Court System

[Dunk87]

Can someone explain the court system to me, I have no idea really what to do with it!

It feels like a bit of a nuisance at this point dealing with it each turn.

[MinLeFrog]

agree

[J. P. Armistead]

You can suck up to some court officials - the First commander and Grand Vizier, via gossip, and gain points. You get one go each turn. each go gets you 20 points. When you have 60 points you can get them to make available a few elite units you can recruit anywhere, from whichever faction they are. You can do this once every year (6 turns), for each of them.
Well worth spending your court action point each turn.

[Defmonkey]

OK, the court serves several functions.

Most people use it to get free gold (Viceroy of Kush or through visiting temples by High Priest of Amun) or access to elite units (Through the First Commander and the Viceroy of Kush) There are other benefits for you to reduce costs for things like buildings and unit types from the various court positions. These are carried out with make request actions and usually cost favour (EDIT: I state favour here and below but mean Regard). - Other make requests include assassinate and embezzle which create new plots.

In order to go through court actions you need to earn favour, normally through the intrigue actions, you select a member of court you want to talk to you get favour by gossip (free action for a little bit of favour) or assist (costs gold for alot more favour) - you can also get by blackmail plot against a target or weakening an active plot against a target (by select an active plot and clicking the thumbs down button - this does use one court action).

Finally plots. You use these to increase legitimacy, assassinate, embezzle for money, blackmail for favour or usurp a position with threaten. These are very useful and the more of these you can get going at a time can be very strong with the goodies you receive. A plots success rate depends on its strength, you can strengthen a plot in multiple ways, usually by undermining the target of the plot by selecting your active plot and clicking button if you have the favour available. Or you can use the pharaoh to strengthen all your plots (if you have more than one) at the same time. Plot strength is based on your legitimacy vs your target and by its strength (level 1 to 5). Your plots will also be stronger during a civil war.

The pharaoh can be useful to make your plots stronger but to earn favour with the Pharaoh it usually costs you money. You can use strongarm to guarantee a threaten plot succeeds. this is useful if you are after a court position, You can use his is other assistants / helpers plot to increase the strength of all your active plots by 2.

There is alot of depth here and can seem very complicated. My suggestion is take up the Vizier court position. This position gives you 3 extra court actions a year (every 6 turns) this is helpful to allow you to play around with the court plots a bit and to learn the court mechanics.

Also, after reading all this, you don't have to engage with the court if you don't want to, it can be safely ignored each turn if you want.

[valky]

I personally like the Vizier, cause of assassinate and bonus court actions.
Good actions, that you can 'borrow':
- embezzle (Treasurer): 700Gold from some random dude
- elite units (Tier VI) from the First Commander (1 Khopesh, 1 Elite chariot, 1 decent bow unit)
- Reap profit (Viceroy)

Once you have a reasonable amount of Legitimacy, most actions can barely fail...but you can boost them with 30 regard to their next level. Blackmail is usually a good way to increase regard or the simpler action 'gossip' or if you swim in gold 'Assist'

If the Pharao has the crown equipped you can double use your bonus action of the Vizier - that is IMO borderline broken, as you get 8 (!) bonus court actions. (you also get a bonus action per use)
But even 3 bonus actions is a pretty huge deal.....really powerful position to aim for....

edit: in early game you can get 1100 gold, if you know what to do every Shemsu Hor
I don't like assassinate later on, as I want to 'discredit' the positions to my liking :)
It's a decent mini-game :Þ

[Dunk87]

Originally posted by Defmonkey:

OK, the court serves several functions.

Most people use it to get free gold (Viceroy of Kush or through visiting temples by High Priest of Amun) or access to elite units (Through the First Commander and the Viceroy of Kush) There are other benefits for you to reduce costs for things like buildings and unit types from the various court positions. These are carried out with make request actions and usually cost favour (EDIT: I state favour here and below but mean Regard). - Other make requests include assassinate and embezzle which create new plots.

In order to go through court actions you need to earn favour, normally through the intrigue actions, you select a member of court you want to talk to you get favour by gossip (free action for a little bit of favour) or assist (costs gold for alot more favour) - you can also get by blackmail plot against a target or weakening an active plot against a target (by select an active plot and clicking the thumbs down button - this does use one court action).

Finally plots. You use these to increase legitimacy, assassinate, embezzle for money, blackmail for favour or usurp a position with threaten. These are very useful and the more of these you can get going at a time can be very strong with the goodies you receive. A plots success rate depends on its strength, you can strengthen a plot in multiple ways, usually by undermining the target of the plot by selecting your active plot and clicking button if you have the favour available. Or you can use the pharaoh to strengthen all your plots (if you have more than one) at the same time. Plot strength is based on your legitimacy vs your target and by its strength (level 1 to 5). Your plots will also be stronger during a civil war.

The pharaoh can be useful to make your plots stronger but to earn favour with the Pharaoh it usually costs you money. You can use strongarm to guarantee a threaten plot succeeds. this is useful if you are after a court position, You can use his is other assistants / helpers plot to increase the strength of all your active plots by 2.

There is alot of depth here and can seem very complicated. My suggestion is take up the Vizier court position. This position gives you 3 extra court actions a year (every 6 turns) this is helpful to allow you to play around with the court plots a bit and to learn the court mechanics.

Also, after reading all this, you don't have to engage with the court if you don't want to, it can be safely ignored each turn if you want.

So basically I need to just click the gossip button to bank some points to spend on things? The gossip / request thing I have kinda got my head around now but the plots I am still a bit hazy on....

I kinda feel like this mechanic needs reworked a bit, clicking gossip every turn I wouldn't say is overly engaging. I think there is a system here to be developed but it needs tinkering... its not "fun" at the moment.

