[RTW] Govenors

tals · Post by **tals** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 2:55 am

OK i've now been playing this for a few weeks now so I've got a good idea of the mechanics, however i'm not sure I still 'get' the govenors, generals yes, govenors no.

My own impressions of what a govenor can do. They obviously have an effect on public order and from that I guess they also have an effect on how reproductive the town is. Do they have any other effect. My main query is do they effect the auto managing aspect. I'm at the point where I have in excess of 20 towns, to micromanage these is a logistical nightmare.

However I could do with getting the govenors out in the world being generals as i'm fighting on a number of fronts and the generals make a real impact to morale - particularly the rallying call can save a defeat.

So can I get govenors out of the towns with the reassurance that the actual micromanging can be handled without him there?

Tals

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 5:13 am

There is a game option where you can choose to allow yourself to manage cities without governors, or you have to let the computer do it if you don't have a governor. The choice is up to you at the beginning of a game.

Grifman

tals · Post by **tals** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 5:52 am

Persumably their is then no advantage when auto managing between having a govenor and not having one - except for th ereasons I originally mentioned - which do have some use.

Tals

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 12:22 pm

Read carefully the attributes of a governor before having him lead troops. I think some governors are more suited to bureaucratic tasks while others are better suited for leading troops. At least when judging them by the attributes they have.

Asharak · Post by **Asharak** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 2:26 pm

Perhaps something to clarify: "governor" like "general" is not so much a concept as a role. It is the other main thing a family member can do, aside from being a general (i.e. take a governor out of a city, and he is instantly a general; vice versa, put a family member in a city that doesn't have another family member there already, and he automatically becomes the governor). As such, when a family member acts as a governor, all his skills, attributes, and retinues can affect the management of a city.

While every family member learns skills, develops traits, and acquires retinues through experience, typically you want to assign family members that start with high management skills (and associated pro-management traits) as governors, since they'll have an easier time reaching the higher skill echelons than characters without those skills.

Given that, depending on the skills of a family member, he could have almost no effect, a massively positive effect, or a massively negative effect on the management of a city. I've found with larger cities that it's especially important to make sure the family members I use as governors don't have any squalor-increasing traits (or, better yet, have squalor-reducing ones), since it is already such a problem - but governors can also affect public order, fertility, morale during city defences, chances of locating enemy spies, etc., etc. (the list is as long as the list of character traits, and that's massive).

That said, every city is run by somebody, and in the absence of a family member, the game runs it for you (i.e., automanaging). You can, however, turn this off on a city-by-city basis (and you don't need to do it at the beginning of the game). When a city is being auto-governed, on the right city of the City menu you'll see two check boxes for auto-managing construction and recruitment. If you uncheck those, you can still manage the city even without a governor (it's not ideal, since you still can't set the tax rate, and don't get any of the bonuses a good governor would bring, but it works).

So yes, the game will manage the settlement for you, but like any AI management it's not perfect. It will often build silly things (like all the military buildings in a particular city, when it is infinitely more cost effective to specialize in different types of troops in different cities) - but if it does anything that annoys you too much, you can still turn it off, even without a family member present.

I think that answers your question, albeit in incredibly wordy fashion.

- Ash

tals · Post by **tals** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 2:35 pm

It does Ash, thank you

tals · Post by **tals** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 3:03 pm

Hmm just had a notification of a posting in this thread and whe I clicked on the link it said the topic didn't exist.

How very very strange.

Tals

Kraegor · Post by **Kraegor** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 4:15 pm

that was me. i deleted my post cuz i was being redundant after reading Ash's

Kelric · Post by **Kelric** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 3:14 pm

For what it's worth I prefer to micro-manage every city. I much prefer screwing the cities up myself than letting the AI do it.

The only problem with that is I have about 25 provinces right now and maybe 15 of those have governors, it gets time consuming. I also haven't figured out how to keep some cities from revolting every half a dozen turns or so when there are no spare governors to give them. The easiest way is to just make sure they don't have particularly good defenses, let them rebel, and then sack and slaughter them every few turns. Fun!

For a while I was fighting on three fronts. I had been in a constant war with the Gauls for France and pushed them into Spain, this led to me fighting the Spainish once the Gauls were kaput. I had killed most of them off but was still trying to capture the rebel provinces when I was attacked by my former allies, the Britons, in Central/Northern Europe. That's two fronts. Not to mention I had been in constant skirmishes with the Scythians from the beginning of the game and had actually basically surrounded the Brits by controlling the provinces to their west, east and south.

