Titles and Offices

[Ciaran]

Personally, I auto-assign them, since I really don´t have the patience to look through all my units to find a commander with decent acumen, faith and dread. Much less I feel like checking the title-holders and reassigning them after each turn when my previously first-class governor suddenly dropped to a complete heap of waste thanks to randomly assigned V&Vs. How do you go about it?

[lugh]

I micro manage them. Also, I'll only use Rk's or their equaivalent as generals or governors. I find it adds flavour to the game.

Also the AI, when assigning them doesn't pay too much attention to the income potential of a province. So if you have two titles up for grabs it'll randomly assign them to the two most acumened generals, where what you really want is the best guy governing the best province. When you're looking at provinces like Antioch, Egypt etc, the difference a single point of acumen makes can be pretty big, enough to keep those last few units in the field without going in the red, especially useful if your on a downward spiral battle-wise.

Also the V&Vs aren't precisely random (oxymoron?). If you havew a really good governor, try and get him some minor combat experience against rebels or weaker enemy armies, I find this tends to reduce the rate at which their charecter decays into slothly sybarites.

Since a governor can't gain V&Vs in someone elses stach, another trick is to put good governors in a young Kings stack ,so any positive V&Vs go to the King, boosting the entire Kingdoms income/loyalty/happiness whatever.

[lilljonas]

Automanage. A few acumen more or less is not that big a deal once the economy starts rolling. However, in a turtling game you have far less provinces to micromanage, and there's fewer leaders to keep track of, so in such a game I'd probably micromanage. But in an empire with 20+ provinces? No.

[.:vVv:.Monkey]

I actually micro-manage all my governors, I keep an emissary in all provinces and as soon as a governor's acumen drops due to some negative V&V, I immediately replace him with a better governor (if available).

[ichi]

Totally manage my generals and governors. While I usually want my highest acumen guys for the best provinces, sometimes those command stars that come to the guvs of certain provinces are more important for a fighting gen, so I may sacrifice a few acumen to get makea 4-star into a 6.

Plus, there's lots of factors in assigned the non-guv titles, I want to put them where I need them.

This is just a matter of style. Some folks don't have the patience or the desire to manage their guvs, they want to fight and conquer. I enjoy the entire experience, managing an empire while taking over the world. and to me, auto-assign is basically telling the comp to play the game for me. But its OK if you auto-tax or auto-assign, whatever makes the game fun. Its all good.

ichi

[m52nickerson]

I tend to mirco manage titles until later in the game. When my empire get very large I tend to not care, as long as I hve positive cash flow and no problem provences. Then I wait and clean house every ten to twenty years.

[Patron]

Later in the game I just train a royal knight per province i own, give him the title and let him live in opulent splendour in his castle for the rest of the game, occasionally assassinating, framing for treason and burning on the stake them for fun. Though this one time I pick only acumen 5 generals and build 20% farms and destroy them over and over in order to give them the magnificent steward virtue and get provinces with a 1500 florins per turn agricultural income.

Do whatever you want, you're the king.

[Roark]

I micro-manage every title no matter how big my empire is, and I restrict governorship to gentry or nobility class units only.

[m52nickerson]

Later in the game I just train a royal knight per province i own.......

I may try that. Do you get any good generals by training royal knight? I'm always looking for more generals to lead armies.

[Graphic]

I micromanage. People who auto-assign are really missing out, as you can make uber governors and generals. Like if you give a good general a title that adds two stars or a 5 acumen unit the chamberlain title and a regional title that adds more acumen. Having a governor of your richest province have 8 or 9 acumen can give you a very significant advantage.

[lugh]

I may try that. Do you get any good generals by training royal knight? I'm always looking for more generals to lead armies.

When you're King is very high influence you receive better generals. Now I haven't researched this, but it always seems to me that when you're training RKs and say feudal troops, the RKs reeeive a disproportionate amount of very good generals.
that being said, I crusade a lot, so I never have problems with generals, it's not uncommon for me to have 7-9* heirs very quickly and the ones that don't inherit go on to be generals.

[Knight Templar]

I micromanage, always. I've seen computer giving a city of Constaninopole to a general with 4 command but only 1 acumen. I'd not like 1a general governing my richest province while having only 1000-2000 florines in my cash.

[miho]

I micromanage, always. I've seen computer giving a city of Constaninopole to a general with 4 command but only 1 acumen. I'd not like 1a general governing my richest province while having only 1000-2000 florines in my cash.

I always assign them myself. I use the ones with more than 6 acumen on Const, Egy, Antioch, ... for other provinces I those who have 4 or 5 acumen. And I assign Offices to more acumen generals so they get even more.

[Ludens]

I always check all my units when assigning titles for the best candidates. Rich provinces go to high-acumen candidates, rebellious ones to high-dread leaders. Every ten years or so I check all my units to see if I have a few better candidates and to replace the ones gone corrupt. However, I get more careless once my empire gets better.

Also the AI, when assigning them doesn't pay too much attention to the income potential of a province. So if you have two titles up for grabs it'll randomly assign them to the two most acumened generals, where what you really want is the best guy governing the best province. When you're looking at provinces like Antioch, Egypt etc, the difference a single point of acumen makes can be pretty big, enough to keep those last few units in the field without going in the red, especially useful if your on a downward spiral battle-wise.

The problem also is that the A.I. gives titles with command starts to its best generals no matter how economically important the province is. Constantinople and Denmark are prime examples of this.

Also the V&Vs aren't precisely random (oxymoron?).

That is putting it lightly. Sitting still is bad for a governor; fighting is good, as is building. Very high taxes are bad, but I think low taxes aren't good either. Being a successful governor or general is bad too. The computer seems to hit your best men more than others, though perhaps you just feel it more when they go bad. Lastly, and very well known, once you control 60% of the map the computer unleashes a whole heap of new vices.

