Need some advice on Kings heirs, merchants & Clerics.

[Hell Knight]

hello,

I've played this game twice now and have learned a few things but I am still being frustrated. Maybe someone can help.

First, game was Wessex and I played it mainly with Knights and smash and grab land with three teams of two knights assaulting. However, as my holdings grew I was forever having to go back and quell rebellions. So then I had to sit one marshall in Ireland and one England and one in Sweden to respond to those. Which then slowed my conquering. As you can imagine, with 7 knights running around this was expensive. So the only way I could afford to ugrade was through leaving two spots open for capturing enemies and selling them off. Eventually, my ruler produced no heirs and when he died...my once hard fought kingdom turned into ashes and many provinces left. So now I would have to go back and reconquer all of my former lands. Not to mention they will be much harder to conquer because I built them up. I have to say this was realllllly frustrating.


Question: Is there any way to avoid my king not producing heirs? Is there a way to kill the current queen or produce bastards with other women? Or is it because I had him out in the field he produced no heirs because he wasn't in court? (On a side note, Lord of the Realms 3, which ****ed compared to this, did have an interesting feature where suddenly you couldnt move your troops and you'd get a message saying your king is wenching or something like that.)

Second game. Next game I play as Denmark. Only this time I read a few posts here. So I used my king as a spy and a son as a cleric. Made three marshalls and the rest were merchants. This time my expansion was slower but still managed to take over sweden and a good portion of the land mass to the east and south on the mainlands. However, I still had rebellions all over the place even with a high level cleric. Also, the merchants didnt seem to bring in much money. Eventually, my own damn cleric turned into a pope and then excommunicated me...uhm wtf. hehe Then to top it all off my last ruler again has no sons and my lands are plunged into chaos, with me running around trying to regain all my former conquered lands. Its like the game sees you making substantial progress and says no more heads on a pike for joo.

Questions. Can someone please be specific about how exactly is a cleric used to not have rebellions? Does the cleric have to be in new territory you just conquered? Just sitting him in the terriory is enough or does he need to manage it? Does there need to be a church in the province? Or can he just be in court and his effect on all your lands will be enough if youve trained him really high?

Merchants. Can someone please be specific about how exactly a merchant is supposed to generate income. So I make as many trade agreements as I can except with lands in immediate vacinity that I am planning on having conflict with so I dont take a kingdom hit. Then I created three merchants and put them in different towns to manage. Nothing. So i figure ok I need to develop the towns more so you can see those valuable kingdom benefits over the town icon and still nothing. So what am i doing wrong why are the merchants not generating any income when I look at the financial page and look at trade routes?

Thanks for your help.

Hell Knight

[Gallifrey]

For a Cleric to aid in diminishing the chances of rebellion, have him Adopt the population of a town. Set him as governor, and right-click his portrait in the court, and select the Adopt option. This will cost Books, but it also dramatically reduces unrest and makes your citizens happy. Be sure to Convert differently oriented religious populations as well.
Keeping your population happy is key to a solid empire with good expansion potential. Running smash-and-grabs may advance your borders quickly, but you'll soon be quaking under angry mobs and your empire will consume all your income just maintaining armies.

For Merchants, right-click their portrait in the Court and select the Trade icon, then select which kingdom you wish to trade with. Some will have just gold, and others will have trade goods in addition to gold. To see where which trade goods are, use the Political View and click the diamond-shaped icon, that will bring up a menu of all trade goods. Click on the good to show where it is produced or can be produced. This is in the long run more important than gold, if you're aiming for Kingdom Advantages.

Your king having offspring is pure chance, and there's nothing you can do about influencing it one way or the other.

[Superisis]

There are two types of rebellions:

Revolting citizens due to unhappines in the province. To counteract this lower taxes, build buildings, don't wage too many wars, etc.

Nostalgic citizens rebell to form their own state (join previous state). To counteract this, let your cleric govern the province and select "adopt population". This cost 1000 books but makes the population permanently part of your empire (uless you lose the province).

