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korpah, there is a difference between a Minister (which you can assign one of your comps to) and a Steward (which is always a certain NPC attached to a location).

Having a minister with high skills does not do much for you, but a Steward with high skills is awesome to have... which is why you can schedule a training session with them to improve them. Just about every non-combat skill is important for them... but Engineering can be said to be the most important, since it determines how fast they can build stuff. Don't try having them build anything at a location you own until you have trained them up at least once to your current skill levels in your party!

-Loth

EDIT: ninja'd by Anddy

Hahaha... you are IN for it, my friend! LOL

<averts eyes>

"I can't watch.... it's... oh Good Lord, what have I done?"
-Loth

PS I draw some comfort from the fact that at around page 5 of this thread, MadVader and I posted very large disclaimers about not trying this kind of thing at home if you are new to POP. God, help that poor player... korpah needs you.

CleanWar said:

Crossbows are nice and easy to use, no need of profs or such thing.

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I am guessing you never actually tried to use one in POP. Every person that posts this kind of sentence is merely repeating what they have heard about this subject, which is nice for the most part, but in this case leads to confusion. Sorry, CleanWar, not trying to get on your case about this, but I have seen people post this kind of thing in this forum over and over again, and it's just not true.

FACT: Crossbows in POP are NOT easy to use, and do NOT shoot super-accurately, unless you mod the game files. You DO need high weapon proficiency if you want to be able to hit anything at any kind of range, and although you do not have to invest any skillpoints into powerdraw, you will most definitely want a high Horse Archery if you use a crossbow from horseback -- that goes for any ranged weapon in this game, be it a throwing spear, a bow... whatever. Having a high weapon proficiency in crossbows does not give you any kind of damage bonus, which is unlike every other weapon in the game that does get bonuses from high weapon proficiencies -- you will do as much damage with a crossbow at level 1 as you will do at level 50... there is no way to invest your time and skillpoints into making them better than they already are, although you can get steel bolts that add +5 damage and can pierce shields at close ranges. They are only marginally more accurate than a bow without any skillpoints invested, but as soon as the player invests some skillpoints into Powerdraw (it doesn't take much at all), the crossbow becomes quite inferior to the bow in every way.

This is why I modded my game files to make the crossbows have accuracy 90 instead of 85... just that little boost of 5 points makes a world of difference, and now the crossbow can be a weapon that stays decent enough throughout the whole game. They will not be as good as magic bows like the Noldor bow or the rune bows, but I can live with that. They are good enough for me.

-Loth

Go get 'em, korpah! I wanna see some heads on pikes by sundown!
-Loth

PS Good luck with that char build... it's... humbling. Try not to break your keyboard when things go bad. LOL

korpah said:

is it correct that the more horses you have in your inventory the quicker your party moves?

also the more cav units (units or companions with horses) the quicker your party moves?

also the less weighted stuff in your inventory the quicker you move?

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1. Yes, up to 6 will help, but all the horses do is reduce the speed penalty for when you are carrying around a lot of heavy stuff in your inventory. Note that it does not matter what kind of horses you have, or even if they are lamed... all that matters is that they are a horse.

2. Yes, the faster your units are, the faster your party will move. Having a bunch of cavalry makes you go faster than if you had the same amount of infantry.

3. Yes, carrying around a bunch of heavy stuff will slow you down, but see #1 above for how to reduce the penalty.

-Loth

BTW: -5 relations costs 810 denars to fix -- not 2-3k.

The Marleons area always has a Bandit Hideout nearby... it's not always in the exact same place from game to game, but it's always near Marleons somewhere. Those bandit spawns patrolling neat the hideout will be scaled to the player's level, and are a good source of starting cash. Also, the lighter orange Mystmountain bandits are easy to kill at low levels, too. Avoid the darker orange ones at first, as they are full of myst warriors and shamans... a little tougher. The bonus to fighting myst bandits is that they almost always have peasant hostages that you can rescue and train into elite fighting units -- Pendor Troops or Maiden Adventurers can come from refugees, farmers, and peasant women.

-Loth

LOL, nice post, SOVWAR! Good work on everything... I especially liked the end notes. Are your guys using the bulls-head shields as well as the surcoat?
-Loth

It's in the options screen, along with combat AI, combat speed, damage to self, damage to friends, etc.
-Loth

SOVWAR is right about all of that. Your campaign setting also matters. The harder you have it set, the higher relations you are going to need. If Sarleon is powerful and has a lot of properties, it's gonna take a really high persuasion skill on your part and a whole lot of grinding on him to get him to convert. For example, a relations of 28 on a hard campaign setting is not very high. I would try to get around 40-50 and then worry about trying to convert him.

