Lords

Lords are the characters that can be controlled by players and can be ordered to do a variety of actions. Lords are listed on the top of the screen, where they will have a green, yellow or red background depending on their Mood. Lords can be obtained by childbirth within the family or from freelance lords.

Characters with the age 0-13 will be children. Children start without skills but will randomly increase them every day. They can also gain positive or negative traits during their upbringing, especially the more they are educated.

Until the age 21, lords gain double experience from lessons.

Lords can visit each other's cities. Treating them well can lead to them offering to increase skills. Alternatively they may be kidnapped but this has consequences.

The relation between two kings affect diplomatic relations between their cities. Kings are also biased against women on the throne and women on the throne also cannot marry so their children will be bastards.

Sometimes freelance lords will arrive with the Holy Caravan. Freelance lords can be hired for 10 days for a price of Holy Rings that scales with the hiring lord's Persuasion skill. While hired a freelance lord will function like any other lord.

Lords who are unhappy for long enough may experience a nervous breakdown.

Skills

Every lord has 8 skills, which determine their effectiveness when undertaking tasks and are increased by training. Children gain more experience from training.

• Manners provides a significant bonus to relations and interest. However, a significant difference in skill level can lead to rejection between lords. It is increased by learning Rhetoric.
• Trade determines the effectiveness of trading goods. When trading on the global map, each point of Trade skill difference increases or decreases prices by 3%. It is increased by learning Economy.
• Persuasion determines the effectiveness of actions related to communication and influencing other lords, including certain deep conversations. It also affects the effectiveness of sermons. It is increased by learning Rhetoric.
• Intellect determines the speed of acquiring knowledge, the speed of writing books, the likelihood of insight, and the probability of winning dice games. It is increased by learning Philosophy.
• Management determines the amount of additional production when the lord is assigned as manager. It is increased by learning Economy.
• Teaching determines the amount of experience transferred during teaching. It is increased by learning Philosophy.
• Combat gives a chance to evade an enemy's attack based on the difference in skill level. It is increased by learning Warfare.
• Command determines the magnitude of the mood, and thus bravery, bonus for warriors in the commanded army. It is increased by learning Warfare.

Personality traits

Every lord will have a number of personality traits, which affect how the lord behaves.

Trait	Effects	Reason
Unattractive	-10 interest from other characters
Attractive	+10 interest from other characters
Beautiful	+20 interest from other characters
Difficult childbirth	Increased chance of dying during childbirth	Inherited
Early balding	High chance of experiencing baldness earlier than usual	Inherited
High fertility	+30% chance of getting pregnant	Inherited
Low fertility	-30% chance of getting pregnant	Inherited
Mental impairment	Has the "Joy of foolishness" thought (+8 Mood) -50% experience from learning	Inherited
Calm	All nervous breakdowns are light	Happy childhood
Courageous	Higher threshold for bravery	Happy childhood
Empathetic	Social thoughts are enhanced	Happy childhood
Monogamous	Falls in love only once	Happy childhood
Strong will	Works when unhappy	Happy childhood
Resistance to addictions	Lower chance of developing dependencies	Happy childhood
Cynic	Social thoughts and thoughts about the death of loved ones are weaker	Unhappy childhood
Envious	More prone to feeling envious towards others	Unhappy childhood
Gambling addiction	Gives a bad thought if the lord did not play dice games in a while Thoughts on winning and losing have greater effect on Mood	Unhappy childhood
Lustful	Sex need becomes unfulfilled twice as fast	Unhappy childhood
Nervous	All nervous breakdowns are severe	Unhappy childhood
Tendency to addiction	Higher chance of developing dependencies	Unhappy childhood
Anxious	Always wakes up during a home invasion	Experienced a home invasion or captivity
Ascetic	No thoughts from lack or excess of Holy Rings	Long time fanatic
Devout	Always fanatic	Nervous breakdown or someone close passed away
Substance aversion	Hates characters with addiction	Someone close has an addiction

King traits

Kings start with a trait that determines what other kings they will like and dislike.

Trait	Likes	Dislikes
Defender of Order	Kings who destroy bandit camps	Kings who tolerate bandit camps in their provinces and interact with them
Greedy	Kings who have twice more Holy Rings than themselves	Kings who have twice fewer Holy Rings than themselves
Liberator	Kings without slaves	Kings with 50% of population as slaves
Religious	Religious kings	Agnostic kings
Sycophant	Suzerain kings	Vassal kings
Supporter of Power	Kings whose armies are twice bigger	Kings whose armies are twice smaller
Scientist	Kings with higher Intellect skill than themselves

Skill traits

Skill traits will only function after the lord raises the required skill to 15 or above.

Trait	Effects	Skill
Charismatic	+15 interest from opposite sex characters and can freely visit enemy cities	Manners
Combat instructor	Training warriors at the Training Ground gives double experience	Teaching
Defender of the city	Doubles the bravery and pain threshold of the commanded army	Command
Diplomat	Lord can convince enemy kings to forget all grievances and return to normal level of relations	Persuasion
Forecaster	Every Holy Caravan arrives with a notification about upcoming prices	Trade
Head chopper	Higher chance of decapitating opponents if equipped with a weapon	Combat
Sharp-tongued	When in charge of the Chancellery, clerks give half of this lord's production bonus to managed buildings	Management
Poisoner	Can attempt to poison someone by command or own will If successful nobody will know and if not successful the victim may engage in a fight to the death The chance of success depends on the difference in Intellect skill between the lord and the victim	Intellect

Prisoners

Prisoners are lords that have been kidnapped. There are three ways to kidnap a lord:

• Guests can be kidnapped via the Capture action.
• You can order the kidnapping of a lord from a neighboring province.
• Unconscious lords in a defeated army will be kidnapped by the victor.

Prisoners start with a loyalty of -100. If loyalty is raised to 0 they will join the city and will no longer be prisoners.

Unhappy prisoners will try to escape. This can be prevented by blinding the prisoner but this will greatly limit their capabilities.

Prisoners can be assigned to any action except military ones.

Prisoners can be returned either by paying a ransom or by defeating the kidnapper.