Province Governors and Acumen

[Tomcat]

I know each Acumen Plume gives a Province Governor +10% to Province income and you should keep roughly 100 men in a Province to keep it Loyal - at least in the beginning of a campaign.

1. At the beginning of the game Peasants are obviously the cheapest way to garrison Provinces. But how is it best to get 3 or 4 plume Governors as the minimum acumen level?

Should you continue building Peasants, disbanding those who do not have a minimum of say 3 acumen plumes and "waste" 50 florins each time (plus save on the 37 florin yearly maintenance) assuming you do not wish them to form part of your army? If an "average" Early province generates say 200 florins of annual income and a 3 plume Governor brings in an extra 60 florins of income per annum (+30%) then he is going to pay for himself (50 florin Peasant) in just less than a year. But how many Peasants should you disband in attempting to achieve 3 or 4 plume Governors? Should you disband 2 plume Governors and keep trying for 3 or 4 plume Governors? Are there any ways to increase the probability of greater acumen Peasants being built?

2. Later on in the game, it is worth disbanding the Peasants and using say Urban Militia or higher units as the garrison force? If so, should you go through the same "selection procedure" above again?

3. As the campaign advances and your original Provinces hopefully become more loyal, should you/can you reduce the number of men garrisoning each Province? Could you use for example a beat up unit of Fyrdmen down to say 5 - 10 men with good Acumen rating as a Province Governor and would this number of men be sufficient to keep the long-ownership Province loyal?

4. Is it effective to use fighting units as Governors who have particularly high Acumen levels - say 5 or 6 Acumen Plumes - but are never going to be present in their "home" Province? I realise some Virtues are only applicable when the Governor is in residence but wondered how significant, on average, these Virtues may be.

Just curious at the Governors people use, and why, as the most effective at bringing in increased income for a Province while keeping your expenses to a minimum?

I have read the Economics 101 thread but it does not go into this level of detail with regard to Governors.

Thanks for any input.

Tomcat

[Ldvs]

Personally I never use peasants as governors, because in case there are no other higher ranked generals in the same province and you get attacked, then you have to deal with the assault with a general who is very likely to flee as soon as you take casualties.

I normally prefer giving titles to already high ranked generals, unless none of them get at least 3 acumens when they spawn. I've never heard of any penalties a governor would receive for working abroad.

If you want to keep a good loyalty even though you have very low garrison in one province, just use spies. They help you keep the population under control.

Once you empowered a governor, don't strip him of his title, unless he gets bad vices (also note that with farmland 40% you get the steward vertu which boosts the agricultural income by 10%).

[Emren]

It seems that when governors DO stay in their provinces, they gain more acumen rather quickly through virtues. Is this true?

[Tomcat]

Thanks, but I am really talking about Provinces where you just have a garrison force i.e. you are not expecting it to be attacked since it is not on the front line but you need to ensure loyalty. Like the English Provinces of Mercia, Wessex and Northumbria (once you have secured Wales and Scotland).

Again spies are not available in the early stages of the Early Campaign.

I have certainly seem some Virtues which are only gained when the Governor is governing - which I presume to mean "in residence" in the Province.

Tomcat

[Tomcat]

One other point - when a Governor gains V&Vs, does it show up directly on his profile stats or are the V&Vs in addition (positive or negative) to the displayed stats i.e. if he is shown to have 3 Loyalty shields and he has a Virtue giving him +2 Loyalty, does that mean his current loyalty is the displayed 3 plus the 2 for the Virtue totalling 5 Loyalty, or is his total Loyalty the 3 displayed which includes the +2 Virtue Loyalty?

Thanks.

Tomcat

[ThijsP]

Its directly shown at the stats.

Once a province is loyak enough for about normal taxes I never use garisons. And for titles i just search in a unit stack with the most acumen and use him, it doesnt matter if its the leader of the stack. Exept for titles with special attributes especially command, those I use on my generals in border provinces.

[Doug-Thompson]

1. At the beginning of the game Peasants are obviously the cheapest way to garrison Provinces. But how is it best to get 3 or 4 plume Governors as the minimum acumen level?

