You may have also noticed that the list of characters on the faction summary screen is not only populated by your generals and admirals (commanders) serving you in the field, but also statesmen back home in your capital. In political terms, statesmen are the same as commanders and have Influence-contributing Gravitas, but unlike commanders they don’t have a presence on the campaign map. They hold positions in office until a newly raised force is given to them or until a new army or navy is raised and needs leadership. Additionally, a commander does not have to die to be replaced; you can replace him by selecting his army on the campaign map and navigating to the replace option in the ‘General’s Details’ tab. If you choose to put an existing statesman in a position of command over an existing military or naval force, a swap in roles will occur and the previous commander of that force will be removed from the field, becoming a statesman himself.
Recruiting an existing statesman into a military or naval leadership role has no financial cost. However, the candidate pool of potential commanders will frequently be populated with previously inexistent characters that do have a financial cost to recruit. This cost is not only for the creation of a new military or naval commander, but essentially also represents the cost of bringing characters out of civilian life and into political reckoning. Rather importantly, they will already have predefined allegiances towards certain parties and once recruited, they will appear on the faction screen to contribute their own Gravitas to their party’s Influence.
The main thing to remember is that both commanders and statesmen alike will always remain in party politics until their deaths, regardless of their presence in the field. The notable difference between them in the political arena is that the generals and admirals have the added advantage of being able to actively increase their own Gravitas by winning battles. This could be one possible reason why you might want to replace an existing commander with another – in order to help boost the Gravitas of a politically inferior statesman by giving him the opportunity to attain some military victories.
Many decisions to hire and fire commanders are choices with potential political ramifications, but it is often the case that circumstances will not make the choice so straightforward. For example, picture a scenario in which you are late in your campaign with a large and ever-expanding empire contributing to a high Imperium level. You are embroiled in a tough war, battling it out with another faction at the other side of the map, far from your faction capital. One of your top generals is killed in battle and you need to get another one out into the field as soon as possible to sustain your war efforts. But the next-best character – potentially the highest ranked commander in the candidate pool – is an existing statesman representing an opposition party. He is an ambitious character with high Gravitas; appointing him and giving him a chance at amassing more glory will possibly give his party greater Influence. It has the potential to drastically affect the balance, which is dangerously skewed against you. A civil war as a result of your waning political support is a real risk, and you are far from home where a coup d’état may take place. But you need good generals, so what choice do you make?
In reality, political actions could be used in multiple ways to get around this scenario, but this is just one minor example of a gameplay decision that can have some long-term political ramifications that might not be immediately obvious.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário