Building up Dread

[Naja]

I love having dreadful generals. I find it much more effective to have enemy units lose morale than my own troops gain it (chivalry - pff, who needs it! ).

That said, I'm not satisfied with the rate that my generals are becoming dreadful tyrants. What are some practical things I can do to build up their dread ratings?

I always choose to exterminate cities and execute prisoners. I've noticed that using assassins a lot also makes your king a bit more dreadful. Some ancillaries (like the adultress) also can build dread, but you can't really control that.

Other than the strategies I've tried out, what else can I do? Destroy churches while one of my (prospectively dreadful) generals is in the city?

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Hmm, never really thought about the "Dread" factor, but now that you mention it, it does have a lot of benefits (like totally changing a public order 50% city quickly to 100%+ because of your scary general ), I guess if you constantly use sneaky subterfuges (obviously only applies to your King) such as assassins and the like and develop a reputation of being a killer, I guess that's one way, but I can't really think of other ways of building up dread other than the obvious kill/slash/maim/execute tactics.

[Endeav]

Assassins really build up dread. I didn't do this intentionally, but my King Louis the Chivalrous of France with 10 Chivalry when to King Louis the Malevolent with 10 dread after I killed the pope a few times =/

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In my English campaign, I pretty much made a Medieval version of the MI6 with assassins around everywhere to "conveniently" put away any person that would pose an inconvenience. My King got a "Master of Assassins" retinue (or trait, I forget) which added dread.

Gotta love them assassins, especially when it comes nearing the time when the 'ol Pope kicks the bucket.

[Fenris]

Just execute every prisonner you take hehe, and probably that sacking and exterminating populaces raises it too, but I'm not sure about that. Would be kinda logical though.

[Revan The Great]

Sacking doesn't. Sacking is like Ransoming prisoners, it goes neither way. I've had Chivalrous generals conduct whole campaigns sacking several cities and not lose a single chivalry point.

[Venom]

Is there any real reward in building up Chivalry instead of Dread? It's much harder to do and Dread provides benefits of its own.

[villain4hire]

Kill and kill. Don't sack or ransom. Execute all specially if they're kings. Most my generals have full dread its great. Although its like easy mode cause the enemy routes faster and its in vh mode.

[munrock]

Dread is less rewarding because it's more advantageous to get.

If you go for Dread, your enemies die more, and cities are easier to take due to execution and extermination. If you go for Chivalry, your enemies live to fight again and settlements - especially ones with differing religions - take much longer to settle down.

However Chivalry makes more money in the long run. On the battlefield the +morale to your own troops is equal to the -morale that dread does to enemy troops. In the cities, though, public order is affected in the same way but Chivalry gives a population growth bonus.

Also, once you get Chivalry maxed you can occupy cities instead of sack or exterminate and you get no problems. This is great for taking large cities as if you take it with a dread general it takes ages to get back to full health.

Basically I go for dread until the 3rd generation. Dread is good for establishing a kingdom but Chivalry makes it prosper a lot faster.

[Revan The Great]

There've been times I don't want a big population. Once a city is at the highest level and I can build all the best buildings i'd much rather have 18,000 tops as opposed to 25,000+. Much easier to manage.

[lawngnome]

More people = More taxes.

Money!

[Endeav]

I built up Chivalry on all my Generals when I was playing as France. It just made the game seem harder, plus the growth bonus in cities is a pain on squalor levels, and increased taxes aren't THAt noticable. Plus releasing all my prisoners all the time just meant more troops to fight again.

Think I'll be doing dread on the rest of my campaigns, -morale is a lot more handy than +morale (especially if you're using heavier troops)

[Naja]

Think I'll be doing dread on the rest of my campaigns, -morale is a lot more handy than +morale (especially if you're using heavier troops)

-Morale is also much more useful when you have a 20 stack army full of fully upgraded Chivalric Knights led by my murderous butcher of a king.