[Defmonkey]

Originally posted by Dunk87:

Originally posted by Defmonkey:

OK, the court serves several functions.

Most people use it to get free gold (Viceroy of Kush or through visiting temples by High Priest of Amun) or access to elite units (Through the First Commander and the Viceroy of Kush) There are other benefits for you to reduce costs for things like buildings and unit types from the various court positions. These are carried out with make request actions and usually cost favour (EDIT: I state favour here and below but mean Regard). - Other make requests include assassinate and embezzle which create new plots.

In order to go through court actions you need to earn favour, normally through the intrigue actions, you select a member of court you want to talk to you get favour by gossip (free action for a little bit of favour) or assist (costs gold for alot more favour) - you can also get by blackmail plot against a target or weakening an active plot against a target (by select an active plot and clicking the thumbs down button - this does use one court action).

Finally plots. You use these to increase legitimacy, assassinate, embezzle for money, blackmail for favour or usurp a position with threaten. These are very useful and the more of these you can get going at a time can be very strong with the goodies you receive. A plots success rate depends on its strength, you can strengthen a plot in multiple ways, usually by undermining the target of the plot by selecting your active plot and clicking button if you have the favour available. Or you can use the pharaoh to strengthen all your plots (if you have more than one) at the same time. Plot strength is based on your legitimacy vs your target and by its strength (level 1 to 5). Your plots will also be stronger during a civil war.

The pharaoh can be useful to make your plots stronger but to earn favour with the Pharaoh it usually costs you money. You can use strongarm to guarantee a threaten plot succeeds. this is useful if you are after a court position, You can use his is other assistants / helpers plot to increase the strength of all your active plots by 2.

There is alot of depth here and can seem very complicated. My suggestion is take up the Vizier court position. This position gives you 3 extra court actions a year (every 6 turns) this is helpful to allow you to play around with the court plots a bit and to learn the court mechanics.

Also, after reading all this, you don't have to engage with the court if you don't want to, it can be safely ignored each turn if you want.

So basically I need to just click the gossip button to bank some points to spend on things? The gossip / request thing I have kinda got my head around now but the plots I am still a bit hazy on....

I kinda feel like this mechanic needs reworked a bit, clicking gossip every turn I wouldn't say is overly engaging. I think there is a system here to be developed but it needs tinkering... its not "fun" at the moment.

Yeah it takes a bit of getting used to. I've found it to be quite interesting once you get into the flow of it.

The gossip button is the absolute bare minimum you need to do each turn if you want to engage in the court mechanic, but its the weakest action you can do (but it does reveal plots if that character you talked has started one). Its what you use if you have nothing else to do and you have no money. You will want to use the other options to earn Regard if they are available because you get a lot more return on your action.

The plots take a bit of getting used to. All plots are activated on Shemzu Hor, so you get 6 turns to set them up. There are two things to look at;

1) Plots started by other characters in the court
2) Plots started by you


1) Where other characters start a plot and you find out about it (usually through gossip - i played the game with Bay and he knows about all plots automatically)

When a plot is revealed, you can select it and you can do one of two actions. Encourage or discourage. This will weaken or strengthen the success of the plot. You gain a good amount of regard from the person who you support in the plot. This can be useful to weaken court members in some way, such as ensuring they loose legitimacy, get murdered etc etc.

If you play Bay, he has another ability where you can steal another characters plot for your own. This means you wait for the other court members to increase its strength and you steal the plot before the end of year (Shemsu Hor)

EDIT: Oh, if the characters start a plot against you then you can pay cash to make it go away.


2) Where Plots are started by you, you can select the plot you want to use on the character of your choice. Once it is set up you can strengthen it by selecting you plot and using undermine each turn, you need to have regard with the victim to do this.

You can also strengthen your plots by talking to other court members and use conspire in the intrigue actions list, this will reveal your plot to them so its stronger but the penalty for failure increases the more people you share the plot with. You can also use the Pharaoh to increase the strength of your plots (with the servants request) which is useful if you have multiple plots on the go.

Note there are special plots that you can get from the treasurer (embezzle) and the vizier (assassinate)


Hopefully the above makes sense re plots?

[Kendji]

Originally posted by Dunk87:

Can someone explain the court system to me, I have no idea really what to do with it!

It feels like a bit of a nuisance at this point dealing with it each turn.

I personally use it to gain elite units or units instantly. Also if I want to remove someone from that First Commander's seat I ask somebody else to assassinate him etc.

[Andra]

Quickest i can add something to this which has already been explained:
Think of the court system as the family tree/diplomatic positions from Attila, for example.
In Pharaoh you dont start as the leader of egypt, you start as one of many under the pharaoh and have to maneuver and fight your way to the top.
court is good for many things but legitimacy is the endgame.
Once you get into the role of Pharaoh you can assign your own generals to other court positions and take control of everything, and at that point it very much resembles systems from previous titles where you assign leaders and family members to important positions in your kingdom.

[i-dot]

Originally posted by Defmonkey:

Yeah like others have said... you don't have to engage it if you don't want to. You can switch off the notifications so you don't get the prompt to resolve it each turn.

With the above said.... I do think many people have not got used to or do not fully understand the court. It can be very useful... Most just go for units from the 1st commander or asking the viceroy of kush for a fiver.... these are not really that good options. If you want to succeed in court you really need to be using plots.... want money, start an Embezzle plot... that can get you up to 1400 gold and up to 9 legitimacy... much better than 200 gold. I have had as many as 4 plots on the go with nearly max success chance... can make a big difference.

Anyways, the court system doesnt have to be used, but there are big benefits if you can use it. I think suggestion above for auto assigning repeatable actions is not necessarily a bad idea... though normally you only need to do an action 2-3 times to get what you need.

Embezzle?