Getting Better Generals

[Mak]

Does anybody have any tips for how to make your generals (or princes) have more command stars really quickly, obviously there is winning normal battles and giving them titles with command bonuses, but are there any sneaky ways people use? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

I ask because although i lose very seldom my generals never seem to go up in rank as fast as others of the AI http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif


What is the highest star anyone has got?


On the same lines is there sneaky ways of gaining the good character traits like famous warrior etc.?

Any help would be great http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif I want to crush the enemy and look at the mighty warriors leading my fine men to victory after victory http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[Asmodeus]

I dont really know any 'sneaky' ways but certain provinces give command bonuses to the governer, so you could make a general a governer. A few successful battles will give more command. Use you king in combat lots because the more command stars he has the more likely his heirs will get good command too. Building the Admiralty will give a title that grants 2 command points.

My best general has nine stars making his army truly terrifying. He started off with 5 stars (was once an heir) gained two more through lots of victories against the Mongols finally i promoted him to Admiral of the North for two more stars and married a princess to him as a reward.

[KukriKhan]

Asmodeus wrapped that up quite well. I'm not aware of any quick fixes to increase stars, other than the related .unfreeze. cheat that generates a new heir whether in- or out-of wedlock (and it doesn't guarantee a multi-star rating).

[Mak]

Asmodeus my friend i am a bit worried on the lineage of your royal family. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Qoute My general, (once an heir ?), rewarded him by marrying a Princess to him. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

What were the offspring like??

Come on people there must be sneaky ways..... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[MacBeth]

I've not tried it myself but I know some players who will target a rebel province early and use it as a training ground for generals.
eg. As England on early, you attack Scotaland from Northumbria beat hell out of the bare arsed clansmen, score yourself some valor etc., then retreat. The province rebels again and you repeat the process until you have a nice high valor general. I think the English like this one as their second heir is usuall 5/6 command stars and his arrival coincides nicely with being ready to take Scotland. Apparently he already has skilled attacker so after re-conquering Scotland 4 or 5 times he is a real mean so and so.

[Mr Frost]

Pick a good general , give him the best troops you can and throw them at an army you can destroy with minimal losses to get Skilled Attacker {+1 Command when attacking} , then Expert Attacker {+2} and Specialist Attacker {+3} but these don't count in castle assaults . The same happens when your general beats off an attack with relatively few losses .

A variation is Skilled Risky Attacker/Skilled Last Stand and the Expert and Specialist versions {+1 , +2 and +3 command respectivly} which appily when you're outnumbered more than 2-1 .


In my current Byzanine campaign I have just finished off the Horde {about 1260-1270 I think} and have 2 nine star generals , 4 eight star , 2 seven star and my best one {one of the mighty Comnenius brothers who are the first heirs of the game for Byzanium} has more command than he can actually use : were nine not the limit he would be well into double digits {I would probebly have got him close to fifteen by useing him more} as he started with eight stars , got promoted and both Expert Attacker and Expert Defender Natural Leader {bonus to moral) and 7 to 9 feathers acumen so is the governor of Antioch {great trade income} .
I have had even better ones though {one Danish General had so much moral bonus I doubt my units would have been capable of routing if they wanted to http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif} .

[Mak]

Great tip on Scotland as I play England most myself (really dislike those Frenchies) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Very impressive Mr Frost: 9 star/8 star Generals
Anyone claim to better.

When does the Black Prince turn up for England >?
Wanna fight de Frenchies for 100 years with the Black Prince
(100 star general) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[Asmodeus]

Quote[/b] (Mak @ April 23 2003,06:04)]Asmodeus my friend i am a bit worried on the lineage of your royal family. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Qoute My general, (once an heir ?), rewarded him by marrying a Princess to him. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

What were the offspring like??

Come on people there must be sneaky ways..... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif
Well It had been about 6 generations since he was a prince so I figured he wouldnt end up with too many spare toes http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif Besides, he deserved a nice teenage bride after defeating the Horde with spearmen and vikings and a handful of archers

[Demon of Light]

Want a sneaky idea? I got one for you:

1. Find a rebel army that you are fairly certain no other faction will attack. Make sure the troops in the rebel army are better than peasant quality.

2. Make many,many peasants. Make sure your peasant army is at least twice as big as the rebel army.

3. Launch the peasants into the rebels and make sure you lose. (shouldn't be too hard)

What you should have now is a rebel general with Skilled Defender on him. Repeat steps 1 through 3 until your rebel has Field Defense Specialist. Augment the size of the peasant army if 2 to 1 odds are too small. Together with the stars from the defense V&V's, the rebel general should have at least 1 additional star to show for consistantly kicking the snot out of you. Also, you may want to send disloyal generals on this expedition if you are fairly certain that the unit will die.

When you have done all this and have your ugly rebel general, bribe him. Bribe him at all costs before the Almohads build a sea lane and invade Scotland for some insane reason and kill your rebel first.

MacBeth's idea is the reverse of this where you use the rebels to gain Skilled/Expert/Specialist Attacker.

