Author: delra
Title: A Short Guide to Greatness for your King, Governors, and Generals




A Short Guide to Greatness for your King, Governors, and Generals Purpose:
Following the few simple written below rules will ensure the vast majority of governors and generals will grow the right traits for the tasks they are performing, allowing player's cities to grow much faster and earn more money as well as allowing player's armies to perform better in the battlefield. It's not necessary to follow those rules to succeed in the game, but it's very useful, especially on higher difficulty setting where AI gets huge boosts to morale, income and city growth. Chasing AI in the size of their cities or creating Arnor on time is pretty much impossible without having proper management staff. Finally, following and paying attention to the RPG element is a game inside a game and a nice way of adding to depth of the mod.

If you find any errors or want to add something to my tips, feel free to post here, I will be happy to fix the guide and give you credit/+rep for it. :-)

Universal:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
* Some characters are messed up when they grow up and there’s nothing you can do about it. You should make a selection right away – as well as make a tour and read all the traits of your generals and governors every once in a while – and those who don’t seem to be progressing the right direction should either serve as cavalry units in armies of their more skilled buddies, be sent on watch tower building duty or exiled to man border forts.
* Sons take from fathers. Usually directly – so if you mess up your first generation of generals the next generations will have a lot of bad lines of traits opened for them. One exception here is some sons of a drunkard growing dislike for alcohol, another is some of sons of cuckolds becoming prim – but based on long life span of characters in TATW, it’s best to pay attention to your characters since turn 1 and not let them go crazy.
* Never ever under no freaking circumstance go above 50000 money in your account. This will stain your governors with extremely negative lines of Corrupt, Expensive Tastes or Embezzler traits which will be passed down to their sons and reduce your incomes vastly for the rest of your game. Gift some of your cash to an ally if you must or better train more troops to burn your income.
* Letting your characters end turn with 100% movement points in settlements with Inns, Brothels, Vineyards and such will make them Drunkards, Gamblers, Perverts and Womanizers (and worse of all, Lady Gaga fans) sooner or later. You should either always take governors for a walk out of cities which have such buildings – or best raze bad buildings altogether after you’ve trained all the spies and assassins you need. Don’t let your characters construct such buildings– always exit the city for the last turn of their construction. Don’t let them get even low levels of these traits, they have a tendency of furthering themselves on their own so Social Drinker can quickly become an Alcoholic on his own. Inns add to population growth - so the third option here is to build them only in cities that you want to grow fast and either leave them ungoverned or "walk out" only governor of those few selected cities (for example Aragorn out of Annuminas).
* Adoption is a cause for many different psychological problems among your characters so try to not adopt „everyone that comes” to turn them into additional cavalry units if you want to avoid issues with your existing characters. Only adopt the best of the best, preferably people who have good trait lines already open – like Noble Ruler, Good Administrator or Born Conqueror.
* Finishing turn with negative balance might give your characters Cheapskate line of traits increasing trade income and decreasing building costs by whooping 15% - but at the same time increasing squalor preventing this governor from growing your cities. If you plan going bankrupt, you should do it mid-game when majority of your cities are developed to the maximum wall height and you need governors to build all the expensive buildings and multiply your income rather than grow population. It will have an added advantage of opening Kind Ruler and Just Ruler lines for some of your characters allowing them to reduce squalor and boost population growth. You will only need to sort them and move Cheapskates to big cities and Kind/Just Rulers to those small and still growing. I wouldn't risk it before around turn 120.
* Letting cities revolt and rebel might give some good traits like Disciplinarian but is risky and usually gives bad ones – so best not leave your governors and generals in places where population has “red face” and is about to riot even with their presence. There’s a good chance of dying in riots in addition to a chance of getting bad traits – not worth the risk.
King:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
* It’s better to have the King who is Respected rather than feared – if he’s feared, governors and generals with a lot of Respect will start getting series of Unappreciated and Disloyal traits leading to the slow degradation of their stats. You can counter this to some degree by letting them govern biggest cities or win battles – but it is best avoided by tying your King to governor duty where you can easier control his traits and letting him stay chivalrous.
