Seven, seven questions (hah-ah-ah)

[Gdek]

I'm a relatively new TW player, but a long time strategy gamer (back to the Civilization board game, the original Civ computer game and so on). These boards have been a god send so far for helping me get situated in the TW series.

A few quick questions though, if I could pick your brains.

1- Succession: What determines who will be the next faction heir? My limited recollection of European history classes lead me to believe it should always be the eldest son, but I've had a few oddities in my first game.

2- Loyalty: What determines loyalty, and what makes it go up and down? I recently had two ten star generals go rebel during the middle of a hairy three front war, which was inconvenient to say the least.

3- Ballista Towers: I've never built any as I'm loathe to use up 3 turns in the build order. Are they effective enough to justify it in a front line city?

4- Not missing anyone: Is there a logical way to make sure all your units have orders? I hate having a priest/merchant/diplomat stuck in the middle of Austria because I keep forgetting to move them. The unit list doesn't seem to indicate if they have move orders or not.

5- Most Advanced Faction: Is there any bonus to having this? Does it convey any sort of bonus beyond you being ahead of the other factions? How is it determined? Is it a function of the buildings you have, the units you can build or something else?

6- Spies in your town: How do you get rid of them? While I love having my boys open the gates for me, it's not quite as much fun on the other end. Is a function of how many counter agents you have, or a function of their skill level, or a combination of both. What determines if a spy gets kicked out, garotted, or both?

7- Agent Limits: There seems to be a limit on the number of Merchants and Priests you can have, which I'm assuming is a function of the number of buildings you have that can build them. There doesn't seem to be a limit for Diplomats, Spies or Assassins. Is this the case as well, or have I just not hit the limit yet?

That's it for the questions for now. =) I'm about 85 turns into my first campaign on M/M with the English. I guess I'm moving slow as I've only got 14 regions, plus I'm soon to have Jerusalem. Not really understanding some of the mechanics of the game has made it slow going, plus the above mentioned issues.

I look forward to learning more about the game, and moving above M/M for my next campaign.

[Whacker]

1- Succession: What determines who will be the next faction heir? My limited recollection of European history classes lead me to believe it should always be the eldest son, but I've had a few oddities in my first game.

2- Loyalty: What determines loyalty, and what makes it go up and down? I recently had two ten star generals go rebel during the middle of a hairy three front war, which was inconvenient to say the least.

3- Ballista Towers: I've never built any as I'm loathe to use up 3 turns in the build order. Are they effective enough to justify it in a front line city?

4- Not missing anyone: Is there a logical way to make sure all your units have orders? I hate having a priest/merchant/diplomat stuck in the middle of Austria because I keep forgetting to move them. The unit list doesn't seem to indicate if they have move orders or not.

5- Most Advanced Faction: Is there any bonus to having this? Does it convey any sort of bonus beyond you being ahead of the other factions? How is it determined? Is it a function of the buildings you have, the units you can build or something else?

6- Spies in your town: How do you get rid of them? While I love having my boys open the gates for me, it's not quite as much fun on the other end. Is a function of how many counter agents you have, or a function of their skill level, or a combination of both. What determines if a spy gets kicked out, garotted, or both?

7- Agent Limits: There seems to be a limit on the number of Merchants and Priests you can have, which I'm assuming is a function of the number of buildings you have that can build them...

Evenin', and welcome to the Org.

1. Not sure to be honest.

2. I'm honestly not sure again, but I think it's mainly tied to how successful they are in battles. Have your generals fight more battles and win, and they should grow in loyalty.

3. Any defenses are good defenses, just remember you have to station troops near them to "activate" them, you'll see a flag over the top. Ballista bolts are pretty much guaranteed to kill any foot soldiers they hit, but they don't have perfect accuracy. They're also much better at destroying approaching siege gear.

4. Not really. This has been the subject of a few requests on the feature wishlist sticky in this forum. In the mean time you just have to keep track, which can be a real pain.

5. I think this is calculated based on an average of how technically advanced all of your cities are. Thus, you can be a large faction with relatively low-tech cities, but a much smaller faction with cities/castles that are much more built/teched up will be the advanced. IIRC this has nothing to do with your units or troop counts.

