Does having a big royal family hurt my empire? Problems recruiting elite units too.

[deuce985]

I'm playing SS 6.1, with the submods including in the patch(the army supply one and real recruitment?). First, I want to say the mods are awesome!

Ok, now the question. I've been getting candidates for adoption and I've been building my family tree up playing as Leon-Castille. I figured I'd do this because I married Portugal's princess to my faction heir. I also married my daughter to Aragon. Problem with this is Aragon doesn't share the children with my faction() and I forgot when I killed off Portugal, it would kill my wife. So, I had no choice but to adopt Captains in my empire. I've taken Spain and destroyed the Moor's. I'm moving into the Middle East now. I notice my family isn't very loyal outside my few true blood heirs. My Generals, Captains adopted and random adoptions haven't turned out so good. None of them are loyal. I mean none. My faction heir is almost full stats in everything, with max Chivalry. My King has high Authority and high stats in everything except command. It should be noted he has almost a full Dread bar too. What do I need to do in order to gain loyalty to my subjects? Should I be more careful who I pick?

Also, I'm having problems recruiting Elite units. Right now my War Council is centralized, which means only the heir and King can recruit elite units. The problem with that? My heir is my main General and my King can't recruit elites? I don't get it. My heir had full recruitment a few turns ago but I don't think my king ever has? I'm confused...and I read the submod forums with this mod. The only elite units I have are the ones given to me on missions. Both the heir(War Council member) and King only have average recruitment options right now. Nobody in my faction can recruit elites. How the heck do I get elite units? It seems as my empire gets bigger, the recruitment options keep changing and harder. Shouldn't it be the opposite? I like making armies more diversified but I'd at least like to be able to recruit one...

I currently have my King stationed in a powerful Fortress...trying to recruit good stuff. It should be noted my King is more administrative minded than military. My King(just checked) is apart of the War Council, except he doesn't have the Retinue for it. So, I have three members in(2 with Retinue). Also, my faction zeal is abysmal which means can only recruit professional units in a region with 90% Catholic. I think that is irrelevant right now since NOBODY has full recruitment or right to knight in my empire right now. Help would be great, thanks.

[Navajo Joe]

You opted to include BGR3 on the 6.1 patch, but have you installed the Data Zip, at the bottom of the first post of BGR thread in sub mod forum. This Data Zip fixes a recruitment problem, sadly it is a restart

[deuce985]

Yup, I installed the zip soon as I installed 6.1.

Pretty sure that isn't the problem anyway because I saw a few turns ago my heir had full recruitment ability...now he doesn't. I'm just trying to understand how the mod works. Does it penalize you more for being a bigger empire? It sure seems that way. My zeal is killing my empire with like, -3 command and -4 loyalty. I even seen one of my Generals saying they were waiting for the opportunity to kill my king...jeez. All of my adopted family has basically 0 command and either low loyalty or none.

I messed up marrying my princess to Aragon and then killing Portugal off too fast. I didn't get any seeds by doing so. My other two true bloods have a couple kids but not a lot...I had no choice but to adopt. Sicily just wanted to randomly attack me for whatever reason and all of a sudden Venice/Teutonic Order are pissed at me for some reason too. I need a more loyal family because I need multiple Generals to fight multiple wars now...

My spies went in and despite me having a bigger empire, I do not have the elite units compared to some of the AI's more powerful armies. On the previous turn I started to get worried because Aragon all of a sudden gave me lower rep with our alliance and I see France is about to attack Aragon. I have a lot to worry about on my borders and current wars...trying to fix the turmoil within my empire. If only the AI knew lol. Apparently, Sicily did because they gave no indication with a random attack. Instead, they hit me in a area where I'm weak and can't reinforce fast yet(I was working on that before they hit me) and now they're going to take two settlements because of it.

[Ichon]

The BGR mod adds quite a few things designed to slow expansion down. Your king should be able to recruit top tier units if he has the professional support staff ancillary. Normally he would also need War Councilor but as King he doesn't however your Heir needs both so... did you pass off one of those ancillaries trying to make room for something else?

Centralized recruitment is the final stage of power where only your King and Heir can recruit fully even if other generals have the professional support staff and war councilor ancillaries. Your other generals can gain limited recruitment rights but most of them can only recruit militia or lower. I believe any can still recruit mercenaries though.

Once you reach the centralized stage in BGR mod you really have to plan your campaigns carefully since only King or Heir can lead invasions. That means deploying resources ahead of time and possibly converting a town to a fortress or capturing a fortress first thing to gain access to higher tier units.

Unfortunately one of the aspects of this means you can't rely on your factions units as much as otherwise because even with careful planning the 11 turns spent waiting to recruit a single unit with one of your precious 2 generals capable of leading an invasion is too costly. I find myself doing 1 of 2 things; selling/gifting off unwanted parts of my empire to shrink ranking and allow more open recruitment for at least a little while to build up invasion armies then go on the offensive again. This works particularly well if you have already established a vassal faction to gift unwanted region to. The 2nd option is using mercenaries much more frequently. Since only King and Heir can lead invasions and your empire is surely large enough to not worry about governing every city most of your disloyal generals can be used as recruitment managers for mercenaries. Your loyal generals can stay and protect your borders as they can still fight on your own lands.

