Training Generals

I've recently taken to paying particular attention to my generals. Whenever I start a new campaign, I focus on 2 goals:
- quickly obtaining the max number of generals
- training them up until they're at least 3 stars

Whenever I get a new general, I always adopt them and try to get them wives ASAP. You can have up to 5 sons (natural-born + adopted). This leads to many grandchildren, who I can use as bargaining chips to seal diplomatic agreements.

NOTE: There does not seem to be a limit on the number of wifes you can get. Even if you, your brothers, and your sons are all married, you can still bring another faction's daughter into your family through marriage (you just don't know who she marries).

I go for 3 stars because it's at that point that I can put points into the skill that boosts your Bushido research. That helps me get high-experience troops pretty quickly. This is especially true for any faction that focuses on spears (like Takeda), as the 3 techs in the spear tree grant +3 experience for Yari Ashigaru, Yari Samurai, Naginata Samurai, Light Cavalry, Yari Cavalry, Great Guard, and the Yari Hero unit.

What I do to achieve these goals is always split my army into up to 4 groups before each battle. Basically, 1 group with a general and all the troops and 3 observer generals in their own stacks. This is because the game allows you to have up to 4 friendly "armies" in a single fight. When you break them up like this, each general will get experience from the battle. If they were all rolled up in the same stack, only the most senior general would get the experience.

When you have less than 4 generals, you can force the creation of a new one. All you need is 1,000 koku in the bank. For example, your very first army will have 2 generals (diamyo + 1 other), a yari samurai, a yari ashigaru, and a bow ashigaru. First, move the entire stack to the edge of the red engagement circle around your target army or town. Then pull the 2 generals out and place them next to the main stack, so that you now have 2 stacks with just a general in them, and a 3rd stack with the rest of your army, and all are next to each other and just outside the engagement circle. Next, choose the stack without any generals and order it to attack.

NOTE: In order to trigger the creation of a new general, the stack that starts the attack must not have a general in it. For example, if you have 2 stacks, 1 with a general and one without, and you use the stack with the general to initiate the attack, the other stack will participate, but you will not get the option to promote because the stack without the general did not "lead" the attack.

When the pre-battle screen comes up, you'll see the stack with no general as the main attacker and your two generals listed as reinforcements. Fight the battle, win, and at the end, both generals will get experience, and so long as you have at least 1,000 koku, you'll get the option to promote a new general from the ranks of the main stack. The promotion costs 1,000 koku, so without the money, you won't even see the option to promote them.

You can repeat this process many times to ensure you get as many generals as you can, as fast as you can, and that each of them gains experience from each battle as fast as possible, so that you can zoom up the bushido tech tree quickly.

UPDATE 1:

I believe you are limited to 5 sons (natural-born + adopted), including the heir. However, I think that, in addition to those 5 sons (and up to 4 brothers), you can have an additional (and unspecified) number of generals. The reason I believe this is that the interface has arrows to scroll the list of generals but no such arrows to scroll the list of sons. You also see this limit of 5 in the number of agents you can have, and if you think about it, there's only 1 slot for the diamyo + a max. of 4 slots for brothers, which again is a hardcap of 5.

The training of generals and the use of them to speed your way through the bushido tech tree applies to sons and generals. Sons simplyl having the added advantage of granting you grandsons and granddaughters who can be used in diplomacy.

I hadn't realized how to do this "forced general spawn" trick. Very helpful.

That's an awesome tip, thanks!

I had not realised there is a cap of 5 generals, although it makes sense given that 5 is the cap for agents.

I used to be reluctant to adopt generals, due to the loyalty penalty and preferring "home grown" generals (for RP reasons). However, if there is a cap, I might well follow your advice.

Well, let me clarify. I think there's a cap of 5 "sons" (natural born or adopted) including the heir.

I don't think there's a limit on generals though.

I believe there's a limit of 5 sons because, in the interface, there is no way to scroll the list of sons. HOWEVER, there are arrows to scroll the list of generals, which makes me think you can have more than 5 generals, just no more than 5 sons.

Also, every time I've tried to force the creation of general ONCE I ALREADY HAVE 5 SONS + 2 BROTHERS, I haven't been able to. So, there may be another limiter, perhaps the number of provinces, that limits the total number of generals (sons + non-familial generals).

I'll amend my initial post to reflect this.

Nice find! Thanks for sharing. I've taken to putting new generals on Nanban trade ships or the black ship and sailed them around picking easy fights (i.e. all fights), but this looks like it's way more effective.

I like that there's a lot more justification to have multiple generals commanding a single force in Shogun 2, as you can Inspire several units, Rally several times or in several places, and, though I haven't tried it myself, I assume you could deploy several generals in Stand & Fight mode across the line. Much better than Rome/M2TW where the extra general was essentially just a small cavalry unit.