Few questions

**reggiew** · 01-01-2007, 17:57

heya, i got a few questions,

1) With a spy i noticed some AI towns holding 3 priests or so garissoned. Whats the benefit of this ? I always keep my priests outside my towns.

2) Do garrisoned spies each get a security check each turn ? so lets say i have 2 spies garrisoned in the same town. Does this double my security there or would 1 spy be enough ?

3) Squalor. What are the best buildings to fighting squalor. Like some buildings give LAW % and other buildings give HEALTH%. Is there a difference between their effects ? Wouldnt it be better to use HEALTH% against squalor or am i wrong ? When is then the right times to use LAW% buildings to counter squalor ? To me LAW% seems to have the purpose to fight unrest icons in public order or am i wrong ?

I am playing short campaign russia now and i have the whole of russia plus killed off poland and have about 6 towns/castles in that area also. I keep having to fight squalor but im having problems to choose which building upgrades to pick, the LAW ones or the HEALTH ones ?

4) Free upkeep garissons. Im a bit confused about these. My millitary millitia buildings say they can produce 4 spear millitia and 6 archer millitia. Does that mean they give free upkeep for 6 archer millitia and 4 spear millitia so a total of 10 units ? What about if it also says it produces 4 crossbow men ? Does that mean i can have a total of 14 units garrisoned at no upkeep or ?

Also sometimes i already have archer millitia garrisoned but they are not dark blue (free upkeep) while after i train new archer millitia the new ones suddenly become free upkeep while the old did not. Why is this ?

I am not really understanding this whole unit pool i see at unit portraits.

5) When i retrain soldiers i often can only retrain 1 unit a turn, from a certain type. Also often i am able to retrain a unit which for instance has 43 people in it left while i cannot retrain another unit (same type of soldiers) that has only 9 people in it left. Why is this ?
Im not really clear on the whole retraining thing. I think it has to do with the pools but im not really clear on how those pools work.

Alright ill leave it to these questions now.

Thanx :),

Reggie

**reggiew** · 01-01-2007, 18:05

A quick extra question i forgot.

I see people talk about this and that area for best money from towns etc bla bla.

I remember from old total war games i could see upfront what area's/towns will give me good farm output etc but i have not found any way to upfront know which towns etc will be good for money.
Except for putting a spy in i guess but is there any way im missing of checking out farm output etc on zones before conquering it ?

I do not see any point of attacking 1 town over the other except for how big they are. I miss it how it used to be in total war 1 when i could see upfront which town area's will be profitable and which not.

Is there any way i missed to check which area's are the most profitable ?

**Quillan** · 01-01-2007, 18:26

Originally Posted by reggiew

heya, i got a few questions,

1) With a spy i noticed some AI towns holding 3 priests or so garissoned. Whats the benefit of this ? I always keep my priests outside my towns.

2) Do garrisoned spies each get a security check each turn ? so lets say i have 2 spies garrisoned in the same town. Does this double my security there or would 1 spy be enough ?

3) Squalor. What are the best buildings to fighting squalor. Like some buildings give LAW % and other buildings give HEALTH%. Is there a difference between their effects ? Wouldnt it be better to use HEALTH% against squalor or am i wrong ? When is then the right times to use LAW% buildings to counter squalor ? To me LAW% seems to have the purpose to fight unrest icons in public order or am i wrong ?

I am playing short campaign russia now and i have the whole of russia plus killed off poland and have about 6 towns/castles in that area also. I keep having to fight squalor but im having problems to choose which building upgrades to pick, the LAW ones or the HEALTH ones ?

4) Free upkeep garissons. Im a bit confused about these. My millitary millitia buildings say they can produce 4 spear millitia and 6 archer millitia. Does that mean they give free upkeep for 6 archer millitia and 4 spear millitia so a total of 10 units ? What about if it also says it produces 4 crossbow men ? Does that mean i can have a total of 14 units garrisoned at no upkeep or ?

Also sometimes i already have archer millitia garrisoned but they are not dark blue (free upkeep) while after i train new archer millitia the new ones suddenly become free upkeep while the old did not. Why is this ?

I am not really understanding this whole unit pool i see at unit portraits.

5) When i retrain soldiers i often can only retrain 1 unit a turn, from a certain type. Also often i am able to retrain a unit which for instance has 43 people in it left while i cannot retrain another unit (same type of soldiers) that has only 9 people in it left. Why is this ?
Im not really clear on the whole retraining thing. I think it has to do with the pools but im not really clear on how those pools work.

