OK,
I got around to looking at how a general's battle stars affect the strength ratio/battleOdds you see on the strength bar before combat. The results are not as I'd expected.
I'm running RTW 1.3. To start, I set up a couple of small armies (2 units of hastati, no experience, no upgrades) with a Roman general. The generals each have only the Confident commander trait and no ancillaries, so each has one star. The strength ratio is 1:1 - no surprise.
Next, I remove the the GoodCommander trait from the defending general. Odds are 1:1, but this could skewed by the presence of the opposing forces' bodyguard units, so I give each army 19 hastati to dilute the effect of the bodyguards. Odds are still 1:1.
I give the attacking general the Legendary Commander trait (5 stars), defending general still has no stars. Odds are 1:1.
I give the attacking general the Heroic Attacker trait too, so he has a total of 10 stars when attacking. Odds are 1:1.
Finally I give the defending general the Pathetic Commander (-5) and Pathetic Defender (-5) traits. I'm pretty sure that these only subtract from command stars that the general may have gotten from other traits or ancillaries, but I do it anyway. Odds are 1:1.
Also reversed the situation, giving the attacker penalties (Pathetic Commander, Pathetic Attacker) and the defender bonuses ( Legendary Commander, Heroic Defender), but odds are always 1:1.
So it's clear that the calculation of battleOdds takes no account of the opposing commanders' battle stars. I believe the main effect of battle stars is to raise the morale of the general's army, so Jerome's comment earlier in this thread:
must refer to the unit's un-modified (dismal, here I go with the un-modified thing again) morale value (from export_descr_unit.txt ) and not to any morale bonuses gained from the general's battle stars.The battle odds are based on the AI's strength calculation for the armies involved. Essentially this is a number derived per unit via a complex formula which takes into account the number of soldiers, attack, defense, experience, upgrades, morale, and almost everything else which gets fed into the game from the export_descr_unit.txt file.
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