What does loyalty/power of societal strands do, exactly?

[Vox Imperatoris]

I understand that the power of the peasants/burghers/clergy/nobles determines the kind of troops you get, but does it do anything else? Also, what exactly does their loyalty do? Is it viable to disregard the loyalty of a group, or do you need to keep them all happy?

 

[Lorehead]

It also affects taxes and the frequency of some events, such as the discovery and spread of technology. I haven't experimented extensively with the settings, but I've had success giving power to the burghers, since that gives me armies with no peasants (who'll break and run quickly, which scares the rest of my units), good tax rates and openness to new ideas. Another distribution that works well for me is 50% nobles, 50% burghers, for knights and about the best chance of teching up you can get.

Low loyalty can also cause rebellions. By the way, if you click on the rebel shield in a battle report, it will bring up the character sheet of the King of the Rebels. (What is he rebelling against?) In my game, he was Norwegian. You can conduct diplomacy with him, and even establish dynastic ties, which can give you another way to get back to his page. I once claimed his title and declared war on him, but, unfortunately, the game would not allow me to make a peace treaty. It might be possible to inherit his title, but I haven't done it and so couldn't tell you what effect that would have on the game.

 

[TempestDK]

If you want religious conversion in a province, it is best to give alot of power to the clergy (above 33%).

If you are going for cultural conversion, then burghers and noble power should be high (above 33%).

These then give positive modifiers to the conversion events.

Remember to give at least 5% to every class, or you will have revolts on your hands.

 

[Lorehead]

Remember to give at least 5% to every class, or you will have revolts on your hands.

I knew I'd forgotten something. Looking at province_power_events.txt, you need to give everyone at least 10% power in order to prevent all revolts. The rest of this post is fiddly little details:

Except at low difficulty. On difficulties below 3, the worst revolt events never happen, so you can prevent groups from revolting by taking away all their power. It makes a kind of sense. The base MTtH is 40 years, which you can more than double, for instance by building churches. Revolts at 5%-9% power are minor, though, and you might figure you can survive the prestige hit from the tougher version, too. If you're talking about manipulating the power values to optimal levels, then you should also be aware of the prestige exploits you can use if low prestige does cause a vassal of yours to break free.

 

[Melichai]

Is there any way to lock the sliders with all the fiddling around or is it simpler to just set them up by editing the save game file?

 

[TempestDK]

Is there any way to lock the sliders with all the fiddling around or is it simpler to just set them up by editing the save game file?

Well no ... since each click affects all of the other classes. So if you lock one, then you automatically lock them all.

Anyways, it is not that difficult to do, and it is usually not something you tinker with that often. I only redistribute power when I need them for specific event to fire, or if I gain some land, and the AI has given all power to the peasants (it likes to do that).