Your court

[Mircoslavux]

Hi
How is your court looking like (structure and experience) and developing during (and according) the run of game?

What is the most appropriate combination according conditions? (size of country, war, ..)

[Angryminer]

My court is rather static:
1 Marshall (usually the king of my nation)
2 Merchants
1 Spy
1 Cleric
1 Pope

When hell brakes loose sometimes a marshall is appointed to do some minor work so the king can focus on the important things :knight: .

Angryminer

[Xuca]

Usually I have 2 marshals(one is the king or a prince), 2 spies, 1 cleric, if I play with ortodox, 1 patriarch, 1 builder and 2 merchants.
One important thing: I rearly hire other knights than merchants. I mostly use ex-princes.

[Mircoslavux]

My court is rather static:
1 Marshall (usually the king of my nation)
2 Merchants
1 Spy
1 Cleric
1 Pope

When hell brakes loose sometimes a marshall is appointed to do some minor work so the king can focus on the important things :knight: .

Angryminer

Hm interesting, How you could conquere or defand your provinces with only 1 marshall?
so you have empty space in your court?
I have - 4 Marshalls and 5 merschant now (because I need money).

[Baghera]

I am currently playing a rather large aggressive campaign so I like having lots of marshals so I can attack all over the map at the same time... I also need a couple of clerics to reduce nostalgia and convert provinces.
I find that as you get bigger more and more of your cash can come from taxes as opposed to merchants so you can free up merchant slots for Marshals... especially if you are taking minimal losses in your armies so you are't constantly refilling your squads.

[Angryminer]

@Mircoslavux:
It's all about diplomacy and strategy.
Angryminer's guide to war with one marshall:
1. Find a suitable target at your own border.
2. Force N/A-pacts upon the soon-to-be-enemy's allies.
3. Make sure you have at least one ally that shares your hate against the soon-to-be-enemy and his allies.
4. Declare war on the enemy.
5. Raise an army, invade him. He will sometime soon intervene. Until then plunder or assault a town.
6. The enemy will propably call upon it's ally. Either the ally says "Oh too bad, I signed a N/A-pact with them. You're on your own." or you are at war with a second party. If the latter it is time for your own ally to show up. Ask him to keep the second enemy busy. But don't make him declare war on your target. It might distract your ally.
7. Defeat the enemy's main army (shouldn't be too hard - if it is too hard withdraw and carry the war to your homeland where they suffer a morale-penalty).

Let's sum it up:
You have only one enemy to bother about.
You have no other enemy to face.
You have propably defeated his main marshall.
You can take the enemy's province until too many rebels&loyalists lurk around.

Angryminer

[Lord_Apophis]

I usually use:
Beginning:
2 Marshalls
2 Merchants

Middle:
Add on a Spy and a Cleric (when not pagan).

End:
Add on 2 more Marshalls and perhaps 1 more spy.

When playing a pagan nation without mods, use more merchants as you automatically lose 30% of your income.

[Mircoslavux]

other questions:
I'm not sure , but I have such feeling, that I used my king and prince in the court and they gain some stars, then I pool them back to the thron and they lost these improved abilities?!

Secondly, if you have your king (prince) pool back from court - can you upgrade their abilities (the stars beside their pictures)? If yes, how?

[Xuca]

1. kings and princes don't lose stars when they are called back to the court. They can even have 5 stars in all profesions
2. no, you can't change that

[Mircoslavux]

1. kings and princes don't lose stars when they are called back to the court. They can even have 5 stars in all profesions
2. no, you can't change that


But then something is not in agree. :scratch:
Your king or prince can achieve 5 stars in the court - correct?
But if you call him back he can have max 3 stars in each ability - correct?

If it is like this I do not understand it somehow?! :huh:

[Angryminer]

the king skills which can be seen in the royal-family-screen have *no* relation to the knight-skills a royal can earn.
A king with 0 military skill can be a level 18 marshall. No relation here.

Angryminer

[Mircoslavux]

the king skills which can be seen in the royal-family-screen have *no* relation to the knight-skills a royal can earn.
A king with 0 military skill can be a level 18 marshall. No relation here.

Angryminer

Aha - and it will stay so , if you call him to thron and then call him back to court?