1) No benefit that I'm aware of, in fact it may even be a detriment. I'm not sure if the priest converts others if he's in a settlement. I'm guessing he does, but can't confirm. The only possible benefit would be making him harder to assassinate.

2) Yes and no. The chance of a foreign agent doing a spy/assassination/sabotage mission is reduced by the total subterfuge of the spies in the settlement. So 2 spies are better than 1, however stacking a 1 on top of a 10 will make little difference. Is 1 spy enough? Well, that depends on how good that spy is and how hot a target that city is. I've had cities where I stacked 6-7 spies in it because one AI kept sending spies and assassins there; I moved most of them out once the enemies were all dead.

3) No buildings fight squalor, per se. All they can do is provide a counterbalance to the effects of squalor. Squalor gives you two penalties: a penalty to public order (max of 80%) and a penalty to population growth (1/10 the public order penalty, but I don't know if it has a cap). Law would counter the public order, but won't help population growth. Health does both, however, the population will grow and thus the squalor will increase. Because of the 80% cap on public order penalties due to squalor, it is quite possible in this game to have a city which never stops growing and you can still maintain control of it.

4) Right click on the city wall in the city view; it will tell you how many total free upkeep units it will support. It's 6 at huge city, down 1 per level below that until 2 at just town. It will give you free upkeep for that number of militia units that can be produced at that city, going with the most expensive down. It won't maintain any troops you can't recruit locally, and no more than that number.

5) The recruitment pool is in fractions of units; if you went digging into the files you might find that a particular unit has a replenishment of 0.7 units per turn. If the pool isn't large enough to retrain the unit to full strength, it won't let you. In your example, the pool might only be at 0.6 units when you look. 43/90 is slightly less than half strength, so you could retrain it, while 9/90 is down to one tenth strength and you cannot.

6) There's no real way to tell how much money a town is going to make for you in advance, other than experience. How much a town makes depends on a lot of different factors, like the number and type of resources in that province, who it can trade with, which of those have trade rights agreements signed, devastation in the province, and so on. If you go take a city from someone else, well, you're at war with them so you probably won't be able to trade with most of the neighboring provinces. It won't make as much for you as it did for them. However, you can drop a spy in the settlement to find out how much it's making them, which will give you a good idea how much it could make for you once you've either made peace and resigned trade agreements with the target faction or else captured every other province nearby.

**A. Smith** · 01-01-2007, 18:36

I'll add some info here.

1) it makes no diffrence, but at least the board is "cleared up". yes, they still convert while in cities. they ARE harder to assassinate, but ive never had a priest assassinated.

6) in the long run, coastal provinces are always better, as you can build ports and sea trade is very lucrative-much more so then land trade. as for the money it produces right now, look for these signs:
-size of the city. the bigger the city, the better income, but also the bigger walls and thus they are harder to take, and the hardder they are to control after you conquer them.
-roads. dirt rods are better then nothing, and paved roads are better then dirt roads.
-ports instead of "fishing villages". on the coast of provinces without a port, there will always be a fishing village. if it was transfromed into a port, income increases.

hope i helped!

**reggiew** · 01-01-2007, 18:47

alright thanx for the answers guys :)?

But the thing with garrisoned priests is i cant see the area they are influencing so thats one reason i do not garrison them and yeah i dont think they get assasinated much if at all.

I do use assasins often enough to kill heretics or witches though. Better then having a failed conversion from a priest and have him be a heretic too instead.

It also seems i've been fighting squalor the wrong way then. I've often used buildings to fight it that produce HEALTH % instead of LAW% so that means i do fight it but at the same time i make the town/castle grow faster and again have to fight more squalor.

**katank** · 01-01-2007, 22:09

It's far better to use the priests to kill the witches and heretics. They gain piety from that and can make cardinal easier. If they turn heretic, it will just be more practice for your other priests. If it ever gets out of hand, send in a few cardinals. They can't ever turn heretic.

**Bijo** · 01-01-2007, 22:16

Whether it's better would depend on the goal you have. Sending in priests to take care of heretics is good, but using assassins is good too, 'cause they'd improve their subterfuge, just like priests their piety. Then they'd become good assassins to come in handy if you want to get rid of somebody.