Advisor strategy

[MtnPatriot]

So what strategy do you use for the advisor positions? In my first trial games my initial advisors happened to be the highest CAP people in my cabinet, so I assigned them according to their skills vs my weaknesses, and kept them advisors. Of course they became masters, basically overshadowing their "superior." Would it have been better to assign them outright to their best suited positions and have a relative scrub as advisor?
How do you use the advisor position? Super skilled jack of all trades, jumping around as needed? Weakling hail-mary backup? Dedicated middling assistant? Obviously it depends on the scenario, but I'd love to hear everyone's general thoughts on the position.

[ramnblam]

The only time I use advisors is assigning them the job that later they will be moved into a council or governor position. I largely ignore them as I couldn't be bothered checking through there stats on decisions.

[eddieballgame]

Sometimes I use them, sometimes not...depending on need.
If they are really good, I will give them better positions.
Per attaching them to another leader, be cognizant of the 'friction' they can create.
A little 'friction' is tolerable depending on the upsides; not so much if it is in the 20+ range, for example.

[seiSetill]

ORIGINAL: MtnPatriot

So what strategy do you use for the advisor positions? In my first trial games my initial advisors happened to be the highest CAP people in my cabinet, so I assigned them according to their skills vs my weaknesses, and kept them advisors. Of course they became masters, basically overshadowing their "superior." Would it have been better to assign them outright to their best suited positions and have a relative scrub as advisor?
How do you use the advisor position? Super skilled jack of all trades, jumping around as needed? Weakling hail-mary backup? Dedicated middling assistant? Obviously it depends on the scenario, but I'd love to hear everyone's general thoughts on the position.

If advisors they have great stats, then I'll likely put them in a governor or council position.

In rare cases, if they have a great specific stat I need for a role but they have bad capacity, I'll use them to help a high capacity council/governor until the council/gov surpasses them. Then I'll switch the advisor to another role.

I've had success attaching advisors with a specific military skill (ie: demolitions) to OHQ commanders that have strong units that need a firepower boost. For example, demolitions with an infantry/arty unit attacking a city.

Early game, if you don't have the PP to reassign the advisor, put them in the best place they can impact your empire the most. I like SHQ (war, high command) and councils (technician, science, administration).

[Shards]

At the start of the game, my Adviser usually ends up with my Governor, as that role needs the widest variety of skills, so more chance that the adviser's reroll will be useful!

If they're good, then they often get "Promoted" to a governor roles themselves in the future.

If they're initially rubbish, then I use Adviser as a learning opportunity and have them learn the skills of a job that I want them to fill in the future (governor, council, OHQ, whatever).

[demiare]

I'm trying (without wasting a lot of efforts) to get advisors with a Medical skill and Defensive Operation skill. Both are used in random bad events that could hit you pretty hard and usually governors have low Medical & no Defensive skills.

[Malevolence]

A couple of items to consider.

First, look for sixth sense skill.

[s]Another, more subtle, is that making rolls increases XP in the skill rolled. If the Advisor is making the same roll as the principal leader, then the advisor is improving with respect to the rolled skill too. Use to train an advisor as a replacement for a troublesome leader or as a future add... like governor, ohq commander, etc.[/s] Per Shards comments.

[Sieppo]

An advisor with a good war skill is usually my first advisor position to attach into the SHQ (first advisor I always attach to anything). SHQ gives a boost to all military units so its important if you wage war. Sometimes I have put several for the SHQ. I dont usually bother with non-cabinet positions, since you get a better effect otherwise. Also, if I get a better person than the cabinet director, I usually relieve him, put the new person in charge and put the former director as the advisor, if possible. He/she just has to deal with it and the relation hit is not that big since I think advisors come right after the director position in respectability.

EDIT: as per the former post, sixth sense is great since it affects any skill roll IMO.

[PyrrhicDefeat]

Also, if I get a better person than the cabinet director, I usually relieve him, put the new person in charge and put the former director as the advisor, if possible. He/she just has to deal with it and the relation hit is not that big since I think advisors come right after the director position in respectability.

This has been my primary approach. Like when the best early game director I could get is a I or II and later I get a III or IV with high stats but who is starting off with zeros in key skills. Attach the former director as advisor until the new director gets their skills up.

[Daza99]

ORIGINAL: Shards

At the start of the game, my Adviser usually ends up with my Governor, as that role needs the widest variety of skills, so more chance that the adviser's reroll will be useful!

If they're good, then they often get "Promoted" to a governor roles themselves in the future.

If they're initially rubbish, then I use Adviser as a learning opportunity and have them learn the skills of a job that I want them to fill in the future (governor, council, OHQ, whatever).

How do you get them to learn? you attach them as Advisor to a leader whom you want them to learn from?

[MtnPatriot]

Thanks for the replys. I don't know what an average array of starting leaders looks like, but current game I started with no level I and only 1 level II Cap leader, as well as 1 V(!) and 1 IV. Much better than the pool of Is and IIs with a single IV that I had in my first couple of games. First time I've really shaken up the cabinet positions from the start, so interesting to see everybody's thoughts on the 'wild card' position.
Daza: essentially yes. I don't have a ton of experience, but from what I understand, the advisor will make any skill rolls their attached leader makes, so those used skills will level. I don't believe the actual level of the attached leader has any impact though. If you attach a high Cap advisor to a low skilled low Cap leader, the advisor will quickly overshadow them. A low Cap advisor will still level those same skills, just slower. I don't believe a high skilled attached leader would have any impact on that.

