After the upcoming patch, I will be playing Chivalry rules only

[Budwise]

Okay, I am a dreadful leader. I am not going to lie or sugarcoat this issue. After half of my English Campaign I got sick of units walking around so I now have assassins blowing up buildings or popping people off. I am not quick to exterminate a population or kill all the prisoners but after three failed ceasefires and they broke it yet again, I feel like burning every Milan to death during my trek to world dominance.

So, my questions are - I have a good idea on how to play this way but I don't want to screw up so please help out and answer some of the questions that I already know the answers to and others that I don't.

1. Assassans are a NO-NO, right? So how do you get rid of spys and assassins in your territory? How do you keep population happy against an enemy spy and so on without doing the "cover them up" cheat that people do by boxing them in?

2. Prisoners - do you have to release them or can you ransom them back?

3. Do you have to have your General Lead into battle, like in MTW to get a lead in the front trait?

4. Taxes - do they have to be on VERY SMALL or can they be on normal? Also, can someone make some suggestions on extra income to allow this? I only use VERY HIGH and I often run out of funds because of building orders and upkeep.

5. What are the perks of this vs Dread? Any easier keeping your population from rebelling? Also, will it be easier to get a population under control of a recently conquered territory if the last rulers were dreadful?

6. When at war and offered a ceasefire, Do I HAVE to always accept it? Also, I can't start a war huh?

7. Any other tips would be nice. Also, has anyone else played this way?

[Callahan9119]

releasing prisoners, low taxes and occupying settlment only thing i know that trigger chiv, assasins and accepting ceasefires and such i dont think help...but i could be wrong

[Fletch]

1- Put semi-decent spies in your cities and army stacks. No assassains.
2- Releasing gives you points. Ransoming doesn't take points away.
3- Not sure, I'll defer to someone who understands how BattleChivalry works.
4- I've had v. high taxes on in all my cities and still gotten chivalry points. I think that you just need to keep the city's PO above 100 and you'll pick up chivalry points, but I'm not certain.
5- Improves morale of your troops in battle (as opposed to taking away the enemy's, like dread does) and it increases the population growth rate in cities, which may in turn increase PO if you've got enough growth. Don't think it gives anything else to PO.
6- These things have more to do with your diplomatic reputation than your chivalry.
7- I've been trying things this way in a couple of campaigns. I like it mainly because I don't have to micromanage assassains on top of all the other agents. Send a couple of generals on crusade whenever you can, and you should be able to get the chivalrous father snowball going. That, and watching your taxes, should get you the high chivalry generals you want.

[gardibolt]

The problem, though, is that you can't get a semi-decent spy without having him go into other cities or spying on other stacks. Boom! There goes your chivalry. Maybe post-patch the V&V will be tweaked such that this doesn't happen, but unless that happens you can only get baby spies who never get better if you are playing Chivalry.

[vonsch]

Spying doesn't hurt chivalry that much. If you're playing generally chivarously, the plusses will overcome the normal spying. Assassins are another matter.

And a chivarous governor boosts order too, not just growth. Well, I think it does... if I remember correctly. I know it does in Carl's Rebuild-ProblemFixer .

I play this way all the time as a result of the mod. Dread generals aren't helpful in growing cities, and need help for that to pump some of the low fertility areas. I might have one general with some dread running around, but never seems to last. I will start wars, but more so in the very erly stages. Mostly I wait for them to attack me, and counterattack strategically and devastate their production. Once I take my objectives I'll settle for a ceasefire if they ask. Or if I'm under pressure on too many fronts.

Battle chivalry seems to come (haven't checked the triggers again lately) from fighting at reasonable odds and not trying to wipe out the whole opposing force. Likewise, from defending against the odds successfully. Holding against siege assaults is generally good. And the chivalry helps in defending cities as your troops just won't rout until pretty much no one is left.

Chivalry is better in slow campaigns. Dread in blitzing. Chivalry tends to lose you more troops in the long run than dread because fights last longer. The enmy doesn't just run away.

Oh, and the AI will actually release troops they capture occasionally if your FL is way up the scale on chivalry.

[HoreTore]

Spying is not something you can do a lot if you want a chivalrous faction leader. Spying gives a chance at StrategyDread, which is VERY inconvenient when you have nurtured your leader up to max in StrategyChivalry...

Assassins are, of course, right out. Can't even touch them, really.

As for Chivalry vs Dread, I find that chivalry is a lot cheaper to be get than dread. To max your dread, you have to spend a lot of money on spies and assassins to boost StrategyDread. Crusading and building churches costs almost nothing.

Oh, another important thing with chivalry: seek out enemy generals in battle. This gives BattleChivalry, which maxes out at the same authority as StrategyChivalry.

[Traffik]

Just building spies and keeping them in your cities without training them works pretty well. As long as there is a brothel or higher order derivation in the city where the spy is parked, he should pick up some nice members to his retinue. Also building spies from cities with Thieves' Guilds (which are not hard to obtain by any means) also give that extra push to spying skill so that they can root out the bad spies without resorting to any nasty work.

[HoreTore]

You have a 20% chance of StrategyDread when training a spy, and a 5% chance when spying on someone.

So, I would advice you not to use spies with your chivalrous leader... Build up a network with an old king, then use them to counter enemy spies with your new king. Repeat the process when he is about to die.