On the Feeding and Breeding of Governors and Generals

[nidpants]

i must admit...i was going to do the same thing! exactly! quite exactly! i'm exactly one step behind you! i even have a profilable Excel sheet with all traits and triggers. *sigh*

[sunsmountain]

First of all, great guide, Aesculapius! This one was definitely on my to do list, and i'm glad you already did it. This certainly deserves a Sticky, though all threads are still on the first page. It took me some time here before i even noticed it, though!

Everything seems in order, except for one section, the one about building. I'm quoting here for reference, with comments in between.

2. Build Wisely

Completing any building at all gives your governor a 20% chance of becoming a ‘Good Builder’, and an 8% chance of developing ‘Architect Skill’. In particular, completing buildings while your tax level is ‘high’ or ‘very high’ gives you a chance of becoming a ‘Good Administrator’, and (if your ‘face’ is yellow) a ‘Good Taxman’. Conversely, NOT building (when you have cash to do so) gives you a 3% chance per turn of becoming a ‘Bad Builder’.

The tax level has to be 'very high', in order to get Good Administrator. > does not mean equal to, and export_descr_character_traits says > high, therefore: very high.
For the same reason, your face has to be blue (disillusioned) AND the tax level has to be very high, in order to get 'Good Taxman'. Since you only want the first level of 'Good Taxman' - no side effects - it is a good idea to increase the public order from 75% to 85% after you got the trait and keep it there, unless you can handle the unrest at 24000 pop.

Conversely, when tax level is 'low' or 'normal', and your face is yellow or green (not disillusioned), you stand a 15% chance of gaining BadTaxman (when a building is completed, of course, as above).

Your choice of buildings is important. It is worth completing farms, mines, roads, ports and traders early, as each time you complete a building after these are present, you stand a chance of becoming a ‘Good Farmer’ (farms), ‘Good Miner’ (mines) or ‘Good Trader’ (roads, ports and traders). Conversely, if you complete other buildings before these, you may be labelled a ‘Bad Farmer’, ‘Bad Trader’, or ‘Bad Miner’ (particularly if Victoria advised you to build mines and you ignored her).

In short, no, choice isn't important. The traits Good Farmer, Trader and Miner are ONLY checked when you build Farms, {Traders, Roads and Ports} and Mines respectively.
* Building anything other than 'Farms' (farms level 1-5), will get you an 8% chance at gaining 1 point in Bad Farmer. Should this happen to you, let that governor build a farm next, not necessarily in that settlement, to get rid of it.
no going back: 3 points either way.
* Building anything other than 'Traders' (trader level 1-5), including Roads and Ports, give you 1% chance at gaining 1 point in Bad Trader. You get rid of it the same way.
no going back: 2 point either way.
* Building anything other than Mines (mines, mines+1), while Victoria is advising you not to, will always gain you 1 point of Bad Miner; you can ignore her 7 times.
no going back: 2 points either way.

Since these traits have thresholds, to get them your governor needs to build:
- 6 farms,
- 2 mines, and
- 48 traders or 30 ports or 30 roads (or for example 16 traders and 10 ports and 10 roads) just to get the 1st level, on average, a similar amount for the 2nd level, and two times more to reach the 3rd.
They also cannot be inherited, making good trader something for trade temple factions only.

Because of no going back its good strategy to have every governor build:
- 3 farms
- mines when necessary (destroy and rebuild once)
- 4 traders or 2,5 ports or 2,5 roads (or 1 trader and 1 ports and 1 roads)
to get into the safe zone.

Once an amphitheatre is present, each time you complete a building you are guaranteed to become more of a ‘Games Fan’ (unless you already have the ‘Games Hater’ trait, which cannot be lost). Being a ‘Games Fan’ is a good thing on balance. Likewise, once a hippodrome is present, any further building will make you into a ‘Races Fan’, (which is not necessarily such a good thing), unless you are already a ‘Race Hater’.

When you build 2 out of the 3 (arena, amphitheatre AND coliseum), you are guaranteed to become a Games Fan (threshold 2, both give 100% chance on increasing the trait by 1).
Same for Races Fan if you build 2 out of 2 (with hippodrome AND circus maximus).
Buiding anything else does not trigger the governor to become more or less of a fan.

Certain buildings are intrinsically corrupting, and it is probably wise to avoid building these for as long as possible, if not indefinitely. These buildings are the Theatre, City Plumbing (yes, City Plumbing!), the Silk Road, and the Tavern. The first three all give (per turn) a 5% chance of becoming ‘Aesthetic’, ‘Epicurean’ or having ‘Expensive Tastes’, and a 3% chance of developing a liking for ‘Gambling’ or ‘Girls’. In the case of the Silk Road, the chances are applied twice per turn. The Tavern gives a 5% chance per turn of becoming addicted to ‘Drink’ or ‘Gambling’. As with Temples, these corrupting influences may be prevented by the tedious expedient of ‘going for a walk’ every turn.

