Client Rulers

[marek]

Hi everybody -

First I'd like to say that EB is an amazing accomplishment and I am very thankful that I stumbled upon this great game.

Second, I have a couple of questions regarding client rulers:

1) If I want to get rid of a client ruler, how do I do it? I tried destroying the type IV government and replacing it with a different one but it didn't work. Is it possible?

2) What happens when a client ruler dies? Does he respawn or do I need to create a new type IV government?

Thanks a lot!

[anubis88]

1) i dunno if you can
2) when he dies he dies... no one else will apear. When this happens to me i just destroy the type IV goverment an create it again... Then a new ruler is spawned

[marek]

1) i dunno if you can
2) when he dies he dies... no one else will apear. When this happens to me i just destroy the type IV goverment an create it again... Then a new ruler is spawned

Thanks for the response -
Do you find it better to have a type IV government if you don't have an available governor, or is it sometimes better to just have a city without any governor at all?

[Callicles]

It depends on your financial and military situation. If you are under threat of war, sometimes it is better to have the Governor there to serve as general of the garrison. But if you are low on cash, his salary can really eat up the treasury.

I'm using a lot of client rulers in my current campaign because I only have 2 family members, and one leads the army.

[sanitarium]

Cities on the interior of my empire I like client rulers, but I hate them for cities on the frontier (in other words, cities likely to be attacked). Their movement penalty makes it impossible to sally out, even with the supposed fix (for me at least, the fix doesn't work). If I have a client ruler in a city that gets attention by the enemy, I suicide them if I get the chance.

[quackingduck]

so once your client ruler is there with your lev 4 gov't, there's no way to go back until your client leader dies??

[sanitarium]

Well, you can get rid of the level 4 government, but he'll still be there. What you can do is remove the government and put in another, that way if you put a FM in the city he won't receive the interloper trait (I'm pretty sure, anyways).

[konny]

I had used a lot of client rulers in my first EB 1.0 campaign, but hardly use them anymore. They are really a help in the first years when your family is small and you need the FMs as heavy infantry or cavalry. But later they become more of a burden than a help because of the salery (different to your own bodyguards, you always have to pay upkeep for the client rulers' household troops - and that's always a first class unit).

Another point is that you cannot replace him even if he turns out to be useless. And last but not least, he is "blocking" a city where your young governors might develop.

I now only use them in outlying regions that I didn't wanted to conquer (for example, took because it was the last settlement of a faction I was at war with) or sometimes for roleplaying reasons in well developed cities of a different culture.

I'm using a lot of client rulers in my current campaign because I only have 2 family members, and one leads the army.

How had that happend? The plague? The Celts?

[Morte66]

A sufficiently good assassin ought to remove him...

[rzzza]

A sufficiently good assassin ought to remove him...

you cant assassinate your own people in this game...i tried. It worked in M:TW though.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

You cannot remove a client ruler, just like historically someone set up as a puppet king wouldn't just disappear when the protector nation told him to. Negative traits were planned for a client ruler who lost is possition, so that the town would be more likely to rebel.

To replace a ruler, you have to rebuild the Type4. It only takes two turns and that time can represent the transition period.

I'm not sure, but I think client rulers will count as family members and have many may be the reason you'll have a small amount of real family members.

You can assasinate your own characters in RTW, but only spies, assassins, and diplomats. There is no way of directly getting rid of family members or recruitable generals.

I would suggest putting client rulers in places where you want to role-play that you have a client kingdom, and not simply for the reason of getting a free governor. Remember that with a Type4 you can't get most of the high end buildings.

[Megas Methuselah]

Btw, what kind of bodyguards do client rulers have?

[Ozymandias]

I think they have whatever your family members have.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Client rulers get the regional recruitable general bodyguard. (Which has quite the expensive upkeep, btw.)

[Mykingdomforanos]

How much is their upkeep? If they have say 50 men. For that matter what is the upkeep on a family member?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Family members only have a tiny upkeep, but the client rulers have a huge one (something similar to the amount it cost for upkeep of an elite cavalry unit). I think it is listed for the 'recruitable generals'. I don't know if it varies by unit size or all 'recruitable generals' have the same upkeep no matter the number.

[Mykingdomforanos]

Cool thanks, only just discovered Client Rulers, neat idea

[Mouzafphaerre]

.

I would suggest putting client rulers in places where you want to role-play that you have a client kingdom, and not simply for the reason of getting a free governor. Remember that with a Type4 you can't get most of the high end buildings.

That's what I do. I'm using them in regions that I don't aim to expand into but for some reason have to occupy in order to save whose people from their evil WMD-owning oppressors.

If the target town has different culture, it will eventually revolt (mid/late game), always killing the -no movement point- client ruler. Then I take it as they have exploited my favour of granting them their own government, massacre the population fight off the insurgents and annex the province (Type III government).