To make sure your generals don't run out of funds recruiting(which can happen quite quickly with no income from governing a city or capturing cities your best bet is for them to take command of a defending stack and defeat a large enemy invasion force. When you ransom or execute the prisoners your general gets a large part of that money.

If you plan far enough ahead you can ensure most of your less loyal recruitment generals have 9 thousand or more gold built up so you don't have to worry about this type of management. In the one campaign I have gone furthest with SSS 6.2 and BGR compilation mod I went from 20 regions to 45 before my recruitment generals starting running out of money and I was tempted to re-organize my empire. At that stage though I figured I could simply push on to 70 regions with only the King and Hier if I simply employed massive armies of low tier units. I got bored of that though and started a new campaign...

Also make sure you downloaded all the quickfixes for 6.1 there were a series but I think the final patch includes everything so if you installed the right one the problem you are encountering is as I stated above with ancillaries. BYG will usually answer promptly if you ask in the BGR thread in submods forum.

3 or lower loyalty is the place where you can't put a general in charge of a city or large army anymore... I had very frequent rebellions until I figured out as a large empire you don't really need as many generals as before if you use the AI management for your cities. Put a disloyal general in command of a full stack in a region where before the end of the turn you can move that army fully into a neighboring factions territory. When he rebels he is their problem and coincidentally lowers your upkeep costs and removes a disloyal general. Refuse most adoption requests unless the loyalty is high enough...

[deuce985]

Thanks for replying.

Here is the problem:

One turn ago, again, my King was open to full recruitment again. That turn I moved him to a powerful fortress with only about 30% Catholic support(in process of converting it now). The next turn he went straight back to average recruitment. My Zeal is abysmal and it says I need 90% Catholic support in a region to recruit "good" units. Does that mean that he won't go back to full recruitment until the region is 90% Catholic? Its still centralized. Also, I only had 3 War Council members. My King, Heir and one General. King is the only one without the retinue for some reason. Anyways, my War Council General was killed in a fierce battle...one that left only one stack of units alive. He survived but I guess the battle was too much for the poor bastard because he died of natural causes next turn. The War Council retinue was not passed on to anyone...why?

Can I increase the number of Generals who can get at least average recruitment? Any way to get more War Council members? I wish I could kill some of my Generals, they're annoying the hell out of me. Faction zeal basically nullifies any stat they had with like, -4 in everything...

[Ichon]

Thanks for replying.

Here is the problem:

One turn ago, again, my King was open to full recruitment again. That turn I moved him to a powerful fortress with only about 30% Catholic support(in process of converting it now). The next turn he went straight back to average recruitment. My Zeal is abysmal and it says I need 90% Catholic support in a region to recruit "good" units. Does that mean that he won't go back to full recruitment until the region is 90% Catholic? Its still centralized. Also, I only had 3 War Council members. My King, Heir and one General. King is the only one without the retinue for some reason. Anyways, my War Council General was killed in a fierce battle...one that left only one stack of units alive. He survived but I guess the battle was too much for the poor bastard because he died of natural causes next turn. The War Council retinue was not passed on to anyone...why?

Can I increase the number of Generals who can get at least average recruitment? Any way to get more War Council members? I wish I could kill some of my Generals, they're annoying the hell out of me. Faction zeal basically nullifies any stat they had with like, -4 in everything...

Yes if your general is in a region without the proper level of religious support he can't recruit. That is true of any level of centralization vs full recruitment. The main difference is the higher levels of religious support though I think that is the one part of the mod a bit hokey... I mean I've never had a situation where I couldn't get even 90% support very quickly especially with only 1 or 2 invading armies. 8 cardinals convert about 12-15% per turn on average that is only 6 or 7 turns to convert to 90%

It is slightly more difficult with Pagan since they have very low conversion rate but even then by the time such a high number of shaman still converts rather quickly.

Max is 3 war councilors at any one time no matter size of your empire though at full centralization it doesn't matter as much because war councilors don't add much at that point. Your King does not need war councilor ancillary but still does need professional training staff to recruit pro units.

You get war councilors assigned if you have at least 2 star general I think... though sometimes even lower than that. Your Heir also has a slightly increased chance of getting one if doesn't already have one.

[Byg]

Hi, just need to add that you don't need the Professional Recruitment ancillary if you are playing BGRIII (there isn't one) as it is a BGRIV feature.

BGRIII instructions a few paragraphs down Here

[deuce985]

Hi, just need to add that you don't need the Professional Recruitment ancillary if you are playing BGRIII (there isn't one) as it is a BGRIV feature.

BGRIII instructions a few paragraphs down Here

Thanks. I'm getting the hang of it now, great mod. I like having diversity. Like said above, you just need to work around it a little bit and you can still field a elite army...just harder to do and more time consuming(which it should, IMO).

[Ichon]

Hi, just need to add that you don't need the Professional Recruitment ancillary if you are playing BGRIII (there isn't one) as it is a BGRIV feature.

BGRIII instructions a few paragraphs down Here

Did you have BGR IV for 6.1 or that is only 6.2 release? Forgot the versions changed when I installed Win 7 and had to reinstall all MTW2 and mods...

[Byg]

Did you have BGR IV for 6.1 or that is only 6.2 release? Forgot the versions changed when I installed Win 7 and had to reinstall all MTW2 and mods...

There's a ready made BGR IV for SS6.1, 6.2 (via RRRC compilation) & there are also instructions to install it with most other kingdoms mods, with some effort.