A little Guide on gentlemen

[herb0815]

As the gentlemen guide on this forum covers not all aspects of researching I want to share my findings with you.

1. How to get gentlemen

You can´t build a gentleman, they will spawn in your regions over time.

But each university increases the maximum amount of gentlemen you can have by one. The same goes for observatory.

So building a university or an observatory will indirectly increase the amount of gentlemen you have.

2. Researching and research points

Every university has research rate points. Every turn this research rate points are subtracted from the amount of research points of the currently researched technology. So higher research rate points = faster research.

2.1 Basic

To speed up your research rate, get your gentlemen in your universities. So they will add research rate points to the "place of learning and culture" they are in.

A gentleman with 3 stars will ad one research rate point to the research rate points of the university in every discipline (army, industrial, enlightenment). Gentlemen with more stars will add more points. (I´m don´t know exactly how it works as they don´t gain more stars too often).

2.2 Skills

A gentleman gets skills if he is staying in an university in same round as this university finishes a research. This skills increase the amount of research rate points he can add to the university.

It is most likley that he will get a skills, that are related to the discipline the university just finished to research.

The skills the gentleman has gaint can be improved at the same way they are gained:

A gentleman that got the trait armchair general (+1 army research rate) can improve it to the trait military writer (+2 army research rate).

So, the more skills your gentleman has, the more he adds to the university research rate points. But note that some skills are restricted to ad points in only one of the 3 discipline.

3. Stacking gentlemen

You can ad more than one gentleman to an university. They will stack their skills, but only with certain restrictions.

Gentlemen with the the same skills wont stack them. So 2 gentlemen with the skill armchair general in the same university, they will only give +1 research rate points and not +2. You can remove one of the 2 gentlemen and give him an other job.

This is the same for improved and basic skills. So a gentleman with the armchair general +1 and one with military writer +2, will not add 3 points, instead only 2 points will be added, because military writer is the improvement of armchari general.

Up to two gentlemen with 3 stars stack their basic 1 research rate point. So 2 gentlemen with no extra skills equals +2 research rate points, but 3 gentlemen with no extra skills doesn´t increase the amount of the points by 3.

Having gentlemen with differend traits, but of the same discipline (one has armchair general and the other admiral of the bathtube for example), in the same university is a good idea.

Having gentlemen with the same traits in the same university is a rly bad idea.

4. Stealing technology

You can steal technology by leading your gentlemen into an university of other nations.

You can see the probability to steal a certain technology by selecting it. The higher it is in the tech tree, the harder it will get. (You can consider percentages of under 19% as unlikely and under 15% as no way)

The only factor, that increases the percentage, is the amount of stars your gentleman has. If you use more than one gentleman for stealing the same technology, they will try it seperately. In turn 1 gentleman 1 in turn 2 gentleman 2 and so on. If you try to steal different technologies they will try it at the same time.

It is a good idea to guard your gentlemen with rakes, because a rake can dicover other rakes and it is rly likley that a genlteman will win a duel with a rake.

5. Preventing the stealing of own technology

The best way to do that is to kill the enemy gentlemen in a duel or if this is to hard, assasinate him with a rake.

If someone dicovered other things about gentlemen, please let me know.

[Lord Leonard]

I like to specialize at least 3 universities into researching the 3 types of technology; military, industrial and enlightenment. I then load up the military uni with gents who have military skills, the industrial uni with my industry specialists, etc. This speeds research incredibly.

Researching the enlightenment techs that are required to build the next level school need to be a priority earlier in the campaign. The sooner you build the higher level schools, the quicker you can research higher level techs and your gents can have a greater effect.

Likewise, any military techs that allow you to build the next level barracks/ordnance/dockyard should be prioritised by your military school/s.

I am not certain your claim about gents having the same abilities diminishing the reserch speed is actually true. I think this needs further investigation. From what I remember additional gents with common attributes do still reduce research times.

[herb0815]

It is true, you can try it by putting 2 gents with the same skill in a university. It will only ad the skill bonus once.

Or remove one gent if he only got skills that other gentlemen have in this university. No research rate point will be lost, the research time will stay the same.

Rember that there is a basic 1+ research rate point for the 2 first gentelmen added to the university.

It took me 2 campaigns to discouver how it works.

In my current campaign I alway have some free gentlemen for duels, because I know that they wouldn´t help with the same skills at researching.

