, nada!

I made him the Govenor after my original Faction Leader died, which required me to shuffle Govenors. I conquered Palevitum (whatever!) with most of its buildings all ready built. The population is only ~600, and the requirement is 6000 for the next level. This No Trait family member has been govenor for somewhere between 10 - 15 turns (just guessing), and has picked up Nada in the way of Traits. This may tie in to the fact that he hasn't build much of anything.

We shall see, though I'm tempted to use my newly acquired knowledge to give him some decent traits---for the money, of course.

[*Ringo*]

This may tie in to the fact that he hasn't build much of anything.

From what i've interpreted from the export_descr_character_traits.txt, building causes a lot of v&v (many of the triggers depend on building things, especially Governor buildings & Temples). I had a 18 year old governor who got the poor farmer vice, and i had a settlement near by that had one turn left on a farm upgrade so i put him in there and wacked the tax up; and hey presto next turn, no vice! Ensure that your tax rate is High-to-V. High though as otherwise you'll probably get a nasty trait!!!

5) Many bad traits are self perpetuating. Once your guy has a bad trait, it's usually downhill from there, even if you move him away from the big town.

This is especially true of drinking. There is about 12 or more individual triggers for the drink line of traits. The further down the levels you go the more likely you are to gain more. Realistic i suppose... i wonder if you can mod in weekly AA meetings a la games style to combat such effects???

*Ringo*

[frogbeastegg]

Incredible work, geraldtan. I recommend you place an advert and link to your site in the RTW useful tools and links thread. If you don't mind I'll also put a small advert for your work in my guide, labelled as being more suitable for the intermediate player.

:gets her printer working and starts pouring over information:

[Sin Qua Non]

Geraldtan:

I'm reading your page right now. Fantastic work. This sucker's getting bookmarked!

Also, I love the pooh bear background!

[Servius]

well, for me at least, the first faction leader doesn't govern, he fights. Since he isn't in any of the cities as they are rapidly building buildings, that's not the cause of his high attributes.

The game mechanics actually seem to encourage bad behavior. This game encourages you to Exterminate the populations of new cities. It encourages you to NOT govern cities. If you choose to govern cities, it encourages you to UNDER develop because the higher-level buildings corrupt your governors. It encourages you to move your generals/governors around (not really bad behavior, just annoying) because most of the vices are accumluated if your guy doesn't move at all in a turn. It encourages you NOT to expand the size of your cities becasue many of the buildings that encourage growth and all of the ones that help mitigate the Squallor caused by growth corrupt the governors. It encourages you to aid the Senate, even though it's by becoming popular with the people that allows you to take Rome. It encourages you to help your other Roman "allies" even though all you're doing is helping make them more difficult foes to dispose of later on.

This is retarded. The whole General OR Governor (rather than MTW's General AND Governor) idea is dumb, at least under these rules. If we're supposed to put governors in cities then doing such should be beneficial, not harmful. If we're supposed to increase the size of our cities then the advantages of bigger cites should outweigh the disadvantages. Maybe I'm missing something. I hope I'm missing something.

[geraldtan]

Thanks froggie and SQN.

Agree that it gets harder to get a good general as your cities develop, no doubt about that. Having said that, it might be intentional on the part of the developers (together with the limited numbers of generals you get) so that you don't steamroll over the other factions as you grow in size. Only they will know, I guess!

Still, if you feel up to editing the export_desc*.txt file, at least now you know where to start!

Poohbear

[Servius]

What I'm trying now is to Exterminate Patavium's populace and keep them under Very High taxes, while not building any farms or sanitation (but I am building the trading buildings because they grant access to other buildings). I'm also following that policy with all my other cities. What it's lead to so far is that I have like 9 cities with less than 2000 citizens, and their growth rate is so low it will take them forever to grow and become a problem. In the mean time each one still generates about 700 denari per year. Not too shabby, at least on early. I'm also trying to avoid the (similarly counter-intuitive) vices associated with a big bank account by upgrading ALL my Hastati to Principe in an effort to drain my bank account and keep it from growing so quickly.

I'm cosidering the following mods...

1) double (maybe tripple) the LAW bonus that Jupiter temples grant and/or
2) add or increase the law bonuses that other buildings (military barracks, etc.) grant to try and make up for the loss of MTW's towers, Spy effects, King's Dread, etc.

The advantage to LAW is that it possitively modifies the Happiness factor but does not modify the population growth factor. That way certain buildings will be more effective at countering the chaotic effects of Squallor, but it will still allow Squallor to help cap the population of the biggest cities.

Another thing I'm doing is trying to accomplish more Senate missions. Doing so usually gets you more Senate offices, which give your faction leader and heir Influence and Management bonuses.

Finally, I'm only planning on actually having governors in Arretium and the other A city in N. Italy. It's going pretty well so far, though I doubt whether I'll be able to maintain large armies with only two major cities and everything else being tiny towns. We'll see.

[Sinner]

well, for me at least, the first faction leader doesn't govern, he fights. Since he isn't in any of the cities as they are rapidly building buildings, that's not the cause of his high attributes.

Your starting characters all start with preselected traits and ancilliaries, generally all good, including some that are very difficult to get in-game or will require very well developed buildings. Your second generation will not be as good since they start off with only the various 'coming of age' traits and ancilliaries, some good & some bad. The third and later generations often end up even worse because by then you're likely to have a large treasury and thus suffer lots of vices.



geraldtan: The trigger for the Priest of Neptune (Naval Temple) appears to be missing. I downloaded the files a couple of days ago so I might be reading an old version.