Replacing underperforming Governors

[bamff]

Have often wondered if there is another way of handling governors that are underperforming....

Depending on the other traits of said governor, I use one of the following

1. Send him into battle - if he wins a glorious victory it's worth it, if he loses he may well be despatched and the title becomes available once more
2. Send in the Assassins
3. Disband his whole unit

This is assuming that I haven't got some secondary "accumen bestowing" title to plop in his lap.

Is there any other way of separating these wretch's from their provincial title?

I have tried several searches, but cannot find any threads with the answer to this problem....your assistance would be greatly appreciated!

[Avicenna]

1) That works, but the command doesn't go up that fast
2) Can't assassinate your own family members, sorry
3) Can't do that either

You could:
Try (1)
Use him as heavy cavalry
Prop him into an academy or better
Send him onto a single bireme and attack a pirate fleet

[GeneralHankerchief]

Underperforming? Not too sure what you mean by that.

If you mean a governor who is has terrible stats then there's a couple of things that can be done. You mentioned some already, so here's a few more.

- Use him as an extra unit of cavalry in a better General's army. It can do a lot of damage, it self-replenishes, and if he dies on you... no biggie!
- Raise taxes in the settlement to either "High" or "Very High". If the public order can take the hit, usually they give your boy a few points in management.
- Send him on a suicide mission. Basically have him kill as many enemy as he can before keeling.
- Make him the faction's messenger: i.e. use him to transfer retinues between characters.
- Have him wander around constructing watchtowers. Somebody's got to do it.
- This one is rather like the suicide mission one. Have him block a chokepoint, such as a bridge or mountain pass. If he's in a fort, he can delay the enemy long enough for you to bring reinforcements. If they attack... have him charge home. If he dies, no biggie.

Never just kill him off mindlessly. There can always be some use to a governor.

[bamff]

Sorry guys - should have been a little more specific....my problem is in MTW, not RTW...

Basically my guy seems to have dropped in acumen and I want to replace him with a more "able" governor...

I recall reading somewhere that I can remove his title, but I can't recall where that was....

[Sensei Warrior]

I can help out bamff.

You can remove his title by using an emissary. Drop the Emissary on the General, and it will ask, "Do you want to strip this General of his Titles? You say yes, and then when the Emissary gets to the Provence, he will strip the General of his title and give you a message saying that he's been stripped and he's not pleased.

The game suggest he'll suffer a drop in loyalty, but in my and others experience it is just the amount the original Titles gave him. I generally wouldn't worry about him starting a rebellion an time soon.

There is also a horde or other things to do to him. Assassins sometimes do the trick. Inquisitors (both flavors) can try him for heresy, if your Catholic. I believe spies can try him for treason. You could suicide him in a battle somewhere.

BUT THATS NOT ALL!! If he has a high Dread or Piety rating you could strip him and then put him in charge of a Provence that isn't a moneymaker. He'll continue to function at reigning in loyalty (especially in rebellious Provences)and still may get some governing Virtues. You could put him in charge of a Provence with low to no buildings, and then develop it. Virtues he gains from the Builder and Farming lines will also raise productivity in the Provence.

You could give up on his governing ability all together and put him in charge of an army, and start building in up Martially. This will make him useful as well.
I am sure there is more that I can't even think of.

One quick suggestion bamff. You are a Member. You could start posting in the MTW forum. Alot more MTWers cruise the forum there and it will help cut down on helpful RTWers. Not that it matters where you post, I'm sure the newbies need the help too.

[bamff]

Thanks Sensei for you great info.

I suppose the reason I continue to post in the Entrance Hall is that partly I feel that many of my queries are those of a relative novice; and secondly I wanted to make any responses immediately accessible to the newer folk....who may not venture out into forums that they cannot post in.

Apologies if I caused any confusion.

[Knight Templar]

There is a one problem with MTW governors - after being a governors for a period of time, your generals will start to get V&V like Gambler, Family favourites, Artisctic leanings, Outlaw, Poor stewart, Exclusive trader, Publicity generous (and many other) which reduce farm and/or trade income. I've read on this forum that you should constantly move your governors, in other words, not allow them to stay in one province too long. However, when your empire gets large, it becomes annoying to worry about 30 or more governors.

[macsen rufus]

It may be possible to keep your corrupt governors in line -- I once tried an "Outlaw" for treason (mainly because I had a spy in the province and no emissary to strip his title). Despite being an outlaw, his loyalty was high. The result was that the trial failed, but his "outlaw" vice disappeared, to be replaced with "Informants" virtue (increased valour vs spies). I mean to keep trying this approach as my latest empire slips into corruption, and if it keeps working, well, it looks like a new way to keep the bad boys in line

[CountMRVHS]

I've seen the "move your generals around" bit of advice before, but I've never really tried it as I can't imagine how it would work. Does the game really keep track of the location of each governor and assign or not assign V&Vs based on the frequency of movement? I admit I should probably just give it a try, but it seems so far-fetched.

Can anyone actually confirm that this works?

Regardless, I don't face that problem too much because I like to keep my kingdoms small, and turtle while going for the GAs.

[Sensei Warrior]

I can't confirm whether the General thing works, but I can say it sure doesn't seem like it. I have heard that one and I've heard the one about keeping them in the King's Stack or another General's stack and you won't get bad vices. In my experience, I have not seen either work.

I don't ever really seem to have generals who get alot of bad vices, until the Empire starts getting to big. It seems to become problematic when the Empire hits 30-40% of the total provences. It seems to get worse the larger it gets. It also seems hardcoded. One of the games way to counteract your advantage.

I do remember once while playing a Domination game, I made it a point to get rid of bad generals. I would strip them of titles and assign the titles to someone else. I started this just before you can get a minor victory. Pretty soon every general I had that was worth assigning to a Provence had at least one bad trait. The bad traits seemed to get worse as time progresses.

