Do you play with "Manage all settlements"?

[afrit]

I think the game was meant to be played with manage all settlements off (the default). It slows down the human player, and makes you pay attention to family members more.

[sapi]

You raise a good point there, but nevertheless there's no way i'm letting the AI spend my money for me (especially as i run drastically short of family members and have large empires - playing with this on would force me to choose between homeland and frontier development.

[Merlin's Apprentice]

last time I left this default was in RTW
Ended up with a city making more than 20 units before I realized what was happening

[Tuidjy]

> there's no way i'm letting the AI spend my money for me

You do not have to let the AI spend your money. Just make sure that a
governor comes by every so often and leaves a list of what needs to be done.
In my France campaign I have about 25 provinces in France proper. I have
two active builders commissioning most construction and one hypohondriac
with an elite cavalry stack taking care of rebels. I seldom leave a city idle,
and when I do it is usually because an inquisitor wanders in.

My seven provinces in the Holy Lands are a pain, because I have had at most
three generals there at one time. Two are campaigning respectively against
the Moors and the Turk/Bisantium alliance(!) and the other one runs around
like crazy, trying to keep Jerusalem, Cairo, Alexandria, etc. happy.

[KARTLOS]

the traits and vices are effectively "broken" becuase using generals as governors will result in them picking up a bunch of negative traits (which result in lower tax revenue etc).
yes you could move them out again, but i think its a bit much, i just tend to keep my generals out of cities all together unless the territory is freshly conquered and they are needed for supression.

[Snoil The Mighty]

If leaving generals in cities didn't cause a nearly immediate breakdown of loyalty, common sense, and morality, I would consider it. As things currently stand, it seems the negative traits trigger quite easily, and beneficial ones never trigger for the most part (as far as being in a city anyway, even a highly developed city with academies and a University). So I manage em all til the system of using generals as mayors actually could benefit the ones assigned to building and empire management. In the meantime, generals are for fighting

[Dearmad]

problem is you can turn it on and off in the game even after you start so it becomes meaningless as a "rule"

[Hambut_bulge]

> there's no way i'm letting the AI spend my money for me

You do not have to let the AI spend your money. Just make sure that a
governor comes by every so often and leaves a list of what needs to be done.

Also, I find that that moving the AI spend/save slider on the faction details tab all the way to 'save' (the default is 'spend') stops the AI trying to be helpful by recruiting stacks of peasants in the auto-managed settlements!!

problem is you can turn it on and off in the game even after you start so it becomes meaningless as a "rule"

Discipline!!

[dismal]

Yes, I manage all cities.

I think I played my first TW campaign years ago without realizing you could "manage all settlements". It drove me nuts. Learning it could be disabled with a single click was very nice.

BTW, I always thought part of why automanage was there was so newbs would not to have so much to worry about.

[RussianWinter]

You do not have to let the AI spend your money. Just make sure that a
governor comes by every so often and leaves a list of what needs to be done.

Its just way, WAY too much micromanagement. Particularly when your playing as Russia, turks, or moors and it takes 4-5 turns to walk from one settlement to another.

[Lord Ovaat]

I've heard several folks comment that they play the game to win. Well, that's fine, but not very satisfying to me. I honestly play the game just to play the game. I always micromanage--everything. I absolutely never use governors. They instantly become dolts when in garrison, and besides, they make excellent heavy cav! Actually, by the time one gets to 45 provinces, the game has long since been decided. I usually get bored before then, and move on to another faction or situation. Yeah, it takes me a long time to play a campaign, but ain't that the point? To play? And if I rush to win, then I'm still gonna start another campaign and do the same thing--play. However, I do have some incentive to continue now, but only because the Americas are obtainable so late in the game. And it's something different for a change. Also, the other valid point with AI management has already been stated: it makes a lousy governor and strategist. I like to think I'm a little smarter than the AI. At least for now. Reckon that will change in a few years with the way games are progressing. But for now, I do not like peasant armies, being bankrupt, and useless buildings.

EDIT:


Its just way, WAY too much micromanagement. Particularly when your playing as Russia, turks, or moors and it takes 4-5 turns to walk from one settlement to another.

Yeah, but I also use "don't show computer moves", and increase the speed in the preference file. Moves are pretty quick, except for mine, lol.

[MSB]

I hated playing with manage all settlements off in RTW. It was awful. You can't do anything with settlements with no governance. Particularly if your empire is expanding faster than your family tree. I presume it's no better in M2TW.

[Bijo]

Well, I used to play without but made sure the "automanagement" thing was off. That way, if there was no governor, you could select different kinds of policies which would have "some effect" if you changed them, and you could still take care of recruitment and buildings (or just one of them, or not at all).

Now I play with Manage All Settlements on, 'cause well, like some of you said, the AI ain't that pleasing with it. Can't stand it when family members get bad traits in settlements.

