User Guide

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Select the new vassal that you would like to cre-
ate by clicking on its shield. You will be asked
to confirm your action, after which the coun-
try is created and the ownership of the listed
provinces is transferred. More specific details
about vassals may be found in the Diplomacy
section of the manual.
Domestic Court
The second page of the Domestic Manage-
ment interface is the Court screen, accessed by
clicking on the crown symbol. This part of the
interface provides detailed information about
your current ruler and allows you to hire new
court advisors to assist the development of your
country.
Rulers
Each country has a ruler. At the beginning of
your game, this will be the person who histori-
cally controlled the country on that date. Once
this ruler dies, all future heads of state will be
generated randomly and given a name that is
suitable for that nation. While most rulers will
be male, there is the possibility that a female
ruler may occasionally rise to the throne. The
title of the ruler appearing at the top of the dis-
play will be appropriate to the form of govern-
ment currently used by the country, as well as
its region in the world.
Ruler Attributes
Each ruler has three individual attributes that
have implications for the country: an admin-
istrative skill, a diplomatic skill, and a mili-
tary skill. The ruler’s rating for each of these
is shown as a certain number of stars in the
interface, and the precise numerical value will
appear in a tool tip when you hover your mouse
over the rating.
• Administration:
This attribute reflects the
ruler’s overall ability to govern the day to
day administrative needs of the realm. A
high administrative skill will reduce the
cost to send merchants to the world’s cent-
ers of trade and improve their ability to
compete; decrease the cost to build prov-
ince improvements; increase the chance to
successfully establish and expand colonies;
increase the chance that a missionary will
be able to convert a province to your coun-
try’s state religion; contribute to the rate of
recovery from any losses in stability; and
will increase the speed at which you will
research new improvements in government,
production, and trade technologies.
• Diplomacy:
The ruler’s diplomatic rating
indicates how adept he is at dealing with
other countries. A high rating will help to
improve all of your relationships; increase
the number of diplomats available to be sent
to conduct negotiations; reduce the impact
of having a poor reputation; increase the
rate at which you recover from having a
bad reputation; make your spies somewhat
better at succeeding in espionage attempts;
and will reduce the provincial risk of re-
volt when you are at war for long periods of
time.
• Military:
Your ruler’s military attribute
improves the morale of your armies and
navies, and helps to accelerate the research
into new land and naval technologies that
will lead to more potent forces. It has one
further effect that we’ll talk about towards
the end of this chapter: a male ruler with a
high military rating will usually be a much
better commander when he decides to lead
an army in person.
At the beginning of each game, the ruler of
each country will be the historic figure who
led the nation at that time, and his or her at-
tributes are also an approximation based on
historic records. All subsequent rulers will have
randomly generated attributes.
Ruler Succession
As was the case historically, a ruler’s lifespan
is impossible to predict. Some may hold their
throne for many years; others may survive for
only a few short months before they die. Even
your initial ruler is unlikely to die on the same