Governors & Generals early game

[Wehr Wulf]

Hello everyone <33

Im starting a WRE campaign and Im curious how the experts (you guys!) deploy your governors and generals in the opening turns.

TL;DR -> On turn 1, who do you select as governors/generals & where do you put them?

For example, would you place your faction leader into a Governor role? If so, would you place him in the capitol? Or would you place him in a place like Magna Gracia since itll be a high income province? (IDK if thats true, I read that more ports = more income).

Im wondering if I should place family members as governors, or keep them as generals. I guess you want your family to be getting the most action for higher influence, so maybe early on use your faction leader and family as generals to fight endless waves of barbarians, then later move them into governor seats?

Finally, what are the best skill choices to chose for governors/generals? Overall they dont seem to really make a HUGE difference, but im sure if theyre stacked right they do make a big difference.

A HUGE THANK YOU for your time and help <3
xoxoxox

[Anisvara]

You should give your leader a governors office, then he gets more gravity. He has a bad trait. You can keep him, he is young. The abilities (traits) are random (if not scripted as for the leader and Stilicho). Any small difference counts. There are characters better for general others better for governor. You see it when you inverstigate the characters

[Hark]

Honorius makes a great general because he's very young. That negative trait, I forget what it is something level 1 like "Dishonest" or w/e, can be removed by walking into towns that you have +public order. However that triggers off RNG so don't expect it to be like, second turn or anything. Anyways I'd turtle up along the Rhine and Danube, leave 1-2 armies around Gaul to spank any barbarian stacks that get through that river line. Don't worry about the East, just consolidate and hold the line. If it's too much then dump some territories at the start.

[Anisvara]

Thanks for the advice to remove this bad trait. I played 3 times WRE. And always I got more aggressive and the game got easier.

[Anisvara]

The mainpoint is, that you recruit two priests in Taracco and the build down all useless buildings, churchs, quarries, to get money and free slots.

[MiKye200]

You definitely want your leader in a governing role.
If employed as a general he'll need to be VERY active to gain anywhere near the quantity of influence he'll gain automatically as a governor.
Same goes for sons.
Also, give family members the +2 influence item wherever possible.
Family can be used to increase loyalty of generals and gain support for the leader.

Playing as Rome, east or west, the building priorities are:

Sanitation: most important, preferably in the main city, something that confers sanitation and fertility to all towns; Reservoir is my favourite.
Food: check the provinces list for those provinces suffering food shortages.
Happiness: not overly important as rebellions are a good way of training up nearby armies; get a church building in every province to free up your armies.
Upgrade towns: when you get to lvl 2 and 3 towns you have a fighting chance at beating off a major assault. Otherwise you'll need a lot of small, strategically place armies.
Money: get a few moneymaking industries going. Tanneries are a good choice for agricultural towns with livestock. Wheat is not always the best option, unless you really need the food. Livestock makes more cash.

Have the growth edict going for all provinces not building or raising troops.
Playing as East Rome, switch to the build edict the turn BEFORE you build as you can save a LOT of money that way,
Same for raising troops; switch to the +10 morale the turn BEFORE you raise troops.
Look for generals who have the special skill for raising troops; also give them the + infantry and + missile items and use these generals to raise high skill troops and distribute them to other armies.
You can even temporarily give these generals jobs as governors as their skills will go up more quickly, then switch them over to generals later when the + troop skill items appear.

Playing as East Rome, make sure you have a small army in the towns along your eastern borders, and a navy in the northernmost town(forgotten its name) as you will likely be attacked there soon after start.
Same goes for northern towns in Thracia.

Btw, playing as East Rome, the town with gold in Thracia can be defended on the first turn: combine troops in the northernmost army(they are weak at half strength) and hand off to the main army at that town, and raise some more troops right away with the army that handed off its troops(you'll need them soon).
You'll need an extra army in Thrace asap.

Starting strategies for WRE will depend on what areas of the map you intend holding.
Britain, Spain, Italy, Africa and lower Gaul are definitely holdable early.

Rome(west and east) is not that hard to play, even without mods.
I'm well into a East Rome campaign played on hard and haven't lost even one town.
Rome east is a very fun and challenging campaign.
Rome west is more challenging as there are more enemies and a wider distribution of weak provinces.

Edit:
Regarding skill choices for governors and generals.

I find Cunning to be a good choice for a general as they gain access to night battles easier(no reinforcements for enemy).
And of course those with troop skill bonuses for recruitment.

As most of the early troops are infantry, go for those skills in the right and work down that side, and for a cunning general, wherever the skills show up as a + to Cunning.

For governors: food, construction discount and lower Corruption % tend to be my priorities; especially food early on.

And of course, agents are VERY important, especially Priests and Veterans.
Build something to produce these asap, and put a governor in that province with the + bonus to agent skills.