Hitpoints of unit leaders and kings

[Oaty]

What I was wondering since certain unit leaders and kings get Hitpoints how may of them do the get

So how many does a king get?

How many does a prince get when he is in charge of the army and does it change when he is not the lead general or the king is present?

How many does a regular general get?

How many does the unit leader get and if hes a governor does he get extra?

Does a lower ranked genaral maintain the same hitpoints in battle if a higher rank is present and in command?


I've notice that when governors go into battle over 80 percent of the time they make it out alive. Occasionally though I notice a free title sitting around due to their death in battle, even though at least half of there unit or more (most of the times) survived.

Does the rank of general give any bonus hitpoints?


I was just wondering this to see if I'm better off leaving good generals behind except for the one leading the army or am I at the same risk of losing him as losing the general in charge of the army. And if the governer is very valuable for his accuman/dread what is the risk of losing him

[Kraxis]

Ok, lets see if I can remember it...

The system looks like this:

Base hitpoints: 4
King: +6
Prince: +4
Command: Adds +1 per rank
V&V: 1/3 of Health bonus, rounding down. +5 to Health means +1 hitpoint.

So a king of Rank 6 with the Virtue Mighty Warrior (+ 10 Health) would look like this:

4
+6
+6
+(1/3 * 10 = 3)
= 19 hitpoints. Not bad at all.

I was told by a dev once, I believe it was Mike, that the max hitpoints lies at 30, but then you would need a good number of V&Vs.

[Hurin_Rules]

I know they said they 'fixed' the bug about the last person in a unit taking ages to kill, but I still think they're a bit too strong. How many times have you destroyed an entire unit only to have the last man, surrounded on all sides by dozens or hundreds of men, hold out for another five minutes? This is preposterous-- the last man should actually go down quicker, as he is totally surrounded and no longer supported/guarded by anyone else.

[Kraxis]

I think they meant that if a fight wasn't getting anywhere for a while the factors for killing went up for both sides. In effect so one wouldn't get the horrible situation of unending fights between units.
I don't think they made the generals and kings weaker.

It is very easy to kill those powerful kings. Don't engage them with spears other other weak attackers. Use strong attackers, such as knights or heavy infantry. If you really WANT to use spears, then use archers to help out. Only two men can engage the Jedi, but any number of arrows can hit him. So in theory you can kill any king with just one volley of arrows, besides when there is only the king your archers are not likely to do FF.

[Yoko Kono]

i find by far the most effective way to kill off kings and princes is with javelin units like jobbagy or slav javelinmen
have any unit engage the king/prince unit and have your javelin men close in, they will kill lots of friendlies as well but they generally will kill several men per volley and with high lethality i think they take 2 hitpoints down at once

[Odyssey of War]

Health of a general was explained by Gil from CA once.

Health explained

"The general of your army gets additional hit points (everyone else just gets 1) according to his health factor, which is increased by various vices and virtues. There is a minimum of six for this. Anyone who loses a fight or gets hit by an arrow takes 1hp damage, which is obviously enough to kill anyone except the general. The reason the general can last so long in a ruck is that only two men can fight any one target, and he's probably taking some damage but not enough. An individual melee can last for quite a while, even before you consider that some virtues can give up to 30 hitpoints to the guy. Hence the Jedi effect. In the patch, individual melees will get more dangerous for the combatants after a while, so the general will either win or lose each fight that much quicker. Statistically, therefore, he should lose when surrounded that much quicker. But you should remember that surrounding the general with spearmen is one of the worst ways to try to kill him. Shooting at him is the best way; pinning him in place with a unit while shooting him is even better. A mighty hero could conceivably turn the tide of a battle and could conceivably rout an army of hundreds of peasants; but even the mightiest hero can be turned into a pincushion or squashed under a nice big rock.

Gil ~ CA"

So a Legendary Warrior has enough life to lose 21 individual duels and still live to see another day. But just kill these guys by holding them with some troop and hit them with javelins, that should do it.

The general's hitpoints work out like this:

4 (a good solid start)
+ his generalship level
+ 4 if he's an heir or 6 if he's the King
+ 1/3 of his health bonus (the biggest of which is +20 for mightywarrior3)

= 16 + generalship level for a good King.

Gil ~ CA"

So my king who has Mighty Warrior and Rank 6 equals out at 22 in health, asuming you round down any fraction.

