I have an ambition to control 6 agents. I only have 3 people available to use in my agent networks. How do I get more agents? Do you only acquire courtiers through life events? Is there a way to get more people to use as agents? Thank you for your help. I am loving this game but there are a lot of things that take some time to learn/figure out.
Welcome to the forum. I have barely played the game so I don’t know the answer to your question, but there are multiple Old World threads going, of which this may be the most helpful:
I’ve searched the thread and not found the answer there, either, but there may be some other helpful stuff in there for you!
Rough order:
0. You can’t place a character as an agent without an available enemy city as part of your “agent network,” so you’ll need a minimum 6 cities as your prerequisite for this ambition. You can add cities to your agent network by moving a scout into or adjacent to the city’s border. Also, the weak wonder Oracle adds Holy Cities to your network, which includes everyone’s Pagan homecourt, and thus a whole lot of the map. There’s also at least one event that rewards your high relationship with one religion to establish agent networks in every holy city as an event choice.
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Have many cities. If you have many cities you have more characters total. I’ve noticed when you found the family seat the game spawns three characters for that family. I’m not sure how each additional city contributes. I can say it’s not difficult to have so many characters that you can’t see (or scroll) through the options for Council seats.
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Marry people, especially using the royals outside the line of succession. While you can see heirs on your main screen, you can only initiate [marriage] missions for non-heir royals by checking your family tree. See the upper left-hand buttons on the mains screen. Something like F4.
Who do you marry? Each family has three archetypes tool tips say they specialize in. I’m not sure how much more likely characters of these select archetypes spawn, maybe 70% of the time.
For me, agents are mostly Schemers, because agents aren’t important and every other archetype has a better use as governors or generals. Schemers make good consorts (leader spouses that appear on your Council), but otherwise if you want their yields you have to make them govern enemy cities through your Spymaster, which probably comes too late to matter. Nevertheless, marry your unwedded royals to domestic families or foreign powers who specialize in Heroes and Schemers, which are found in these families: Hunters, Champions, Riders, Patrons, and Artisans. See the family tab of this spreadsheet.
- Train your kids (or succession line? I’m not sure) as Tactics Students. That is a 90% chance to produce one agent. According to the manual.