Amen, and nothing wrong with this. Thanks for blacklisting these! :)

Each time you train a unit, when your tax level is ‘high’ or ‘very high’, you have a 3% chance of enhancing your ‘Good Administrator’ skill.

This is perhaps a bit out of place (move to first paragraph?) and your tax level needs to be 'very high' as before. It may be noted that this is the only trait that uses GovernorUnitTrained, and rightly so.

[Aesculapius]

I've now double-checked sunsmountain's criticisms and found them to be correct in every respect - so my Treatise has been edited to reflect the correct position. The only section that was affected was the one headed 'Build Wisely' in the chapter 'On Raising Good Governors'. I've also clarified information on the Temples of Love and of Trade in the section above.

The problem arose because I'd misinterpreted the condition called 'SettlementBuildingFinished' in the file export_descr_character_traits.txt - I thought it referred to whether the building had ever been finished in the settlement (which would actually make it the same as SettlementBuildingExists). In fact it refers only to the building that has just been completed. This post makes it clear, as well as explaining in a bit more detail how trait changes are triggered.


Just to clarify one area:

Because of no going back its good strategy to have every governor build:
- 3 farms
- mines when necessary (destroy and rebuild once)
- 4 traders or 2,5 ports or 2,5 roads (or 1 trader and 1 ports and 1 roads)
to get into the safe zone.

This strategy will not get you into the positive 'no going back' zone (except in the case of mines), as it takes 24 points to reach the 'no going back' levels for 'Good Farmer' and 48 for 'Good Trader'. This strategy will, however, provide enough 'credit' to prevent you reaching the 'no going back' levels of the bad traits. Exception: bear in mind that 'Good Trader' points cannot be guaranteed - you have only a 50-80% chance of getting them when completing 'trader', 'road' or 'port'-type buildings.

now then, my question is this: how do i get a certain infertile line of my family to start popping out adoptees? and how do i check who's adopting?

Get him to a temple of fertility*! (duh)

Temples of Fertility won't increase your chance of acquiring adoptees, only of acquiring children. I have yet to discover how adoptees are assigned. It's a small nitpick, and I feel churlish correcting someone who has done me such a great service - hat off to you, sunsmountain!

[sunsmountain]

I had the same misunderstandings with those triggers, only after browsing a good deal on these forums, did I find helpful insights here and there, which i'm happy to share.

This strategy will, however, provide enough 'credit' to prevent you reaching the 'no going back' levels of the bad traits.

Exactly what i had in mind: since most of my governors are not going to get enough points to get into the positive zone, i might just as well prevent them going into the negative.

Exception: bear in mind that 'Good Trader' points cannot be guaranteed - you have only a 50-80% chance of getting them when completing 'trader', 'road' or 'port'-type buildings.

True. The number of buildings i advise to build will get you the correct level to prevent the negative level on average, and trader is indeed a bit of an exception compared to farmer and miner.

To further complicate matters, sometimes governors have already acquired some + or - points in trader/miner/farmer when they come of age. Luckily, in the case of trader and farmer, you'll immediately notice this, since they already show up as negative traits at -1 point level. However, if your character doesnt pick up Good Miner after building 2 mines, build 2 more!

Temples of Fertility won't increase your chance of acquiring adoptees, only of acquiring children. I have yet to discover how adoptees are assigned. It's a small nitpick, and I feel churlish correcting someone who has done me such a great service - hat off to you, sunsmountain!

Oh, i misread the initial question, he asked about adoptees. As far as those are concerned, the only tip i have is the one i gave: Fight with your captains against the odds.

Thanks, and thank you for sharing this guide for good governing. May all our Governors become Jedi's (well..)

[Guyus Germanicus]

Sunsmountain,

On getting new adoptees: I've actually gotten adoptees where my captains fought with 'even odds' or slightly better. I used to believe you had to fight against odds, but now I think RTW has some kind of formula based on the number of faction members vs the number of cities your faction controls on the board that determines when you get an offer to adopt. If you fall below a certain proportion of family members vs cities, you start getting adoptees offered to you. And, I'm not even sure that I'm right about that rule either. The game's adoptee rule I find a bit mystifying. I've done no measuring. Perhaps I should play a game from scratch and then monitor the number of faction members vs. the number of cities I control.

I guess the safest conclusion is that CA designed the game with a fascinating amount of sophistication.