Once I captured nearly 30 provinces the Senate demanded the suicide of my faction leader, which I rejected. I had been nursing that man along for 40 years to Imperial greatness, I wasn't going to let him die just because they were scared. So the other three Roman factions declared war on me and I proceeded to sack Rome (aha!). Now I've knocked the Scipii out of Italy but they still control Northern Africa (and took the southern tip of the Straight of Gibraltar from me!) and I am having a tough time handling the Brutii in north-western Greece and southern Italy.

I've now knocked the Spanish out of the game but am letting the last two Rebel provinces in Spain run themselves while I deal with the other Romans. The Brits have been knocked out of contintental Europe but they still lead forays at me from Britain every few years. In the last dozen turns I've killed two British faction leaders and two heirs. They must be running out of men. The Thracians have conquered two of my former provinces that rebelled against me and the Brutii sacked another one. My eastern border is dreadfully thin as I am struggling to keep the near constant flow of massive armies from the Brutii from taking my Italian stronghold. How on earth can they afford so many men?

Phew. Wordy.

Eduardo X · Post by **Eduardo X** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 3:32 pm

It is always surprising how much this game really lets you recreate or rewriter history. The detail is thick enough that I can describe every turn to my friends like it were a history book, "the Egyptian Chariots kept circling me, but my men held firm. Whenever they'd attack, they'd rout after my men stood tough."

I'm at about 30 regions gained, and soon I predict the senate will hate me more than they already do.

tals · Post by **tals** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 3:33 pm

Yep I just can't let the AI do it - howevermuch I try I actually enjoy doing it - that said i'm about the same numbver of cities as you and turns are starting to get long.

Tals

bluefugue · Post by **bluefugue** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 5:29 pm

I micro every city. The game started with the "manually control every city" box checked as a default, so I don't think it's cheating to do that.

I do see the point of having only governors able to micromanage though -- it gives you more of an incentive to put governors in town and makes it a tougher decision whether you want them there, or out on the battlefield racking up command stars.

rrmorton · Post by **rrmorton** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 6:59 pm

bluefugue, how are you liking RTW? I remember we were in the same uncertain boat prior to purchase. Did the gameplay get you hooked? I haven't really played it yet (I got addicted to Port Royale 2) but I'm thinking I should get to it.

bluefugue · Post by **bluefugue** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 9:26 pm

rrmorton wrote:bluefugue, how are you liking RTW? I remember we were in the same uncertain boat prior to purchase. Did the gameplay get you hooked? I haven't really played it yet (I got addicted to Port Royale 2) but I'm thinking I should get to it.

I wouldn't so much say I "liked" Rome Total War as that it has completely dominated every waking hour of my attention for the last three weeks in a row.

It's my game of the year, easily. Probably the best game I've played since Baldur's Gate 2 four years ago. It's just astounding.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 11:36 pm

bluefugue wrote:I micro every city. The game started with the "manually control every city" box checked as a default, so I don't think it's cheating to do that.

I do see the point of having only governors able to micromanage though -- it gives you more of an incentive to put governors in town and makes it a tougher decision whether you want them there, or out on the battlefield racking up command stars.

Yea the strategy is better when you have to have a family member there. I just can't stand watching the computer totally screw up managing the city. If the AI would manage the city with even an ounce of skill I would change. I hate spending 30mins a turn micromanaging cities, but someone has to.

rrmorton · Post by **rrmorton** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 2:54 pm

bluefugue wrote:
rrmorton wrote:bluefugue, how are you liking RTW? I remember we were in the same uncertain boat prior to purchase. Did the gameplay get you hooked? I haven't really played it yet (I got addicted to Port Royale 2) but I'm thinking I should get to it.
I wouldn't so much say I "liked" Rome Total War as that it has completely dominated every waking hour of my attention for the last three weeks in a row.

It's my game of the year, easily. Probably the best game I've played since Baldur's Gate 2 four years ago. It's just astounding.

Wow! Guess that answers that!

Glad to hear it.

Lord Percy · Post by **Lord Percy** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 3:24 pm

I don't think the micromanaging load is too big. Usually I build some happiness buildings first to keep the population under control (temples / hygiene buildings / police buildings, depending on the faction). After that it's pretty much a question of building all the financial things, like roads, markets, port and trade caravans. Once that's done, I pretty much leave a city alone. Sometimes you might notice a little blue face in one of 'em, which means you should either just lower the taxes a little bit or build some soldiers to add to the garrison. If you keep an eye on the icons that drop down on the left, you can quickly see when it's time to upgrade a settlement to a larger type, or if you see that a city has completed building roads, you can add the next type of road to the construction queue.

