Governor and general guides: 'Kob Tsu's The Art of War' and Kobavelli's 'The Prince'
Hello again. You've all been expecting it, here it is at last : the follow up to the acclaimed Kobavelli's The Prince guide (well, I acclaimed it, at least), ladies and gentlemen I give you... yet another foot long thread. Hurray.
A] Who to train ? a.k.a. Hi kids ! Do you like violence ?
In the first guide, I wrote "fighters are a dime a dozen, keep the new kids for governing". This is, on the whole, true - because truth be told, you don't really *need* that good generals in order to beat the average AI on the field. But of course, it's much more gratifying to do so with the ultimate fighter than with Captain Anonymous. And building up the bestest of the best is a challenge in and of itself.
With that in mind, I'll repeat myself and state that if you're going to subject one of your generals to the gruelling training process I'm about to explain, you'll probably want a 16yr old general just the same. After all, the younger he is when you start training him, the longer he'll fight for you once fully develloped.
That said, some kids are better than others at that shouting orders business. Here are the traits that you should look for in your future conquerors : Born Conqueror (duh !), Disciplinarian (at birth it's usually at level 2, "Drillmaster"), Sobriety, Energetic ("Eager" at birth), Stoic ("Reserved" at birth), Upright ("Honest"), either Loyal Beyond Question or Actively Disloyal (depending on wether you intend to follow the Chivalry or the Dread route), any hatred of another faction (though I'm told these traits are broken), Ugly (usually "Plain" at birth, but can start all the way up to "Cruelly Deformed" depending on your family's genetics), Pragmatic ("Mostly Rational"), HaleAndHearty ("Healthy"), Intelligent ("Smart"), either Winning First or Fair Fighter (again, depending which route you're planning for him), Gregarious ("Sociable"), Anger ("Easily Riled") ; the bold ones being especially good.
B] Chivalry or Dread ? a.k.a. Stupity or Smartitude
The first thing to understand is that Chivalry and Dread are two extremes on the same scale, meaning that a character's final chivalry/dread value is equal to the sum of his chivalrous traits minus the sum of his dreadfull traits. In fact, Dread doesn't really exist in the game : it's just negative Chivalry.
Both have their good points, and downsides. As a rule, Dreadfull characters inspire fear in their enemies (making them easier to rout), and chivalrous types inspire courage in their men (making them fight to the bitter end if need be). Obviously, Dread seems better, since a routed enemy will not make you have to fight to the bitter end, but chivalry has its point, especially if you're taking on factions that are richer than you are, and thus can expect to be outnumbered, or if you're facing another chivalrous type whose troops will be less susceptible to Dread.
Generally, it's easier to gain Dread on the battlefield, but in the long run it'll also mean you'll have to exterminate a city or two, which is bad for your world cred', and bad for your economy. On the other hand, unless your general started with it, Chivalry is bloody hard to get in battle, but fairly easy to gain on the strat map, with no downsides.
There is however a slight downside to Chivalrous types : they hate serving a Dreadfull king, and will lose loyalty over time. Dreadful characters don't care one bit who they're butchering for.
Lastly, following the middle road (neither chiv, nor dread) has absolutely no benefit, so make up your mind double quick.
B.1] Chivalry, a.k.a. Prithee, fire first noble enemy !
There are three ways to up your general's chivalry : on the battlefield, by governing, and miscellaneously (is that even a word ?).
BattleChivalry is the battlefield side of the picture. 5 levels, thresholds 1/3/6/10/15. As said earlier, it's a difficult trait to get, but once you've got at least one point in it, it's all gravy as all BattleDread triggers check for it first. The most used trigger is "fighting in a battle and killing 8 or more enemies". The catch is that this trigger can also give BattleDread, and in fact, because CA coders can't do probabilities worth a damn, it's way easier to get Dreadfull this way. That said, if you do wind up with BattleDread instead of the wanted BattleChiv, you can wipe your general's slate clean by having him attack a stack, deploy, and then withdraw before blood has been shed. The catch is that it'll also make you a Coward if you're not already Brave.
Other ways to gain BattleChiv include : attacking muslims (if you're catholic or orthodox) and catholics (if you're muslim), but if you do so, remember not to let your general fight in that particular battle, lest he get BattleDread first ; winning a defensive battle with odds <0.8, winning AND fighting in a defensive battle with odds <0.5 (this trigger stacks with the previous one), and winning any battle with odds <0.95 by killing/capturing less than 20% of the enemy force (nope, I don't see how that's possible either).
Note that you can lose points in BattleChiv if your army is routed or beaten and the general has not fought.
