couple of noobish questions!

[Dutch_guy]

Hi there,

first question is how come i seem only to build weaponsmiths in certain provinces despite fulfilling the construction prerequisite requirments of the guide?

And also, I get to a point in any compaign, where for some reason the morale in a large cluster of provinces suddenly drops and mass uprisings suddenly occur crippling my empire!

Probably really obvious but I cant figure it out...


Any help much apprecieted!

To answer your fist question, I believe only certain provinces which contain the Iron resource are able to fully build up the weaponsmith buildings.

As to your second, once you hold a certain percentage of the map, the game tries to make it more challenging by dropping the happiness levels in your settlements - it's not a bug, it's an actual feature. It usually happens when you own around 60 % (or was it 80%) of the map. Irritating, but bound to happen sooner or later. It's basically why a lot of people prefer GA mode over conquest mode...

[Almohdistani]

I own around 40%

[caravel]

If it's occurring at around 40% then it may be that your faction leader has become isoltated from the rest of the empire. If he gets cut off on an island or isolated territory and cannot reach the other lands, those lands will suffer a massive drop in loyalty, making revolts very likely.

The bloat effect, that occurs at around 60%, is indeed a feature. The way to counteract it is to build loyalty inmproving buildings in your provinces (town watch, religious buildings, brothel, watch towers, border fort.) and place a spy in each province. Keep a garrison of not less than 100 men in each province also, the cheaper to support the better. Also you'll want to lower taxes in those problem provinces to get the loyalty to 120% or above. Anything below this and a faction re-emergence can occur.

[Almohdistani]

The way to counteract it is to build loyalty inmproving buildings in your provinces (town watch, religious buildings, brothel, watch towers, border fort.) and place a spy in each province. Keep a garrison of not less than 100 men in each province also, the cheaper to support the better. Also you'll want to lower taxes in those problem provinces to get the loyalty to 120% or above. Anything below this and a faction re-emergence can occur.

I did not know this. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

[Martok]

Welcome to the Org, Almohdistani!

In regards to where you can construct the Metalsmith, Dutch_guy is correct. They can only be built in provinces that contain iron. It's yet another reason why I enjoy playing the Spanish--all those iron provinces allow me to produce troops with high attack values.

[Adrian II]

Good advice all around.

There are iron deposits in the following provinces: Leon, Castile, Navarre, Aragon, Tuscany, Franconia, Bohemia, Hungary, Carpathia and Sweden.

As for the Loyalty drop, this happens for a variety of reasons. Apart from the '60% of the map' drop and the 'isolated ruler' drop, there is also the 'worthless ruler' drop. The latter refers to the quality of your ruler.

Right-click your ruler's counter and look at his Influence (the number of crowns underneath his name) and his Character Traits. Four crowns is the least to maintain loyalty. You can increase your ruler's Influence in a number of ways:

1. let him win battles (the downside of this is that he will be way from his home province temporarily)
   
2. organise a succesfull Crusade/Jihad (the downside is that flunked Crusades/Jihads spell disaster for your ruler's Influence)
   
3. improve his character by balancing the traits, for instance:
   
   • if he is faint-hearted, increase his dread by killing all prisoners of war/rebels after a won battle or crushed rebellion
     
   • make him a Builder and/or Steward (causes +Happiness as well)
     
   • build churches/mosques to increase his Piety
   
   
4. skip your actual ruler (he will die sooner or later) and focus on 'raising' the Prince who is next in line into a fine (i.e. warriorlike, prestigious, yet friendly and steward-like) young gentleman.
   
5. check all your troops and governors and disband all units with Loyalty 4 or less, even if they are strong units

P.S. In my current English campaign (Early, Expert) the time is around 1240 and I own about 50% of the map in a sort of crescent from Friesland through Western Europe and North Africa into Palestine, which I conquered in a Crusade.

The Crusade was a hair-raising affair, yet on the same turn when my Crusade succeeded (yay, huge +Influence) my rather weak King Edward III died.

Alas, Edward IV was even more of a basket case (Doubtful Courage, also known as 'Screaming Girl' syndrome) and so was his oldest son Prince Stephen.

