Soldiers Stats and Jobs

Recruiting new Knights
Each turn, two new knights will offer to join your army. It's usually a good idea to recruit them both. If your overall respect is low, only one knight will offer to join your army.

Additional knights can be acquired through Baron events:
 * Control over half the map area and additional knights will become available, for a small price.
 * Bribe enemy knights to reduce their respect for their own Duke. Reduce them far enough and they will join your army.

Govern
This is how good the knight is at governing a region and earning money. Typically, knights range from 10 (good) to 1 (poor). Most knights, and especially those with with a high govern stat, should be set to govern.

A soldier set to govern in a region that is already held by an enemy will revert to idle if you do not also raid and conquer that region this turn. If you are planning an attack, it is a good idea to include raiders and governors, so you can take the region immediately.

Spy
This is how good the solider is at sneaking around in enemy-controlled regions without being detected. If you are playing with fort rules, you'll need good spies to infiltrate a region on the turn you plan to attack it, to open the defenses. The higher a knight's spy stat, the more likely that he'll be able to pull this off without being discovered.

Additionally, a knight set to spy can reveal hidden protectors in a region and will reveal a supply wagon if it is present. Any knight can spy, but a knight with a low spy stat is likely to be discovered and attacked.

Respect
This stat shows how much respect this knight has for his Duke. A 10 is high and a 1 is low. knights with respect of 3 or lower can be liabilities. A knight with a respect of 1 or 0 may leave your army. A Baron with a low respect will skim money off the profits made in his region and any Barons with low respect might sell out your hidden supply wagon location to bandits. A knight with low respect that gets arrested may bad-mouth other members of your army (and reduce their piety).

The overall respect of your army is simply the average of all your knights.

Knights lose respect if your army isn't earning enough money or if they are defeated in combat.

To raise your knights' respect, you either need to earn more money, win more battles, or you need to throw feasts (check your Barons' Intelligence reports for opportunities). To earn more money, set more knights to governing or send low-govern knights on suicide missions to kill them off.

Some knights gain respect faster than others.

Brutality
This stat is how strong the knight is in combat. Brutality + Valor + Weapon = total power. 10 is powerful, 1 is weak. Your strongest knights will be poor governors, so you should consider using them to protect or raid. Protecting knights are invisible to your enemies.

Valor
This stat is your knight's experience in combat. The more fights he's in, the more valor he will gain. Knights don't gain valor if they flee from combat. Knights will retreat from combat if they are raiding and outnumbered and may lose valor.

If a Baron has more valor than your Duke, and does not have high respect for the Duke, he may challenge the Duke to a duel to the death. If you don't want this to happen, be sure to give your Duke plenty of opportunities to earn valor in combat.

Piety
This is how strong the knight's relationship is with the church. As a knight's piety drops, there is a greater chance that he will be prosecuted by the church and face banishment for his sins. the lower his piety when he gets arrested, the longer banishment he will face.

All European knights will lose piety if they raid other Europeans (so fighting Saracens would not lose piety). Knights with low Wisdom will also lose piety gradually over time no matter what they are doing (they tend to get into trouble in their personal lives).

A Baron can improve his piety by going on a holy pilgrimage (check in your Barons' Intelligence reports. Also, be warned that letting your Barons pillage the land can reduce their piety).

Wisdom
Barons with low wisdom will not generate some of the best intelligence events. But, strong fighters that have low Wisdom will only get opportunities to go on pilgrimages, if they are promoted to Barons. So, you'll have to carefully choose which Knights you promote to Barons.