Btw, does somebody know how many research rate points the bonus of the army and navy ministers gives. I cannot figure out how this works.

[TeutonicKnight]

It seems really hard to get a Gentleman's dueling skills up. I go through quite a few. Any tips? I did learn from this thread that dueling Rakes has a much higher success rate, so that is a training opportunity. I'll have to test it to see.

Are AI Rakes normally invisible? I can't say I've noticed many of them around, but it could just be they are busy in other lands.

[fourganger]

It seems really hard to get a Gentleman's dueling skills up. I go through quite a few. Any tips? I did learn from this thread that dueling Rakes has a much higher success rate, so that is a training opportunity. I'll have to test it to see.

Are AI Rakes normally invisible? I can't say I've noticed many of them around, but it could just be they are busy in other lands.

They are somewhat similar to spies in R : TW. Gentlemen can spot them as far as I've seen, but they don't show up on the campaign map like Gents do unless you've got someone to spot them with.

[Eastern Weasel]

Gentlemen with the the same skills wont stack them. So 2 gentlemen with the skill armchair general in the same university, they will only give +1 research rate points and not +2. You can remove one of the 2 gentlemen and give him an other job.

Is this an assumption or a prooven fact?

(You can consider percentages of under 19% as unlikely and under 15% as no way)

Percentage chance is what it is - its a chance, I managed to steal teches with as low as 9%, so saying that 15% is a no way would be exxagaration.

It is a good idea to guard your gentlemen with rakes, because a rake can dicover other rakes and it is rly likley that a genlteman will win a duel with a rake.

Gents can spot rakes by themself, so no real need to carry one of your own rakes around.

[coman]

This has been exceedingly helpful. I tend to over train and centralize my gentlemen. Good to know it doesn't stack, didn't realize that fully.

So I suppose I should build more universities or go a plundering. +rep

coman

[herb0815]

@ eastern weasel

you are right about the chance, I only wanted to make clear that it is unlikely.

Are you shure that gents can see an enemy rake, even if he didn´t try to assinate the gentleman? Is it enough if he gets into line of sight to discover the rake? If this is true, they are better in counter spy actions then the rake (Duelling > Assination try I think). I don´t know how discovering works exactly, by now I only managed to dicover rakes with my rakes, or after they failt in a mission.

I tried the gentlemen bonuses and they rly work that way. The only funny thing is, you get a free research point for the first two 3 star gentlemen in the university even if they have no traid (Don´t know how the stars work for gentlemen in terms of stacking. Maybe 3 + 3 = 6 stars but i don´t think so). I´m shure that stacking the same skills is not possible.

[Eastern Weasel]

Are you shure that gents can see an enemy rake, even if he didn´t try to assinate the gentleman?

well, my gent was taking a walk through france, and found a rake near paris.... needless to say I dueled him to death. So I assume gents can spot rakes.

Maybe 3 + 3 = 6 stars but i don´t think so

Definatly not like that. If u might have noticed, the more gents u put in uni, less kick-back you get for each gent, so effect deteriorates (dunno if I spelled it correctly). Same as with trade ships... oh, btw if some1 bothers to calculate how much % effeciency per ship you loose with each added ship, then we proably can have answer for gents as well, since I suspect they use similar formula, and its easier to calculate ships income since it being shown on traderoute.

But for traits not stacking - can you proove it one way or another, because, honestly, it doesnt make much sense that traits for gents dont stack.

[the_mango55]

I tend to use my gentlemen to steal tech in the early game, when the chances are pretty high. But later on, when all the techs give you 15% chance or under, I put them in my universities. It' just added hassle to try to steal a 15% tech over and over and over again.

Maybe with that freak of nature Issac Newton you would be able to steal high level tech reliably, but with your standard 3-4 stars it's not even worth trying.

[Eastern Weasel]

I tend to use my gentlemen to steal tech in the early game, when the chances are pretty high. But later on, when all the techs give you 15% chance or under, I put them in my universities. It' just added hassle to try to steal a 15% tech over and over and over again.

Maybe with that freak of nature Issac Newton you would be able to steal high level tech reliably, but with your standard 3-4 stars it's not even worth trying.

As I said before, whatever low chance is, its still a chance, few times I managed to steal tech in 1 or 2 turns with as low as 9% chance, another time I desperately tried to steal tech with like 25% chance for 20 turns and didnt managed it. So personally I think, if u have a free gent you have no use for, then send him stealing stuff from rivals, otherwise there is no point in basing your tech strategy on stealing teches, since it is very unreliable.