So - I let Edward exercise his muscles in Ireland by withdrawing all my troops and provoking rebellions there. I let him fight the rebels each time with an excellent army that was slighty smaller in number than the rebel armies. The first time, I let him counterattack (and win) in Ireland immediately, which made him a Skilled Defender. The second time I waited til Ireland had been taken over by the rebels, only then to let Edward invade the island as an attacker. This gave him Skilled Attacker status. After one more crushed rebellion he had Expert Defender. All I need to do now is raise him into an Expert Attacker, and I will have neutralised the 'Screaming Girl' factor. The added advantage of having him gallop around Ireland is that it is close to his home province, hence no unnecessary loss of Loyalty among the lads.

Meanwhile, in Portugal Prince Stephen is doing the same out of Castile, where I have installed an excellent governor as well to enhance his reputation. In between Stephen's Portuguese battles, his governor builds Nice, Shiny Things for him in Castile that help to increase Stephen's Builder status and Stewardship.

All in all, I have my Edwards nicely under control.

Yes, I am an old hand...

[Ripken]

I was going to start a dumb noob question thread of my own, but I decided it would be better to piggyback on this one!

Basically my problem is that I have a lot of units that are high quality but have a massive yellow streak (low valour). This is the first GA campaign I've played (English, early), and although I totally fumbled my Crusading attempt (lousy Jihads!) I steamrollered Western Europe fairly easily and am well ahead on points. Because of this I've been tootling along for a while and not launching any big campaigns, while building all the nice, shiny new units as they become available.

But the Horde have now made a move against me (it's about 1300), and I'm finding that even when I have modern, elite units I'm coming off second best in a lot of melees because they've got no bottle.

What is the best/ quickest/ easiest way of boosting valour without getting streamrollered by battle-hardened MHC...?

[naut]

Good generals, +1 valour for every 2 stars. Buildings at Guild level, +1 valour. Soldiers gaining battle experience.

[Adrian II]

What is the best/ quickest/ easiest way of boosting valour without getting streamrollered by battle-hardened MHC...?

The quickest way is by boosting your generals' valour. Make your two-star and three-star gens fight rebellions.

The surest way is to up your home bases to Guild level, build monasteries, shrines, etcetera.

A more intricate way is by using your low valour units on the battlefield in such a way that they gain valour. Whenever you can, you should give your lowest-valour units easy tasks to accomplish, such as flanking enemy units that are already engaged, killing off enemy stragglers or attacking weaker uits (e.g. by pitting your swordsmen or cavalry against enemy archers or peasants).

[Ripken]

Thanks guys.

Can valour be re-trained in the same way that you can get weapons/ armour bonuses by re-training units in a province that has been upgraded?

[caravel]

Regional valour bonuses and valour bonuses from buildings, e.g. a master spearmaker, will be passed into revelant men that are retrained in that province. The same goes for morale bonuses. Valour gained from combat experience is lost when the man dies in battle.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Ripken - when you say your units have "no bottle" do you mean they're running away before finishing the job in hand? If so your problems could be down to morale rather than valour. There are a few things you can do:

1) As well at using generals with good command stats that add valour, also check out their vices and virtues. Some of these will boost morale, others will undermine it. "Charismatic leader" will give a nice boost (+2 to morale I think IIRC), but "Unhinged loon" will do the opposite. I've found that a general can have high stars, but if he has morale-reducing VnVs his army will be less effective than a lower star general with morale-boosting VnVs.

2) Train your crack troops (preferably all of them ) in provinces that have morale-boosting buildings - eg for the English, these will be church, monastery, cathedral etc, to ensure your troops already have good morale before your general starts asserting his own influence on them.

3) Be aware which of your troops have high or low morale, eg halberdiers, although tough beggars, have bit of a lack of commitment to combat resulting in perilously low morale. They are apt to run at the drop of a hat.

4) Be aware of what will affect troop morale during combat:
- it is reduced by: being under fire, doubly so from fireams; if the general dies; if fighting uphill; if the enemy is on an exposed flank; if the enemy are behind; if the enemy seriously outnumber your troops
- it is improved by: having flanks and rear protected by other units (preferebly of higher morale themselves); if fighting downhill; when "winning"; if the general is close by.

[Peasant Phill]

don't forget that the moral of units will make a massive drop when they see a friendly unit rout what can cause a chain rout. Disciplined and elite units will only be affected by another routing unit if the routing unit also is disciplined or elite.