[Hamburglar]

Yeah but do those command stars give you extra lives if you're not "in command?"


For example.

I have a unit with command +5 in an army led by a command +9 general. Does the first guy get 5 extra lives even though the other guy is "the general"?

[Oaty]

It does seem even if a general is not in command that he does get those extra hitpoints as I have yet to have a spare general die in battle, but that could be caused by the fact I do not have green general turned on. So in turn his successor keeps the same stats

[Mount Suribachi]

Another thing to bear in mind when surrounding an enemy king is that if you swamp him with units, your men actually take a penalty for "overcrowding". One of the devs explained it not too long ago.

[Nowake]

Quote[/b] (Mount Suribachi @ Aug. 10 2003,11:52)]Another thing to bear in mind when surrounding an enemy king is that if you swamp him with units, your men actually take a penalty for "overcrowding". One of the devs explained it not too long ago.
Putting them on loose helps?

[The_Emperor]

Use Naptha Throwers or Arbs to kill the King... Works Wonders (especially Naptha, that stuff rules)

[Kraxis]

Besides the obvious disadvantages of overcrowding, too many men becoming tired and being affected by routing friends, I would like to know what else... Is there anything hardcoded into the game?

[Hurin_Rules]

"A mighty hero could conceivably turn the tide of a battle and could conceivably rout an army of hundreds of peasants"

Maybe in a cheesy fantasy novel; never in real life. Seriously, have you ever heard of a single soldier routing hundreds of others in any actual, verified historical incident? No. In real life, being outnumbered by 2 or even 3 to one is a huge disadvantage. Combine that with being surrounded, and it becomes impossible to to win.

In MTW, I have had a general survive for 10 minutes utterly surrounded by 100+ troops. This is simply not realistic.

[Oaty]

Quote[/b] ]"A mighty hero could conceivably turn the tide of a battle and could conceivably rout an army of hundreds of peasants"

Maybe in a cheesy fantasy novel; never in real life. Seriously, have you ever heard of a single soldier routing hundreds of others in any actual, verified historical incident?

Just do a search for manzikert on this forum and that will answer all your questions.

[Executor]

The Force is strong in this one:
http://site.voila.fr/executorfiles5/valour_25_ubergeneral.jpg

[Monk]

wow 25 http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

hes gonna be completly unstoppable lol http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Revenant69]

All bow in fear to the mighty Jedi d'Anghiera unless you wish to be pierced by his lance.

No seriously thats one uber general for sure - I havent seen anything taht high at all in my campaigns. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Executor]

You have to get a lot of good vices and virtues in order to get a valour that high. I save often and double-check each turn that he didn't get some negative trait. Half the fun for me when playing SP is crafting an uber-general.

Right now he has the following trait list:
Famous Warrior: +20 health, +3 valour
Argumentative: +2 valour
Most Honest: +1 morale
Specialist Attacker: +3 command in this situation
Skilled Last Stand: +1 command in this situation
Field Defence Specialist: +3 command in this situation
Secret Killer: +4 valour
Tortured: +6 morale, -2 command
Skilled Risky Attacks: +1 command in this situation
High Security: +3 valour
I'm pretty sure he also has Zealot, but only the first ten V&V are ever displayed, so you need to check the list displayed at the beginning of each turn to check what he receives.