CaptorChivalry and RansomChivalry are the other way to gain Chivalry through battle. Both have 4 levels, thresholds 1/2/3/4. You gain points in CaptorChivalry when you release 80+ prisonners in one go. You gain points in RansomChivalry when you pay a ransom for your own men that is >1000 florins (and there are more than 80 men of yours included in that ransom, but that should be the case).
StrategyChivalry is the easiest path to Chivalry on the stratmap. 5 levels, thresholds 1/2/4/8/16. You can get points in it by building churches, building tourney fields, resisting a bribery attempt, spending some time in cities with low taxes and high happiness (must stay at least 4 turns, 25% each turn for 1 point), spending some time in cities with low taxes and high happiness AND treasury in the red (same thing, but 33% chance), occupying a captured settlement (as opposed to sacking or exterminating it), and lastly by joining a crusade.
Be careful though : unlike BattleChivalry, you can lose points in StratChiv fairly easily if you start doing stuff that gives StrategyDread. See the part about it to know what to avoid. Also, you'll lose one point in StrategyChivalry each turn if your treasury gets over 50k florins.
Other stratmap gained traits which give some Chivalry are : Spy and AssassinCatcher (fairly self-explanatory traits), Just (which self-propagates, and is gained by building the town_hall line of buildings if you already have at least 1 point in StratChivalry), LenientJustice (20% chance to gain 1 point by occupying a settlement), KindRuler (4% chance to get every turn if you already have the Trusting trait), TourneyKnight (100% chance for 1 point if you build a jousting list, 10% chance for 1 points each turn you stay in a castle that has one), and finally CrusaderHistory/Jihadhistory (again, fairly self-explanatory).
Also, note that Chivalry is "genetic" in a way : a general with 4+ chivalry will bear sons with +1 chivalry, a general with 7+ will have sons with +2 chivalry. Honour runs in the family.
B.2] Dread, a.k.a. festooning the trees with their corpses is the true spirit of Christmas.
As can be expected, Dread is the mirror image of Chivalry, it's evil twin, and as such most of the Dread traits are the exact opposite of the Chivalrous ones.
BattleDread can be gained in three ways : the first is by fighting in battle and killing more than 8 enemies. Yup, same as BattleChiv, but easier. The other triggers are : winning a battle in which the odds were >1.5 in your favor and you were the attacker, or killing/capturing more than 70% of the enemy in a battle with odds <0.95. As with BattleChiv, you can lose points in it if you're routed or withdraw without your general fighting. You can also lose 1 point if you win a battle without killing at least 20% of the enemy.
CaptorDread and RansomDread are, as expected, the opposite of the equivalent Chiv traits : you gain CaptorDread for killing more than 80+ prisonners in one go, and RansomDread if you refuse to pay a ransom <5000 florins for your own men taken prisonner by the enemy.
But Dreadful lads have more ways to gain Dread on the battlefield than their chivalrous brethren, through :
Berserker : 3 levels, 1/3/8 thresholds, gained by killing more than 10 enemies and losing more than 1/3rd of the general's total hitpoints, but lost should the general not fight in a given battle,
and
Bloodthirsty : 3 levels, thresholds 1/2/3, 10% chance for killing more than 8 enemies in one battle, 10% for exterminating a city
StrategyDread is gained in a variety of ways : first, your faction leader will gain lots of it if you're using assassins. A governor will also get some by training spies and assassins in his city. You get 1 point for exterminating the population of a captured city. Lastly, a governor who sets taxes to Very High for 4+ turns, while the treasury is >10.000 florins and the region happiness is not in the green will get points in it.
Other traits that give Dread include : Feck (5% chance for not moving outside a city, bonus for Scotland births), high levels of the Girls trait (mostly gained by staying in a town with Brothel line or having a gay dad, but careful with those brothels because they also give Drink, which is mondo bad for a general), Unjust (6% chance to gain each turn if sitting in a town without the town_hall line, 20% for razing a building while the treasury is above 10.000 florins, self-propagates), the last level of the Harsh_Justice trait (need 7 points, gained by building Town_Halls while already having at least 1 point in StrategyDread, also 20% chance to gain 1 point for exterminating a conquered city), HarshRuler (8% chance to get if taxes set to VH, spent 4+ turns there, happiness is less than green and treasury is over 10k), Anger (can only get at birth, bonus for Hungary and Spain), Genocide (exterminating cities) and Pope'sEnforcer (mission-given, gained when the pope asks you to assassinate a cardinal).
