On the Feeding and Breeding of Governors and Generals

[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

[ezrider]

I agree with Empirate on this one. I have left any family member with a single management point in cities to rot and in some campaigns it went badly but now with seleucia, I have a ton of money coming in and my govenors aren't corrupt, but instead I have a guy with the highest management rating I have ever seen.
I don't know why this happened. My diplomats have walked all the way from Susa to Spain and haven't become anymore adept at squeezing money from people or getting the romans to ally with me.

in relation to adoptees and M.O.T.H's, For Seleucia, I have produced about 6 altogether, and I'm not that far into the game. For carthage it was the same, I did have a lot of offspring but my Captains were regularly beating bigger armies easily so I had good generals popping up all over the place.

**** - > GG

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.

That hilarious. Fair enough, If i ever developed a drinking problem I'd like an intervention as well.

[Severous]

Hi

I receive 'Man of the Hours' regulary. Have expanded fast. The game gives me MotH irrespective of the odds whenever a captain leads and wins an open field battle.

For the last two turns Ive also received an adoption at the end of the turn.

I think its the game mechanics trying to restore some form of balance between leaders and regions.

For 'Clear Victories' MotH is typically age 20 and 2* command.
For Heroic its often age 20 and 4*

[Guyus Germanicus]

Thanks Severous!

Your experience resonates with me as to what I've seen in my own games. I love Man-of-the-Hour promos! I have this psychological quirk of compassion for the orphan outsider-whose-given-an-opportunity-by-a-patron to make it in the established family.

EZ - (on rescuing drunken faction members)

Yeah, I had this Julii youngster posted in Patavium where there was a Bacchus temple. He started out as a social drinker and just went down hill like a meteor shot. I moved him to Mediolanum, but the temple was the same. (Back in my early days with RTW I was always taking Victoria's advice on what temples to build. Now I'm more chosey. I will still build the Bacchus line of temples but usually only in cities that I don't intend to assign a governor on a permanent basis, opting for Jupiter instead.) Finally, I sent the youngster to Caralis where there was a Jupiter temple. I guess because he was a youngster, he had time to reform. Aesculapius has talked about that in one of his posts, I believe. I was greatly relieved. I also gave him some combat experiences to get him out of a city and on the move. Whatever, . . . it worked.

On money corruption, I believe it was Aesculapius that explained how money starts its serious corruption process after you reach a balance of 50,000 denarii. The AI tests for applying corruption at increasing higher pecentages of probability for every 50,000+ denarii threshold you pass in your cash balance. So, if your balance stays below the 50,000 denarii you reduce the likelihood of corruption. If you pass the 150,000 or 200,000 mark, the chances of corruption 'treble'. I've heard that temples that produce public order due to law benefits are supposed to have a reducing impact on the money corruption issue. Don't know if that's true or not. If you have bug fixer or you made the code change manually, your academies will also produce public order due to law benefits, which would further this positive affect.

On diplomats - it might be that some of your diplomats' lack of success are due to the laurel wreath influence of the AI faction member you're talking to. Hence, your eloquent/tactful 5 laurel wreath diplomat is still going to have a problem convincing an intransigent 7 laurel wreath governor. But, again, I don't have any experience playing RTW under the early releases. Just 1.4 and 1.5. Definitely, the diplomacy part of RTW is one of the weaker, 'less sophisticated' aspects of the game. :) I love that bizarre diplomatic exchange I get occasionally where the AI diplomat offers me "Accept or we will attack" and demands "Please do not attack." So, I press the counter offer "cease fire." And the AI responds, "We see no reason to stop the war." Say, what? Yes, RTW diplomacy is farcical at times. Still, I love this game!!

I am very stingy about producing diplomats in the early going. I usually recruit only three. One to go east, one to go west and one to stay close to home. When I start accummulating empire and cash I will recruit more. In my just completed Carthage game, in the last 5-6 turns, my diplomat bribed two huge Egyptian armies out of existance, two Egyptian faction members into my fold, and bribed away Siwa. (I was making huge profits in sea trade, so I had lots of cash. Ba'al be praised.) :) Made taking Memphis, Alexandria and Thebes a whole lot easier. In my early RTW games, I used to sell map information all the time. Now I only sell map information when the AI faction won't trade me straight up or unless I'm hard pressed for cash.

regards, guyus