Should you continue building Peasants, disbanding those who do not have a minimum of say 3 acumen plumes and "waste" 50 florins each time (plus save on the 37 florin yearly maintenance) assuming you do not wish them to form part of your army? If an "average" Early province generates say 200 florins of annual income and a 3 plume Governor brings in an extra 60 florins of income per annum (+30%) then he is going to pay for himself (50 florin Peasant) in just less than a year. But how many Peasants should you disband in attempting to achieve 3 or 4 plume Governors? Should you disband 2 plume Governors and keep trying for 3 or 4 plume Governors? Are there any ways to increase the probability of greater acumen Peasants being built?

Nobody's should leave a province completely ungarrisoned, even if it's a low-income province.

So you have to have a garrison for every province anyway. Might as well make it a four-acumen governor.

I really should keep track of this, but I'd say that at least one out of every 10 or so peasants will be a four-acumen guy. (I wouldn't bother with three-stars, frankly.) Let's go to extremes and say it's one in 20. In effect, that means that getting a four-acumen governor "costs" 1,000 florins. He will "pay" for himself in 24 turns, even if you take out his maintenance costs.

I'd argue that you shouldn't worry too much about the maintenance cost when calculating a return on a four-feather, because you have to garrison the province anyway.

So yes, I routinely make a bunch of peasants and disband those who don't have high acumen. The survivors go to a stack, a "governor's school," to garrison some high-rebellion province like Portugal. That way I know where to find them when a province needs a governor.

As for increasing the liklihood of a high-acumen governor, I don't really know. Once again, I should track the figures, but I think provinces that are more highly developed -- with more buildings -- produce peasants with higher acumen.

2. Later on in the game, it is worth disbanding the Peasants and using say Urban Militia or higher units as the garrison force? If so, should you go through the same "selection procedure" above again?

Although peasants are the single most useless unit ever invented, my opinion here would be no. A garrison's size is the only factor in its effect on province loyalty. No unit provides a bunch of warm bodies at a more economical rate of upkeep than peasants.

There are a few units that cost more than peasants to build, but not to maintain on a man-per-man basis. These are good units for garrison duty. They are: Arbalests, Arquebusiers, Billmen, Crossbows, Gallowglass, Golden HordeWarriors (bribe some. Best of the bunch, by far), Highland Clansman (best of the bunch that most factions can build), Kerns, Nubian Spearmen, Pavise Arbalesters,Pavise Crossbows and Woodsmen.

3. As the campaign advances and your original Provinces hopefully become more loyal, should you/can you reduce the number of men garrisoning each Province? Could you use for example a beat up unit of Fyrdmen down to say 5 - 10 men with good Acumen rating as a Province Governor and would this number of men be sufficient to keep the long-ownership Province loyal?

You can, but you'll never be able to raise the taxes much because you will have to keep loyalty high. A famine or flood reduces loyalty by 20 percent. Two disasters in a row in the same province, which isn't all that uncommon, can make a loyal province rebel.

4. Is it effective to use fighting units as Governors who have particularly high Acumen levels - say 5 or 6 Acumen Plumes - but are never going to be present in their "home" Province? I realise some Virtues are only applicable when the Governor is in residence but wondered how significant, on average, these Virtues may be.

Most players agree that it is better to have a five or six-acumen governor in the hand than to have a four-acumen governor who might get improvements someday. He can just as easily get vices too.

I play differently than most people. I like to have my governor in the province, and in the fortification in that province. I want them to get good steward virtues, for instance. I also like to right click a province. This takes me to the province. I can move units out of it and see what's been qued if it's still under construction. The province roster, or information sheet, shows loyalty, revenue religious affiliation, etc. I can change the taxation rate, too, if needed. Then I right click the governor's name in the province display. This selects the governor and takes me "inside" the fortification, where any completed units are waiting. I go through this cycle every turn. Then I cycle through the building ques and then the unit building ques, which goes very quickly -- especially if I have no money.

[lars573]

I really should keep track of this, but I'd say that at least one out of every 10 or so peasants will be a four-acumen guy. (I wouldn't bother with three-stars, frankly.) Let's go to extremes and say it's one in 20. In effect, that means that getting a four-acumen governor "costs" 1,000 florins. He will "pay" for himself in 24 turns, even if you take out his maintenance costs.