Some helpful hints if you want to build your own Jedi Master: The Killer Instinct-->Natural Born Killer-->Secret Killer chain can be achieved with any high valour general. Send a very tiny army against a large one composed of peasants and other weak units. You have to auto-resolve the battle else you will not get the virtue. The chance of you getting Killer Instinct is dependent on how many men the general butchers in that battle. Once you've got Killer Instinct, repeat twice to progress up to Secret Killer. I haven't seen it go to Murderer (+5 valour), so I guess you need a spy to expose your general. Unfortunately, one of the patches changed it so that spies can no longer expose your own general's vices. Too bad.
Argumentative progresses to Secret Bad Temper, which has the same bonuses. However, Secret Bad Temper will eventually go to Murderous Temper, which grants no valour bonus. Irritable evolves into Argumentative.
The Captured-->Tortured-->Traumatised line of virtues is wonderful. Sure, you take a command hit, but that's easily offset by titles. The best way to obtain this is by auto-resolving battles. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anyway to get my current general captured again, so he's stuck at Tortured. My general and all the troops under his command always fight to the death. In one battle in which he commanded an army (1281 men) composed almost entirely of mercenaries against an enemy force of 7700+ men, they all perished when I auto-resolved. Not a single one fled.
Survivor-->Strong Security-->High Security can be obtained by sending assassins after your own general. There are three different lines of anti-assassin traits that can be gotten, however, a general can have only one of these trait chains. I believe the other traits give valour bonuses against assassins, only Survivor grants a regular valour bonus. You need to get Survivor the first time you send an assassin, so definitely save. If you don't get it, reload and delay the assassination a turn. It's random which one of the three possibilities you'll receive, so just be patient. Once you've got Survivor, send two more assassins to progress to High Security and the +3 valour bonus.
Other good traits you want to look for in a general that popup randomly are:
Famously Brave-->Utterly Fearless-->Brave Beyond Belief (+3 valour, +3 morale)
Pride or Secret Pride (+3 valour, -2 command; note that they both give you the same bonuses and penalties, ignore the description for Secret Pride)
Charismatic-->Captivating Nature-->Charismatic Leader (+3 morale)
Honorable Warrior-->Chivalrous-->Gentle Knight (+3 morale)[/list][/list]

[Executor]

Btw, I just checked the logfile. The initial cost listed for my *lone* royal knight general is 874733 florins http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[Revenant69]

Wow Executor, really nice post. This gives a sort of a guideline to train your generals. I dont like reloading if stuff goes bad, but you know what even if i reach 15-20 valor I'll be happy.

Thanks again. Gottta go and copy this post to a file http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Cheers m8 http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Oaty]

Quote[/b] ]Btw, I just checked the logfile. The initial cost listed for my *lone* royal knight general is 874733 florins

It would be my guess that that price on him is what you would have to pay to ransom him back am I right on this

[Revenant69]

Quote[/b] ]It would be my guess that that price on him is what you would have to pay to ransom him back am I right on this

Ouch, that would hurt the piggie bank lol. I mean 875000 florin ransom is HUGE http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif So I dont think he would cost taht much to ransom, I could be wrong though

[Executor]

I don't think so either. The last time he was captured (in order to get the Tortured virtue), I believe he only cost about 2000 florins to ransom back. He was lower valour back then though. The 870000 florins listed in the logfile is probably the cost to have a single valour 25 knight in MP.

As far as I can tell, the maximum valour a general can have is valour 32 (+19 from virtues, +4 from having at least 8 command stars, and +9 from combat experience), so Lord d'Anghiera is at 78% of the maximum.

Btw, those valour-granting traits apply to all the knights in the general's unit. So if I should take d'Anghiera and retrain him, adding 19 knights to his unit, those fresh knights will all start at valour 16 (+12 from general's V&V, +4 from command), even though they have never engaged in combat.

[tuopaolo]

Executor,

Do the morale bonus traits apply to the whole unit also (when the general is not leading the army and instead another general is)?

[Executor]

I don't know. If I had to guess, I'd say they would.

[Executor]

Something else I'm curious about is that my knights' valour seems to be higher than it should be. After retraining, 19 fresh knights were added to my general's unit.

The valour shown on the battle screen is the average:
http://site.voila.fr/executorfiles6/elite_knights.jpg

From the logfile, you can clearly see that the other 19 knights have 0 combat valour:

Code Sample Soldier Pre-Battle Honour Post-Battle Honour Armour Weapon
1 GEN 9 9 4 4
2 0 0 4 4
3 0 0 4 4
4 0 0 4 4
5 0 0 4 4
6 0 0 4 4
7 0 0 4 4
8 0 0 4 4
9 0 0 4 4
10 0 0 4 4
11 0 0 4 4
12 0 0 4 4
13 0 0 4 4
14 0 0 4 4
15 0 0 4 4
16 0 0 4 4
17 0 0 4 4
18 0 0 4 4
19 0 0 4 4
20 0 0 4 4
[/QUOTE]
However, how does the game come up with an average valour of 21 for the knights? The general is valour 25, the rest are valour 16 thanks to his V&Vs and command stars. The average valour would then be (25 + 16*19)/20 = 16.45.

I didn't bother playing out the battle so as not to distort the valour listed in the logfile and the screenshot was taken at the start of battle. I doubt he gained +5 valour worth of V&V in a couple turns without my noticing. So anybody know why the reported valour is so high?