[Angryminer]

Yes. The knight-skills are saved until he is called back to duty, regardless his king-skills.
For example: The prince serves as a merchant. His economy-skill is zero. He gains experience and gets to become a level 5 merchant. After he becomes king he wants to focus on his kingly duties and recalls himself from the court. Later he sees that he is in need of gold and begins trading with another nation again. He enters the court as a level 5 merchant due to the experience he got before, even though his economy-skill is still zero.

Angryminer

[Mircoslavux]

Yes. The knight-skills are saved until he is called back to duty, regardless his king-skills.
For example: The prince serves as a merchant. His economy-skill is zero. He gains experience and gets to become a level 5 merchant. After he becomes king he wants to focus on his kingly duties and recalls himself from the court. Later he sees that he is in need of gold and begins trading with another nation again. He enters the court as a level 5 merchant due to the experience he got before, even though his economy-skill is still zero.

Angryminer


Thanks, now is it clear, :silly:

And what about others KoH players?
How is your court looking like? :scratch:

[Casluerj]

My court is rather static:
1 Marshall (usually the king of my nation)
2 Merchants
1 Spy
1 Cleric
1 Pope

When hell brakes loose sometimes a marshall is appointed to do some minor work so the king can focus on the important things :knight: .

Angryminer

Dont you use counter-spionage or this unique Spy you have is used for this duty?

[Da Bomb]

With GoG mod, usually 1 marshal (non-king or heir so he doesn't end up dying), 1 cleric (until patriarch or pope and he leaves) 1 spy, (if hes a counterspy then another spy to spy on enemy nations), and 2-4 merchants, depending on when they steal money from me or leave as spies. Usually no landlords or builders.

[Angryminer]

I only assign the spy to a job when I have something specific in mind. When the job is done he comes back and looks out for spies again.

Angryminer

[JustinianII]

I must admit that I'm finding Landlords and Builders to be rather useless even with the GoG mod. It's not the cost; they're very cheap. You could make them completely free and I still wouldn't use them. They are simply so much less useful than a marshal, merchant, or spy. I mean... so you gain food a little faster. Big deal. How does that help me except under extremely unusual circumstances such as pumping out a bunch of units from a single city slightly more quickly? Wheee!

Using the GoG mod I generally still have 2 marshals. One is my regular non-family marshal whom I use to attack people. The other is a member of the royal family (so I don't have to pay upkeep) who goes around and defeats rebels. Since he only really fights rebels there isn't any realistic chance of being killed.

[Illuminatus!]

Static Core to be reached ASAP:
- 2 marshals (alone, either one alone can handle most rebels and most enemy marshals; together they're basically unstoppable, the only caveat being they can only be in one place at once when together)
- 1 cleric (I rarely play Catholic nations, so I rarely have a cleric stolen from me)
- 2 spies (one on counter-espionage, one snooping around)
- 2 merchants

The other two slots are usually merchants or spies, but sometimes taken up by marshals or by a marshal and a builder or landlord.

[Big J Money]

I must admit that I'm finding Landlords and Builders to be rather useless even with the GoG mod. It's not the cost; they're very cheap. You could make them completely free and I still wouldn't use them. They are simply so much less useful than a marshal, merchant, or spy. I mean... so you gain food a little faster. Big deal. How does that help me except under extremely unusual circumstances such as pumping out a bunch of units from a single city slightly more quickly? Wheee!

I use landlords and builders almost exclusively in the early game. For one thing, I don't know if there is any risk if they turn out to be enemy spies or not. Usually though, the Landlord is important to me in the early game when I am playing as a Kingdom that has the privilege of starting with good troops like swordsmen or archers, but is stuck with only 100 food in those provinces. Builders are even more necessary to me. That 1000 gold is expensive, (unless it's my royalty), but time is money, and there is no comparison to the time I save giving a 1 or 2 worker town a +1. I will say that I have never found a need to spend time increasing the skill of my landlords or builders, though. It's far easier building a granary, for example, than spending 1000 books on a landlord! The only scenario I can imagine where a level 5 landlord might be useful is in a city that is going to come under seige. A level 5 landlord probably would help that city to last for a very, very long time. I've never trained a level 5 builder either, although I can imagine a few times where it would be useful to me.

I think I'd like to try playing with 2 clerics in my next game to see how useful the extra book production is.

=$= Big J Money =$=