How easy is it to get good stats for a Leader, 100+ years after game's start?

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Etrs

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Mar 30, 2012
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So, I've made a couple of threads asking for advice, and what someone somewhere has invariably pointed out is that some of the problems I face stem from having a Leader with crappy traits/stats. And I can't fault them - yea. I usually end up with a Leader who's a mixed bad of sins and saving graces, who's usually good with two stats and horrible with the rest. The wife is usually unhelpful stat-wise, but at the time was a good pick (claims and alliances).

But what I find happens is, using the Ruler Designer, you get a guy who's 50 years old, good at usually two things with an auto-generated wife and two kids, who're basically average. I tutor the older one and give the other to a vassal who's opinion I need to raise. The older son inherits and that's when the game really begins. Let's say he has four kids, the first two you tutor yourself, the other two you send off to earn you brownie points, and then.... your leader doesn't die.

Now, the benefits to tutoring your own heir are self-evident: while you're both alive, your heir loves you and makes for an ideal vassal. When you croak, your heir keeps his stuff and inherits your stuff, creating a domino chain where valuable titles are kept in the direct line of succession under relatively constant player management.

But when your heir has children (these boys being now second in line, third being this child's uncle, the heir's brother), do you (the grandfather) tutor them, or do you assign their father to tutor them? And when I'm tutoring a boy, I find that most if not all the prompts amount to choosing a sin or a virtue - occasionally you can beat the arbitrary stat out of them, or encourage or discourage ambition, but other than that, I am dumbfounded as to how to cultivate Intrigue or Learning.

It seems that a 7 Virtue Allstar would have really terrible Intrigue, Learning, and Martial skills (but a high Steward and Diplomacy).

So, my question is: what do you guys think "good stats" are, and how would you the player go about cultivating those stats in an heir?
 
I find that the stats and traits of a ruler is not all that important, but their education is paramount. If you want a good income and good demesne limit, try getting someone with Midas Touched as your heir's tutor. When I start off with a bad ruler, try getting several sons and see which one is the best in stats and trait (or the one with least damaging traits) and kill off the rest/ grant them church titles so they won't interfere with your plans. Then find a wife who is also good in stewardship and diplomacy, and have some good traits to make sure your future generation won't suffer from crappy traits.

Apart from Stewardship, I haven't really seen the game changing effects of high Intrigue and Learning on your ruler.

Edit: Often I find it fairly difficult to pass down a really useful trait, such as Genius or Quick. For two of my rulers I have married a princess or even a courtier for their genius trait, yet several sons and daughters later, they are still genius-less. So I sort of gave up after that.
 
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I rarely use marriages on my direct heirs for claims I always marry for stats specifically Stewardship and Learning in that order. I often use the wife to educate my heirs too and would advise educating/picking teachers for all claimants that I can. With any luck you can manufacture content trait into some of your calimants and set them up with a Duchy next to a hostile neighbour or a Duke that doesnt like you much. The two "good" stats I always go for are high Stewardship followed by high Learning.

If you are using the ruler designer and want to min/max try picking; Fortune Builder/Thrifty Clerk, Patient, Quick/Genius, Depressed or Stressed sometimes I also take Wounded if im adding another beneficial trait, i never take sons etc and the above should leave you around age 16 - 24(ish). Get married and have 2 kids in quick sucession along with a wee war (you will win) and generally you loose the stressed and depressed traits. Its a gamble because you can also die a day after the game starts :happy: Eitherway that should set you up with a good base to then marry someone with a high stewardship stat and have kids that you can then educate with decent stats (keep it in the family).
 
what I usually do is marry a 3rd cousin or whatever (but of my dynasty) to a random super-stat courtier and then invite the family member back in court (if she is a woman) or if he is a man, the courtier will come.

Give your heir to be educated by her. He will turn out to have at least very good stats. Then you can educate your children yourself.





I also would recommend, if you are king or emperor, to not marry for alliances. At least for yourself. I marry based on stats and genetic traits (genius, attractive). If you do this long enough, you will end up with a family of genious, attractive, strong, tall children. I had once a child that had all these traits actually (and he was my 2nd son so my 1rst son had an "accident")
 
Really depends on who is around to tutor. I've had some FANTASTIC leaders just a few generations in, but some of their descendants haven't been as amazing (heck, my current King and his heir are only notable for their diplomacy skills). All it takes is some poor luck in stats/traits and a couple of early deaths in the family to insure the next generation doesn't turn out as well as the previous. Thank god my Norse German vassal family has had consistent 25+ Martial Jarls for the last century, lord knows we aren't getting by on my family's military skills.
 
So, my question is: what do you guys think "good stats" are, and how would you the player go about cultivating those stats in an heir?
Overall, traits that give opinion modifiers to your vassals are more important than the four primary stats once you control a larger realm, but for the primary stats I consider a score around 10 to be decent, a score around 15 to be good, and a score around 20 to be great. There are, of course, the exceptionally able individuals scoring 25+ - the highest I have seen until now is a Diplo 36 character, but those are distinct outliers. All stats are not created equal, so for my ruler having merely decent stats or even having one or two that is low is quite acceptable if it is paired with having good traits that'll help keep the vassals in check. (i.e. kind, just, gregarious...)