A lot of cities don't need any military capability, so it's pretty easy to keep track of things. Right now, if you draw a vertical line from the top to the bottom of the map through the western point of Turkey, I pretty much own everything to the east of it. It's not too hard to manage if you just focus on the happiness/financial side of things. In my opinion, moving governors from my capital to all four corners of the map and keeping track of their age is much more of a pain.

Asharak · Post by **Asharak** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 6:50 pm

I typically micromange every city as well - but then, that's just the way I've always played these kinds of games. Even playing the largest Civilization maps, I never got tired of changing build orders in every city, every turn...

EDIT> To respond to Kelric's comments about rebellions, I've started having that problem in cities a long way from capital. Generally, I've found that I can handle the disorder created simulatenously by any two of squalor, culture penalties, and distance from my capital, but not all three at once. So my strategy has been to try to remove one of the three in every case: moving my capital to a newly-conquered region helps a lot.

- Ash

WAW · Post by **WAW** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 9:12 pm

What do I do with an insane leader? I had one leading an army but his pre-attack speeches have gotten very weird . Should I just send him to a backwater city or some thing?

khomotso · Post by **khomotso** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 9:31 pm

What do I do with an insane leader? I had one leading an army but his pre-attack speeches have gotten very weird . Should I just send him to a backwater city or some thing?

Weird speeches doesn't mean he's a bad manager or commander, necessarily. Look at his actual stats in management, command stars, and his retinue for special bonuses (like trade bonuses, morale bonuses, etc). Everybody has *something* they can be used for, even if it means reshuffling retinues.

That said, let's say he's an absolute worthless family member by any individual measure. Still three things he's good for:

1) Running around and building watchtowers at appropriate places.
2) Sitting in a town that you need to raise the population on. When you enslave a city, the slave population gets sent out only to towns with governors. His mere presence can make a big difference.
3) An extra heavy cavalry unit. Put him in some other general's army, and get an extra unit with some real punch.

bluefugue · Post by **bluefugue** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 9:40 pm

4) Scooping up valuable mercenaries like, say, Cretan archers if he happens to be around Greece.

WAW · Post by **WAW** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:21 am

But he bites people.

bluefugue · Post by **bluefugue** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:27 am

Nobody's perfect.

Asharak · Post by **Asharak** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 4:44 pm

WAW wrote:But he bites people.

Are we still talking about on the battlefield? Cuz that's not always a character defect...

- Ash

WAW · Post by **WAW** » Sat Oct 30, 2004 2:36 pm

Do you folks pick your own faction heir? Thanks This is a great game, one of the best in years.

bluefugue · Post by **bluefugue** » Sat Oct 30, 2004 3:32 pm

I do pick my heir when it occurs to me. Though sometimes it slips my mind.

I try to reward my top generals with it, though it occurs to me that it might be more useful for governors (does extra influence help more in towns than on the battlefield?).

Asharak · Post by **Asharak** » Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:59 pm

WAW wrote:Do you folks pick your own faction heir? Thanks This is a great game, one of the best in years.

Yes, because occasionally the game picks someone who I don't like and have consequently allowed to languish in some border town somewhere. I like having my Faction Heir/Leader be someone who excells, although I don't much mind whether it's a top General or administrator (here's a question: aside from the bonus to influence, is there actually a consequence to who your Faction Leader is; ie, does he actually have to do anything in that role?),

- Ash

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Sun Oct 31, 2004 12:20 am

The only real perk to being the faction leader that I can see (other than the influence boost) is that they get a larger bodyguard unit than the typical family member. Playing on "Large" unit scale my faction leaders often get a unit of 50 or so heavy cavalry, while most family members only have 20-30ish. I also think it's harder to assassinate faction leaders/heirs... at least it seems that way when browsing targets. For the most part, the chance of success looks like its based on the targets Influence but I've seen some low-Influence leaders who were still tough to kill. Not that that's much of a perk for the player since, as far as I can tell, the AI never tries to assassinate anything.

I wish the game would prompt you to pick an heir rather than automatically pick one. For the most part I try (for light-roleplaying purposes) to keep it "in the family" but now and then will reward successful brothers/nephews.

I don't know if everyone has noticed, but when you pick a new heir the previous one gets the "Disinherited" trait and -1 Influence. Not that much of a penalty, but I'm curious if that trait leads to other negatives later in life. Come to think of it, that's something I wish this game would include... family rivalries within a faction. I'd love to have to deal with traitorous brothers, keeping an eye on generals who become a little too prominent, etc.