Do you play with "Manage all settlements"?

[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.