* Assassinations will reduce your king’s Respect and add to his Fear – the gain here in majority of cases is very small compared to potential damage to your King’s reputation.
* Spying, bribery and sabotage aren’t as bad as assassinations. Deceiver line of traits even if you manage to open it for your King will increase his Authority at the expense of his Loyalty. So you are safe to use those. Instead of killing enemy general, try to make his city riot by placing spies inside and burning his loyalty buildings down with your assassins. Rioters will murder him for you and also deprive enemy of many buildings at once – as well as the whole city in longer run. Learn from the best, David93 made Minas Tirith rebel from Mordor.
Governors:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
* Cities of Governors in training should be set to Low Taxes all the time– opening and furthering the line of Strategic Chivalry traits increasing your governor’s Respect and allowing him to boost city growth rate – which is crucial on VH where AI gets 2% growth bonus and good governors can make up for it and allow you to keep up. Having Feared governors as opposed to Respected ones might give some positive traits here and there – but doesn’t boost population growth so is useless in the long run and such characters shouldn’t be considered for governor positions at all. 7 and more Respect = +1% population growth.
* Taxes should be switched to Very High when a building is being completed (for the last turn of construction every time a governor is present in a city) – this (depending on the type of constructed building) will make your governors Skilled Bureaucrats, Traders and Taxmen vastly increasing your incomes and law (happiness and growth) of your cities. As a habit, you should go through all your cities before you press “next turn” and change taxes to very high in all places where buildings are being completed. If you don’t, prepare for your governors to become Bad Administrators, Traders and Taxmen reducing your income by a huge chunk. You get a chance of increasing governor skill while training military units on High and Very High taxes – but (unlike for buildings) you don’t get a penalty for not doing so – so there’s no need to manipulate taxes when training armies – but also there’s an additional way of boosting skill when money is abundant by raising taxes, disbanding and training garrisons over and over again.
* Sending a governor on a tour to cities where important buildings like walls, roads, mines, ports, town halls or farms are being finished and letting him to govern the city on the last turn of their construction will give him a number of great traits. Good Miner, Farmer and Builder traits really rock at their highest levels – so if you have a number of smaller cities surrounding a big one (Edoras for example or Bree), governor from this big city should make a tour of surrounding lands and build there all the mentioned above buildings to get high levels of multiple good traits and use them in the biggest city after his return where benefit from it will be immense. It pays off more to have an amazing governor in the biggest city than a number of mediocre ones in small cities.
* Governors in training should be in cities rather than castles – you can’t manipulate taxes in a castle so your young governor will learn nothing there. Either send already grown governor to castles (7 or more Respect like Gandalf to Amon Sul) – or let governors from nearby cities finish constructions of important buildings (mentioned above) in the castles to benefit from good traits when they go back to governing their city.
* Always exit a city when one of Brothel line of buildings is being finished (Inn, Vineyard and such). Don’t let your governor be present when one of those is created or he might get multiple bad traits, including the dreaded corruption traits.
* Build markets. They might not give much income boost and won’t pay for themselves in money – but if you let your people govern cities without at least basic grain exchanges, they will become Bad Traders reducing your trade revenue by whooping 10-30%. Be careful about Merchant Banks, they might lead to corruption and in general aren't worth the investment.
* Art is good for governors. Build artistic buildings and let your early governors get Aesthetic line of traits. They will lose their command stars (which they don’t need) but at the same time it will make their growing up children Austere boosting your tax incomes up to 10%. Artistic buildings being built and in general being present in cities will also give your governors Cultured line of traits increasing public order. This is natural and very early for Elven characters, others have to wait quite a while.
* In general staying in very developed cities with 100% movement points will give plenty of good traits and ancillaries like Mathematician or Rhetoric related to education so fresh governors should always make a trip to your libraries before you give them a city to rule.