Think of it like this - good stats are (overall) most important for counts, good traits are (overall) most important for kings. :D

Mentor children/grandchildren that are likely heirs, try to get good traits. Only two at a time, so prioritize here. If you want to game the system and give them a specific education, assign them to a four-star with reasonable traits (and your own religion/culture) at 15, such that they'll get their mentors education at 16. Try to assign 4-start guardians with good stats and nice traits to everybody else that you can possibly influence the choice of guardian for. You'll reap the reward in the future from constantly having a better educated class of courtiers and vassals to rely on.

Spare women of your dynasty should ideally be married matrilineally to men with great stats, even if they are courtiers, to expand the next generation of your dynasty with above-average members.

For ruler stats, if you have a small realm stewardship is most important, if a large realm, diplomacy is much more important by far since while it is nice to have substantial holdings, you gain the vast majority of manpower, income, and in-game problems from vassals. Learning is nice for everybody and martial for those that fight a lot. Don't take a low martial ruler into battle unless you are willing to lose him.

Keep on a lookout for quick, strong, or genius children in the marriage/betrothing market. That son or grandson of yours that might end up important someday, why not betrothe him to a girl that shows promise already in childhood? Best done when both are children, but an age gap isn't that bad. Take your adult 17 year old grandson or courtier and betrothe him to a 9 year old if that's what it takes. She can die or turn out utterly horrible at 16, but odds are that you increased the odds of getting useful courtiers down the road... or possibly some stronger vassals or, who knows, a stronger leader.

Finally, succession law is of the utmost importance. How large a pool of candidates do you have for succession? How easy is it for you to change it if the chosen successor turns bad? Elective and Primogeniture plays very differently in that respect, to say nothing of Gavelkind and Seniority.

For the easiest time getting consistently great leaders, go elective. Of course, elective also makes good leaders more of a requirement, since it is easy for the occasional bad leader under elective to have his realm split up or face major problems, so as everything else, it is a tradeoff.
 
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Did anybody look into switching the tutor half way through? Or maybe a few times? Like: having your heir educated by a tutor who's very strong in, say, Learning and Stewardship and after some years switching for someone who's good at Intrigue or something else? I presume this should lead to at least good stats on all three. Yes, you get an opinnion hit with the first tutor, but then the objective of the exercise is to get good stats, right?
 
Did anybody look into switching the tutor half way through? Or maybe a few times? Like: having your heir educated by a tutor who's very strong in, say, Learning and Stewardship and after some years switching for someone who's good at Intrigue or something else? I presume this should lead to at least good stats on all three. Yes, you get an opinnion hit with the first tutor, but then the objective of the exercise is to get good stats, right?
Overall it is preferable to focus on a single primary stat. As for your own heir, controlling which traits he gets by educating him yourself is in most cases more important than him getting slightly better stats for everybody but the smallest of counts and dukes. You can always game the system and hand him over to a 4-star of the education you want him to end up with when he turns 15 (or as close to the 16th birthday as you want).
 
As for your own heir, controlling which traits he gets by educating him yourself is in most cases more important than him getting slightly better stats for everybody but the smallest of counts and dukes.

Agreed on this one - your point being clear in the previous post, but

Overall it is preferable to focus on a single primary stat.

...why exactly is it preferable?

Correct me if I am wrong (I just presume it works like this, do not actually know), but the situation seems to be the following:
There are 10 years during which a kido gets educated by a tutor. Pupil's stats "sort of" drift towards the tutor's. A 20 stat tutor has a decent chance of producing a close to 20 (same stat) graduate. A 10 stat tutor --- 10. That would give us a mean progress of 2 points and 1 point per year respectively. My logic is, that switching half way through (after 5 years) between two tutors with their respective majors being over 20 should produce a graduate with nice "teens" in both. The choice is ours, I think, and the preference depends on a particular case.
 
I usualy give my kids to a tutor who has very high overall stats and in the last year change the tutor to give them the education I want. After my heir is an adult, im always checking his ambitions, if he wants to be chancellor, even if he sucks at it, i will put him as chancellor for just a small period of time so that his diplo skill goes up, same with other stats and if he wants to amass wealth and I'm already with a nice income ill just send him the 500 gold.
 
...why exactly is it preferable?
Because for the vast majority of characters in the game, one stat will be much more important than the others.

If the person holds a position in court, the stat the job is matched to beats all other stats in terms of importance.

If the person is a ruler, having high stewardship is a priority if he controls a small realm, diplomacy if a large realm.

Well-rounded characters are nice, but my entire realm will be better off if there are good stewards, chancellors, marshals, spymasters, and lord's spiritural around for myself and my vassals to draw on than if there are a bunch of mediocre courtiers or heirs to choose from, who are equally mediocre in all their aspects.
 
