Matrix Games Forums

Hi,

Few questions about the secretary :
- what stats are useful for the job?
- what skills are useful for the job?
- how is calculated the suitability rating for the job?

I'm asking because I started a game with a cap V secretary. Not sure it's a waste of talent or not.

I checked the manual but the only useful info I found is:
"If you have a Leader functioning as a Secretary making a Skill Roll a
penalty of -25 will always be applied. This due to the inherent difficulty
for the Secretary of performing non-secretarial tasks while being buried
in paperwork and well… being the Secretary is not the same as being the
Governor or Commander."

If the secretary you have has higher stats in good stuff move him and take the hit. But first assign any good leaders you have to posts unless Vic changed it and lets you assign secretary it is done by ai.

That's a huge waste of talent, you should swap them out immediately! The secretary's skills are basically irrelevant - they very rarely roll (especially once your councils are up and staffed) and they always do so with that huge -25 penalty.

Semi-related: Cap V leaders learn new skills amazingly fast and so are excellent candidates for jobs that require lots and lots of different skills. They make the best Governors, SHQ (not OHQ!) commanders, and Advisors - assuming that their value profile matches yours, and that you remember to actually attach them to things. If neither of those make sense I usually put them in charge of Economic Research - that's the only director position that uses 4 different skills (and it's pretty important anyway).

From what I understand, the main function of the secretary is that when a leader position is currently unoccupied but is called upon to make a skill roll, the secretary is used as a substitute for the missing leader. That means that they may be called upon to make all sorts of skill rolls, but only on an irregular basis. Unless you have leader positions remaining unoccupied long-term, but that is a serious issue that you should fix ASAP, since those positions are penalized as if they were being run by a leader with 0 relationship, meaning any warm body that doesn't absolutely despise you will likely handle them better than any but the most hypercompetent secretary.

The main purpose of the secretary is to be a fallback, fallback leader. What the game uses if there is no one more fitting, including the Supreme Commnad Council leader.
It is the face the game uses, if there is no other, more fittin face.

I would say only 6th sense and Improvisation may be a usefull skill, but generally your choice is only who is not going to be in that positon. The game demands that it is filled.

Some reports claim that his Secretary happiness is relevant for getting leader recruitment stratagems, but I could not verify those claims.

Addendum to what Aldrich said: If you are planning to go Autocracy, consider putting that V in the Secret Service council, especially if they have decent strength. If you later on give them the "Personal Bodyguard" fate strategem, it's possible to have a Personal Combat:100 super assassin. So you'll never have to worry about poor leader relations again.

ORIGINAL: Lovenought

Addendum to what Aldrich said: If you are planning to go Autocracy, consider putting that V in the Secret Service council, especially if they have decent strength. If you later on give them the "Personal Bodyguard" fate strategem, it's possible to have a Personal Combat:100 super assassin. So you'll never have to worry about poor leader relations again.

"Death solves all problems - no human, no problem." Atributed to Joseph Stalin.