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.

[dumas]

And since you've maxed out spymaster and master of assassins, you can freely use them without gaining any more dread ever.

Since you're a way more seasoned member, I hate to question you... but I will.
Are you sure about that? It was my understanding that the percentage was calculated at each attempt by spies/assassins, not when they level up.

[HoreTore]

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.

Not true.

Using an assassin gives you a high chance of getting strategydread, and spies give a lower chance.

[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.

[Foz]

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.

Puh-lease. Don't be naive:

1. Count on the antitraits being fixed in 1.2
2. Way to exploit the game engine to do things you shouldn't be able to do. [/SARCASM]
3. How exactly do you make 1 point of strategychivalry negate the master of assassins and spymaster traits? Can you do magic??? They're not anti-traits of strategychivalry, so certainly not like that. If you've maxed both, it's -4 to your Chivalry, which you cannot make up with 1 point of anything.
4. Others were right to question this post, it's full of bad information. Continued use of spies and especially assassins will end up netting your leader StrategyDread points again. Spies give 5% chance of 1 point every time they complete a mission successfully, and assassins give 50% chance of 1 point when they have a successful mission. Assassins even give a 25% chance when they FAIL the mission! And those points have nothing to do with the Master trait lines at all.

[tsu33]

Dread generals are much better than chivalrous ones, since command seems to give moral boost as well, so u dont really need any more moral boost from chivalry. It is much better to have ur enemies run away and u to take less loss.

Chivarlrous governors on the other hand is much better dread ones. With the population bonus u get from chivalry u can get to huge city/citadel really fast and pump out end game units while other nation is still depending on spearman.

Btw, does anyone know how to not get the fair/noble in rule trait? My dread generals seem to be getting them even when i put the taxes on very high.

[Quickening]

Btw, does anyone know how to not get the fair/noble in rule trait? My dread generals seem to be getting them even when i put the taxes on very high.

I don't know this for sure, but I think it might be to do with the kind of buildings you construct. Developing cities into prosperous places is the only thing I can think of to explain the trend which, I have noticed to.

[Lorenzo_H]

I like to have some Generals with high dread and some with high chivalry, but I think overall I prefer Chivalry.

[Musashi]

Not true.

Using an assassin gives you a high chance of getting strategydread, and spies give a lower chance.

Yeah, but unless you hit 4 or 5 strategydread doing it, you can easily reverse it. And once you max out StrategyChivalry you can't get any more StrategyDread points, because you've passed the "nogoingback" threshold.

[Musashi]

2. Way to exploit the game engine to do things you shouldn't be able to do. [/SARCASM]

*shrugging* I don't care what the devs designed the game to do. I'll play how I want, and it's really no concern of yours.

3. How exactly do you make 1 point of strategychivalry negate the master of assassins and spymaster traits? Can you do magic??? They're not anti-traits of strategychivalry, so certainly not like that. If you've maxed both, it's -4 to your Chivalry, which you cannot make up with 1 point of anything.

Actually it does seem to work, in my experience. I can have a 7 dread general, and if he then picks up one point of chivalry he's suddenly at one chivalry, as if he never had any dread.

[sapi]

I believe that that only works with certain traits (as the chivalry antritrait will wipe all levels - a bug - of that trait but not of others)

[Abokasee]

A Dread knight in the retuine can be extremely cool (+2 dread +1Command)

[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?

[Carl]

The creation of spies gives StartegyDread points I belive.

[Razor1952]

The creation of spies gives StartegyDread points I belive.

So to play as chivalrous you must forget about spies/assassins?

[HoreTore]

Yeah, but unless you hit 4 or 5 strategydread doing it, you can easily reverse it. And once you max out StrategyChivalry you can't get any more StrategyDread points, because you've passed the "nogoingback" threshold.

Uhm, either there's a bug, or there's no nogoingbacklevel on the strategytraits.

Don't have the files here unfortunately, so can't check it out...

[Foz]

*shrugging* I don't care what the devs designed the game to do. I'll play how I want, and it's really no concern of yours.

Normally I'd agree, except that you posted this on a public forum, as a tip, and without any mention of that fact that it is an exploit. It's an important distinction to make, as first of all anything you post on a public forum ceases to be a private matter, and becomes the concern of the various community members, myself included. Your gameplay habits are not my concern, but your suggestions and discussion of them on this forum decidedly are. The second reason it's important is that many readers of this forum prefer to play the game without using exploits, so one should not go around suggesting things as legitimate strategies without noting for the benefit of the forum readers that they are, in fact, exploits.

Actually it does seem to work, in my experience. I can have a 7 dread general, and if he then picks up one point of chivalry he's suddenly at one chivalry, as if he never had any dread.

I think this depends on how your general has gained his dread points (which trait), and how much chivalry he has from other things at the same time. As I understand it the problem is that antitraits currently cancel ALL points of the opposite trait when 1 point of antitrait is gained, instead of cancelling an equal number as was intended. So if you gain a StrategyChivalry point, it cancels all points of StrategyDread... and gives you 1 StrategyChivalry point too, which IIRC can be a 6 point chivalry swing. In many cases you'd have enough chivalry from other sources on the general already to completely negate any remaining dread points from agent-master traits, but I don't think this is necessarily always the case. So while I'm not certain that it is the only factor at work here, I am very sure that the behavior I just described is at least a large part of what you've seen happening.