For the peasant unit the chances of getting a 4 acumen leader is 1 in 5. For spearmen it's 1 in 8, 1 in 5 with the spearmaker upgraded. When playing un-modded MTW, I usually stock my castles with spearmen +1 archer till it's full. Or a mixture or militia and archers. I always fill my castles to the max., more loyalty that way. Also you never know when your army is going to be defeated and your garrisons will have to keep your lands intact.

[hdarpini]

It seems that when governors DO stay in their provinces, they gain more acumen rather quickly through virtues. Is this true?

My question as well. I'm a newbie in my first game (England, Early Period, Normal), and in 1107 and 1108 experienced an upgrade in acumen to a couple of my governors. I never thought to note whether these were governors that I had garrisoned in their respective provinces or whether they were governors that I'd sent to other provinces to help out against the wicked French faction (the more I play, the more I learn that it can be useful to jot down these types of details).

If being a stay-at-home governor wins more Acumen plumes more quickly, I may be less likely to appoint a general with a high Command rating as governor, even if he does has a high Acumen rating, preferring to reserve him for combat duty. This is especially true if I remember correctly what I've read in the MTW literature, that Command is only secondary, if that, when considering a general as a governor, that the critical traits to consider are Loyalty, Dread, and Acumen.

The same question applies to V&V added to governors, generals and faction leaders throughout the game. I know that certain vices are "awarded" to a general or faction leader if they flee a battle scene, but are other V&V awarded to governors during campaign play likewise based on a character's location, circumstances, or actions or are they merely the products of the computer's random number generator?

Another facet of this question is whether faction leaders based on historical monarchs receive V&V consistent with their real-life counterparts. The Norman king William II, for example, was an unpopular king because of his angry disposition, and when he was my faction leader he received V&V consistent with these traits. Maybe this was just a coincidence, but it would be interesting to know either way.

I know I've drifted slightly off topic, but sometimes if I don't ask questions when they occur to me, I forget to ask them later.

[Sethik]

This is a bit off topic, but can you demote govenors? How?

[Blodrast]

just a few quick points:

- you should probably always have a garrison of 100 men; keep less, and you may get bandits.
- Upkeep for peasant garrisons has never, ever, ever been a problem for me. It's such a small fraction of your total upkeep that it's not workth bothering with it. Normally, by mid-game, you should be churning some 20-70k per year...who cares about 2-3k for peasants ? It's much much worse when the province rebels for some cause (as Doug-Thompson pointed out: disasters, death of influential king, fleet blockade, and you lose half of your empire just because you didn't have 10 or more peasant units in your garrisons...
- There is a way to increase the probability of new units with higher acumen: by having an influential king. When you do, new trained units spawn with higher stats: command, acumen, loyalty (not sure about dread). It's not a big difference: you get, let's say, 3-command generals instead of 1 or 2 stars, or 4-5 acumen instead of 2-3 ones.

[lars573]

The way MTW+VI works if you get a king with the same name in the same time frame as a historical king they will have the same VnV's as the real guy, it's a neat little touch CA added. As for provincial governors leaving them in their provinces makes the populace more loyal and happy. This leads to more income in the province. Also leaving the governor in his province makes him catch VnV's quicker. If you leave the taxes on normal the VnV's he gets are average if taxes are low he gets good ones, if high he gets bad ones. To strip any general of any title you use the emmisary. Word or warnig though if you strip a general of his titles he not only loses the loyalty bonus and other title bonuses but he also loses about half the loyalty bonus of the title from his inborn loyalty. My advice is if you give the title to the wrong guy strip him of the title then marry your daughter to him, or just delete him. No matter how good he was the loyalty hit you take from stripping him of title is not worth keeping him if you can't get it back up.

[Blodrast]

hmm, i've heard reports that it might make a difference whether the governor sits in his home province or not, but i can't recall of anything that was actually tested and verified thoroughly.
My govs get relatively random vices, pretty good (acumen-wise) most of the time. And I always, always, keep all taxes on Very High. Everywhere. All the time. And believe me, I don't have any trouble with my governors (except when reaching the 2 thresholds, of course, but that happens no matter what).
Now the only vices I DO know you can get for sure by sitting in a province are Steward and Trader. There have been threads about this before, keep leader & govs in province while building and demolishing mine, rinse, clean and repeat, etc.

As for provincial governors leaving them in their provinces makes the populace more loyal and happy. This leads to more income in the province.

would you care to elaborate on this, please ? I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
I see no difference in keeping my gov in his home province or not. The difference is the same for adding/removing any garrison unit, be it governor or not.
And as for the income, why are you saying more happiness/loyalty means more money ? The taxed income is the same regardless of the level of loyalty...

[Ludens]

As far as I know it doesn't matter if a governor is in his home province or not, his vices have the same influence. Only the location of the King matters, and only for loyalty. There is a 'absentee landlord' vice, but I have never seen it. It might just be an extension of the 'bad steward' line.

I find that governor who sits still in their castle gains virtues faster, but also has a tendency to develop vices. Moving them around slows both down in my experience.

Something that can distort the image is the fact that the commander of a stack gets all the virtues the governors in that stack have earned. So I always keep governors apart from my army stacks, unless they are the senior officer.

hdarpini, yes, you can get other vices except the cowardly ones, for example 'expert attacker', 'skilled last stand', 'retreats often', 'captured', etc. There are also virtues related to building: 'builder', 'trader' (acquired by building mines, for some reason), 'good steward'.

[ichi]

It seems that when governors DO stay in their provinces, they gain more acumen rather quickly through virtues. Is this true?

I was told by a developer that there is no impact from keeping a Governor in 'his' province.

However, placing a Governor in a stack with the King or other higher ranking General will cause the V&Vs to go to the higher ranking guy and not the Guv.

This is a bit off topic, but can you demote govenors? How?

Not really demote, but you can:

Disband the unit
Drop a Spy on the Governor - try him for treason
Drop an Inquisitor - try the Guv as a heretic
Drop an Emissary - remove the title
Drop an Assassin - try to kill
Send the Guv on a suicide mission

I agree with Ldvs that using Pez has a risk - if there is no other General around the army is led by a low morale weak unit. Same with using archers as Guvs.

Just curious at the Governors people use, and why, as the most effective at bringing in increased income for a Province while keeping your expenses to a minimum?

I use a quite simple strategy - the highest acumen guy gets to be Guv of the richest province. Rebellious provinces get Guvs with high Dread. I try not to use high acumen Guvs in risky or difficult fights (don't want them killed), but I don't force Guvs to stay at home. I garrison interior provinces with at least 100 men; rebellious provinces get a few more. I try to use obsolete depleted units as garrison.

Again Ldvs is correct in recommending a spy in each province, but I use Spies, Border Forts, troop garrisons, and a religious agent (Bishop or Cardinal) in combination.

Got a high acumen Guv with low loyalty? - assign him a title and keep him with your King.

As for provincial governors leaving them in their provinces makes the populace more loyal and happy.

Again, I have been told personally by developers that this was an intended feature (hence it is in the manual) but was dropped out, and that the location of a Guv has no impact on the province.

Although peasants are the single most useless unit ever invented, my opinion here would be no. A garrison's size is the only factor in its effect on province loyalty. No unit provides a bunch of warm bodies at a more economical rate of upkeep than peasants.

Absolutely right on! Doug, you've written a lot of intelligent comments over the years, but I think that is one of the best. Not only do Pez have only one redeeeming feature (cheap bodies for garrison) but the worst thing about the game is that the AI builds so damn many Pez

ichi

[Sociopsychoactive]

I know each Acumen Plume gives a Province Governor +10% to Province income and you should keep roughly 100 men in a Province to keep it Loyal - at least in the beginning of a campaign.

1. At the beginning of the game Peasants are obviously the cheapest way to garrison Provinces. But how is it best to get 3 or 4 plume Governors as the minimum acumen level?

Should you continue building Peasants, disbanding those who do not have a minimum of say 3 acumen plumes and "waste" 50 florins each time (plus save on the 37 florin yearly maintenance) assuming you do not wish them to form part of your army? If an "average" Early province generates say 200 florins of annual income and a 3 plume Governor brings in an extra 60 florins of income per annum (+30%) then he is going to pay for himself (50 florin Peasant) in just less than a year. But how many Peasants should you disband in attempting to achieve 3 or 4 plume Governors? Should you disband 2 plume Governors and keep trying for 3 or 4 plume Governors? Are there any ways to increase the probability of greater acumen Peasants being built?

