Many, Many, Many questions!

[Martok]

I'm sure I'll repeat a lot of what Innocentius has said already, but here goes....

1.During the High period, the Honenstuafen family rules Germany. Yet they also control the Sicilians (It says so in the factions bios too.) So why can't you control the Sicilian provinces as HRE, or vice a versa?

Gameplay reasons, most likely. CA probably wanted to keep them as separate factions so people had more choices as to which faction they wanted to play. I'm only speculating, of course, but I'm reasonably confident that's at least in the ballpark for "why".

2.Can you convert other factions like you do with the vikings? It would be great to make the Pope orthodox; He'd start suffering from low self esteem because he refuses to acknowledge himself.

No. The Vikings are the only faction that can be converted to another religion.

3.What's up with the Byzantines keeping three stacks of units in places like Bulgaria when their getting crushed by the eggies or turks? In fact what's with all the factions doing this? Does the computer think that if it doesn't know about them that it can launch a suprise attack on itself?

The campaign AI is (unfortunately) not always very competent at deploying its troops where they're most needed, and the Byz are for some reason especially bad at this. I suspect this may have to do with them having more potential enemies than most factions, but it's hard to know for sure whether that's the reason.

4. On heroes, for famous kings, do you need a certian amount of influence for you to get them? For famous heroes, why exactly do they appear in a random year after the date their supposed to appear? I had Henry the Lion appear in 1176!

Heroes are supposed to automatically appear in a certain year, assuming that hero's faction still exists. (Joan of Arc will not show up if the French have already been destroyed, for example.) To be honest, I've not heard of heroes appearing later than they should be until now. Perhaps certain heroes only appear in certain provinces, and you must control that province before they show up?

5. Whats with the computer controlled factions and hating the English, Germans, Byzantines and the Turks? For instance, I conquer most of France as the English, my armies are in suberb condition and number, and yet the Aragoese, Germans, Danish, Italians, Spanish and Sicilians all attack me at once! I could even be allied to them, have the French excomm and they still do it!

As Innocentius already pointed out, the other factions like to pile on the "Big Guy", whoever that is. It happens regardless of whether the big faction is controlled by the player or the AI -- any faction with a lot of provinces is going to have a hard time making friends.

6. How exactly are vices and virtues determined? I wonder because I continue to get wierd or contradictory vice/vitrue such as Humanist and Fanatic every time I play. Is their a way to influence them at all?

Some are earned through the actions of your generals -- traits like Butcher, Scant Mercy, Lawman, Steward, & Great Builder are all affected by what your nobles do in the game. Other traits, however, such as Unhinged Loon, Honest, Great Warrior, Fine Leader, and (oddly) Inbred are assigned fairly randomly.

There's not a whole lot you can do about these "randomly"-assigned traits. There's some indication that generals who sit around and do nothing are more likely to incur vices such as Hedonist and Greedy, and that generals who fight a lot are more likely to get virtues such as Brave Beyond Belief, but I've never noticed a conclusive link regarding this. My best advice is to keep your generals active, and tp at least don't let them sit in one place for very long.

7. I understand how Command, Influence, Loyalty and Acumen work, and I sort of know how Dread works, but what does Peity do? Like what would a Pious governor do to a provence?

A governor with high piety will increase the loyalty of his province, IF the province is of the same religion as him. Otherwise he's more likely to stir up unrest. So if you're a Catholic faction and have just conquered a province whose population is mostly Muslim, it's better to install a governor with low piety.

In addition, higher piety gives your generals/governors increased protection against Inquisitors who come to put them on trial for heresy, although even then their innocence is not assured. Still, a higher piety rating does help insulate your generals and governors from being burned at the stake.

And just to be thorough, what do all the stats do/ what are they capable of?

Influence (faction leader only): If your king/sultan/emperor/etc. has a high Influence rating, it increases the likelihood of your faction being able to secure alliances and marriage proposals. A high Influence rating also seems (although again, I've never seen conclusive proof) to reduce the chance of another faction attacking you.

Loyalty: Pretty straightforward. The higher a general's loyalty, the smaller the chance he will rebel against you and/or be bribed by an enemy faction. Ideally, all of your generals should have a Loyalty rating of 5 or higher. If their loyalty is lower than 5, it's best to either remove them from command, or increase their loyalty by giving them a title and/or marrying them to one of your princesses (assuming they're worth keeping, of course). Otherwise, you can always either disband the disloyal general's unit, or put him the same stack as your faction leader. Note: Your princes can rebel against you as well, so make sure their loyalty is sufficient before letting them command an army of their own.

Piety: See above explanation.

Dread: A governor with a high Dread rating will increase the loyalty of his province. This is its only real effect, however. Rumors used to circulate that generals with a high Dread rating would lower the morale of the enemy's troops in battle, but sadly this is not the case. One point of Dread generally increases a province's loyalty by about 8% (i.e., a governor with 7 Dread will increase his province's loyalty by around 56%). Special: The faction leader's Dread rating applies to *all* provinces, but only increases loyalty by around 2-3%. (So a king with 4 Dread will increase the loyalty of all his provinces by 8-12%.)

Command: A general will bestow the troops under his command with 1 additional point of valour for every two stars he has. Therefore, a 4-star general will give his men a +2 valour bonus in battle.

Acumen: Determines a governor's financial ability, specifically in regards to how well he manages the tax income from his province. Generally speaking, 1 feather of Acumen increases a province's income by around 8%. (So a governor with 5 Acumen will increase his province's income by about 40%.) Generals with Acumen of 4 or higher are good candidates for governorship.

Special: Like Dread, a faction leader's Acumen rating improves the income of all his provinces, but only by about 2-3% per feather of Acumen. So a king with an acumen rating of 6 will increase the income of all his provinces by 12-18%. 2nd special: Generals who serve in a "state" office (such as Lord Chamberlain, Qadi-al-Quda, etc.) will have their *full* Acumen bonus applied to all provinces as well. So if your Lord Chamberlain has 8 feathers of Acumen, he'll improve the income in all your provinces by about 64%.

8.Certian factions seem predispoesd towards certian things, English/French rivalry an obvious one. But what about Custom factions, the Free_# ones? In the Xl mod for instance, the Bohemians seem to have the same problem with generals as the poles do.

I'm not sure on that one, to be honest. VikingHorde (creator of the XL Mod) rarely specified whether any of the new factions were predisposed to behaving one way or the other.

9. During a civil war, what decides the ring leader? Obviously loyalty, but does royal blood, ex-prince, marriage, or some other factor such as dread also play into it?

Usually, the rebel general with with the highest command rating is selected as the ringleader (and your new faction leader should you choose to back the Rebels in the civil war). Generals of royal blood are sometimes ringleaders as well, but I don't know if they get preference over "non-royal" generals with a higher command rating -- I've not really paid attention to that in the civil wars I've gone through, to be honest.