I never build gov3/4 where I can build a gov2 and never a gov2 where I can a gov1 as house rules.
.

[Hegix]

In my latest Romani campaign (ended prematurely by a broken hard drive) I used lvl 4 govs to speed up my annexation of Gaul. Every city got a client ruler, and when they died I figured they had been romanized enough to get a lvl 2 gov.

I guess it's frowned upon, but by the time the clients died I had lvl 5 MICs in the cities and could recruit merc governors if needed.

The only problem was that after a while I ran out of client ruler names (I guess) so the script bugged out...

[LuciusCorneliusSulla]

How comes they have your own faction family names? I mean, can this not be adjusted? It may make sense when not playing Romani, but the Romans installed Client Rulers and I dont remember them ever taking a Roman given name, that was for freed slaves. Is it a constraint?
Correct me if I'm wrong...

Attalus and Eumenes of Pergamon
Massinisa and Syphax of Numidia?

[Foot]

How comes they have your own faction family names? I mean, can this not be adjusted? It may make sense when not playing Romani, but the Romans installed Client Rulers and I dont remember them ever taking a Roman given name, that was for freed slaves. Is it a constraint?
Correct me if I'm wrong...

Attalus and Eumenes of Pergamon
Massinisa and Syphax of Numidia?

Hardcoded. The client rulers are spawned characters and so must use names from their parent faction name list. We could add the names into the list but then you would get those names for your normal generals as well. Its the same for portraits.

Foot

[LuciusCorneliusSulla]

Oh.. thanks.
Well I suppose it only doesnt make sense for the Romani, its plausible that other Client Rulers could have a name from their conquering faction...

Could the full name be included? Or would this be a no-no historically.

How are rebels named? I've noticed rebels take on local names. Could this not work for Client Rulers?

[Morte66]

How much is their upkeep? If they have say 50 men. For that matter what is the upkeep on a family member?

In Massila my Carthaginians have a client ruler whose bodyguard is the "Celtic Lesser King" unit. He has 62 men costing 432 mnai/turn. I'm on large units.

I'm pretty happy with this guy, because it's a long term front line town -- I nabbed it early by naval landing and I've no plans to expand in Gaul until I get a level 4-5 MIC + blacksmith + temple built in Massila. So a tough heavy infantry unit that can fight defensive sieges on the stone walls is OK with me. I'm assuming they'll regenerate casualties like other bodyguards, which means I don't need a MIC in place to retrain them between battles.

These days I've got so much money that I don't know what to do with it, but I'd be a lot less pleased at getting a pricey cavalry unit during an early expansion phase where they'd be off the front line in a couple of years. I've read a few posts from people who've built level 4 governments in early Pontic expansion and greatly regretted it.

So in most places I would just build a level 3 government instead. Level 4 government is good for those special cases where you need the heavy unit for immediate defensive duty, or you eventually want a level 5 regional MIC and you're prepared to suck up the cost. In Massila I have both...

[Apgad]

Remember that with a Type4 you can't get most of the high end buildings.

If you have have a Type 2 government and build all the high-end buildings that you want, then destroy it and install a Type 4 government, do you lose the high-end buildings? I thought I'd do this on Crete, to give my Cretan Archers an extra experience point.

[sanitarium]

No, you'll still have everything you built on the type 2 tree. I usually do this the other way around, if I take a province that I know has good local troops (like Crete), I'll make a type 4 gov and destroy it once I get the MICs built.

[Morte66]

I usually do this the other way around, if I take a province that I know has good local troops (like Crete), I'll make a type 4 gov and destroy it once I get the MICs built.

Have you done this in 1.0? I remember somebody saying that it was going to stop working.

[Morte66]

Another thing about client rulers... If you can't change them, you can build them a school. That'll generally get you at least reasonable governorship.

[sanitarium]

Have you done this in 1.0? I remember somebody saying that it was going to stop working.

I do it all the time in 1.0. In my Roman campaign I've been churning out Cretan archers to help take Macedonia and I've got a type II government there now, after previously building the type 4 tree.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Have you done this in 1.0? I remember somebody saying that it was going to stop working.

It was but the additional coding required was not deemed worth the benefit. (Loading times would've increased quite a bit whenever the EDB would be among the loaded files...)

Since EBII can again use the old and much desired logical operators that are broken in RTW 1.5, this will not be an issue there anymore - and it'll be bye bye good ol' exploitful days

[Callicles]

How had that happend? The plague? The Celts?

No. A combination of poor planning, a lot of horse archers, a few Armenians, and a crafty Seleucid general who also was an Armenian.

Let's just say that we are enjoying our new home on the cold side of the Black Sea.