Your worst unit with best stars

[Oaty]

I'm just wondering what you guys have had as the worst unit but with lots of stars.

Right now I have a 5 star urban militia running around who happens to be my best general in a sense(he has no bad vices). What is really funny he started out with 0 stars. So he earned all of those 5 stars and not a single V/V to help it along. I even meant to sacrifice him in a siege early in the game when the Almos were were advancing hard on my French territories. I was garrisoning my frontal territories with minimal garrisons so they could retreat to the castle and the Almos would either have to assault or wait many years. I figured since he was a 2 star at the time why not let him give those feudal men at arms some valour for defending the castle.

Well the Almos never did assault and I finally had enough troops to relieve my besieged army wich he had become a 3 star after that.

Well he happened to be my my spare backup general from then on. I never really intended any good for him the whole game, its just he happened to be at the right place all the time.

Of course it breaks the enemies fighting spirit knowing they got beaten by a peasant general. I think I've had more stars on other loser units but never gave any notice to it because they were usually bribed or had come out with the stars. I guess its the fact this unit earned all 5 of his stars through combat by me personally.

Maybe He'll get his 6th star soon and more as Egypt is of equal competition to me. Seems we been alternating turns on who is the most teched up and who has the largest army. I only own a little more than 30 percent of the map at this time

[Togakure]

Takeda Shingen (6-star) as an ashigaru http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif. Now, I usually just reload a saved game and change the unit beforehand--it's ridiculous in my mind to have an ashi unit be anything but 2-star or less. Hideyoshi began as an ashigaru, but by the time he was given any significant authority, he had been made samurai by Nobunaga.

In MTW, I've had a Naptha-throwing 8-star Byzantine gen before http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-confused.gif . As with STW, I now reload a saved game when a silly unit ends up being a hire-ranking gen.

[katank]

early french have two UM 5* heroes at start of the game.

funniest is a 5* catapult general I once had.

I never had trash gens above 5* though.

I had 6* byz inf general but I like that for barney flood and byz inf aren't bad.

[mfberg]

As Turk I have a 5* UM with skilled attacker, risky attacker, skilled defender. Started as a 1*, used him to take a pack of mercs through a HRE Crusade in Saxony that wouldn't attack me and walked through the HRE to relieve a seige of my French allies in Flanders.

mfberg

[octavian]

i've had, 4* steppe cav. 6* peasants (after many battles) then of course, there is those trebizond archers who were 3* along with AUM who were 5* after they received a title granting them an additional star. but of course, AUM are good, so that isn't all that ridiculous
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif octavian

[Kristaps]

hehehe, i routinely have high-star (6-8 stars) urban militia and militia sergeants when playing HRE. due to cost considerations, i use hordes of urban militia/MS's garrisoning my wooded border provinces: no other troop types. when anyone attacks the militia retreats to the woods and awaits enemy advance. that's when the slaughter begins: cheap and efficient. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

i guess, this tactic can be considered a bit cheasy, since the AI almost never sends anything decent agains UM and MS's... nonetheless, militia types have no difficulties turning even royal bodyguards into ground meat when deployed in the woods. give them some upgrades (especially morale) and let the general gain some stars and attackers have no chance :)

p.s. the memories make me wanna ditch work and go play another heroic HRE campaign ;)

[katank]

yep, militia as HRE often grinds the French king's unit to dust and several times I wiped them out by killing their king and all princes with militia alone

[mercian billman]

That's why I love the Byzantines, I consider all their units to be good (except Naptha's) enough I don't mind if a non Kat recieves a higher rank.

[Bhruic]

Was playing as the Turks. The French had done their usual "wipe out the English and HRE" thing, and had a large empire. There was a nice stack of units in Wales with a 4 star general, so I figured I'd bribe it, and then attack the French, doing some slash and burn. Didn't know what was in the stack, but it looked full.

And full it was ... of peasants So I had a 4 star peasant general leading a bunch of peasants against the French. They managed to do surprisingly well, thanks to outnumbering them and some flanking, but in the end they went down.

Now I make a point of looking at a stack before I try bribing it.

Bh

[TheSilverKnight]

I had a 9 star peasant, with no vices, 4 dread, and 6 acumen. I gave him a title in the Byzantine Empire (as I was playing Byzantines).

[katank]

9* peasant?

how???

how many stars did he start out with?

I would never have the patience to train up a peasant general.

[octavian]

sometimes it just happens katank, the unit starts with a star or two, gets put in a bunch of desperate situations, bang, you have a six star general, give him a title and away you go. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[katank]

that's true I guess.

I often had to defend from a surprise invasion using peasants.

amazing how I often win

stupid AI...

still, didn't you need a few dozen victories to even get him up to 6* or 7*?

I never see that many desperate situations.

[Oaty]

Quote[/b] (katank @ May 12 2004,19:20)]that's true I guess.

I often had to defend from a surprise invasion using peasants.

amazing how I often win

stupid AI...

still, didn't you need a few dozen victories to even get him up to 6* or 7*?

I never see that many desperate situations.
Generals stars work as the same as valour for assassins. I'm almost sure of this and will do a search on this forum for the formula.

As for me unmodded totalwar I never ran into enough sticky situations to have no star go to more than 2 stars.

