Peace Time Mayors as a Concept
Periodically someone asks about Catherine II, or another of the peace time subcity mayors. To answer this question, we need to compare the two following generals.
Both mayors have been put on the same subcity in turn. Mayor number 1, Catherine, results in an average training speed of +329.79% while mayor number 2, Harald, results in an average speed of +441.2%. Thus, despite Catherine’s special skill, Domination, giving her a training speed boost of 35% to Harald’s 25% Level 4 Training Speed skill book, he is able to train troops faster.
If I were willing to to cultivate Catherine to an equal extent, I have no doubt that she would outperform Harald. The question is, given how many gems are involved in cultivating mayors up to that level, can you afford to do so to two sets of them?
This is one of those places in Evony where you need to make a decision on your spending levels. If you want to have peace time subcity mayors, be prepared to invest significant amounts of gems, rune stones, and medals in them. If you are not willing to do so, your more fully developed war time generals will probably provide better training, construction, and gold bonuses than a poorly developed set of peace time generals.
Important Note about Ascending
The astute reader may have noticed that in the preceding concept section I mentioned cultivating Catherine to an equal extent as Harald, but did not mention ascending her to the same two star level. This omission was deliberate, and is important. It is not merely that in this particular example neither mayor was ascended to any extent, rather Catherine is one of several mayors who is not entirely a peace time mayor. While her main skill book, and her specialty buffs are those of a peace time mayor, her ascending buffs are a totally different story. If you can ascend her, she becomes one of the more valuable Siege HP debuff generals.
This is then a slight, but incredibly significant, caveat to my overall opinion of peace time mayors. I maintain that the concept of a peace time mayor is a waste of resources for nearly everyone. However, be careful that you have fully evaluated each mayor, and that you are not ignoring buffs that might truly help you before dismissing a given general as a peace time mayor.
To be clear: I am NOT recommending using Catherine II as a peace time mayor. I am recommending that, if you can ascend her, she be used as a PvP mayor. There are a other generals that, like her, appear on the surface to be peace time mayors, but have hidden PvP potential. The reader will need to evaluate these mayors as and against other PvP mayors on the strength of these PvP buffs.