Direct effects of dread, chivalry and authority?

[Alcorr]

What are they? I understand dread is attained by execution of prisoners and refusing to pay ransom and that chivalry is attainted by releasing prisoners (and possibly accepting ransom?)

However, does a governer with alot of dread have more influence? Does a chivalric governer make more money but have less influence?

What is the direct effect of authority of a faction leader. Does authority of governers that are not faction leaders make any difference at all?

Thanks.

[sapi]

In battle, a general with high dread lowers his enemy's morale, while a general with high chivalry increases the morale of his own side.

Both give bonuses to public order, although it's much more for chivalrous generals

[Foz]

Hmm, I had noticed PO bonuses sometimes showing up, but I had simply assumed they were due to the governor picking up some trait line that was good for PO. Have you determined amount of PO bonus per point of each, Sapi?

I can confirm for certain that chivalry points directly cause a 0.5% bonus to population growth each in the governed city. This in turn can cause those 5% population boom PO bonuses to start showing up. I think it's something like 5% population boom bonus to PO for each 0.5% growth above 2.5%. This can be really handy, especially in the early days of your empire, to jump-start economic growth. I actually discuss the ways to get chivalry and the benefits of having it for a governor in a different post... it's worth reading, as you've missed mentioning a great many of the ways. You can find it here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...&postcount=115

[heroic hungarian]

i've read that ransoming is the nuteral option and dosn't increase or decrease either chiverly or dread

[Snipafist]

Chivalry increases both population growth rate and overall happiness (glory, I think it's called), although it seems as though each point of chiv raises the growth rate by .5% and the happiness rate by 5%. Don't forget that high growth rates can also trigger "population boom" bonuses to happiness as well though. On top of that chivalric governors tend to get traits that further lower squalor, so you can end up with a HUGE growth bonus from a high chiv governor. They tend to pick up poor taxman traits and the like because you should always keep high-chiv governors in cities with normal or low taxes to further boost their chivalry (or at least to not decrease it any).

Dread doesn't do squat for population growth, but it does increase happiness due to fear. I believe it's a 10% bonus for each point of dread, but I have yet to specifically test this yet. Dreadful governors tend to pick up traits that further decrease happiness though (harsh judges, mean character traits, etc.), so be careful. They do tend to acquire traits that further increase profit in the settlements they are in, however (harsh taxman, etc.).

So basically chivalry assists with growth and in the long term makes cities large, profitable, and happy. Dread assists with short-term happiness and immediate financial gain, but has some long-term problems as some dread-related traits lower population growth and can eventually cause unhappiness that your high dread won't be able to deal with adequately.

Of course, it's much easier to gain dread. Sack, exterminate, execute, backstab, assassinate, and set taxes to extortionate levels and you've got the makings of a dreadful bunch of characters. However, nobody can argue that you're certainly making a ton of money and raising large armies in the process. To be chivalrous you need to keep taxes moderate, don't resort to assassination, release prisoners, occupy cities if you can get away with it (or at least don't exterminate), don't mercilessly run down fleeing enemies, go on crusades, etc - all behaviors that do not bring you any good fortune in the immediate game.

As was mentioned above, dread reduces enemy morale and chivalry increases your own side's morale. This means that dreadful generals work best with armies that rely on shock tactics to hit the enemy hard and hope they break - it encourages the enemy into breaking quickly (and hopefully chains it, too), meaning your troops suffer less casualties. With troops like cavalry, this is ideal - they excel on the charge, but suffer in protracted engagements. There's a reason the Mongols are so hard to deal with, and it's precisely because they have mostly-cav armies led by high-command, high-dread generals.

Chivalric generals, on the other hand, benefit most when leading infantry. Their extra benefits to morale ensure that your troops can take a hit and keep grinding away at the enemy. Rather than an all-out charge forward against the enemy, they make better use of the old "hammer and anvil" tactic of getting the enemy stuck on the anvil (your infantry line) and then nailing them with the hammer (shock cavalry or infantry waiting to support their heavier brethren).

While high-chivalry or high-dread generals can both be quite succesful in attack or defense, it's obvious that dread lends itself better to attacking and chivalry more to defending.

Hope that helps!

[Snipafist]

I forgot Authority!

These are all impressions so I might be wrong, but I've noticed the following about Authority:
-Almost all the generals I get while I have a high-authority leader have bonuses to loyalty, sometimes quite high bonuses at that (+5!).
-Authority seems to govern the chances of defection/desertion. I have captain-led armies rebelling left and right when my authority is very low, but I can rely on captain-led armies with no problem when I have a high authority.
-Characters seem to get the "feels appreciated" bonuses more often when you have a high authority leader.