Don't think I'm qualified to answer the original question, as I've never managed to successfully get my characters' stats up that high on a consistent basis. I do think it has a lot to do with breeding though. As for education, I educate as many of my dynasty members as I can, throughout my ruler's entire lifetime. Basic goal is to teach ambition to my heir, and beat it out of everybody else. And stay away from tutors with the Intrigue skill-traits, especially when educating pretenders or other kinsmen.

One thing I've noticed is that characters outside of your court tend to independently choose spouses with similar traits and beneficial stats. When you let them marry on their own without interference, I mean. Courtiers/counts from no-name dynasties tend to choose spouses with OKish stats, and don't care about traits. Your kinsmen will tend to choose well-statted spouses with traits similar to their own. I've been surprised to note that counts and dukes almost always marry for good stewardship scores. At least according to my observations.... So, if this true, educating for the more peaceful traits might very well benefit you in the long run.

I once played a lustful ruler who only married lusty wenches, and married his entire brood off to only lustful spouses as well. A few generations later, the vast majority of my kinsmen had the lustful trait, and they all started marrying each other of their own accord. I eventually had to quit because my entire dynasty was a mess of lustful inbred freaks. *sigh*
 
Did anybody look into switching the tutor half way through? Or maybe a few times? Like: having your heir educated by a tutor who's very strong in, say, Learning and Stewardship and after some years switching for someone who's good at Intrigue or something else? I presume this should lead to at least good stats on all three. Yes, you get an opinnion hit with the first tutor, but then the objective of the exercise is to get good stats, right?

I've had my Elusive_Shadow ruler educate his son for 9 years and roughly 350 days, then sent him away to be tutored by a Midas_Touched tutor (of different culture) and... he became a Midas_Touched and no culture change.
 
I once played a lustful ruler who only married lusty wenches, and married his entire brood off to only lustful spouses as well. A few generations later, the vast majority of my kinsmen had the lustful trait, and they all started marrying each other of their own accord. I eventually had to quit because my entire dynasty was a mess of lustful inbred freaks. *sigh*

Laughed out loud :)
 
Well-rounded characters are nice, but my entire realm will be better off if there are good stewards, chancellors, marshals, etc.

I was not talking about well rounded. I was talking about good in 2-3 areas, as opposed to just one stat focus. Coming back to my example with the same pupil being tutored by two different super-experts in their skills:. If I am right, and the skill growth is just a function of time vs the skills of the tutor (plus possible genetical predisposition, but let's skip that), you could maneouver a bit and get an almost "master of two trades". The pupil may (if the switch is done properly) continue to improve in the area of the initial focus, although at a slower pace, while getting a real boost to his other stat.

You seem to be building a very clear cut border between a small domain and a large one. Well, aside from it being not the only possible consideration while tutoring young people, there seems to be a rather large grey area in between: what is large in one game is not in another, and so on. At any rate, there are a lot of "moderate size" domains.

Trying to breed your chancellors, spymasters, etc. is good fun, I agree. And then you have only one stat to consider (traits, of course, too, but let's let those aside). Raising up your planned heir, especially if you betrothed him early on, might set a bit of a different perspective, it would seem. You may be considering the "half of her stewardship counts towards demesne size" thing, for instance. It may be worth it to consider switching your heir's tutor (or hers, if you can, or both) at one point, not to "waste" the extra stewardship points, if they cannot (reasonably) reach the threshold of further expanding your demesne, and switch to something else (learning, or whatever - all depending on the needs). And that's only one example.


I've had my Elusive_Shadow ruler educate his son for 9 years and roughly 350 days, then sent him away to be tutored by a Midas_Touched tutor (of different culture) and... he became a Midas_Touched and no culture change.

All cool. Just as suggested in Meneth's guide. Tutoring all of your vassals' heirs for the last two weeks of their adolescence also produces the nice + to opinion. Best done if your heir starts his first day after his 16th birthday by taking on tutoring two 15yo heirs of your most problematic vassals, and keeps at it till he needs to start taking care of his own offspring (if that's desirable). Kudos Meneth.
 
I always mentor my first 2 sons, then thier sons and possibley thier sons if I'm still alive, basically anyone I think might be king one day. Traits I really like to have are brave, kind, temperate and diligent, if possible, ambitious. I avoid anything that will give me negatives with all of my vassals, cruel, slothful etc.

All of the wives of these children are picked based on thier stats, if one of my progeny are lacking in something, I try to get them a wife that will compensate for it.
 
All cool. Just as suggested in Meneth's guide. Tutoring all of your vassals' heirs for the last two weeks of their adolescence also produces the nice + to opinion. Best done if your heir starts his first day after his 16th birthday by taking on tutoring two 15yo heirs of your most problematic vassals, and keeps at it till he needs to start taking care of his own offspring (if that's desirable). Kudos Meneth.

Do the vassals usually accept handing over their heirs for tutoring, even though they are already being tutored?