Many, Many, Many questions!

[ULC]

I have been here for a while, but is till have some unanswered questions, so bear with me.

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?

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.

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?

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!

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!

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?

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

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.

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?

thats all...for now.

[Innocentius]

I have been here for a while, but is till have some unanswered questions, so bear with me.

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?

Probably because of gameplay reasons. I'm no expert on the subject though so there might be historical correctness behind the decision as well.

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.

You can never change another faction's religion. Pagans are always pagans etc, but you can convert the population of certain provinces using agents (like Catholic Bishops).

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?

I don't know. If you are talking about XL (I honestly can't remember how MTW was like before I installed XL) then it is probably to hold off the Serbs and the Cumans (who tend to stack up in Wallachia).

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!

1: No.
2: The game generally tries to find a suitable unit for a general (like FMAA or FK) and will sometimes wait untill you train a good "general candidate" unit.

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!

Once you grow big enough the AI will automatically gang up on you. Generally the AI actually acts in very illogical and downright stupid ways.

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?

By increasing the good vices of your current king and by increasing his influence. This is, quite basically, done by winning a lot of wars and conquering lands.

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

Piety is indeed the figure that matters the least, but a pious general might be popular in a province with high zeal, and a king with high piety is more likely to get gifts from the pope (given that he is a catholic, of course).

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.

This might have to do with the poor lands that are Bohemia and Poland. This means they can only field small armies, thus they don't win too many wars and thus their influence is low.
Also, the very fact that they are small kingdoms might help in reducing their influence.

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?

Don't know honestly.

Short answers I know, but hopefully they are to some help. Someone with more patience and knowledge might be able to answer them better.

[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.

[ULC]

Thanks alot Martok and Innocentius. Its to bad you can't change another factions religion, that would have made a great game even better. One last question though; Are the faction dispositions toward each other hard coded? I'd like to change this so it's more historically accurate. Is the "conversion event" for the Vikings alone in the VI campiagn, or for any pagan faction? Okay so 2 questions, but the last one just popped into my head, so I had to ask it.

[King of Bavaria]

1. Question: Sorry, I don't know.

2. Question: Afaik only for the Vikings.

(They loose their their special abilities to pillage and to launch sea raids without a port.)

[Martok]

One last question though; Are the faction dispositions toward each other hard coded? I'd like to change this so it's more historically accurate.

No idea, unforunately; I've never messed around with the game's innards enough to know. Hopefully someone like Caravel or EatYerGreens will come along and answer your question.

Is the "conversion event" for the Vikings alone in the VI campiagn, or for any pagan faction? Okay so 2 questions, but the last one just popped into my head, so I had to ask it.

It's for just the Vikings. The other pagan factions (Lithiuanians, Cumans, Golden Horde) can't be converted.

[EatYerGreens]

With regard to the faction dispositions toward one another, all I can say is that if they are, indeed, hard-coded then not only do we have no way to tell that is so but also there's nothing we can do about it.

I am more inclined to believe that certain factions always go to war with one another for the simple reason that they share borders at the beginning of whichever Era you care to pick. Expansion is on nearly every faction's agenda, so it's going to happen sooner or later.

Failing that, then rivalry over trade routes can spark a naval-only conflict between factions which aren't immediate neighbours.

The Muslim factions have the Crusades coming in their direction so there's a certain inevitability about those 'non-neighbour' wars as well. Same again for eras where "Crusader states" are in existence right from the start and can't keep pace with troop numbers in surrounding lands. The AI tends to attack wherever it perceives weak opposition... (Sun-Tzu coding, carried over from Shogun, like as not)

Other than all of that, the only aspects which are remotely moddable are the faction "character types", which are initially set in the startpos file for the era but are apt to change as the game unfolds, according to how successful (or not) they have become.

For examples, the English start out as "CATHOLIC_CRUSADER_TRADER" (largely self-explanatory) but the French start out as simply "CATHOLIC_EXPANSIONIST". All that guarantees is that they will try to take land off either England, HRE, Aragon, or Spain, at some point. The fact that they will, eventually, start Crusading or - occasionally - build a navy, is a sign that conditions were right for them to 'change personality'. The Byz start in Early as "ORTHODOX_STAGNANT" but, within years, they're rampaging across the Steppe...

So, the very most you can do is to alter a faction's personality as at turn one of the particular era your mod applies to but this is unlikely to last more than a few years.

[ULC]

Dang...that could kill my mod, which is supposed to be after the fall of rome to the end of Charlemagne’s reign. It was supposed to detail all the factions at the time and historic alliances and such, but if the AI is that random, then theirs not much I can do, huh?

[Ironside]

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.

Adding that influence affects the hiers stats a lot.

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.

Royal blood (even ex-hiers that been "dead" for hundreds of years) got the highest preference.

[EatYerGreens]

Dang...that could kill my mod, which is supposed to be after the fall of rome to the end of Charlemagne’s reign. It was supposed to detail all the factions at the time and historic alliances and such, but if the AI is that random, then theirs not much I can do, huh?

If there was a collection of small factions which were, historically, allied for more or less the whole of that era then why not lump them together into one, large, faction and see how they get on?

You might have to get creative about the allies' faction name but the names of the historical sub-factions can still be hinted at in the unit names.

[The Unknown Guy]

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?

My bet, based on my experience on both playing the Byzantines and seeing them play: they´re stacking troops to both discourage Hungary or whoever substitutes them from going down, stop crusaders (the AI will do this at times, I seldom do, as they can "liberate" lands for me to conçuer), and, particularily important, the odd crusader that will go against Constantinople (happened to me once. The HRE decided they hated me and launched a crusade)

[The Unknown Guy]

A somewhat pointless çuestion: What determines whether your king dies "in a worthy battle royale" or "foolishly", or, converserly, whether the enemy king is "a vain and treacherous villain to the end" or "a noble man making a good end"? (Meaning the sound file played)

[gaiusjulii]

I decided to put my own ideas for a few of the questons so If i sound dumb please dont call the inquisitor!

ok here goes

1) could this be because the Sicilians wern't added until after the rest of the factions as they are added in the VI Expansion pack, so the original coding for the names would coincide with The HRE, if i am correct that is...

2) I agree that the AI is rubbish at strategic deployment but the Byzantines as said before seem to leave provinces past constantinople unsually open to attack, could this be an attempt by CA to be more Historically correct in the sense that the Byzantines or the EasternRoman empire did expand north in the balkans and back into italy (only for a little while mind) in an attempt to reunite the old empire and thus leaving the empire weak in the turkish area.

3) I think we should take into account that the AI cant/wont just kill off a king to allow room for A historical figure so maybe if anyone can be bothered to count how many kings it takes to get a historical figure, maybe regardless Richard the Lion Heart is 6th king despite how long the previous kings take to die or be killed. Afterall I have kings live into their 70's in my game?

Please dont take the whole byzantine history thing above as gospel As i have not checked my resources lately but i think it pretty accurate.

[The Unknown Guy]

It isn´t unfeasible that they were just two different branches of the same family. Spain and Germany were ruled by members of the same family until the eighteenth century, and afterwards, it was France and Spain the ones ruled by members of the same family (which, by an ironical twist of fate, happened to descend from the royal family of one of the kingdoms that "lost the game")

[The Unknown Guy]

A çuestion: I found this in the "official" forums

+1 Morale for being within 50 meters of your General (for every command point the General has)
+1 Morale if further than 50 meters from your General (for every TWO command points the General has)

Is it true? if so, then it´s highly convenient to keep your general relatively close to your army?

[Ironside]

A çuestion: I found this in the "official" forums


Is it true? if so, then it´s highly convenient to keep your general relatively close to your army?

Yep it's true, it's the "feels confident that general is nearby" and some other thing that refers to the general's skill, when you hover the units on the battlefield.