Engineering Civil War

[Martok]

I've never fully understood what influence if any a king with high piety, acumen and dread has. For instance the only things I value in a king are influence and command ability, so i've seen any value in the rest, i've never bothered reading the manual or look to see what effect a new king with different levels of ability has on the economy.

Truth be told, I don't think it's ever really been established just how exactly a faction leader's piety, dread, and acumen affects his empire. Playing MTW as long as I have, I'm reasonably certain that they *do* have an effect, but I've never been able to tell to what extent.

I suspect that overall the effect of the faction leader's piety/dread/acumen is fairly minimal, although it's still greater than 0. (As a hypothetical example, perhaps kings add maybe 1-2% to income for every point of acumen, whereas governors add more like 8-10% per acumen point.) This would make sense from a gameplay standpoint, as otherwise faction leaders with great stats would give their faction an overwhelming advantage. (Could you imagine how insane/ridiculous it would be if an 8-acumen king gave ALL his provinces an 60-80% boost to income? On the other hand, a 5-15% bonus would be more reasonable.)

It's also my experience/opinion that a faction leader's Dread rating works similarly to his Acumen: His dread improves the happiness ratings in all his provinces, but its effect is much more diluted when compared to the effect of the dread rating of the governor directly in charge of a particular province. (So a governor with a dread rating of only 3 is still probably going to have a bigger influence on his province's happiness than the far-away king who has a dread rating of 7.)

As for a faction leader's piety.... I'm less sure about how that works and what effect it has (if any). I've noticed that there seems to be a tenuous connection between it and the piety of his generals (and possibly the zeal of his provinces), but I won't swear to it.

I am wondering - how do you increase a ruler's piety apart from launching sucvcessful crusades and jihads?

If you're playing a Muslim or Orthodox faction, I'm afraid that's pretty much it. If you're Catholic, you can have a Grand Inquisitor try him for heresey, which can boost his piety by 2-4 points. This is not guaranteed, however, and could actually backfire. Your faction leader could develop the various Atheist vices--and that's not even mentioning the possiblity that you might accidentally convict your leader and have him burned at the stake for withcraft.

@Myrddraal: I think if your territory's too small (number of provinces) then no civil war will occur...no wait you had already conquests in Wales..... erm forget it

Actually, I think you're right, Deus ret. I find it completely impossible to get a civil war--at least in the manner that Myrddraal attempted--if I have less than 10-12 provinces. In order to get a general to rebel against my king, I generally have to have a pretty huge empire for that to happen. That's not proof of anything of course, but it might explain why Myrddraal was unable to foment a successful rebellion.

On the other hand, civil wars between royal uncles (like from my Danish campaign) can happen at any time, provided the correct conditions have been met. I could've had 2 provinces in that Danish game, and I still would've been looking at a civil war. (Any of us who've played the HRE could probably confirm that as well. )