You can keep pruning your generals if its minor, but if you have a real large empire its going to spiral out of control.

I honestly don't know if there is any reliable way to stop it, but if anyone has something solid I'd love to know.

[CountMRVHS]

Actually, I *have* noticed the "keep your general in a stack with another general or the king" thing DOES seem to work. Here's how it seems to go:

You need two generals, one of whom will "outrank" the other when they're both placed in the same stack. The outranking general needs to be someone you don't mind getting some bad V&Vs -- poop floats to the top with MTW.

The lower-ranking general will basically "hide" in the stack and use the higher-ranking general as a "V&V shield". Sometimes this can seem really unfair. Say, for example, your lower-ranking general is a governor of the province; he's got great management but low command, and he's in the stack of a higher-ranking general with great command but crappy everything else and no title. Stuff that you do in the province governed by the lower-ranker will actually be reflected in the V&Vs of the higher-ranker -- who isn't the governor. So say you order a ton of building improvements: the higher-ranking, high-command, low-acumen guy will get the Builder line of Virtues, because the governor is beneath him in his stack. Of course the flip side is that your Einsteinian governor isn't going to see, say, a "drinker" Vice escalate to Dead Drunk -- the higher-ranking general in the stack, however, will. It has its uses, but you need to play it carefully.

Of course, for the endgame explosion of Vices due to bloat, there's nothing to prevent that.

[caravel]

I can confirm that the above is exactly right. Only actual stack leaders will get those type of V&Vs. Some vices will affect a governor and, not always the highest ranking general, if he's in a province when something occurs is he's in a separate stack. I've noticed this quite often.

Yesterday after capturing a rebel province and executing the rebels, a governor of another province that was part of that army but was not the general, gained the "scant mercy" vice. I've also seen governors and generals in separate stacks gain the steward or builder vices simultaneously when in the same province, it doesn't have to be the highest ranking general nor governor for that particular province either.

The moving around thing, I'm not sure about, but the shielding with a higher ranking general does work. It's not the sitting about that seems to cause all those bad vices, it's leaving your governmors in a province or inside the fort exposed as a stack leader that's the problem. Initially they'll do well, as far as v&vs go, but after a while something bad is going to appear and stick. I've never had a good high ranking general yet that didn't eventually get something nasty such as "glutton" or "crack brained" or whatever else.

[Sensei Warrior]

I think I am officially confused.

So is it just the bad vices the the stack leaders get?

Part of Caravel's post I've seen. I've seen governors that weren't stack leaders get Steward or Builder, so I just assumed if that's the case then they could just as easily get crack-brained or what not as well.

I find it terribly funny when your general for 10 years all of the sudden get odds number of toes. Is that a goof or is it your general died and the general that replaced him had the vice?

I wish they would have made the whole thing a little less arbitrary.

[bamff]

Or perhaps it took him ten years to remove his boots? Ewwwwwww!!!!!

[CountMRVHS]

No; stack leaders get both vices AND virtues, while a general "underneath" the stack leader won't get any V&Vs.

That random inbred line of vices is probably my only real complaint with the V&V system. I agree, it really stretches the believability to have a general "suddenly" become a drooling inbred pants-wetter.

[Sensei Warrior]

OK. So if you want to make sure your generals get virtues then they have to be stack leaders, but if you make him a stack leader then you run the risk of him getting vices?

Kind of a catch-22, huh?

[bamff]

With regard to a general suddenly becoming some form of inbred freak, I suppose you could look at it from the point of view that if the simple folk believed something to be true, then it becomes so in their own tiny minds.....so if someone were to spread a rumour about General Disorder being a hunchback, and enough of the simple folk repeat the rumour, eventually people will start to believe it - even if it is patently untrue.....similarly, given the time in history that we are talking about, if the clergy were to suggest that General X was in fact in league with Satan and all of his little wizards, then the simple peasant folk would also believe it to be so....

In other words, perhaps what the sudden imposition of a "genetic" vice means is that someone is spreading rumours that have been believed rather than that the subject is ACTUALLY some form of inbred....

Does any of that make sense, or have I just labelled myself with the "crack-brained" vice?

[macsen rufus]

Does any of that make sense, or have I just labelled myself with the "crack-brained" vice?

It makes perfect sense, however the rumour amongst us peasants is that you're totally crack-brained, so we'll overlook the rationality of your statement.

[CountMRVHS]

Nice, Bamff I always like it when there is a way to explain something seemingly incongruous in "game terms".

Yay for not destroying immersion!

[Sensei Warrior]

It makes perfect sense, however the rumour amongst us peasants is that you're totally crack-brained, so we'll overlook the rationality of your statement.

And so according to the game, yes you are getting the Vice

[bamff]

I suppose as vices go it could have been worse.....but then I suppose my judgement on that would be called into question after being noted to be "crack-brained"!

[Vladimir]

I think I am officially confused.

So is it just the bad vices the the stack leaders get?

Part of Caravel's post I've seen. I've seen governors that weren't stack leaders get Steward or Builder, so I just assumed if that's the case then they could just as easily get crack-brained or what not as well.

I find it terribly funny when your general for 10 years all of the sudden get odds number of toes. Is that a goof or is it your general died and the general that replaced him had the vice?

I wish they would have made the whole thing a little less arbitrary.

Honestly, when you get to that point it really doesn't matter. When I start to see the vices pile up I'm usually rolling everybody up. Income is never a problem as long as you're smart about reducing the size of your fronts. The only problem is happiness and I've never had a problem with that.

Edit: Yay, 1066!

[Sensei Warrior]

True enough, Vladimir. I was just curious that's all, and considering the thread evolved into v&v I figured there is no harm in asking.