Sorry if its bad form to revive a 3 month old thread, but this one caught my attention. In my first game, out of the starting gate, I was trying to build a "chivalrous" general, but since he was my only decent cavalry early on, I had to throw him into the fight alot. So he kept getting +1 Chiv for releasing prisoners and +1 Dread for fighting in the battle. In the end, he stayed zero balance anything for a while, which I think is the worst of all. So I gave up on Chivarly, and just racked up Dread, which turned out to be a lot easier. He's a right dreadful bastard at this point. When I get a chance to turtle a little and build up decent cavalry arm, I'll have to try for a chiv general again. Seems to me its better if he doesn't get his boots too dirty to avoid the Battle Dread. I've got my faction heir travelling the realm building churchs and recruiting priests to boost his piety. As a nice side effect, that seems to pump up his chivalry as well, albeit slowly.