All the countermeasures have been mentioned already: build religious buildings in your troop producing provinces, keep your units flanks protected, keep your general close to endangered points in your line, try to move in a favorable position before committing your troops.

These are of course no hard rules as for every rule there are exceptions or situations where you could/should do something differently. But always be aware of the morale of your troops.

[Ripken]

Hi Ripken - when you say your units have "no bottle" do you mean they're running away before finishing the job in hand? If so your problems could be down to morale rather than valour. There are a few things you can do:
....

Yes, that is what I mean really, they are tending to waver, panic each other and then make for the nearest exit under circumstances where I really wouldn't expect them to (like when defending against a smaller Papal army!!! ).

Thinking about it the majority of my line was made up of halbardiers and chiv sargeants, which probably didn't help (incidentally, why are chiv sargeants so much more fragile than their feudal predecessors, is it just a quirk of the game designers'?).

Thank you for all the advice, I'll certainly be trying to apply a fair bit of what you suggest next time (although I'm a pretty rubbish general!).

[The Unknown Guy]

To answer your fist question, I believe only certain provinces which contain the Iron resource are able to fully build up the weaponsmith buildings.

As to your second, once you hold a certain percentage of the map, the game tries to make it more challenging by dropping the happiness levels in your settlements - it's not a bug, it's an actual feature. It usually happens when you own around 60 % (or was it 80%) of the map. Irritating, but bound to happen sooner or later. It's basically why a lot of people prefer GA mode over conquest mode...

So THAT is the reason why when the AI in the other side of the world conquers a huge empire it tends to implode, and many of the slaughtered factions reemerge from the rebel remnants? I thought it was the AI doing something horribly wrong (I tend to turtle, so I didn´t encounter that yet)

In a byzantine vanilla game, it allowed me to get the Iberian Peninsula as byzantium by buying the rebelling armies which had been my Italian ally´s former grand armee. The Italians themselves were beaten and hamstrung, as that rebellion had synchroniced with a papal reemergence all through Italy. So the Italians themselves ended up being left with a few provinces in... Scandinavia, I think. :p

[caravel]

It's called the bloat effect. The ways to counter it is to build happy buildings (Town watch, religious buildings, border forts and watch towers, brothel) in advance, plant high valour spies on all of your provinces, increase garisson size and give governors' titles to high dread generals. Distance from the faction leader is another factor. Keep him in the central provinces.

[gunslinger]

. . . give governors' titles to high dread generals.

I prefer to give the titles to high accumen generals. The increased tax revenue easily pays for a few extra units of peasants or vanilla spearmen to garrison the place. I always leave enough of a garrison to keep taxes on very high with happiness around 200%. That way if I get an unexpected excommunication or my king gets cut off, I have plenty of wiggle room to temporarily reduce taxes to normal or so and prevent rebellions.

[Kavhan Isbul]

An important thing to keep in mind is that you should have the province where you would like to have your new ruler appear better developped than any other provinces you own. If you happen to conquer a highly developped island or far away province (for example you play with the English and conquer Constantinople, which the Byzantines have built up), it is imperative that you destroy some buildings there - painful, but not nearly as painful as having your new ruler assume the throne in Constantinople, while at the same time a naval war breaks out and he is effectively cut off from the rest of the Empire.

[Ripken]

An important thing to keep in mind is that you should have the province where you would like to have your new ruler appear better developped than any other provinces you own.....

I should probably know this, but what determines where your new ruler appears when your old one dies? It doesn't seem to have any relation to where your heir was the turn before...?

[Martok]

I should probably know this, but what determines where your new ruler appears when your old one dies? It doesn't seem to have any relation to where your heir was the turn before...?

He appears in your most developed province. (This is why your new rulers often appear in Constantinople if you've conquered it.)

[caravel]

I prefer to give the titles to high accumen generals. The increased tax revenue easily pays for a few extra units of peasants or vanilla spearmen to garrison the place. I always leave enough of a garrison to keep taxes on very high with happiness around 200%. That way if I get an unexpected excommunication or my king gets cut off, I have plenty of wiggle room to temporarily reduce taxes to normal or so and prevent rebellions.

Obviously. Under normal circumstances you will want to find those with both high dread and accumen, if they've got very high dread however you may want to use them as a temporary solution to help stabilise a province like Lithuania or Portugal when the bloat effect hits.