-Loth

korpah said:

did you use bow or serieus nothing at all and only points in support skills?

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I had a winged mace for when I was ambushed on foot, a kite shield, and a spear for when I was on horseback. My STR started at 5 and stayed there until the end of the game at char level 32. My AGL was 7. I had no Athletics, Powerstrike... no fighting skills whatsoever. My Weapon Mastery was zero!

-Loth

Vahkn said:

In hindsight, how important was it to beef up your sheriff's parties? It appears that the combo of capturing enemy lords and rumor grinding did most of work, but it's hard to tell from a reader perspective. Would it have been possible without using the sheriffs?

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No... the sheriffs made it possible to gain numerical superiority when I took on Lords. What I did was wait for the Lord and Sheriff to engage with each other, and then I would hop in and help. This prevents 2 things:

1. All the Lords nearby were unable to help their friend.
2. My sheriff didn't die so fast, as now we were teaming up on the bad guys.

Having the Mega-sheriffs also prevented the singular enemy Lords from raiding my villages. When the Lord saw 200+ Zerks/Glads coming to kick his ass, he ran off like the little cockroach that he is. This left me plenty of time to do other stuff, like recruit more dudes and train them, eventually making another patrol. I was basically a sheriff factory, and when a marshalled force of bad guys came to try me out, I was ready for them.

But you are right in that the true formula for my success in this playthru was capturing Lords and keeping them prisoner. THAT was the heart of this whole thing... but I couldn't have managed it without my sheriffs. Having minor faction allies didn't hurt, either.

-Loth

I once got ambushed in town while carrying around ~500k and it cost me like 50k denars after I got my sorry ass beat down. That was exciting...
-Loth

Shingen said:

The realistic save choice is really starting to bite me in the ass, but I don't wanna restart again.

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There is a way... it's called "ALT-TAB".

Just alt-tab out of the game before it autosaves, and you can end the game without saving by closing the program in windows and restarting. You will pop back up in your game at the last autosave, which is usually either the last time you fought a battle or the last time you left a town or village.

-Loth

I think maybe the death cam troubles has a lot to do with your system... I only ever have issues when I use the minimap. And when I do... it goes freakin' haywire! LOL the camera loop-de-loops like a hundred times before calming down and acting normally.

-Loth

Ah, my bad, then... I completely misunderstood you, MV. I thought that patrol limit was about ALL units that patrol. It's the sheriffs of all flavors that share one pool of spawnable sheriff patrols, then. I assume that there is a different limit set on how many bandits spawns there can be at any one time? That makes sense.

Sorry for the confusion!
-Loth

LOL Dude... you're the one who told me about the patrol party variable! So you were just messin' with me before?
-Loth

There is a global variable that limits the number of patrolling parties. So, yes... if you are at that limit, killing a bunch of little bandit spawns will make room for Noldor patrols to spawn. Keep in mind that Noldor parties are more rare than the other types -- I think 50% more rare is the right number. So you are hardly ever going to see more than a couple of them at any one time... they just don't get around as much as the other minor factions.

-Loth

noosers said:

You don´t mix polearms in for the their damage, but for their stopping power. A horse which gets speared rears - and becomes an onbstacle to the following cav which loses its main advantage - momentum - over the infantry. And once that happens, it´s bigtime chopchop and kebap sluice for the cavalry.

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This. This is why you want some warriors mixed in with the bladesmen. A spear can stop any charging horse in its tracks... bladesmen don't ever have polearms, and get run the hell over.

-Loth

Shingen said:

That's a good plan, 'cept for Ithilrandir is roaming around the Laria plains chewing up all the Jatu.

I guess I can kite Wolfie over to the Dread Legion. It has like 400 something. Will Wolfie fight Heretics?

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I know the Noldor won't attack him... the Snakes I am not so sure.
-Loth

EDIT: The Dread Legion is Snakes, BTW... if you meant "Three Seers" for the Heretics, I'm not sure about that one, either. Sorry!

1. The death cam thing happens when you use the backspace minimap, I've noticed. No fix that I know of for that... yet.
2. The village Elder Daughter bug is in native, and it's being looked at, IIRC. The next WB update may fix it, so the POP team doesn't have to. They are aware of the problem.
3. Empire Armored Pikeman causes a hiccup -- I think I may have seen that happen in my games, too... it just kinda pauses for a second or two, right?
4. Infantry not charging... hmmm... can't say I've ever had that one. Are you sure that you didn't have just cavalry or archers selected with the minimap up at the time? Whoever you have selected in the minimap takes priority over hotkeys, and you can issue a hotkey charge with the minimap up and it will say "Everyone" even when it isn't "Everyone" you have selected.

-Loth