Dread > Chivalry ?

[dumas]

After securing about 10 provinces, I find that dread is more useful than chivalry.

Reputation: At this point in game, I care little of what other factions think of me as long as I have the pope well greased. (BTW, does anyone know exactly how much the difference is in reputation for chivalrous leader vs. dread leader?)

Ease of gaining: For faction leaders, all it takes is a few turns and a handful of assassins and spies to gain almost max dread and authority. Gaining chivalry is a lot harder. Crusades take a long time (going there, securing it, coming back without stepping on anyone else's land). Always releasing prisoners, never sacking, etc., all have limits in that they're slow and non-guaranteed process. Also, if you want to keep your leader chivalrous, you can forget about using assassins and even spies to an extent.

Population bonus: I wouldn't leave a general in the city anyway, except perhaps on the turn that a church is being completed.

Battle: This may be a personal preference, but I'd rather have enemies breaking faster than my army not breaking since it rarely does anyway. There's nothing like a sight of a max dread general leading the charge from the flank, and 12 enemy flags start blinking white at the same time. Also, being able to click "continue battle" is great for general's experience, chance of additional traits (battle dread, scarred, brave, etc), and more ransom.

If generals didn't pick up bad traits in cities so fast, and if alliances and relations started to rally matter, chivalry would be worth working that hard for. But as is, it's not.

[FactionHeir]

Chivalry generals are only good as governors anyway or if you lead an army of very low morale troops (pilgrims, peasants, militia) which can become quite effective.

Dread vs chivalry does not influence your reputation at all. The not sacking and releasing part is what raises your reputation. So you could have a trustworthy reputation and a max dread general at the same time, if some other generals are being chivalrous.

[Razor1952]

Well yes and no,

I'm playing a role as a Chivalrous Venetian carving an empire out of non-catholic only factions (BTW L to C 2.1 mod) only occupying usually and sacking only non-catholics. Release or ransom only.

My reputation after a heroic victory against the Turks dived to despicable after ransom demand and as a consequence the top 5 factions(all-catholic) after me all declared war. I can get a ceasefire every turn with all these guys with no payment but next turn it always the same guys redeclare!. Needless to say its getting a bit tiresome. Relations btw were and still are so-so to reasonable even with war with these catholics.

On a side note these factions by their constant declarations have lost favour with the Pope to the point that 3 are excommed! Milan the next strongest faction is excommed and I used the war status to get the Pope to crusade against their capital, then got peace with them straightway.

Nevertheless my role-playing would demand that I get a better reputation. My king(doge) is about 6+ dread at present down from 9+ dread and my mission is to make him chivalrous. I tried killing off my last 3 high dread kings but that doesn't work, the new guy seems to always get high dread very quickly. How I'd love to be able to nominate my heirs.

[econ21]

My reputation after a heroic victory against the Turks dived to despicable after ransom demand and as a consequence the top 5 factions(all-catholic) after me all declared war.

Just to clarify: what exactly did you do to become despicable? Kill a lot of prisoners?

[Foz]

One thing to consider: Dread generals do not care who they work for, but chivalry generals decidedly do. If you intend to have any chivalrous generals (maybe from crusading, or b/c they make great governors) then it is important to try to have your royal line be chivalrous, or at least not awfully dreadful. This is because any chivalrous generals commanded by a dreadful faction leader have good chances to pick up discontent general every turn, which can really smash their loyalty. That makes them more likely to take bribes and turn rebel as a result.

Another point is that crusading is an amazingly easy way to set up a faction heir to be a great king, and naturally brings tons of chivalry with it. It's very difficult to make the faction heir insanely dreadful, though, at least without entirely destroying your reputation and thus bringing many more problems. That being the case, you'd often end up with a really poor king for a few turns b/c he couldn't be developed correctly when he was heir, and even a few turns of a bad king can cause many troops to turn rebel. It really seems to make more sense to develop the heir ahead of time with crusading (especially against excommed nearby factions if you're catholic!), and the benefit of avoiding discontent generals is an added benefit of doing so.

I'd also point out that though most people do not realize it, it's really quite easy to build up chivalry quickly. You don't even have to take a town and then occupy it and release the prisoners to get a bunch built up (though it of course helps). Just sitting in a town and doing the following will build chivalry very quickly:

1. Low taxes. You gain strategychivalry points with good odds each turn for governing a low tax settlement.
2. Build church buildings and priests in your settlement. Each priest gives a point of Religious Activity, and church buildings give up to 3 (1/1/2/2/3). It's pretty quick to gain 2 or 3 chivalry points doing this, and you can get 4 with only moderate dedication.

The combination of those two things yields as many as 8 chivalry points, and you should have 4 from them in very short order. Throw in some occupation of settlements and released prisoners, and it's easy as pie to hit the 10 mark or more.

[Carl]

he biggest problem is that if you want a chivalrous king you CANNOT afford to use ANY spies or Assassins.

[Musashi]

Actually you can because of the buggy way that dread<->chivalry works... Just use your assassins and spies until you get the maximum traits from them. And then get a strategychivalry upgrade (Really easy). Instantly negates the master of assassins and spymaster traits and sets you back to chivalrous. And since you've maxed out spymaster and master of assassins, you can freely use them without gaining any more dread ever.

[gardibolt]

he biggest problem is that if you want a chivalrous king you CANNOT afford to use ANY spies or Assassins.

I understand the assassins, but does keeping spies in your own cities for public order purposes also make you dreadful? Is it the creation of spies, or how you use them, or both?

[Razor1952]

Just to clarify: what exactly did you do to become despicable? Kill a lot of prisoners?

I only occupied rebel/catholic towns and sacked moslem ones, in battle I offered ransom or released(though often ransom ended up being refused).

My relations with most factions remained reasonable occasionally being so-so (except Moslems after they declared Jihad and trashed their Jihadis.) Pope of course is perfect with 100x100 bribe, and Milan traditional enemies reasonable with same.

Never attacked unless attacked first except for joining crusade to Jerusalem.

I've never executed prisoners except after ransom refused and now suspect that if ransom is refused then it amounts to the same as execution with regards to reputation?????.




However I have been using a lot of spies and assassins and didn't realize that they had such an effect.