[the_mango55]

If they would retry it themselves then I would, but since you have to manually put them back in the school and tell them what to steal, it just gets annoying.

[Eastern Weasel]

If they would retry it themselves then I would, but since you have to manually put them back in the school and tell them what to steal, it just gets annoying.

it isnt so annoying when compared to fighting bazillions of micro armies computer sends to raid you, or small fleets.... even fights with bigger armies will get annoying when you realize that there is nothing left to do in game except steamrolling over the world.

[Dusty4prez]

Any way to actually increase the stars your gentleman has?

[Eastern Weasel]

Any way to actually increase the stars your gentleman has?

well, it does increases with traits, but only for specific areas, so it not shown on UI.

[coman]

it isnt so annoying when compared to fighting bazillions of micro armies computer sends to raid you, or small fleets.... even fights with bigger armies will get annoying when you realize that there is nothing left to do in game except steamrolling over the world.

I'm right there with you. Shockingly so.

[mir24]

Great research! Thanks!

Questions from me:

1. So if I have 3-star, 4-star and 5-star scholars (playing Ottomans) and I dump them in one college together, they'll only add 2 reserach points?

2. Your research means the ideal number is 2 scholars per school/college if they're both 3-star. A third scholar doesn't contribute anything UNLESS he has a trait the other two don't.

Eg. Two 3-star scholars with no special traits. Add one more 3-star scholar with "Rustic Gentleman" should add points to Industry.

3. I have FOUR scholars in one college. Two have "Gentlemen Scientist" traits and other two have "Rustic Gentleman". Both traits give +1 to industry research. But in total I will have +2 points to industry NOT 4.

Correct?

4. Using example above, what if one of them is a 4-star? Does it affect the outcome?

5. Using your example of a +2 trait and a +1 trait - how do we know which traits are "upgrades" of another trait?

Thanks! +Rep to you! (These stack I hope. LOL!)

[herb0815]

@mir24 to your 2. point. Only if all of them have a trait that add points. When one of them has no traits in this discipline, the rustic gentleman will override the basic +1. So you can remove the one with no bonus. Because the +1 bonus only adds for 2 gents with 3 stars.

I just cannot figure out how the stars work (There are just not enough gentlemen with 4 stars or more). I´m not shure if a higher star gent will increase research points more, or if he gives the basic +2 on his own.

If someone can figuer it out please tell me.

@eastern weasel: Most traits don´t give stars, they give points. It is like the moral traits of the generals (They don´t give stars but they give moral directly to the unit)

Edit:
I just discovered that when more research points are needed, you can decrease more points with the basic gentlemen bonus. It looks like you can even use more than one 2 gentlemen for high end tiers. As most traits only give research points and no stars they get less important for late game technologies.

But by keeping stacking in mind, you can rly use your gentlemen more effective in the early game. Even more because stealing low tier technologies is easier.

If someone has an other theory how it works please let me know, because somehow stacking same traits works in higher tiers?!.

It could be bugged, or more likley there is a stacking limit of the same traits for each tier (maybe tier 1 no stacking of same traist, ....... tier 4 gives some stacking ...... last tier unlimited stacking.
I´m done with my theory, but it works for me in lower tiers (up to tier 3). Well even math works, but is based on axioms.

Just enjoy the game.

[herb0815]

Eastern weasel just try it your selfe.

Look for the research points for a tech. After that move 2 gentlemen in the university, one with a +2 trait and the other with no trait for this tech. Research points will go down, rember this amount.

Now remove the 2nd gentleman with no trait and get a 3rd one in with the basic trait of the trait of the 1st gentleman or with the same trait. Research points will be the same as when the other two in.

Now take a 4th one in, now the 1st, 3rd and 4th gentlemen are in the university. 4th on with a trait that increases the research points of the tech but isn´t the same or the basic skill as the one of the 1st. You will note that the research points will be lower than before. They should lower the amount acourding to this formular: 1st gent skill + 3rd gent skill.

Note that the first 2 gents in the university will give 2 points even if they have no trait. So a blank gent gives the same as a + gent at the beginning. As soon as you have +2 gents the blank gent adds nothing, or if there are more than 2 gents in the university.

[arcticfireuk]

Interesting stuff! Didn't know about the different tech trees providing independent experience from each other - always wondered why some techs at the same level could be researched far quicker than others! lol

Nice one