Loyalty determines how many percent of vassal-XP and self-produced XP are passed up to the patron, regardless of the patron's Leadership.
In the beginning I had a hard time understanding why XP flow is so dependent on 2 people's numbers although the numbers themselves are not related to each other. While we probably all know about the relevant numbers and percentages, it is interesting to look how it actually works (ignoring the different meanings of Loyalty for now).
The easiest way to figure it out is to imagine some sort of "pool" between a patron and all his vassals.
Each vassal pumps XP into that pool depending on his Loyalty, regardless of the other vassals and no matter how many XP the patron will pull out of the pool.
The patron takes XP out of the pool depending on his Leadership, no matter how the XP came into the pool.
From a certain Leadership level upwards the patron gains a percentage-based bonus, so he gets more XP from the pool than all his vassals pushed. This is the "Leadership Bonus" that caps at 25% (at calculated Leadership 163), giving the patron 125% of all vassal-XP.
The XP *not* pulled by the patron (due to low Leadership) are just vanishing. Pulling less from the pool automatically means passing through less XP, this is the reason for the infamous "Leadership Bottleneck".
Regarding XP-chains there are two fundamental ways to calculate quota. One is based on XP actually received from the pool, the other is based on the chain-vassal's input into the pool.
The first method obviously has flaws - the less Leadership I have, the less XP I receive - the less XP I have to produce to meet quota.
Furthermore the efficiency of my chain vassal is measured on my XP income which is unfair because he cannot influence my Leadership.
This is the case that accadict spoke of.
But as far as I know we use the second method. I am measured by how much I push into the pool above me, *not* compared to what I actually pulled out (depending on my Leadership) but to what my chain-vassal pushed into the pool below me. Therefore it is in my very own interest to keep Leadership at 163 so I have the 25%-advantage of the Leadership Bonus. If I fail to keep Leadership up I punish myself by getting less XP, hence having to produce more myself to keep up with the XP my chain-vassal pushed into the pool. His chain productivity is not harmed by that, the less Leadership I have the more likely *I* will fail quota.
"Mathematically" it is not necessary to have Leadership 163 + Loyalty 200 = pass-through 93.75% to pass quota (if you are a hard XP worker
)But the pass-through is also active when you are not logged in. Therefore the "maxed-capped Leadership" of 163 is a prerequisite to join any chain, simply to optimize "automatic XP flow" regardless of any quota.