[Ludens]

This is very helpful. Does any one know how many hitpoints a non-general unit leader has? Or how many hitpoints a 'spare general' has?

[Ironside]

Citera[/b] (Ludens @ Feb. 28 2004,04:24)]This is very helpful. Does any one know how many hitpoints a non-general unit leader has? Or how many hitpoints a 'spare general' has?
I belive it's 2 hitpoints for a unit-leader. And those extra hitpoints for rank and prince are added on that.

[fruitfly]

I started a new game as the Aragonese yesterday and tried out some of the tips in this thread for creating Jedi generals.

I was helped by the fact that most of my heirs started off with either the secret pride or pride vices as well as the killer instinct one, which meant they automatically started with 5 valour. Pride's something I've always thought of in a negative way before, because of the command and acumen hit you take, but the valour bonus definitely makes up for it.

Three failed assassination attempts later and I had the high security vice giving another three valour, which I made to be +8 from V&Vs. My best general with these traits was a 4* one, which meant he showed up as V9 (the maximum) on the campaign map, hence I was expecting him to be V10 in battle.

Deciding to have a bit of fun, I invaded the then Almohad province of Leon with five units of royal knights: three with +8 valour from the pride, killer instinct and high security V&Vs and two with normal valour levels. When the battle started though, my generals unit (a full-strength 20 man one) was V18, and the other two Jedi units V10 as expected. I've got no idea where the extra 8 valour points came from, but I saw it in a couple of other battles too. Anyone got any ideas?

Needless to say my 95 knights won convincingly against over 2,000 defenders. My general's V18 unit killed over 400 men and captured another 200 or so, but unfortunately his killer instinct vice wasn't upgraded. He did get skilled attacker and skilled risky attacks from that one though. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[gaijinalways]

Awesome stats on that knight. I don't know how high my uber-generals' stats have gone, I usually finish the game or spread my attacks over several generals. Have to consider doing it, you could end up with someone invincible.

I have found that alabasters don't always kill the general, but may depend on the range and whether the target is moving or not. The rest of a unit (say feudal knights) dies fairly easy when the range is not too far and the target is stationary, but that general takes a lot of shots to the heart (and head) before he dies, if ever.

[econ21]

On that uber-general getting a valour 21 unit after training, it does seem high but recall that valour is tracked at the individual soldier level and what we see for the unit is only a summary measure. So the 21 reflects the power of the general, rather than the 0 valour of his newbie guards. Obviously, the 21 is not a simple average - but maybe one uber general is better than 20 knights each with 1/20 of his valour.

Whether a mighty individual can sway a battle - well in modern war, I believe it is true that only a few soldiers actually kill or even shoot to kill; most keep their heads down. Squad-level encounters are often decided by one brave or crazy guy taking risks and earning decorations. In D-Day there was the story of one US paratrooper with a sub-machinegun clearing whole barracks of German soldiers with only one other para at his side.

I suspect in the days of hand-to-hand combat, the "fight" in a man was also very important and explains inter alia why Vikings were so feared and perhaps helps explain why Cortez and so few Europeans could be so influential in South America. I recall reading one report of a historical encounter where 6 feudal English mounted knights scattered scores of Welsh spearmen on some bridge somewhere.

Superiority of arms and armour are a big supporting factor here in boosting confidence in battle, maybe more than in enhancing combat potential (the assault rifle is partly because it was found that the soldiers with the automatic weapons were more likely to be the active fighters in WW2).

However, there is a problem of scale in MTW - historically some of the battles should be so big that a single individual's skill at arms would have no influence.

[Ulair]

There are incidents of individual soldiers changing the tides of battle, but more importantly individual leaders can have a tremendous impact.

For me, a general's skill at arms "rubbing off" on his men doesn't make sense, so I prefer to think of a general's valour as a combination of many things, most notably charisma and leadership ability. Think of some of history's great battlefield leaders: many of them led by sheer force of personality, inspiring their troops to greater efforts through their own example and rhetoric. Henry V (especially Shakespeare's version), El Cid, Frederick T Ward (founder of the Ever-Victorious Army in China in the 1860s), John Brooke (the White Raja of Sarawak in the 1840s) to pick an eclectic mix - all extraordinary leaders who inspired their men to, well, just fight harder. Muad'dib, anyone?

So, for me, uber-generals make sense like that, although I do think they should be easier to kill (c.f. my thread in the Entrance Hall... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif )