V&V how important

[pratttroy]

I due not pay a great deal of attention to the V&V's when I play.After reading the form I am beginning to think this might be an error.I have won two games without paying a great deal of attention to them.

[dgfred]

Welcome , I really don't pay TOO much attention either . I just
hate the 'secret perversion' one, it helps get that general executed .
I also love to get the great warrior/great defender ones .

[Mount Suribachi]

They are hugely important, though some are more important thatn others.

Especially in the early game when money is tight, any that effect trade or farm income are crucial. Once you have a stack of cash, they become less so. Although exclusive traders with -20% trade income from a 3000 florin per turn province will hurt...

Generals with negative morale vices or negative valour vices will lead to your army running like a whipped dog. Positive battlevield V&Vs can give your army a HUGE boost

As for the Perversion vice, any generals that develop that one get transferred to my siege stack. It becomes their lot in life to waste away in castle sieges, or if they're lucky, to die a glorious death assaulting the castle gates. Its my version of being sent to the Eastern Front

[mfberg]

The acumen, trade and farming V&Vs are important for your moneymaking provinces, and the valour V&V's are fun for battles. Taking out a unit of lancers with a 10 valor UM group is great.

mfberg

[yesdachi]

For me they don’t matter too much on the easier settings but on the tougher ones they sure make a difference. I usually try to quickly get the skilled attacker, builder, Stewart, etc. virtues for my king/good governors and generals and weed out the generals with chinless, gambling, strange, etc. vices. Some you just get and others you get as a result of your actions.

I think they add an extra element of depth and fun.

edit: nicly said Mount Suribachi.

[ichi]

I guess it depends on what you want to try to do with the game. If you want to be thorough and get the most out the little things, or if you just like maximizing the game, then there's plenty in here to pay attention to. If you want to play and don't really want to get bogged down in details, it is possible to win the game.

If you want the best Billmen in the game then build them in Mercia; if you just want a Billman build them anywhere.

If you want to have the best guy in charge of your province that keeps getting attacked, then look around for that six star general with the Skilled Defender virtue. If you don't really care who's in charge, then it doesn't matter.

Does it matter who your next King is? If it does, then you'd better send the Inbred Good Runner heir into every battle and hope he gets killed so his Educated Gentle Knight brother can ascend to the throne.

This is a fairly deep game where most all of the factors matter to some extent. I like to play slow and take my time and maximize things; I play to relax and that helps me relax, I enjoy it.

Some folks like to rush through, not worrying too much about the details. Its all about why you play.

ichi

[yesdachi]

nice list of V&V's
http://www.mithyk.com/councilchambers/vnv.htm

[Puzz3D]

This is a fairly deep game where most all of the factors matter to some extent. I like to play slow and take my time and maximize things; I play to relax and that helps me relax, I enjoy it.

I do too, but I see little point of having features in a game that matter so little that they can be ignored. This may add to the complexity of the game, but amounts to moving deck chairs around on the Titanic.

[Del Arroyo]

I like the V&Vs, personally. Though I have a big problem with the "Inbred" vices that continually deteriorate throughout a general's life.... I mean, does he have some sort of degenerative cancer that is actually causing his genes to WORSEN??

DA

[EatYerGreens]

I like the V&Vs, personally. Though I have a big problem with the "Inbred" vices that continually deteriorate throughout a general's life.... I mean, does he have some sort of degenerative cancer that is actually causing his genes to WORSEN??

DA

I think I read somewhere that the "General dies of old age" message only pops up when it was an ex-Royal or if it was someone who had above a certain threshhold of stars. Not sure what the cut-off is, maybe 5 stars or 6.

The way I rationalize the degenerative things, like you describe, is that they are similarly dying of old age and being replaced by a son who is even worse than they were but, by being low star generals, you're just not seeing their deaths reported.

[Shahed]

to me V&V's are very important. I never assign just anyone for governor, army commander (unless I have no choice), and unfortunately for them, "bad" generals never get rank in my games.

[Del Arroyo]

I think I read somewhere that the "General dies of old age" message only pops up when it was an ex-Royal or if it was someone who had above a certain threshhold of stars. Not sure what the cut-off is, maybe 5 stars or 6.

The way I rationalize the degenerative things, like you describe, is that they are similarly dying of old age and being replaced by a son who is even worse than they were but, by being low star generals, you're just not seeing their deaths reported.

Yeah but I've got my young spring-chicken Princes going from "Chinless Wonder" to "Odd Number of Toes" to "Inbred" in like 3 consecutive years. Pisses me off.

Fortunately doesn't happen that often.

DA

[Procrustes]

I do too, but I see little point of having features in a game that matter so little that they can be ignored. This may add to the complexity of the game, but amounts to moving deck chairs around on the Titanic.

Granted, some of the V&V's can be ignored - but it's probably unwise to ignore them all. I mean, I want to know if my general has some bad moral penalty that is going to make it hard for him to keep his army on the field, or when the govenor of my richest suddenly starts stealing.

It gets to be a bit much for me in the endgame - especially after you pass 60%. The vices start coming fast and furious - it's not much fun to try to keep up. I get a lot more selective as to which ones I'll bother with; often I'll just start a new game.

The perversion vice doesn't bother me much - it only gives a little unhappiness, which is only consequential if the general is the govenor of a rebellious province. The ones I hate are govenors that steal (e.g. "exclusive trader", "brigand", "family favorites", etc.) and generals with moral penalties ("timid", "good runner", etc.). Regarding the income vices, it seems that goveners don't usually get two, so if I for example get someone who is an exclusive trader I'll keep him and put him in a province with no trade goods.

[dgfred]

It is just that the perversion vice pisses me off : some fruity
general looking at my young soldiers' butts as they go off to battle and
trying to sneak off with my princess . I always use an assassin
or send on a 1man/unit suicide attack even though that route causes a
slight loyalty drop .

[ToranagaSama]

I do too, but I see little point of having features in a game that matter so little that they can be ignored. This may add to the complexity of the game, but amounts to moving deck chairs around on the Titanic.

That's true. Though, the way to get the most out of the *little* things within the game such as V&V is to adopt Rules to play by.

For example, limiting your Govenors to ONLY Knight units, or even more challenging, Knights with *royal* blood, heightens things to the extend even the most trivial v&v has strong ramifications.

Playing the Early era, adopting the above, really makes for tough sledding. Each and every additional Acumen is major! Negative v&v can be really harsh, as get one and the game will keep feeding you negative v&v.

You also find out what lousy knights the game produces.

[ah_dut]

I think pride can be helpful occasionally on normal units that had really low acumen to begin with. Who cares when you get another 2 valour in this case irtually for free

[EatYerGreens]

That's true, dut.

My Byz campaign had a minor glut of Pride and Secret Pride, lately. With the aid of a general whose "skilled attacker" took him up to 9-stars, I went into a battle with a pair of Treb Archers with 7 and 8 valour and one Byz Infantry at valour 7.

I was going to say that even seemingly negative things like 'captured' can have their uses (in a general) but I can never remember if the morale boost it gives applies only to the general's unit, or the entire army under his command.


@ Del Arroyo,

that rate of degeneration has to suck, doesn't it?

The whole randomness factor in V&V's is borne out by my experiences in past, incompleted, campaigns, where I had princes coming of age with things like 'captured', 'scarred' and so on, in their traits list. These are supposed to arise from game events which were within your control but to have them from the minute their game-piece first arrives on the board is just silly.

Actually, I know why this happens. Some of the entries in HEROES.TXT have values assigned to V&Vs, in order to make them like their historical counterparts, so princes have them when they come of age, even if actual game events preceding their appearance didn't pan out in the same way.

[Budwise]

I due not pay a great deal of attention to the V&V's when I play.After reading the form I am beginning to think this might be an error.I have won two games without paying a great deal of attention to them.

As a whole, I agree. BUT, I will kill, disband, or just plain lose anyone who is a coward. I just don't need those negative vices in the middle of a battle.

Oh, I think its funny when my king is gay. I have seen a gay king have a few heirs - how is that one possible.

But all those stupid (Too many to post) vices that take -10 or -20 away, I usually just ignore. When those pop up in numbers, you are usually richer than god and have two ships in each sea zone.


TO THIS DATE THOUGH, has anyone ever seen a BESEIGER Virtue? I haven't. You know the one that says, three years added/subtracked from a seige.

[Procrustes]

TO THIS DATE THOUGH, has anyone ever seen a BESEIGER Virtue? I haven't. You know the one that says, three years added/subtracked from a seige.

I got it exactly once - about a year ago, I was playing as the Italians in early, have no idea what prompted it or if it was purely random. (Perhaps it was a virtue that came with a hero, I can't remember any more.)

[Ironside]

I got it exactly once - about a year ago, I was playing as the Italians in early, have no idea what prompted it or if it was purely random. (Perhaps it was a virtue that came with a hero, I can't remember any more.)

Only heroes get that. I assume that it was removed from the game outside heroes. There's a few other traits that got the same treatment too.

[pratttroy]

Thanks for all the replies