[Slaists]

It's not that bad with family members in settlements. Especially at the beginning: build a church while setting taxes on "high" (not very high) and the guy becomes a "fair ruler" (+ to chivalry); do it again and he might turn into a chivalrous ruler. When the governors start to pick up negative traits is when you have a large treasury... I guess, it is similar to Rome TW.

My biggest problem with automanage is that the AI tends to build loads of useless units when I do not need them; even if I set the ruler to "do not spend anything"...

[Fisherking]

With the way family members pick up bad traits how can you leave a governor in a city and with out one you loose all control....It isn't like we have a great deal to choose from. Mine pick up bad traits from the start with taxes on high. The all wind up with some stinker and leaving them in castles or a city with a brothel is the kiss of death.

[gardibolt]

Considering the rate at which Inquisitors were slaughtering my family tree, I would be unable to play at all if I had to have governors to manage my settlements. As it is, I don't have enough to head my armies.

[mor dan]

Governor vices aren't that bad if you don't build the tavern line, has been my most recent experience. i think sometimes we get into the idea of either building everything, or having every type of recruitable character in a settlement, or putting all levels of trade and income increase in our cities or castles to maximize income. maybe the high level of vices is a balance to STOP YOU from doing that. it may be there to cause you to think about "what i want to put in here?"

i've found over the past few days that when i specialize my cities, i encounter fewer negative traits. the ones i am most curious about, however, is how having a market increases "girls". the governor isn't usually the one going to market. if you have a theatre, why does it increase "drink"? i've been to many, many theatres and have yet to run into that drunk guy/gal who hasn't enough social sense to realize you don't show up to The Nutcracker ballet and wash yourself with wine or champagne.

the biggest problem i see is that basically any building that is meant for "city development" contains an "expensive tastes" trigger. honestly, i can maybe see the others, since those things are more available (you can drink at the theatre, and some girls are "merchants" in a way ), but to auto build in a vice that directly counteracts the buildings you are putting up doesn't make a lot of sense.

other than that, i am actually beginning to understand the trait system a little better and by that gain a bit better control...

[Von Nanega]

Sometimes I have small new settlements clicked on to automanage. I ket the AI build them up for a while.

[Skott]

Yep, I manage them all. Gets tedious too but I can do a better job than the AI.

[nekrotyrael]

always off. you just can't lead 7 wars at once with the retarded ai management :P

[andrewt]

Always manage all settlements. Managing settlements is a big part of the fun of playing a strategy game, if not the biggest fun. If I'm going to let the AI play for me, I might as well be watching a movie.

[Ituralde]

I always play with all Settlements off, but in the end I have to uncheck the Recruitment and Construction checkboxes in every city I own if I don't want the AI to waste my money. Instead of just preventing them from spending money it also has the nice benefit of now being able to construct and recruit whatever you like.
A bit retarded if you ask me, but there it goes. Governors are still useful for tax adjustion though.

Edit: So the poll options are not that well chosen. Even if you turn Manage All Settlements off you can still recruit and build units without a governor. That's why I chose Yes in the poll although I do play with Manage All Settlements turned off.

[PureFodder]

I just don't trust the AI to build up my settlements according to my grand plan and don't want to spend half my time running family members between settlements to get things done, so I choose to do everything myself thankyou.

[katank]

I think that most of the people complaining about money problems are likely using automanage. The AI really makes silly construction and recruitment choices.

The designed general-settlement ratio means that you have just a few generals to lead offensives and most of them sitting around cities becoming decadent ******s. I move a general out of a settlement and literally see the income triple during the late game!

Instead, create 20 BG armies and start mopping the floor with everything. Mass blob armoured cav assault punches through practically anything. Pike wall? No problem. Any silly little generals that die will be replaced by an adoption or something and the BG units regen.

[LucidLarry]

The option description is as follows : "Check this option to ALLOW manual construction, recruitment and tax management in settlements with no governor". Checking the option, basicly takes away a layer of "reality" from the gameplay, which only affects the tuning of the tax rates when there is no governor present. The other two aspects construction & recruitment, can still be managed by the player, but the tax rates have only two options: Growth Build Policy(lowest tax rate) or Other(Very High Tax Rate).

In essence, this option is intended to be left unchecked, as it makes sense to have some detrimental effect when no governor is present to micro-manage the taxes in the settlement. So if you are looking for a more realistic gameplay, I think the correct way is to leave it unchecked, and set construction and recruitment "off" automanage in each settlement.

Regarding generals traits, I think Mor Dan in his post has a fair view. You get good and bad traits depending on what you build while the general is in the settlement. I usualy prefer having two kinds of generals. Builder / Economists for faster development which I transfer to new regions as the borders expand, and Combat oriented generals with afferent traits, which I try to keep on the move. I believe the word "Allow" is a clear indication of this, as well as the very small but fair difference that it makes regarding tax management.