Also since I just remembered seeing it in someone's post, I'll add that yes I recall seeing multiple reports that NoGoingBackLevel is a broken mechanic too, meaning that AFAIK no amount of StrategyChivalry will prevent you from gaining StrategyDread due to spy/assassin usage.

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?

The creation of spies gives StartegyDread points I belive.

The creation of spies and assassins gives StrategyDread points... but only to the governor of the settlement that creates them. If your faction leader is not governing a settlement where they're being produced, then their production cannot give him StrategyDread (or any other dread I know of). Likewise I don't see anything in the traits file that gives any sort of dread just for the agents existing, so for the faction leader agent-related dread is only gained through the use of the agents for missions (i.e. spy on this, assassinate that). As sitting in a settlement to defend it/give PO is not a mission, you should be able to continue doing this with no dread resulting from it.

[grapedog]

So, from this thread right now, the creation of spies/assassins can give you a single point if you're essentially unlucky.

What about spies being used in a defensive role. I usually have a spy in all my settlements, and those I've just taken from an enemy that are particularly contested, I'll keep two. When they kill an enemy spy/assassin who tries to complete a mission, does that count against me, or only when I actually send them out to spy on others?

[dumas]

When they kill an enemy spy/assassin who tries to complete a mission, does that count against me, or only when I actually send them out to spy on others?

The general in that settlement can get counter-spy or counter-assassin traits, but from what I've seen, the faction leader isn't at all affected by it. Oh, that general can also get paranoid or go mad if enough assassins are thrown at him which will drive YOU nuts in games where AI goes all out with assassins... unless you kill their assassins before they do anything. Oh I forgot, you wanted to play chivalry.

[grapedog]

no, i don't have a particular slant towards either liking drear or chivalry, I just play it out as it happens.

I am just curious if I get negative points for my passive spies in my own cities stopping enemies from completing their mission. Do I get dread points for passive defensive spies as opposed to aggressive offensive spies? My passive spies do nothing save sit around and protect my settlements, but they are still spies and they are still gaining skill points here and there from foiling enemy plans.

[Musashi]

*shrugging* Well, I certainly tend to use spies and assassins extensively, and yet my Kings always end up with "The Saint" as their title, and have high chivalry...

[Foz]

I am just curious if I get negative points for my passive spies in my own cities stopping enemies from completing their mission. Do I get dread points for passive defensive spies as opposed to aggressive offensive spies? My passive spies do nothing save sit around and protect my settlements, but they are still spies and they are still gaining skill points here and there from foiling enemy plans.

You shouldn't get dread points for this. The triggers for dread from agent missions are based on LeaderOrdered events:

;------------------------------------------
Trigger agents5
WhenToTest LeaderOrderedSpyingMission

Condition MissionSucceeded

Affects SpyMaster 1 Chance 100
Affects DeceiverVirtue 1 Chance 2
Affects StrategyDread 1 Chance 5

;------------------------------------------
Trigger agents8
WhenToTest LeaderOrderedAssassination

Condition MissionSucceeded

Affects AssassinMaster 1 Chance 100
Affects DeceiverVirtue 1 Chance 5
Affects StrategyDread 1 Chance 50

---------------------------------------------------
Identifier: LeaderOrderedSpyingMission
Event: A Faction leader has ordered a spying mission
Exports: nc_character_record, character_record, faction, region_id, character_type, target_faction, mission_success_level, target_religion
Class: ET_LEADER_ORDERED_SPYING_MISSION
Author: Lee

---------------------------------------------------
Identifier: LeaderOrderedAssassination
Event: A Faction leader has ordered an assassination mission
Exports: nc_character_record, character_record, faction, region_id, character_type, target_faction, mission_success_level
Class: ET_LEADER_ORDERED_ASSASSINATION_MISSION
Author: Lee

While it's not crystal clear on the matter, it seems to suggest the event requires an active order to carry out the mission, which you do not give when spies defend. I also cite that instead of direct failure and success messages for each spy when your spies defend against enemy operations, you get just one event message (or nothing if the enemy agent is undetected), which would break with the game's established methods of reporting missions if it in fact counted as a mission. You can even defend successfully without any spies present at all! All of these facts make it look very likely that spies can contribute to the defense of a city without it being counted as a mission or causing any dread, to the point that I'd be very surprised if it was not the case.

As for being able to use assassins and spies a lot and still have good chivalry in the end, yes it's easily possible, the flip-able traits make it so. I do sorta expect it will be changed in 1.2 though, as it looks like a small and simple fix to do. So... live it up with the underhanded yet chivalrous kings while you still can!

[Bakalov]

I like my attacking generals dreaded, this includes my king, and the rest/city governing generals - chivalrous.
My king besides being the wickest person alive, is sacker of sities (+30% looting cash) and has mercenary captain for 10% more looting ^^. His bodygard is 36 units stack, with the normal cavalry being 40.

[Cheetah]

Same with me. I have my king, György the Merciless, max dread general leading from the front. On the other hand I have several high chivalry generals (well, high, 3 or 4 chiv) as govenors, I even have an other György "the Crusader" with 7 points of chivalry. Never had any loyalty problems.