Finally, like Chivalry, Dread runs in the family, with 1 points to offsprings for 4+ Dread, and 2 points for 7+.
C] Command Stars a.k.a. Let's start with the basics
In earlier TotalWar games, a general's command stars meant a LOT on the battlefield. Each one gave all the units present a bonus to morale, but also (and most importantly), for each 2 stars the general had, all units in the field gained 1 point in both attack and defense. That's pretty huge. And that made a 10 star general pretty much unbeatable without your own 10 star one.
In M2TW, units do not become more efficient when their general is good (as far as I'm aware, in any case), but they do get a good morale bonus, which stacks with the effects of Chivalry. High stars may also have a fear effect akin to Dread.
But whatever they really do, you want them, you want them all.
As a side note, once your general reaches 5 stars (or wins a night battle), he'll get the Night Battle Capable trait, which allows him to fight night attacks.
The easiest way to get stars is to be born with them. Any general can start with up to 4 stars through the NaturalGeneral trait.
The second easy way is to be either the King, or his Heir, as both get one free star. It's good to be the king.
Winning battles is the next obvious step.
GoodCommander has 5 levels with 1/2/4/8/16 thresholds, and you'll get 1 point in it for any and every battle you win with odds <2.25
Then you've got
GoodAttacker, which gives stars only when you attack, and which has 4 levels (2/4/6/8). 2 points for a Heroic Victory during an offensive battle with odds between 0.5 and 1.5, 1 point for a Clear Victory.
Same goes for GoodDefender, only it gives stars in defense obviously, and GoodSiegeAttacker/Defender
While we're on the subject of sieges, you'll get points in GoodEngineer if, while you're sieging a settlement, you build more than 3 siege engines (that is : rams/towers/ladders). Conversely, you'll get BadEngineer if you don't build more than 2 and just wait for the town to surrender/sally.
You also have 10% chance to get 1 point in TacticalSkill for each Heroic Victory you get (either defensive or offensive, but always within 0.5/1.5 odds), which gives command bonuses when ambushing
Then there are the army-specific bonuses, GoodInfantryCommander and GoodCavalryCommander, which both work along the same pattern : if you win a Heroic Victory with more than 80% infantry (or 50% cavalry) in your army, you'll get 1 point in it. Those traits give command stars when commanding an army with either 80%+ infantry or 50%+ cavalry
The traits GoodGunpowderCommander and GoodArtilleryCommander exist, but they aren't triggered for some reason.
Note that you can also get points in CavalryCommand by being a TourneyKnight or HorseRacer (which are triggered by building and then staying in settlements with jousting lists or race tracks (but not bull rings, in case you wondered))
Lastly, we have GoodRiskyAttacker and GoodRiskyDefender, both having 3 levels (2/4/6). You gain 1 point for winning a Clear Victory or better with odds between 0.16 and 0.5, and 2 points for a heroic victory with odds <0.16. I wouldn't try to get those willingly, as they're obviously hazardous to your general's health.
On to the trainable stuff :
StrategicSkill has 3 levels (1/3/5) and you gain points in it by : winning a defensive heroic victory with odds <0.16 (25%) or sitting in a castle that has either a drill square or better (4%. The city trigger is bugged and should read drill square as well, but is set to "library" or better, and since library is a castle only building, it can't work)
Sitting in town with a military academy will give you 10% chance each turn to get AcademyTrained(2 levels, 1/2) and 5% chance for TacticalSkill, which helps for ambushes.
Intelligent can give up to 3 stars, and can be gained either by sitting in a town that has academias, buy building said academic buildings, or by being born in a faction that has built some academic buildings.
The first level of Drinkgives 1 star, but I wouldn't recommand that, as the higher levels can remove up to 5 stars, and it goes up by itself.
Feck gives Command and Dread, and you get it by sitting on your bottom outside of town. It goes up by itself once you have it, and it also provides funny speeches.
Disciplinarian gives 1 star at its last level (4 points in it), but the only way to get points in it is to govern a rioting (10%) or revolting (15%) settlement, so I reckon it's not really a worthwhile use of your time, unless you're keeping one town for the specific purpose of letting it revolt all the time so that you can put down the rebellions (training your general both in this trait and any applicable battle-earned trait, and upping your troops' valor. It's a bit on the exploit side though.).
Bloodthirsty also gives command, see Dread section.
Berserker gives a bonus to attack, but a malus to defense, see Dread section
Lastly, the birth stuff :
Sobriety gives Command, but you will only get it if daddy's a drunk, or by marrying/having children
all levels of Ugly save the first and last give 1 command star, and it's very likely an ugly father will give birth to an ugly son.