Right now with Wesmod I have a big problem. (with Wesmod the med and atlantic region are not linked together wich makes the A.I. 50 times better with there navies) I have complete dominance in the atalantic region but have no control of the med, the reason I cant build a fleet in the med is because the Egyptians completely own the med and on top of that it has a 25 ship fleet patrolling my coasts now how can I pump out ships with that coming against me. As you can see I have to garrison my med coastal provinces heavily and have high valour troops to prove it. As you can guess if you can't control the seas sticky situations are sure to prevail

[katank]

that's true.

In vanilla there's never that many desperate situations for me.

The MedMod AI is also more competent for me.

As for med Atl. issue, That makes the Spanish and French even stronger for being able to produce on both sides of the gibaltar easily.

[King Edward]

Wosrt-best general i had was a six star skilled attacker on those dodgy camels the turks have (Can dismount as peasants) but that game has crashed now. often get high command urban militia as any catholic faction. Its a shame you cannot transfer generals to other units, to reflect their promotions it would be reasonable to assume that some one who has distinguished themselves in the Militia would be given command of some heavy infantry of even be knighted

[Nowake]

I never got peasants, never make them my generals. But had some militiamen with 6 star.

[WorkNeglecter]

Quote[/b] (oaty @ May 11 2004,03:20)]I'm just wondering what you guys have had as the worst unit but with lots of stars.
Ballista crew. Started off with no decent generals, and won a few battles with the ballista as general. Once at three stars he was the best one I had, so I kept using him. Never got many kills, but I had him up to five or so. Later I gave him double gold upgrades and used him in H2H combat.

[katank]

@ king edward.

if eggy, then you have 6* fine leader camel.

turks have a 4* skilled attacker camel.

those camel heroes are actually really good.

would be better if ghulam BGs though.

[King Edward]

Well spotted Katank, Yes he was a starting unit but after a few years and leading my horde to victory over the Eggy's i gave him the governor of constantinople title as his dread and acumen were high as well, just a shame his body guards die so easily, the only time he got to muck in was chasing down runners, not overly heroic http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-embarassed.gif

[TheSilverKnight]

Quote[/b] (katank @ May 12 2004,12:25)]9* peasant?

how???

how many stars did he start out with?

I would never have the patience to train up a peasant general.
0-stars, 1 dread, 1 acumen, 4 piety

[katank]

@king edward,

he's actually not that bad if you use him in the desert against cav.

he can slice up cooked katank emperors and princes nicely as well as catholic knights.

the only problem is when he moves out of the desert.

in that case, just armor him up.

it's funny to see heavily armored camels but they are actually quite good.

I use the camels to chew up cav and also kill archers before I can build to decent cav.

[King Edward]

Cool, Cheers Katank i'll give him a more active bash this evening. (just got 2.01 Patch and reinstalled hoping i wont get crashes with crusades anymore)But if he dies his blood will be on your hands http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Its just a pain in the butt to retrain him if he's leading out in Iberia or Byzantine as there are only a few camel provinces.

[WorkNeglecter]

Quote[/b] (King Edward @ May 20 2004,09:58)]Its just a pain in the butt to retrain him if he's leading out in Iberia or Byzantine as there are only a few camel provinces.
That's why I modded iron into Syria, so that camels can eventually get that weapon upgrade and stay useful across the map and throughout all periods.

The only problem is that once you armour up a camel unit, you can't de-armour it. That means that if you once again must lead a desert battle with your gold armour camel general, he's tired out after 2 minutes. (I made that mistake http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-embarassed.gif )

[King Edward]

Ahh no point getting older if we dont get wiser Thats what makes this game so replayable, is always a learning experiance and you can go back and play again not making the mistakes you made last time but a whole load of new ones http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif ha ha

[katank]

ahhh, so true.

I never had a problem with needing to fight in the desert again though as I quickly secured Const, Georgia, and Egypt as border and then pushed out the almos all the way to cordoba.

control of desert regions and not losing them with secure short borders and strong navy, I was able to armor my camels all the way up to gold and not have the fry.

It would be ironic if you crack up at the catholic knights baking in the sun only to find your camels are frying even worse

[Ragss]

in my turk campaign I had this kick ass general, 9 star and great vnv. But he was a turcoman horse Their moral is like -2 or something like that. So in this one battle I screw up and my general routes NOOOOOOO Then he had, in one battle, which we won, enough bad VnV to give -14 morale to his troops....bah. I had to retire the coward.

[katank]

don't care if he's 9*, he's useless if he's -14 morale as the game is veyr morale oriented.

as for the first place, you first shoudl have tried to get him to spawn as ghulam BG or even camel instead of turc horse and if stuck with turc horse, then train him in tripoli with master horse if possibel for V2 and if with mosque and ribat, you actually get 4 morale which is pretty decent.

I wouldn't mind a HA gen that much as he can shoot from safely behind your lines and not risk his neck while contributing to the fight.

he can also run away if necessary.

[Oaty]

Yeah those morale penalties can suck I remember 1 battle where I had indflicted 70 % losses on the enemy while taking very few myself. next thing that happens is my army starts a chain route, this is one occasion where I would have had no problem using the decimation tactic of the Romans because less would have died if they had stayed and fought

[noramis]

had a ballista once. 5 stars, whew, such bravery