Altering / Improving my Kings + Heirs

[Deus ret.]

A nice list, Ironside. very informative, I think I'll copy it down to re-read it when I'll already have forgotten about its content.

two things, though: I'm pretty sure the Byz enjoy some kind of built-in influence bonus (take their starting emperor in late, he is quite a loser but has high influence. his first successors usually follow him in that respect) and that's the main reason why they sport quite respectable ratings even in situations where others would drop to 2 or 3 influence.

in addition I had the clear impression that heirs to a king married to a foreign lady get a slight to average boost to their stats, often making them more balanced -- on a rather high level. that's just a subjective assumption, though.

there also seem to be other mechanisms at work. when playing as e.g. the HRE, I have to push my emperor's influence to 8 or 9 to get princes who are acceptable stat-wise, i.e. have one to three stats above 4. especially the first and maybe the second generation of heirs usually turn out to be rather crappy, notwithstanding the quite acceptable stats of the starting ruler. the counter-example are again the Byz who get great heirs right from the start with a mere 6 influence. Also, Spanish princes tend to be better that English ones; Italian heirs are inferior to Sicilian princes etc. any comments, anyone?

[gaijinalways]

Thanx Ironside, and to think I usually ignored those princes !

[Ironside]

A nice list, Ironside. very informative, I think I'll copy it down to re-read it when I'll already have forgotten about its content.

two things, though: I'm pretty sure the Byz enjoy some kind of built-in influence bonus (take their starting emperor in late, he is quite a loser but has high influence. his first successors usually follow him in that respect) and that's the main reason why they sport quite respectable ratings even in situations where others would drop to 2 or 3 influence.

Possibly (probably testable by making the starting king into a crappy king). I start almost only in early so I don't know much of the kings' starting stats later on. Seen crappy Byz kings with low influnce (wihout him losing a war) though.
The two other factions in early with strong bloodlines is the Spanish and Almohads. Thiers can also turn into dust with time.

in addition I had the clear impression that heirs to a king married to a foreign lady get a slight to average boost to their stats, often making them more balanced -- on a rather high level. that's just a subjective assumption, though.

Haven't tested this one and never heard anyone seriously testing it. Heard about some testing with a royal bloodline with only incestious relationships, but I think that line still turned out fine. But if it's there, it's a nice feature

there also seem to be other mechanisms at work. when playing as e.g. the HRE, I have to push my emperor's influence to 8 or 9 to get princes who are acceptable stat-wise, i.e. have one to three stats above 4. especially the first and maybe the second generation of heirs usually turn out to be rather crappy, notwithstanding the quite acceptable stats of the starting ruler. the counter-example are again the Byz who get great heirs right from the start with a mere 6 influence. Also, Spanish princes tend to be better that English ones; Italian heirs are inferior to Sicilian princes etc. any comments, anyone?

I suspect that it's some kind of "critical stats". Kings above this will easily get good hiers, while the kings below this stats will get crappy hiers unless thier influence is very high.
There's also a bit of flawed perspective into it. A great king's hier with slightly worse stats than the king's is still very good, while a good king's hier will start to be crappy at the same situation.

But you're correct about the decline of the royal line in the first generations, the only factions that doesn't get it is the Spanish, Byz and Almos (and the Russians in high. There's probably other factions in high and late that get it). But I don't think it's hardcoded, but is a side effect of some other factor(s).

I think they built it so that great stays great, crappy stays crappy and good stays good. The problem is that they made good kings a bit too prone to get poor hiers. For example, in VI it's very hard to get a great royal line, but it's still easy to maintain it when you've gotten it.

[Jxrc]

One thing that I have notice is that V&V only appear and/or evolve when the heir is included in a stack of several units that does not include the king or a general with more stars.

This means that:

- an heir/general with a good command rating but a bad vice (drinker, chinless, strange) should not be put in a stack with other units unless you want the vice to become worse (alcoholic, odd number of toes, unhinged loon). Of course if you do so you lose the chance that he might get a nice V&V (gentle knight, famously brave, etc.) that would counterbalance the bad one. The thing is that given sufficient time you are sure that the bad vice will get worse while you have very little chance to get a brand new one that will make him better (especially once you are the dominant faction since it seems that at that time you are doomed to get more and more bad vices). It is also necessary to make sure that such heir does not inadvertently the "leader" of a stack (when the king dies, if you retrain his units in a castle that has a garrison, etc). In such case the game seem to love to take the opportunity to increase the bad v&v immediately.

- an heir/general with good vices can be left in a stack in order for his v&v to improve but there is always the chance that he might randomly pick a bad one. It seems that you stop getting new v&v once the heir/general has about already 5 or 6 (when he reaches that point he only gets the one that are attributed a a result of your actions such as scant mercy, builder, steward, good runner, skilled def/att) Some good vices such as "numerate" will turn into bad one if they evolve to much (avarice) but my guess is that its worth it.

Once you get the dominant faction, it's usually a good move to leave all you generals out of any stack in order to avoid that they become crippled with bad v&v. You basically see that you are winning the game when almost all the v&v you get are corruption related or worse. I do not always do this since it takes a little flavour out of the game, all general remaining exactly the same the whole game ...

Basically, my view would that in order to get the most efficient result (I have not said the most fun):

- you should leave good heirs/generals in command of their stacks until you become the dominant faction;
- you should leave good commander with bad v&v out of any stack;
- utterly crappy heirs and generals can be left in a stack at all times since they can probably only get better with a little luck and since it does not matter if they get any worse...