Anger gives command in its early stages and self-updates, Hungarians and Spaniards have more chances to get it.
Finaly, traits to avoid like the plague are :
BadCommander/BadAttacker/BadDefender/BadRisky/BadSiege, which you obviously get by losing battles
Drink, which you get mostly by sitting in town with a brothel or worse
Arse, which you can get mostly by sitting in boats, having a funny dad or having a new adopted brother
Most witch hexes will give big maluses to command, so stay away from them. And ducks, to be on the safe side.
D] Movement, a.k.a. Ah yes, mere infantry... poor beggars.
A killer general is good. A killer general who can forcemarch his army through half the map in one turn is better. In fact, I'd say that movement bonuses are the very first thing one should strive to give one's generals, simply because it makes them that much better from a strategical point of view. And when the strategy is in the bag, the tactics follow. So let's see what we can do :
First of all, we've got the aforementionned Disciplinarian trait. It's quite hard to train, so be sure to look for it in potential husbands, adoptees, men of the hour and sons.
Energetic is another birth trait to look for, but this one cannot be trained in the field. It does self-update as long as you spend all your movement points though, and as a mental trait can be passed down to offsprings (but it can also turn into Laziness in the son. Thankfully, the reverse is also true, in that a Lazy father can give birth to an Energetic son).
LogisticalSkill is another good one. You've got 5% chance to get it every turn you end without any remaining movement points. It also wards your general against Ignorance (but by the same token, an Ignorant general won't get it)
Finally, and that's probably the best chance you have, the Muslims are advantaged in this department, because their RaceTracks have 10% chance each turn to give generals the Horse Racer trait, which is 5 to 10% bonus to MPs.
E] Personnal Security, a.k.a. It's not paranoia when they're really out to get you
Another easy-to-overlook stat, Security helps shield your generals against assassinations. Nothing sucks more than losing your best prodigy to one of those cowardly bastards and their snakes.
Obviously, the best trait for that are AssassinCatcher and CounterSpy, but the drawback in this strategy is quite obvious
SpyMaster and MasterOfAssassins help also, but can only be gained by the faction leader.
Sobriety gives points towards Security, as well as command, and wards your general against Drink so it's a very good trait to have, but sadly it can't be trained and your best bet is to have a drunkard dad.
Finally, there's something to be said about Xenophilia. By itself, it's a bad trait that you can get either at birth or by sitting in a town that has a port or better. The good thing is that xenophiliac daddies have a 1/10 chance to have xenophobic sons, which is good. Also, they can have tolerant princesses, who'll have more charm as a result. So keep an eye out for this trait and hope you'll get racist sons.
All in all, the best thing to do until you get any of those is still to keep a spy attached to your general at all times - the bonus LoS is always good, plus he'll open gates when need be.
F] HitPoints, a.k.a. It's just a flesh wound !
We've seen earlier that many good general traits require him to take an active part in battles. This is obviously dangerous, and a crossbow bolt right in the head is always an option. Therefore, pumping up your general hit points is a Good Thing, and it can lead to a rebirth of the Jedi Generals of old. There are only 3 traits which ups those, and 1 which detracts from them.
The good ones are :
Berserker (which has already been explained)
HaleAndHearty : kind of hard to get. You can have it at birth (with a bonus for Scotland, Denmark, Sicily, Hungary and Byzantium, with 5% and 10% more chance if your faction has a public bath or an aqueduct, respectively), and you have a low chance to get it (2%) for sitting around out of cities, 3% chance if you stay in a city that has a bimaristan, 3% for public baths. As you can see, Byzantium is very much in the lead for this trait.
BattleScarred is the last one (because yes, oddly enough, the more generals get beaten up, the healthier they are), and you'll get it if your general loses more than 30% of his HPs during a battle. And that's hard to judge, obviously - when you see his bodyguards dying in droves, you have a natural tendency to have them run the heck away.
The bad one is Hypocondriac, and thankfully you can only get it at birth (3%) so it should be very rare. It's self-propagating and really cripples your generals though, so if you wind up with one, gently push him towards accounting and watchtower-laying
G] TroopMorale, a.k.a. They may tak' our liiiiiives...
The last factor we'll consider, there's a *slew* of traits that affect it positively or negatively. I won't list them all for 2 reasons : the first is that, well, there's a slew of them, the second is that between command stars and chivalry, your troops shouldn't have much trouble in this department except in the most dire of circumstances. Even the proximity of a mere captain can lead militias to fight to the death. The only time you'd have to worry about getting positive traits there is when an otherwise good general finds himself stranded with a couple bad ones.