[Lars Jorgensun]

Is there a specific way to keep Portugal in line? Once I had a three stack army and they still rebelled. I've tried building churches and militias and converting them if need be but it never seems to work for very long.

[ichi]

Potugal is one of the provinces programmed to be rebellious. Just the standard happiness stuff is all I know of.

Give them a high dread, high acumen guv, and build stuff there so he gets happiness virtues.

Build an inn, churches, brothels, border forts, whatever buidlings that add happiness. Upgrade the castle.

Keep taxes set on low.

Keep a lot of cheap units in the garrison.

Build a port and make sure you have a naval connection to your king. Keep your King close if possible.

Keep religious agents (not Inquisitors) to convert the population.

Keep 3-4 spies in the province. I don't know if it helps, but I keep an assassin there too.

Check it every turn using the shift key or looking at the province scroll.

ichi

[miho]

I've noticed that spies raise loyalty quite high, but I haven't noticed that high dread guvs also decrease chances of rebelion.

[m52nickerson]

I think that for every point of dead, it increases loyalty 10%.

[lugh]

Yeah, in certain cases, high dread is much more important than acumen. You can always switch governors a few decades down the line, when the population is converted, to a higher acumen governor.

The problem also is that the A.I. gives titles with command starts to its best generals no matter how economically important the province is.

That I didn't realise. Hmm, I wonder then if they're's a table of preffered rankings for titles in the files somwhere, like the way hero's are preferenced to certain units like RK's and whatnot.
I presume it'd be the same for the acumen, piety and dread increasing titles if that were the case.

[yesdachi]

I tend to mirco manage titles until later in the game. When my empire get very large I tend to not care, as long as I hve positive cash flow and no problem provences. Then I wait and clean house every ten to twenty years.

That is pretty much how I do it but instead of every 10 to 20 years for a house cleaning I will check on any gov in a stack I am looking at the time and if they are bad I usually swing the ax on them, no questions asked. “Exclusive Trader” my a$$, you don’t steel from the Kingdom.

[Ludens]

That I didn't realise. Hmm, I wonder then if they're's a table of preffered rankings for titles in the files somwhere, like the way hero's are preferenced to certain units like RK's and whatnot.
I presume it'd be the same for the acumen, piety and dread increasing titles if that were the case.

AFAIK there is no such thing, but then I am not a modder. I think the A.I. just looks first at stars and then at profit. If there is a star bonus, it goes to the best available general, if not it goes to the highest acumen leader.

BTW Every unit type has stat to determine whether it is "encouraged" to be a general or not. I don't think you can set prefered units for generals. Barocca couldn't in his S:TW-for-VI mod.

[Yoyoma1910]

I find that religion can help keep a pious state from becoming disinfranchised, so often I try to find a general with at least around 5 pious points, as well as good accumen... 4 or 5. A little dread helps too. And if he's not too loyal, I put him under my king's thumb.

While I like to give nobility the rank if possible, I'll also reward a competant commoner unit, maybe because I've met a few people in reality who carry titles and found them snooty. So it's sort of my way of getting back at them by granting units of peasants high titles.

[antisocialmunky]

The main thing I'd wish the AIs would do is not turn their high star generals into vice monkeys. It's annoying when you see a 9 star general and you're like 'ooooh, a challenge' but you end up finding out that he's a lunatic with 12 toes, no chin, and is his own grandfather.

PS. Does anyone else see the vibrating trojan condom ad on the bottom of this thread right now? It's kinda weird and disturbing.

[lugh]

AFAIK there is no such thing, but then I am not a modder. I think the A.I. just looks first at stars and then at profit. If there is a star bonus, it goes to the best available general, if not it goes to the highest acumen leader.

BTW Every unit type has stat to determine whether it is "encouraged" to be a general or not. I don't think you can set prefered units for generals. Barocca couldn't in his S:TW-for-VI mod.

Oh, so I'm right, my RKs do get a disproportionate amount of command stars under a high influence King then?
As for the other, it's good to know then, I've found myself putting on auto assign in my most recent campaign, I wanted to concentrate on my improving my 5 9* generals rather than governors.

Does anyone else see the vibrating trojan condom ad on the bottom of this thread right now? It's kinda weird and disturbing.

Sounds like some adware. I only see the usual flash ads, history channel etc.

[Ludens]

Oh, so I'm right, my RKs do get a disproportionate amount of command stars under a high influence King then?

I suppose that if a "random" general is generated he will likely get assigned to the best unit under construction in the same way as heroes do. But I really don't know much about this other than that certain unit types are prefered as generals.

PS. Does anyone else see the vibrating trojan condom ad on the bottom of this thread right now? It's kinda weird and disturbing.

Its has been observed before: .Org porb advertisement.

[lugh]

I suppose that if a "random" general is generated he will likely get assigned to the best unit under construction in the same way as heroes do. But I really don't know much about this other than that certain unit types are prefered as generals.

That makes sense. I thought the general preffered ranking in the stats only referred to the heroes. I try to keep a steady stream of Knights being produced in any case, just to catch heroes and the like.

PS. Does anyone else see the vibrating trojan condom ad on the bottom of this thread right now? It's kinda weird and disturbing.

The ads compare what you currently have opened and/or history.

What have you been looking at munky?

[Ludens]

That makes sense. I thought the general preffered ranking in the stats only referred to the heroes. I try to keep a steady stream of Knights being produced in any case, just to catch heroes and the like.

No, it also influences which unit in a stack of zero-star leaders gets to be the general.