[MtnPatriot]

Malevolence, hadn't considered sixth sense, would seem to be especially useful on a governor specific or OHQ specific advisor, as those seem to use the widest range of skills.
Per your crossed out comments, do advisors not level skills faster as they are used? I'm confused there. Do they have a set rate of exp per turn, and those skills used are simply the most likely to be upgraded with that static exp gain?

[demiare]

ORIGINAL: MtnPatriot

Per your crossed out comments, do advisors not level skills faster as they are used?

They're ONLY level skills if they're used...

P.S. My own experience say that it's much better to have top-tier advisor in end-game then to have a few good governors. When you have some spare PP to burn (=endgame) AND tons of negative zone events (=conquest spree) advisor became to really shine as he could boost every governor's event roll in a single turn.

[zgrssd]

General Strategy
- You can use the Advisor post to train a future leader for a job. Assign him to the guy in the job - when he makes rolls, the Advisor learns as well. Not as much as doing the rolls solo, but he can learn without tanking the targete jobs performance. Never realy used it for that, however.
- personally I tend to move the Advisor around. Everywhere there is a hard roll, the advisor moves. He does not need skills in it, just the extra roll is what I get him for
- the Improvisation and 6th Sense skills are really important for a "career Advisor". They allow the advisor to do acceptable in a lot of rolls. Wich is ideal for moving the post holder around.

[WCG]

I mostly ignore advisors, I'm afraid. But there are some skills I really need. For example, I play a diplomatic game, annexing minor regimes, rather than fighting them. (I also try to make friends with majors, for the same reason.)

So having a high diplomacy score on my Foreign Affairs guy is critical. Then, I try to find the second-highest diplomacy score and put that guy as an advisor to him/her.

Other than that,... frankly, there's so much to this game, and I'm only on my second planet, that a lot of stuff just ends up taking care of itself. [:D]

[Daza99]

Without starting a new thread about Advisors i have a couple of new questions

1) On page 224 of the manual it shows a chart showing you can have 1 Advisor with 1-3 zones and 2 with 4-8 Zones. So does it mean mean when you reach having 4 zones (up to 8) there is a slight chance you will get an extra advisor given to you over a period of time, does the chance to increase with each new zone up to 8 or has that no effect?

2) The manual says "If an Advisor is attached to a Leader and the Advisor makes a higher roll, it is the advisor's roll result that will be used..." when it talks about a skill roll is this like 1d100 + skill? i presume so just clarifying.

2.1) Are skill rolls also used in same way for research/model building too?

3) How does friction between Advisor and Leader they are attached to affect things? does this just mean both will end up losing some happiness over time and that is all?

[Clux]

ORIGINAL: Daza99

Without starting a new thread about Advisors i have a couple of new questions

1) On page 224 of the manual it shows a chart showing you can have 1 Advisor with 1-3 zones and 2 with 4-8 Zones. So does it mean mean when you reach having 4 zones (up to 8) there is a slight chance you will get an extra advisor given to you over a period of time, does the chance to increase with each new zone up to 8 or has that no effect?

2) The manual says "If an Advisor is attached to a Leader and the Advisor makes a higher roll, it is the advisor's roll result that will be used..." when it talks about a skill roll is this like 1d100 + skill? i presume so just clarifying.

2.1) Are skill rolls also used in same way for research/model building too?

3) How does friction between Advisor and Leader they are attached to affect things? does this just mean both will end up losing some happiness over time and that is all?

I haven't used too much Advisors due the friction penalty but I'm gonna tell you how its works on my experience.

1) You gain 1 advisor slot for every 4 zones than you have, I don't know what happens if you have for example 9 zones and 3 advisors but you lose 2 zones.

2) It means than if leader A has 40 skill and leader B has 55 (advisor), both of them are going to make a 1d100 roll + skill, whatever roll its higher its used.

2.1) It depends on the roll, if you want to know what skills affect what rolls, open the character tab and checkout the "skill log" tab.

3) Supposedly if they don't have the same ideology/faction they will gain friction, meaning than you will lose relation score with both of them every turn, the more different they're in ideology, the stronger the friction. However, I've tested with two leaders who have almost the same ideology but still got some friction, maybe there is a "base friction" or something like that, hopefully somebody who makes good use of them can clarify that for us

[Daza99]

Thanks for your reply Clux. I suppose in some ways an advisor is like having a second roll at a skill? I wonder if the skill is less than the leader, but the advisor still gets a better roll then it was worth it using the advisor? but of course it isn't that black and white as you still need to roll higher than the difficulty so obviously if the advisor has much higher skill then its always desired.

[wodin]

So much to learn. I didn't even know about advisers!

[Destragon]

ORIGINAL: Daza99

Thanks for your reply Clux. I suppose in some ways an advisor is like having a second roll at a skill? I wonder if the skill is less than the leader, but the advisor still gets a better roll then it was worth it using the advisor? but of course it isn't that black and white as you still need to roll higher than the difficulty so obviously if the advisor has much higher skill then its always desired.

Advisors do work like re-rolls, as far as I know, yeah. It can for example be really nice to have an advisor on your foreign affairs director, if you want to play diplomatically with minors, or on your secret service director for a boost to your spies.