6. It's apparently a number of factors that depend on if they get detected. In my experience, the best thing you can do to counter them is to A> have a nice big garrison of troops, B> have a few of your own highly skilled spies in the city, and importantly C> if they're caught but not killed, have an assassin nearby with sufficient skill to take them out. Successful repeated infiltrations and staying inside your cities each turn can and often do grant them skill increases, making it that much harder to remove them in the long run. Also, castles seem to have a better chance of catching them than cities.

7. Sounds like you just haven't hit the limit yet. There's definitely limts for merchants, priests, assassins and spies, diplomats I'm not sure of but I'll wager yes. I do know these limits are tied to the number of provinces you own in the game, so getting more will give you the ability to built more of each agent.

Hope this helps somewhat. Others will most likely correct me if I'm wrong on anything here.

[SoxSexSax]

I'm a relatively new TW player, but a long time strategy gamer (back to the Civilization board game, the original Civ computer game and so on). These boards have been a god send so far for helping me get situated in the TW series.

A few quick questions though, if I could pick your brains.

1- Succession: What determines who will be the next faction heir? My limited recollection of European history classes lead me to believe it should always be the eldest son, but I've had a few oddities in my first game.

2- Loyalty: What determines loyalty, and what makes it go up and down? I recently had two ten star generals go rebel during the middle of a hairy three front war, which was inconvenient to say the least.

3- Ballista Towers: I've never built any as I'm loathe to use up 3 turns in the build order. Are they effective enough to justify it in a front line city?

4- Not missing anyone: Is there a logical way to make sure all your units have orders? I hate having a priest/merchant/diplomat stuck in the middle of Austria because I keep forgetting to move them. The unit list doesn't seem to indicate if they have move orders or not.

5- Most Advanced Faction: Is there any bonus to having this? Does it convey any sort of bonus beyond you being ahead of the other factions? How is it determined? Is it a function of the buildings you have, the units you can build or something else?

6- Spies in your town: How do you get rid of them? While I love having my boys open the gates for me, it's not quite as much fun on the other end. Is a function of how many counter agents you have, or a function of their skill level, or a combination of both. What determines if a spy gets kicked out, garotted, or both?

7- Agent Limits: There seems to be a limit on the number of Merchants and Priests you can have, which I'm assuming is a function of the number of buildings you have that can build them. There doesn't seem to be a limit for Diplomats, Spies or Assassins. Is this the case as well, or have I just not hit the limit yet?

That's it for the questions for now. =) I'm about 85 turns into my first campaign on M/M with the English. I guess I'm moving slow as I've only got 14 regions, plus I'm soon to have Jerusalem. Not really understanding some of the mechanics of the game has made it slow going, plus the above mentioned issues.

I look forward to learning more about the game, and moving above M/M for my next campaign.

1) It WILL be your king's oldest son, PROVIDED he is over the age of 15. If the king has no son over 15, his eldest living brother will be heir. I am not 1005 sure if, when his brother becomes heir, it swaps when his son gets to 15 though...

2) Loads of things effect loyalty. Various vices and virtues, whether a member of the royal family or not, distance from the king, how often you've used him as a general etc. Generally, show a general a lot of attnetion (i.e. use him to win battles, or to govern your best cities) and he'll stay loyal. Garrison him in some god-awful backwater with just a unit of peasants for company and he may decide your enemy's bribes are too good to resist.

3) IMHO, no. It's not that they're not OK, it's just that in the three turns it takes to build them you could build 6 of your best unit, which in almost every case will be better (unless you're bankrupt, but money isn't hard to come by in MTW2).

4) I don't think their a "next idle unit" button (but could be wrong). Normally, if I'm sending a unit on a scouting mission, I'll click much further than one turns movement, which will get hime to move over multiple turns. If he gets blocked, you get a message telling you so you can respond to it. This isn't a perfect solution, granted.

5) No bonus at all, it's just telling you that on average your troops/cities are better than everyone elses. Keep in mind most advanced in no way = most powerful: you could have just one brilliant city and one excellent stack and get this award, but you'd struggle horribly against a 20 slum city empire.

6) Moving one of your spies in often does the trick. Moving a general into the city also seems to generate a random chance of catching him. There's a virtue line (can't remember the name) that gives generals more chance of catching spies, so if a general has that, he'd be a good choice.

7) I'm not 100% sure on this one. I *think* that each agent type has its own limit, so building a diplomat doesn't effect the number of priests you can build. I think the limit is solely down to the number of provinces you control. Note that I am quite possibly wrong on this one.

