I'm going to list the actions that cost Authority, so we have an idea of what we can do with our limited resources:
I'm pretty confident that 'Build a Temple' would generate additional 'Base Authority' and provide a substantial boost to our reign's stability in the long term. It'd be expensive, and there would a dice roll involved (re: "Hathor's favor"), and would probably cost us some of the favoritism of the priests of Atum, but now is certainly the time to embark on long-term projects of this sort.
...Speaking of long-term, let's figure out who our Mentor should be. Here are the primary options:
- Our mother (Satysis, the Royal Magician). Competent at Intrigue and Learning. Probably the most loyal mentor we could find, and with some of the highest stats. However, we lost fully half of our first-turn Base Authority because we were the child of a foreign-born witch. Elevating our mother and giving her 'favored' status and unparalleled access to us is a bad idea when we're still in our Regency and still trying to consolidate power around our own right to rule. This would be a very costly mistake.
- Our aunt (Neferent, the Queen Dowager). Competent at Diplomacy. Given her own ill health, Neferet's loyalty to us is probably second only to our mother, and this would be a highly respectable option (which might improve our Base Authority). However, I seriously question if she's competent enough to actually give our stats much of a boost. Her only specialty is Diplomacy, which we already specialize in (we're still a child and have 20 Diplomacy) -- how much improvement would we see from her mentorship?
- Our general (Khui, the Commander of the Royal Army). Competent at Martial. If we want a martial-heavy build, Khui is the obvious choice... and an obvious mistake. Khui is very ambitious, and as Cetashwayo pointed out, ambitious generals are how dynasties end, especially if those dynasties failed to pay adequate attention to the military side of things (as our father did). I'm convinced that this would be the most costly mistake. If we want a Martial-heavy build, I think a far safer option would be to pick our chariot instructor, Ramessu.
- Our steward (Ptahshepses, the Chief Eunuch). Competent at Diplomacy and Intrigue and Stewardship. If we want to build our character as the best administrator, this is the obvious choice. Ptahshepses is incredibly competent in multiple fields, and now that we've reconciled with him there isn't anything to keep him from being an effective mentor for us. That said, his loyalty has been questioned by some at court. While we've encountered nothing to indicate those rumors are valid (indeed, I'm confident he's distrusted because he's so good at Intrigue), this is another Mentor that would not substantially increase our Base Authority.
We could take a shot in the dark at
one of the other minor functionaries of court. For instance, our chief scribe Wenamun is a competent Diplomat, while our priestly mentor Meryawy specializes in Piety and Learning, and both of them are fairly well-respected. However, we do not have much information about either official's stats, nor about their loyalty. There are other officials, about whom we know even less, so it would truly be a shot in the dark. However, if our
known mentor candidates fail to satisfy, picking someone else entirely might be an interesting way to 'shake things up' and elevate a rival for one of the officials who owe their position entirely to us.
Lots of options, but I'm confident we should pick a mentor this turn.
I don't think that's a useful way to assess the mentors. You're presenting it in terms of strict advantage when all of them are differently disadvantaged, and thus, net value would vary per voter.
I'll break it down into the following:
-Usefulness: What do they teach? Do we need more of it?
-Competence: Are they GOOD at what they teach?
-Loyalty/Ambition: Are they likely to have an agenda?
-Popularity: How will people react?
Please don't just sum the values together.
Usefulness is multiplied by Competence. And everyone ranks the skills differently
Loyalty doesn't translate additively, it's more the risk involved with their Competence(low loyalty + low competence is safer than low loyalty + high competence).
Likewise, Popularity depends on our personal standing. Currently we're doing pretty well in terms of popularity, so we can offset some of our mentor's unpopularity, but if we take unpopular actions while under their tutoring, it will hurt.
Our mother (Satysis, the Royal Magician)
-Usefulness: +3. She teaches Intrigue and Learning. She also teaches magic, which is unique to her.
-Competence: +3. She's DAMNED good at what she does.
-Loyalty/Ambition: +3. Unquestionable loyalty.
-Popularity: -3. Foreign culture penalty, witchcraft penalty, high Intrige penalty
Our aunt (Neferent, the Queen Dowager)
-Usefulness: +0. She teaches Diplomacy, which we're already very good at.
-Competence: +2. She's decent at SOMETHING at least.
-Loyalty/Ambition: +2. She's loyal to our father, but not personally loyal to us.
-Popularity: +3. She's got authority, the proper heritage and the credit for most of what's done at present.
Our general (Khui, the Commander of the Royal Army)
-Usefulness: +1. He teaches Martial, which we could use more improvements in. Just martial really.
-Competence: +3. He's evidently very good at what he does
-Loyalty/Ambition: -2. Visibly ambitious, no reson to favor us.
-Popularity: +1. He's got a positive general reputation and the right titles. May have some issues with a male tutor for a girl in public perception.
Our steward (Ptahshepses, the Chief Eunuch).
-Usefulness: +2. Teaches Diplomacy, Intrigue and Stewardship. We don't really need the Diplomacy, but the other two are great.
-Competence: +3. Extremely good at what he does.
-Loyalty/Ambition: +0. His loyalty is uncertain, though he does not seem especially ambitious. Being an eunuch means no descendants to inherit any power he gains, but as we know from ancient China, there are ways around that.
-Popularity: -1. He's not popular at all(nobody likes the guy who tells you you're spending too much), though he's probably the only male mentor who won't spark unsavory rumors. Still more popular than mom though.
Significant Minors
-Usefulness: +1. Most of these are good in one skill at least
-Competence: +2. And they are usually decently accomplished.
-Loyalty/Ambition: 0. But they won't have any clear loyalties.
-Popularity: +0 to -1. And picking a low status mentor is going to be seen as a snub to everyone ELSE. It basically says "yeah I don't trust you guys, I'd rather pick someone low key"