[Empirate]

GG,
this "fascinating amount of sophistication" has more than once left me wondering if anything in this game was not random...
Let's say sophistication can easily make a complex system seem erratic, even chaotic. Since 1.5 I can't seem to get my diplomats to do me any good whatsoever. And every time I try, they pick up bad traits (not very courteous, or whatsitsname, being a prime suspect) from failing, just because the AI doesn't allow anything it doesn't come up with itself.
The same seems to hold true for governor traits. I usually don't rely on governor training anymore - it's too much micro work and doesn't pay off enough. If I can conquer 40 provinces in 60 turns with only fools for governors, while my generals turn into heroes on the battlefield because I fight so much and so hard, I can skip caring about governors.

I don't want to sound destructive of the fantastic work done by Aesculapius, Sunsmountains and others. I just think that these "soft" parts of the game - governing, diplomacy etc. - could have been made better by streamlining. Where there're so many variables in an equation, it's virtually impossible for a player of the game to actually see results in a simple, yet satisfying cause-and-effect-chain.

[Guyus Germanicus]

I understand your point, Empi, about governors. I don't tend to design my building strategy around grooming governors either. I tend to build what appears to be the military, economic or public order necessity of the moment. I find that I tend to avoid building too many farms, which means my governors are almost always developing 'poor farmer' traits. If my faction member has stars, I immediately post him with an army and start giving him combat experiences to groom him for command. The stars and influence laurel wreaths that he earns in campaigning will give him some advantage in governing from a public order standpoint, which is usually enough to suit me. It all depends on my priority of the moment. But, it is good to know what choices and what buildings influence the various traits that a governor acquires. So I've found Aesculapius's work extremely useful for the background info he provides, as I'm sure you agree. I have reassigned faction members to other postings when they seemed to be starting to acquire bad traits from a city post with say, a temple of Bacchus. I do remember literally saving the career of a young Julii faction member by reassigning him to a different city after he started developing a drinking problem. He actually turned out all right after the change of posting and lost the bad trait.

There are definitely limits to how much micro-managing one can do when the game starts getting involved and you have 30 cities and 25-50 faction members to manage. I just can't keep track of everything after a while.

I haven't really noticed the diplomat issue you mentioned. But, I've only played RTW under 1.4 and 1.5, so I have no other prior experience to contrast it with. I've always felt that the diplomatic choices in RTW are extremely limited, and in some cases a bit nonsensical. In one sense they are too predictable. You will never keep an ally through an entire game. It's guaranteed that whatever faction you ally yourself with, they will eventually stab you in the back. I suppose up to a point that's true to life. But if I treat an ally with respect and give them lots of money gifts, you would think that they would find that beneficial enough and of sufficient good faith that they wouldn't want to stab you in the back. But the game doesn't work that way. Oh well . . . C'est la vie. I've literally come to the rescue of some allies who were besieged by an enemy. They joined me in the combat. We whooped up on the enemy and won the day. Then two turns later, the faction I rescued attacks me. Go figure.

The faction I've been able to do my best governor training with has been the Julii, for some strange reason. With the Seleucids, I usually have Alexander from Sardis on patrol immediately, buying up mercenaries and preparing to defend the west end of the empire from Pontus and Greece. Demetrius in Damascus, I have buying up mercs for the eventual attack by Egypt. With Carthage, Theages in Lilybaeum, and Theodokles (sp) from Palma, are almost worthless as combat generals. But Theages can become a great governor. I just finished a Carthage game. He ended with about 6 pillars and 5 laurel leaves, was my faction leader, and was known as Theages the Killer because I recruited lots of assassins. He managed Carthage well. But I can't say I planned my management of Carthage for his benefit.

As a general rule, if my faction member has laurel wreaths and/or management pillars, I will groom him for management. Then I pay some attention to the building priorities for his sake. But if he's got stars, he's going to be campaiging for the most part until he captures that big city that requires his administrative attention. I won't keep him there unless he's close to retirement age. :) If my faction member has no good character traits at all to start with, he's cavalry fodder. I may try him at a couple different jobs to see if he will develop. If not, it's off to the front. I can always use him to police rebel bands.

Not all your experts - spies, assassins, diplomats - are going to be good at their job. And that's true to life in many ways. Sometimes they will develop if given the right opportunities. I've trained some good assassins. But some characters, be it diplomats, assassins or governors, will never become good at anything. Like Theodokles of Palma, for Carthage. He's never developed into a star for me in any game. So I use him to babysit a city and pray that he doesn't breed too many offspring. :)

blahdeblahdeblah I talk too much.

Regards,
Guyus