* Don’t raze buildings when you have 15000 or more money. This will make your governor look Unjust and reduce his Respect.
Combat generals:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
* The best way of training a great combat general is… winning battles. The more the odds are against him, the faster he will grow in skill. On the other hand, losing many battles, especially when your general has a bigger army will slow his growth in skill down.
* There are two types of generals. Those who have a lot of Fear and those who have a lot of Respect. Respect boosts your own morale as well as gives a chance of gaining many positive traits adding to own morale. Fear reduces enemy morale and also gives a number of good traits – as well as some bad ones reducing your own morale. A good combat general can excel with either of those, the only condition is to pick guy’s career path early on and stick with it. If you want a feared general, role-play and execute prisoners and exterminate population every time he gets to decide what to do. If you want a respected general always release prisoners (especially if you capture more than 80 and worth more than 1000) right away and always occupy cities rather than exterminating them. Ransom and Sack options are safe ones here, neutral for most part but using them won’t grow your general either way so should be avoided if you want to create a really special character. Generals who chose path of Respect rather than Fear should avoid attacking enemy with too big an army - having huge advantage over enemy will reduce their battle chivalry and add to their battle dread.
* The more you use your general in combat – the more hardened he becomes. So let your guy take some hits, he will get better in taking a beating after the line of Scarred, Brave, Bloodthirsty or Berserker traits opens – allowing him to take many extra hits before he dies. Not using your general in combat at all results in a variety of bad traits so he should always get some blood at his hands. If your guy doesn’t fight and loses a battle, he will become a Coward and similar reducing morale of all his troops breaking him beyond repair as a combat general.
* A general trained at Logistics will boost your army’s movement by up to 20% giving you a huge advantage in the strategic level. To train this skill you need to always use all the movement points your general has at his disposal. Don’t let your combat generals sit in cities – have them walk all over the provinces with their troops building watch towers and scouting potential battlefields. It will also boost your army’s overall morale in the battle field. One of the best traits you can teach to your general. Leaving your general with 100% movement points outside of a city may give him Scout trait adding to his sight range – but also may result in a number of bad traits like Cuckold so is risky business. Better send a spy with an army instead.
* When besieging a city, always build some siege equipment – and always three or more pieces of it (rams, ladders, towers), even if you don’t plan using it but rather starving the city out. If you don’t, your general will start Questioning Technology reducing his skill when attacking cities. If you do, he will become an Engineer increasing his command and build points (allowing to build siege equipment faster).
* Pillaging cities might be a very profitable enterprise. To open a line of Despoiler traits in your “raider” generals (guys you send on boats to sack Umbar for example) you should put them in a city and while your account is above 10000 raze some buildings in there for money. Then just use Sack option after taking enemy city to further it. Best used with Feared generals because it might lead to Unjust traits.
* Don’t let your best combat generals stay in very developed cities with many buildings related to art – they might lose their command stars as a consequence of a series of Aesthetics traits.

Agents:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

* Spies are best trained by "scanning" settlements, forts, agents and armies of your allies. There's a very low chance of death in such a mission (unless you go scanning an elite spy) while the reward is exactly the same as for getting into an enemy city. In extreme cases you can leave your spies in a friendly settlement for an extended period of time to maximize their espionage skills and then move to B&E in enemy cities.
* Assassins are likely to die in real assassination missions so those should be avoided. Preferred career route for them is to either kill enemy captains (leaders of armies without a general) where chance of success is much higher (captain has no security) and when that gives them enough subterfuge go sabotage buildings in cities with low defences (no enemy spies inside). Be warned though that killing people will give Fear to your king reducing his Respect and loyalty of his generals and governors who have a lot of Respect.
* Diplomats grow elite on their own - but if you want to speed it up, just keep gifting stuff to AI over and over again. Sell your map to an ally multiple times for example.