Constant 'I could be a better...' events

[qvcatullus]

I was reading the stickied post on these events, so I already know that they can work in somewhat unexpected ways. But I think I have encountered a genuine bug with these.
I just got CK for my birthday (happy birthday me!) and have been playing the de Hauteville family. Now that Roger Borsa is King of Capua, he's started getting 'I could be a better (whatever)' events every couple of (game) days. I get them for several different positions in the court -- I know I've seen several stewards and spymasters. They come from different people who do not seem to fit the standards at all. My spymaster has an intrigue of 11, and I have one courtier with 3 intrigue who continues to insist on the event. I also checked for the traits like proud which sometimes make them overreach themselves, and didn't see anything like that. One of them was selfish, another was trusting, so on and so forth. The same person will often make the same demand just a week or so after getting paid off to shut up. I'm spending all my money on these fools, and they don't show signs of stopping.
I've saved and exited, and have not yet tried loading the save to see if this persists after the save. I can do this if necessary once I have time to play.

I am playing with the 1.04a patch, I believe. Not the beta one. The revised 04 patch.

 

[unmerged(21937)]

Possibly you created yourself a king title (Naples, right?) and didn't save and reload after doing so. You should always save and reload after changing your primary title (like you always do when going from duke to king). If you don't do so, you're bound to get in trouble and I'm quite sure it's the cause of your problems with this event as well. Try loading the save and if it persists, it could have been a real bug.

Of course it's more or less worthless to go back to 1.04a to find this bug and squash it, since the events in question have been redone in the beta patches and so on.

 

[unmerged(6777)]

ACtually, you're no more likely to get these with the beta patch because the direct sons of the ruler (and profficient daughters at times) will now be vying for those pretigious court postings even if they have rather lousy stats compared to a generic courtier who currently holds the posting.

Keep in mind that you can simply refuse the event since I believe I recall that the 1.04a version of those events simply result in a loyalty hit for the courtier you refuse. If you do so a couple times he will just leave your court in disgust, but with no other particularly negative side effects. It's just one of those joys of being the king...people toadying up to you and spamming you for a job.

 

[qvcatullus]

I saved and reloaded immediately after creating the king title -- I had read already about the difficulties that can cause. In addition, I'd heard that there can be some troubles with determining your 'primary title' until your son inherits, but this is the heir to that created title, so he should be clear of that. So I don't think it's the save and reload trouble. I just got the game, but I've been reading the forum on CK for months, so I've picked up a few of the tips for keeping things clear.

Mr. T. -- the problem is that I'm getting them constantly, over and over again, with many different people in my court. I think that this is WAY outside of the intended mtth -- Cat Lord's write-up says it should happen every few years, and I'm getting it every few days. If I rebuff them, I'll have no court left. I'm already short on courtiers, since this is my first game of CK and I'm getting the hang of it (supposedly) as I go. And I don't have nearly enough money to keep paying them off. I had about 300 in my treasury when this started, and it's getting close to zero, since I'm paying 10-15 at least once a week.

Anyhow, I'll be reloading that game in a bit, and I'll see if the problem persists.

 

[unmerged(6777)]

You certainly shouldn't be getting spammed by these to such a great degree so either you are incredibly lucky and have a court full of übercourtiers (super-high stats) or you're maybe doing something incorrect when you appoint them.

Let's check....

1. When you next load, bring up your ruler's character screen and look at the four principal stats in the upper right part of the screen. Beside each stat you will have 2 numbers: one regular, and one in parenthesis. You have substandard courtiers appointed if the number in parenthesis isn't at leaast 6 or 7 (and preferably 9 or 10) points higher than the other number. Any other courtier in you court who is currently unemployed and has higher stats is going to be asking you for a post.

2. If the numbers in parenthesis are the same as the numbers not in parenthesis then you're not appointing your courtiers correctly. Remember that you need to select the courtier, then use the drop-down box to select the position you want to appoint them to, and then you have to click the "appoint" button. You should see the appropriate little symbol added to their portrait and their description should now say "marshal/chancellor/steward/spymaster/chaplain" instead of "courtier". Chaplains and marshals must be male.

3. If you're doing that correctly, is it possible that you're appointing them based on the wrong attributes? Marshals need high martial stat, chancellors need high diplomacy, stewards need high stewardship, and spymasters need high intrigue. Chaplains are a little different...just make sure they have the right education and at least a tiny bit of piety and you will probably be okay, although if someone comes along with the right education and higher piety he may want the job too.

4. If that's all fine, and you're using the 1.04a patch, then the only other reasons that a courtier would be asking for the job are either (1) he has a higher stat in that office's primary stat, or (2) he has a very high score in that stat (13+ iirc) and wants a job, even though your current officer has higher stats. If it's the former case, change courtiers. If it's the latter, you're most likely going to have to say goodbye to one of them since they will continue to jackey for the job.

If none of the above help, compress the save game (rar or zip) and e-mail it to me with details of what ruler you're playing and either give me a link to this thread or remind me what I'm supposed to be looking at (I get quite a few emails so I may not immediately know what I'm supposed to do with it otherwise). I'll take a look and see if I can spot what the problem is. Since I'm kinda busy, try to make this the last possible alternative when you've exhausted all others. Thanks.

(mail if you need it is: chris.stone at rogers.com)

 

[qvcatullus]

I think I'm doing the courtiers correctly. I figured out the thing where you have to hit appoint pretty fast -- I forgot to do that a couple of times, but that's not really a problem any more.
The increased traits for the ruler are showing up correctly. Roger Borsa has (I think) 7 martial on his own; with Serlo as marshal it bumps up to 19 because Serlo is awesome. And I also think I understand how the work -- marshal needs martial, chancelor diplomacy, steward stewardship, and spy master intrigue. No idea what the diocese bishop is for, but hey.
And as I mentioned before, the constant stream of events was a little strange, even if I had really bad courtiers; it sounded like it was still outside the mtth that was programmed in.

Anyway, when I reloaded the game, the problem did not persist, so I assume that it must have bugged in the memory of the game but disappeared with a save/reload. So not a huge deal; I'm just curious now about what might have caused it.

Thanks for the help.