[Foz]

Since people are floundering on 7 in particular, I'll share what I know.

Priests and merchants do have limits, and yes they are based on the number of buildings you have that are capable of recruiting them. You may have one merchant for each settlement you own with any sort of market-type building in it (grain silo or better). You also get 1 allowed merchant for each bank you control, with lvl 2 bank giving 2 to the merchant cap instead of 1.

For priests, you get 1 priest for each settlement with amy sort of church in it. Settlements with a lvl 3 or better church contribute an extra priest, or 2 total for each such settlement.

Those stats can be easily pulled from the export_descr_buildings.txt file, and are labelled "agent_limit" followed by what type, and how many the building contributes. The file mentions no limits for diplomat, spy, or assassin, and likewise I have never found one, though on one occasion I simply ran turns off intentionally mass producing them to see if I could hit a cap. I was up near 100 of each probably before I called it quits, with less than 20 provinces in my empire, so clearly no cap is based on the number of regions you control. There may be a code-based limit on how many you can have depending on how the game stores them, but it's probably not an amount that you would ever come close to hitting during normal gameplay, so diplomat/spy/assassin are for our purposes entirely without a cap, that is, unlimited.

[vonsch]

Loyalty is SOMEWHAT predictable. You can do things that will tend to increase it. But some traits are a bit random and hard or impossible to control. Some traits also drop loyalty only at high levels, like the "feck" line. If your general develops a really bad cursing habit, at the third level it starts hurting his loyalty. Don't try to explain that. Another is politics. Political types sort of blow with the wind of the polls. On the other hand, stoicism is conducive of loyalty. Liars aren't very loyal. These are all hard to control. They tend to have random triggers. There are more.

The loyal/disloyal line is the main one. Most of these other traits affect that one.

There's also the ContentGeneral/DiscontentGeneral line. That's the one you have considerable control over.

You can marry your general to a princess of your line for a nice loyalty boost. But princesses don't exactly grow wildly on family trees. (And if they get too wild, you may have other problems!)

Your generals like winning and dislike losing. But it mostly affects their loyalty when they feel you're the reason. That means they were thrown into battle with either plenty of troops to give them an easy time, or not enough to pull it out without real work (or luck). If they lose and the odds were 1:2 or worse, trouble. If they win and the odds were 3:2 or better, they like that. Those get the content/discontent line of traits. If you're having them fight with odds between those, there should be no loyalty consequences directly. If they do hit these triggers, the odds are high they'll boost their discontent/content trait. 100% in some cases (though it often takes more than one point to go up a level of effect... but the first level is just 1, I think).

Some other battle traits they pick up might have some secondary effects too, even in the "fair" battles.

If they have more than 5 piety and you get excommed... trouble. Discontent. 50% chance.

They like feeling safe (as with having more than enough forces). This cuts both ways. If they are far from your capital, and are in a settlement with really strong walls, and they are really good commanders... but their loyalty isn't too great, they are going to be tempted to start their own little empire. That's lowish odds of dropping their loyalty via the discontentgeneral trait, but it's enough to be an issue. Keep them in the field if they are far away, not in built up settlements.

If they have below average skill in command, on the other hand, the opposite is true. They feel nice and warm and safe behind walls and become more loyal.

If their command is 4-5, they seem static with regards to walls. They don't swing either way.

If their chivalry is average or higher, don't have them execute prisoners. That's a high odds of a problem. It's not real clear, but it may apply to failed ransoms too. To be safe, just have your high chivalry generals release prisoners... or accept the consequences. Do not exterminate populations either.

There's also a separate trait for ransoms that affects dread and chivalry, thus plays back into loyalty in the long run. Keep in mind that ransoms are risky with loyalty.

Generals like working for someone similar in philosophy. If your leader is chivalrous, and the generals are, that's good. If not, trouble. The magic number is 3. If everyone is below that in chivalry, no issue. If your leader is <=-3 (3 dread) and your general is >=3, that's the problem zone. Dreadful generals don't seem to care about working for a nice guy type. If both parties are >= 3 chivalry, that's good, chance of a plus to loyalty.



As far as the being the most advanced technically goes, it plays into your overall standing which can trigger trouble. Being very high in the standings can make you the "tall poppy" and make the other factions like you less over time. That's how the AI can end up ganging up on you late in the game. You appear to be taking over the world and they get nervous. Since it slowly erodes your relationships with other factions, even allies can end up turning against you if you don't counter that erosion.

So it's not a benefit. It's sort of the opposite.

[Lorenzo_H]

Having the Biggest Military also has a similar effect. I was happily Allied with the HRE against Milan while the French, and the HRE randomly attacked me and declared a truce with Milan.

[Spajus]

On Ballista Towers, Building them requires careful consideration.

Cons:
They are wasted, as soon as your borders expand.
They Take 3 turns, and precious florins to build

Pros:
They significantly reduce your vulnerability to locally built seige engines (ie they will destroy 1-2 approaching rams, and maybe a seige tower or two)
They have a longer range than arrows.
They can be upgraded to the significantly more powerful cannon towers.

Conclusion:

They are useful in a situation where:
You are not expecting radid expansion
You have already completed all merchant upgrades in the city
You share a border with an agressive enemy
You are NOT encountering advanced seige weapons (cannon, trebuchet)

[adembroski]

1- Succession: What determines who will be the next faction heir? My limited recollection of European history classes lead me to believe it should always be the eldest son, but I've had a few oddities in my first game.

It can be interrupted by age... eldest son must be 15 to take over the rulership.

2- Loyalty: What determines loyalty, and what makes it go up and down? I recently had two ten star generals go rebel during the middle of a hairy three front war, which was inconvenient to say the least.

Those stats are determined by traits... vices and virtues. Each vice/virtue is a product of something you do. Idle generals will rack up vices, while active generals will general gain virtues. There is little predictability though.

3- Ballista Towers: I've never built any as I'm loathe to use up 3 turns in the build order. Are they effective enough to justify it in a front line city?

Three turns is a small price, imho, if you can halt an attacking army just by taking out their approaching seige equipment. It looses it's worth later in the game as armies become more and more capable of just knocking down your walls.

4- Not missing anyone: Is there a logical way to make sure all your units have orders? I hate having a priest/merchant/diplomat stuck in the middle of Austria because I keep forgetting to move them. The unit list doesn't seem to indicate if they have move orders or not.

Generally you can send them anywhere you can see, and over multiple turns, they'll move there. Barring that, if you currently have an agent selected, the right and left buttons in the console to the bottom right of your UI will cycle through your agent in the field.

5- Most Advanced Faction: Is there any bonus to having this? Does it convey any sort of bonus beyond you being ahead of the other factions? How is it determined? Is it a function of the buildings you have, the units you can build or something else?

It's more or less a congratulations for being the most technically advanced, and generally refers to having progressed further than others on the tech tree.

6- Spies in your town: How do you get rid of them? While I love having my boys open the gates for me, it's not quite as much fun on the other end. Is a function of how many counter agents you have, or a function of their skill level, or a combination of both. What determines if a spy gets kicked out, garotted, or both?

Large garrisons, counter-spies.

7- Agent Limits: There seems to be a limit on the number of Merchants and Priests you can have, which I'm assuming is a function of the number of buildings you have that can build them. There doesn't seem to be a limit for Diplomats, Spies or Assassins. Is this the case as well, or have I just not hit the limit yet?

I'm not sure what the limit is, but there is one... it's probably high enough that you wont hit it unless you are approaching win conditions anyways.

[lars573]

1- Succession: What determines who will be the next faction heir? My limited recollection of European history classes lead me to believe it should always be the eldest son, but I've had a few oddities in my first game.

Unless the son has come of age he won't be heir. It then goes to the next borther and stays with his line.

2- Loyalty: What determines loyalty, and what makes it go up and down? I recently had two ten star generals go rebel during the middle of a hairy three front war, which was inconvenient to say the least.

Lots of things determine loyalty. Traits, position, and use. One thing I've noted, sons-in-law have a third more loyalty than your own sons. Out of the box. If you have loyalty problems check the characters traits. Look through them and if there is something that sounds like he's getting disloyal, he probably is.

3- Ballista Towers: I've never built any as I'm loathe to use up 3 turns in the build order. Are they effective enough to justify it in a front line city?

It's always worth it, no matter where the city is. City walls are all weaker than castle walls. A huge stone wall takes less trebuchet balls to fell than a 1walled castle.

4- Not missing anyone: Is there a logical way to make sure all your units have orders? I hate having a priest/merchant/diplomat stuck in the middle of Austria because I keep forgetting to move them. The unit list doesn't seem to indicate if they have move orders or not.