Ok, the chances of getting high acumen units is influenced a little by your kings stats, influence and the acumen in this case. If your worried about the build cost of all those peasent don't, it works out far better to have disbanded 40 units of peasents and have all four feather governers than to have no governers for longer. It is far better to hold out for four feathers than use three, 10% is a big difference for trading or good farmland provinces, maybe not so for inland bad farmland, like the steppes, but it;s still a major difference.

Some units seem to have a better chance of having high acumen than others, and peasants is one of them, thats the reason I don't use them as governers unless I start with them or bribe them and they have four feathers. Infact, I almost never build peasents at all.

2. Later on in the game, it is worth disbanding the Peasants and using say Urban Militia or higher units as the garrison force? If so, should you go through the same "selection procedure" above again?

It is worth doing a governer re-shuffle later on anyway, look through all governers and remove the titles of those who have accumulated bad vices. If you have a peasnat unit with 4 feathers and builder, then leave them rather than replace them because of the happiness you get from the builder virtue. As I don't use peasent governers I tend to have fighting governers, many of my provincial rulers have beaten off rebelions or invasions practically on their own, so I tend to go for better units from the start.

Once your empire has been running a while, and assuming your doing well, then you may well have a few four feather guys hanging around anyway. It is probably best not to use ex-heirs as governers due to their small size and stupidly high upkeep, but say french heirs (the initial king in early has 9 acumen) more than make up for this in accumen, so it;s really up to you. Having a governer fight off a minor rebellion is also a good way of getting him one or two easy command stars.

3. As the campaign advances and your original Provinces hopefully become more loyal, should you/can you reduce the number of men garrisoning each Province? Could you use for example a beat up unit of Fyrdmen down to say 5 - 10 men with good Acumen rating as a Province Governor and would this number of men be sufficient to keep the long-ownership Province loyal?

Beat up units are ok, retrain them whenever you can, sooner the better, but if you can;t retrain them then it's probably best not to have them as a governer. 5 men makes a big difference in loyalty to 100 men, and the tax drop from that will make one extra feather redundant. If you can counter the loyalty with spies, or it;s a VERY high loyalty province (200 on very high with your king some distance away) then go for it.

4. Is it effective to use fighting units as Governors who have particularly high Acumen levels - say 5 or 6 Acumen Plumes - but are never going to be present in their "home" Province? I realise some Virtues are only applicable when the Governor is in residence but wondered how significant, on average, these Virtues may be.

Just curious at the Governors people use, and why, as the most effective at bringing in increased income for a Province while keeping your expenses to a minimum?

I have read the Economics 101 thread but it does not go into this level of detail with regard to Governors.

Thanks for any input.

Tomcat

For titles that give command, say constantinople or ille de france, then I always give them to a fighting general to boost his command, but if he no longer needs it (usually if it's an odd numbered command star if theres only one, or he's not such a great general any more) then I might take his title off him, or maybe send him home to stay. he won;t get 'builder' 'steward' or 'trader' or the upgrades to them while off questing, but isn't going to get any bad ones either.

The vice your thinking of is 'absentee landlord' and really only starts cropping up when you hit 40% of the map, and alot more often when you pass 60%. Then you will be getting bad vices on all governers all over the place, but this one you do get for being away from home. If they had stayed at home then they probably would have just got the 'poor steward' vice anyway though.

To other people, governers don't seem to gain acumen+ virtues any faster while sitting there than while out fighting. They may well however get 'lazy' 'odd number of toes' or other accumen- vices for just sitting there, especially late game.

Bandits will only appear in disloyal provinces (under 120% loyalty) or recently conquered provinces, and even then only when there is no fort or less than a hundred men. For hearlands don't worry about having 100 men, 60 does fine. Despite this, never leave no troops in a province. I currently have one province with a depleted ballista unit as the gov (4 men) that is doing fine, but it does have my armies hanging round often, though it also forces the AI to assault or wait for my counterattack.

