The Penultimate Manager

Etienne de St Laurent (player 52) is the absolute best noble bailiff in the game. He will reduce fief expenditures by 38% for his first year or two in the game and then (unless you are dumb and get him to fighting--he is NOT a fighter!) will graduate to the super-realm of 50% savings.

Even better, he has one of the best Family Expense ratios in the whole game! It starts at 70% (in other words, Etienne keeps 30% of his total income, the other 70% goes to Family Expenses) and quickly moves to 68% (you keep 32% of that) which is extraordinary.

The right strategy for Etienne is to do two things, basically:

1- Manage as many fiefs as possible, the richer the better, but anything will do, since you have such a great FamExp number.

2- Get kids from your wife Anne as many and as fast as possible. Anne is a pretty good bailiff herself. If you get real lucky (who knows?), you'll get kids with the best bailiff and FamExp skills from Etienne and Anne. (Beraud is a lug, get him married and breeding, but only to protect your family line.)

For God's sake don't fight using Etienne. He's a good army commander, but he is PRICELESS as a bailiff and, even more, as a manager (you can funnel the profits to your king; if your king has any sense He will set you to manage loads of royal fiefs, whether you can personally bailiff them or not and whether you can supply bailiffs or not). Make sure Etienne ends in an inactive fief close to any fief he needs to actively bailiff himself.

You can be even more useful if you learn the fine art of fief management, since Etienne's character lends itself so well to that. If you get on top of this stuff, Etienne can pull in seasonal income almost equal to a king's. You have to remember that the income is all at the sufferance of the owner--you can be fired as manager at any time. But you can be, as Etienne, an indispensable lieutenant to your king because of your personal characteristics.

By the way, in all kids you have with Anne, pray for sons with good health. One player with this character always got daughters, and the one superkid named Angelique de St-Laurent had Health of 3 and died at age of 1 (which was why she was named so--no way she was going to live long). She was incredible; Bailiff Supreme 9, Accountancy 6, InsightfulSit 8. Stats to die for! But, she did.