Click here you want the agent to go an a multicoloured arrow line will appear. This lets you send him somewhere are not have to micro it. Just be aware that if anyhting gets in the way of his red line it will break the movement order. The colours are a guide for how many turns it will take for him to get from A to B, red is his next turn movement.

5- Most Advanced Faction: Is there any bonus to having this? Does it convey any sort of bonus beyond you being ahead of the other factions? How is it determined? Is it a function of the buildings you have, the units you can build or something else?

No bonus. It's determined by whether all the possible upgrades are completed in your settlemnts

6- Spies in your town: How do you get rid of them? While I love having my boys open the gates for me, it's not quite as much fun on the other end. Is a function of how many counter agents you have, or a function of their skill level, or a combination of both. What determines if a spy gets kicked out, garotted, or both?

Have your own spy in the town. All my cities have spies in them.

7- Agent Limits: There seems to be a limit on the number of Merchants and Priests you can have, which I'm assuming is a function of the number of buildings you have that can build them. There doesn't seem to be a limit for Diplomats, Spies or Assassins. Is this the case as well, or have I just not hit the limit yet?

For merchants there is a 1:1 ratio of merchants you can have on the go to market buildings you have in your cities. Preists is a little different. You seem to be able to have 1 more preist than you have churches.

[dumas]

A little extra for #1. When the faction leader's first born is a daughter and she married someone into the family, the faction heir will still be the leader's first natural son. However, if the leader doesn't have a son or the son isn't old enough, the heir will be his son-in-law (instead of his brother).

[JCoyote]

A little extra for #1. When the faction leader's first born is a daughter and she married someone into the family, the faction heir will still be the leader's first natural son. However, if the leader doesn't have a son or the son isn't old enough, the heir will be his son-in-law (instead of his brother).

It's too bad there aren't civil wars anymore, these situations when 2 family members both have close claims to the throne would be ideal to kick them off.

[Gdek]

Thanks to everyone for the replies, they've cleared up a lot of questions that I had.

One final question... Playing as the English, I've just taken Jerusalem, all of Modern France, and everything between Caen and Arhus. I'm planning on taking Oslo, Stockholm, and Helsinki. Are there enough territories left that I can move my focus from Europe to the Middle East, and still get a long campaign victory?

I'll hold ~23-25 territories, plus maybe 3 rebel islands in the Mediteranean. I'd prefer to only fight non-Christians from this point forward if possible. Thoughts?

[vonsch]

If you include Africa, Middle East and Turkey, you should have enough with what you have.

But look out for partiers from the East.

[dismal]

Thanks to everyone for the replies, they've cleared up a lot of questions that I had.

One final question... Playing as the English, I've just taken Jerusalem, all of Modern France, and everything between Caen and Arhus. I'm planning on taking Oslo, Stockholm, and Helsinki. Are there enough territories left that I can move my focus from Europe to the Middle East, and still get a long campaign victory?

I'll hold ~23-25 territories, plus maybe 3 rebel islands in the Mediteranean. I'd prefer to only fight non-Christians from this point forward if possible. Thoughts?

Not the question you asked, but in general, it's poor strategy to divide your empire that much geographically.

Corruption is a function of distance to the capital. Unrest is a function of distance to the capital. Both corruption and unrest cost you money (unrest because you will be required to maintain larger garrisons and lower taxes.)

In addition, you will have more border cities to defend.

Other things being equal, a scattered, unconsolidated empire tends to result in a struggling economy.

[Razor1952]

Thanks to everyone for the replies, they've cleared up a lot of questions that I had.

One final question... Playing as the English, I've just taken Jerusalem, all of Modern France, and everything between Caen and Arhus. I'm planning on taking Oslo, Stockholm, and Helsinki. Are there enough territories left that I can move my focus from Europe to the Middle East, and still get a long campaign victory?

I'll hold ~23-25 territories, plus maybe 3 rebel islands in the Mediteranean. I'd prefer to only fight non-Christians from this point forward if possible. Thoughts?

Actually it makes it harder to split your empire as said above, but I personally role play so I don't beat up on fellow catholics, but only take provinces from Muslims/rebels/excommed/orthodox factions. If you want to win its easy to blitzkrieg the ai(try sacking and a few sea invasions), so playing a little more authentically as a medieval king IMHO is more interesting.