Good candidates for this idea in the Early Period are Arcill Cullane (occasionally Adam Mar) of Scotland (same bare assed Scots MacBeth was talking about) if you are English or Miroslav Zhakariev in Livonia for the Danes/Germans/Polish. (Zakhariev has an unusually long lifespan in most of the campaigns I play. I marvel at this guy's ability to defeat 4 or 5 Crusades before someone finally kills him. If they ever kill him.)

You can also herd the vikings in Sweden into Norway and use the Norwegian leader for this. (unfortunately, he usually doesn't have many stars) Spaniards and Almohads can use Portugal as I think there is a four star there. (if not, the Portugese are always guarenteed to spawn one during one of their revolts.)

El Cid is NOT a candidate for this. If you don't bribe him ASAP, someone there will usually kill him in less than 5 turns. ( Has anyone ever bribed El Cid as the French or English?)

Leon Sgouros is a candidate for the Byzantines in the High Period.

Zavidov occasionally subs for Zakhariev.

[Polish Crusader]

During my polish campaign I also noticed that there were many rebel generals with good command. In my first campaign as the turkish I never noticed this, but the rebellions in russia and prussia seemed to have many high star generals naturally, without me having to attack them and lose with peasant armies.

Also, whenever i get a new king i often start building a new farm upgrade in every single provence and the other money producing buildings (trading post and port). I make sure each has a governer and then I queue up like 2 or 3 buildings and after that your king will give off happiness and so will your generals, but it will also increase the loyalty of your generals. Sometimes I have to save buying the last farm upgrade to give my next king some good virtues. This helps especially when playing as the HRE becaue many of the generals have low loyalty.

[kataphraktoi]

here's an even quicker way and u don;t need to lift one finger by fighting a battle.

In the campmap startpos folder txt files u can add new offices to the early, high and late periods.

eg. I added titles the Byzantines used in real life such as:
- commander of the scholae
- logothete
- curopalates
- parakoimonenos
- postal logothete
- saint
- etc

if u wanted to you could make a title granting 9 stars, these titles will be available when u build the appropiate building.

NOTE: U CANNOT MAKE NEW TITLES BY USING OTHER BUILDINGS BESIDES THOSE SPECIFIED IN THE ADD OFFICE LIST
BUT U CAN MAKE A BUILDING GENERATE AND CREATE AS MANY TITLES TO UR HEARTS DESIRE.

[motorhead]

This may be slightly off-topic, but a previous poster mentioned getting skilled/expert/specialist virtues as a way to boost your generals command rating. I thought I read somewhere that only the defensive virtues actually translate into real tangible valor benefits. The attacker virtues supposedly will show the added stars on your generals stack when you invade, but on the battle screen your units will not show the valor they should have with the attacker virtues.

[Gregoshi]

Hello motorhead. Thanks for joining us here at the Org.

[USMCNJ]

can't help you with the generals, but you can give your sons some stars. I read it somewere at org like 2 month ago, and have tested for my self, it works pretty good. Keep your King at a province that is most developed, this will give your sons some extra stars. I usually keep my king in a highest level castle, and that produces 5 star sons.

[Mak]

Cheers everyone great advice keep 'em coming.

[Brutal DLX]

Indeed, you can add some new titles by modding, or just mod your initial king's and/or heir stats so they start with 9 command stars. Usually at least one heir will become a normal general as soon as the firstborn son of his older brother comes of age.

[Demon of Light]

Here's a question: How are additional stars that come strictly from winning battles awarded? I have had many 4 star generals never reach 5 stars despite several victories. (often agianst greater numbers with minimal casualties.)

[Popeye]

Quote[/b] (USMCNJ @ April 24 2003,22:48)] I usually keep my king in a highest level castle, and that produces 5 star sons.
When you say in the castle, are you saying there might be a difference in whether he's actually IN the castle as opposed to being in the province of the castle?

And at what point is this measured? At the son's birth (which is unpredictable) or when he comes of age (which you can anticipate)?

[The_Emperor]

Quote[/b] (Demon of Light @ May 05 2003,13:10)]Here's a question: How are additional stars that come strictly from winning battles awarded? I have had many 4 star generals never reach 5 stars despite several victories. (often agianst greater numbers with minimal casualties.)
Depends on the nature of the victory... Battles when outnumbered usually help, and the general should fight often to increase unit valor.

The other thing is to have good breeding in your family line, I have noticed that a good monarch who marries well tends to produce some very good heirs that make exceptional generals.

If your royal line starts getting a lot of inbred vices with few heirs and pitiful stats, consider making your monarch have an accident and letting a better royal blood general take over (making sure there are not any other royal blood contenders around at the time, to prevent civil war)

[USMCNJ]

Quote[/b] (Popeye @ May 05 2003,13:22)]
Quote[/b] (USMCNJ @ April 24 2003,22:48)] I usually keep my king in a highest level castle, and that produces 5 star sons.
When you say in the castle, are you saying there might be a difference in whether he's actually IN the castle as opposed to being in the province of the castle?

And at what point is this measured? At the son's birth (which is unpredictable) or when he comes of age (which you can anticipate)?
Sorry, what i meant is => i keep my general in a province that has the biggest castle. (I haven't done a lot of testing with different details, but i'm pretty sure that other buildings don't matter)

This only metter when the son comes of age.