Oh my, talk about Jedi...

[rvg]

Danes, Expert. The year is 1347.

Got 2 sucky heirs in succession, so I send them both on a suicide mission into Horde-controlled Muscovy. 2 Units of Late RKs w/ Gold weapon/Armor. One is a Drunk, the other one is Chinless Wonder + Killer Instinct.

Just for fun and games, I decided to play out the battle myself: dismounted them both and parked them in a forest.

The final casualty toll: 768 dead Mongols (mostly MHC, but also Slav Warriors, Mongol Warriors, etc.) vs 37 dead RKs. Yes, Chinless Wonder managed to rout back into Novgorod with a couple of his buddies. The Drunk (who was the general in that battle (3 stars) had 146 dead men to his name before he bit the dust. Chinless Wonder became a Natural Born Killer with 57 dead Mongols. Almost broke my heart when I sent him back to die the next turn...

Move over, Kataphracts, there are new Jedi in town.

[NodachiSam]

Aww too bad for him, seriously. You can recover from crap heirs. Their influence is more important than their command stars so it isn't always needed to get rid of them unless you are stapped of cash. High influence gives you good heirs. The points do roll over sometimes though so that you can go from having 9 command star heirs to 0. In my current game that's happened. That is how it seems to work anyways.

Maybe CA said something authoritative? Anyone?

[Vladimir]

Command stars are nice but acumen is best. I was able to get a Spanish King up to 8 stars and gladly suffered through his 0 star 6-7 acumen child and grandchild. When you have a crappy heir I recommend not killing him but having him “prove himself”. Best way to do that is have him single handedly assault a small to moderate fortification that is about to fall. If he dies, he dies; but if he wins he earns some great virtues.