Matrix Games Forums

Hi all

Have just started a new game on 1.02, to get the full benefits of the patch, and am actually properly reviewing my leaders at the start of the game. I noticed that my secretary is a middle-aged CAP IV leader with decent base stats and a couple of good governance skills. My starting governor, as always, is a nitwit with CAP I and literally no governance related skills at all. She is utterly useless in her role and will remain so indefinitely because of her very low CAP. She's also unaligned. About the only positive thing I can say is that she is also middle-aged so she's only ~20 years from retirement.

Should I just immediately sack her and then my secretary so I can place my secretary as governor next turn? Obviously there is an immediate PP and relations cost but that will work out.

More generally, are there any advantages to having a skilled secretary or is having a skilled secretary always a waste of a leader? I realise, for balance reasons presumably, that you cannot directly appoint your secretary but is it generally best to try to make sure they are as poor a leader as possible?

I believe Vic said in another post that a middling person with low ambition is best for the secretary position.

I always go through my Leaders when I start a game. I do generally shift some people around. The Secretary is expensive (PP-wise) to let go. Also, a random non-assigned person will automatically take their place. So you must be careful in the order you allocate your people if you want to let the idiot Cap I go into the Secretary spot. The best move is to sack the Secretary when no one is non-assigned, then you automagically get a new Secretary for free (I believe there is no PP cost). At the beginning of the game you can take the relations hit because you can generally get back into their good graces; unless your knee deep in danger to start.

I sacked my governor recently and he started up a rebellion and ate up my empire.

My Tips so far for leader management:

1) Make sure to get rid of your SHQ leader ASAP if they are problematic. Any hit is worth dealing with this early.
2) If you have too many problematic leaders (meaning their CAP is under III and/or their abilities are junk for the role and/or their traits conflict too much with what you are aiming for), you'll have to decide if restarting the game is better than dealing with what can be serious long term problems. Replacing leaders gets more and more difficult later on.
3) For secretary, I just don't care. My current secretary is at 32 happiness and I am still searching for how this is a serious problem.
4) The Recruit Military and Recruit Senior cards can be an amazing value when you get them later, so when you have a new OHQ or city needing a leader, make sure to use these.
5) Make sure not to set up organizations before they are needed. Especially Applied Science that, while you can indeed bank research points, I've found is better to fill only much later when you can actually research these techs. By then, you should be able to line someone very good up for the role. Similarly, Orgs like Staff Council are usually not urgently needed early. Don't forget that your BP has to be shared out to each org you set up, so the more orgs you have the less efficiently they each do their jobs.