Merchants. My general strategy is to increase happiness in a province and raise taxes (to generate income). Don't wage to many war in the beggining, but play the diplomacy game and become good friends and trading partners with the bigs or europe (high taxes = rebells = experience for your marshalls even though you're not waging war). Pursue trade routes with the largest/richest states. If you educate your merchants you make more money. If your king is good with economics you 'll make more money... hope this helps

[Gallifrey]

If a province is unhappy, click on the icon showing the percentage of unrest, and that will show you where the sources of the anger (as well as happiness) is coming from. Then you can make educated decisions on how to proceed.
Taxes, war, religious difference and nostalgia for the previous kingdom are the key things to watch out for as they make your citizens upset.
Be sure to educate your clerics, merchants and spies as much as you can and they'll do their jobs more effectively. One thing to be careful of here is, in my opinion, it's not good to educate your king or a prince who will become king, as they will die and all that education will be gone. Best to use someone who's going to be around for the long haul.

[Hell Knight]

Thanks for all the info. I figured out my merchant problem, I had assigned them to govern a town and therefore no option to trade. Seems kind of silly that a merchant cant trade and govern a town, oh well. Do you get any benefit of a merchant governing a town vs using him to generate income?

As far as the cleric, putting him in the town to govern was the trick, then he can convert. However, converting isnt cheap or easy. One question, I do have is i tried to convert a town and then the cleric who was a prince, disappeared out of my court? I didnt see any message, can he be killed while trying to convert a town? However, right after that I was excommunicated...so if you get excommunicated do you lose your clerics?

Thanks

Hell Knight

[Gallifrey]

As far as I know there is no benefit to a Merchant governing a town. You're best going with a Builder, Landlord or Cleric as governor.

In the case of your vanishing Cleric, he was killed trying to Convert the population. This can, and does, happen. The higher your Cleric's skill, the better his chance of success. I'm not sure what the exact calculations are, whether the more Nostalgia and upset a town has increases the chance of a lynching or what. You may wish to Adopt the population before trying to Convert them.
It is expensive and resource-intensive, which shows how important it is to have a stable and prospering empire to support your expanding borders, and to be choosy about what provinces you set your sights on for conquering.

[junobeach]

Does anyone know what the advantages (if any) are of having a merchant govern a province?
I ALWAYS adopt first then convert - safer that way. I usually don't try and convert unless the Cleric is well educated (4 stars at least) I never have my sole heir try to convert a province just in case he gets lynched.
There is no 100% guarantee against rebels (this is a pet peeve of mine). Having a fast reaction Marshal is the best fix (Calvary only army with speed and admiral skill)

[Baghera]

Merchant governor just pulls in a little more gold from the province... not really worth the trouble (at least in the unmoded game) have him work on a trade route instead

[junobeach]

yeah, that's what I thought. You make a lot more gold with a trade route...I guess if you didn't want to sign any trade route deals and just go it alone you could do this.

[Mircoslavux]

[B]
There is no 100% guarantee against rebels (this is a pet peeve of mine). Having a fast reaction Marshal is the best fix (Calvary only army with speed and admiral skill)


100% against rebels created in your province, but remember the rebels, who are travelling from other countries and provinces (famous rebels).... :scratch:

[Anguille2]

Thanks for all the info. I figured out my merchant problem, I had assigned them to govern a town and therefore no option to trade. Seems kind of silly that a merchant cant trade and govern a town, oh well. Do you get any benefit of a merchant governing a town vs using him to generate income?
Hell Knight

It's just that a Merchant governing can't travel...therefore he can't trade. :wink:

[junobeach]

100% against rebels created in your province, but remember the rebels, who are travelling from other countries and provinces (famous rebels)....
That's why I said there was no 100% guarantee against rebels. Does anyone know if famous rebels can board ships to travel?

[Elvain]

That's why I said there was no 100% guarantee against rebels. Does anyone know if famous rebels can board ships to travel?
I haven't seen it yet

[Angryminer]

The only rebels that can board ships are propably former marshalls that earned the admiral-skill before they became rebels.

Angryminer