In which case you'll mostly be looking for :
Brave : 20% chance if your general loses more than 1/3 of his hitpoints in battle, 60% if he lost more than half AND killed at least 6 enemies
Berserker : see above. It's a really good trait
LogisticSkill : see above
RansomChivalry : see above
Gregarious : 3% chance to get for sitting outside of cities, self-propagates.
H] Loyalty, a.k.a. Come over to the Dark Side !
This stat is much less important that it might look. First of all, it's easy to give any general an instant +3 boost to loyalty by marrying them to one of your princesses. Secondly, no general will ever revolt who is in a city or a fort. Thirdly, it's easy to make generals "feel appreciated" should you need to.
Which is why you shouldn't overlook characters offered for adoption even if they are actively disloyal, in fact it gives them a serious boost to dread from the get go.
Generals will otherwise get points in "ContentGeneral" for winning battles with odds >= 1.5 (which is good for the actively disloyal guys - they're dreadfull, so they're gonna be fighting lopsided battles anyway), for spending time in either Fortresses (or Citadels) and/or cities with Large or Huge Stone Walls, and for serving a Chivalrous (>3) king if they themselves are chivalrous (>3 again). On the other hand, they'll get discontent if you have them sit in crummy cities or send them on battles they're likely to lose, or if the king is evil and they're chivalrous. But that doesn't matter anyway, because as long as they're in a city, they'll never revolt.
The only time you need to worry about a general's loyalty is when he's planning to lay a long siege and your king doesn't have much Authority, or if enemy diplomats are roving around. Otherwise, keep your potentially roguish elements penned in camps at all times and you'll be fine. 500 florins a turn is nothing in return for a superdreadfull general. Plus, I have a soft spot for lads who naturally resent all forms of authority
I] Ancillaries, a.k.a. the cherry on top
Again, I will only list the most interesting ones here, as there really are a LOT of them, and that's even without counting the unique ones.
For Dread :
One of the best ancillaries is the torturer (+3 Dread, +1 Authority, +2 Security, +3 Law, +1 Unrest), 8% chance to get him for each settlement exterminated
For Command :
For chivalrous types, the order knights you get from taking a crusade target are very nice (+1 chiv, +1 command, automatic). The muslim get the same with a chivalrous knight for successfull Jihad warriors (chivalry 2, command 1)
Dreadfull characters can get the Berserker Knight (+1 command, +1 morale) for winning a battle with odds between 0.5 and 1.5 if the general has fought (15%), and the dread knight (+1 command, +2 Dread for winning a battle with odds <1.2 and killing more than 66% of the enemy force (25%)
Both types have 50% chance to get a Veteran Warrior (+1 Security, +1 command) for winning a battle with 5 or more kills to their name, and 50% HP lost.
Byzantium, Eastern European and Mediterranean factions have 10% chance to gain a runner (+1 command) for each battle heroically won during which the general has not fought.
For Movement :
An assassin trained in a city or castle with stables/racetrack will get the Black Stallion, which is transferable to anyone for 25% bonus to movement.
For the Moors, Merchants have 50% chance to be created with a caravan driver (+25% move) which is also transferable if the faction has a caravan stop built.
All characters have 5% chance to get an intrepid_explorer (+15% move) for each turn they spend in a town with an explorer's guild or better
Generals with 3 stars or more have 20% chance to get a quartermaster (+15% move, +5% loot) for each turn they spend in a settlement with an army barracks or better, northern europeans excepted.
For HP :
A great item is the custom armor, which can be gained quite easily : 75% chance for building an armourer or better, 15% chance each turn spent in a city with armourer, 30% chance for castle armourer (but must have 4 command stars or better). The trigger is bugged, as it ought to be "armourer or better", instead of merely armourer. So either fix the trigger yourself, or keep one city/castle with only an armourer.
And there you go. With that knowledge, you should now be able to raise the most powerfull generals since Alexander the Great ! Happy crushing of your enemies !
ADDENDUM
J] Size matters a.k.a. No Jimmy, it's not how you use it. It's really not.
I forgot an important aspect of generals in the guide, and that aspect is the number of bodyguards that come with them. The thing is, I'm really not sure what affects this. It seems that being the King or the Heir always implies having more general retinue, so maybe it's a factor of Personal Security ? In Rome it used to be based on Authority, so that might be worth consideration as well... Frankly, I have no idea. I'll edit this part of the guide should new data come in (read : if someone bonks me on the head with a clue-by-four)
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