Also to everyone, your forgetting one stat that has a big influence in governers, PIETY!

In zealos, religious or rebellious provinces the governers Piety directly effects loyalty, and ALL governers piety effects Zeal. If you want high zeal for crusades and Jihads get pious governers and a pious king. The loyalty effect is large, it can even outweigh the bonusses of a governers dread when first given the title.

hdarpini, in all ages the start conditioins of each faction are (roughly) historically correct. The province ownership is a fair representation of what it really was and CA went aso far as to have starting kings start with vices/virtues that the real kings had, autocrat for the early english, avarice for the french early and so on.

Nice Post Ichi

[ichi]

Nice Post Ichi

Aregato, Soc

You too. I always find your stuff quite informative.

:)

ichi

[Red Harvest]

You don't gain much after 4 feathers, but the first four are very helpful. I try to get balanced govs. by using ones with a bit of piety and a bit of dread. Too much dread can be a problem, so I target 3 dread when possible. I use 4 or 5 dread on some rebellious provinces at times when I first take them over, particularly low value provinces.

I spend a lot of time hunting perfect governors. I'm also careful to use good combat units as several star govs. for some provinces for use on the front lines.

Honestly, I hope RTW makes this a lot easier. I would like to have the AI suggest good govs. to me based on filter criteria that I select--rather than clicking through every friggin' unit each turn. It would save a lot of time for me to inspect a list of a few candidates...

[katank]

exactly, this game needs an acumen filter and an intelligent autoassign titles!

I only care about the govs at the beginning and slack off by midgame as the vices start to make it a bit pointless anyhow.

[Blodrast]

eh, if we're discussing what the game needs, i'd also like to point out my pains:
a page down or something for the huuuuuuge list of agents, same for the list of provinces, a way to stack agents (so I don't have to move all 20 spies one by one)...

[katank]

ya know, I don't think in VI the extra spies have much effect.

IIRC, only the highest valor spy has an effect even though if they do provoke a rebellion, everyone of em gets a valor bonus.

stacking agents would be cool so that I can really order a swarm attack with assasins or inquisitors.

individually tasking them reminds me of packs of zerglings snapping away at an ultralisk or something.

I have a strange mind... maybe swarm attack association? who knows...

[RedKnight]

yeah it is so boring to move huge numbers of individual clergy too... anyway, it's a great game, eh?

[Doug-Thompson]

Thanks for the kind remarks earlier, ichi, although I think you're being over-generous to me.

Loyalty is almost too obvious to mention, but I will: I disband peasants with four-feather acumen but low loyalty. The title might give enough, but I don't have daughters to use as a Muslim player.

[Tomcat]

Thanks very much for everybody's comments and particularly for so many of the very detailed replies. It really is great to have such constructive responses to what may appear to some to be very basic questions.

I now see this whole issue of Province Governors is quite complex and different people use different strategies depending on the way you play.

My initial comment with regard to "I realise some Virtues are only applicable when the Governor is in residence" may well have been inaccurate - although I do see from some of the responses there are specific V&Vs for this situation when the map is very considerably owned - with regard to this point. For example, the V&V which says "Fervent - +1 Piety, +10% Zeal when governing" I originally took to mean "when the Governor is in residence". Since I have now seen units acquire this V&V when they are not Governors at all, I understand the significance of it!

Rather than leave Provinces completely ungoverned while waiting for that 4 acumen plumer to come along, it occurs to me that if building Peasants for the sole purpose of acquiring 4 Acumen Plumes, it may be a good idea to use those that come along with 2 or 3 Acumen Plumes as "temporary governors" until all the slots can be filled with 4 Plume Governors. The 2 or 3 plume units can be simply disbanded when a 4 plumer comes along and are unlikely to have acquired significant V&Vs in only a few turns. At least it gets those Provinces producing +20% or +30% before you get that 4 Acumen Plume unit.

Lars573 mentioned the probability of Peasants with 4 Acumen Plumes being produced was about 1 in 5. This would seem to tally with my current experience as I have been quite surprised just how frequently they do appear. So the aim of having 4 Acumen Plume Peasant Governors in each Province is not really that difficult to achieve .

Tomcat