Does the AI have access to a general-training building?

It certainly seems to. In a couple of campaigns I've had an annoying reoccurrence - the enemy simply seems to spawn generals out of thin air!

For instance, in Venetian campaign, I had an uber-assassin in Northern Italy. My plan was to assassinate all the Milanese generals except for their faction leader, who was parked in Dijon. I would then siege Dijon and destroy the faction. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of killing off those family members, and went in for the kill on another one in a pretty routine manner. The general was leading a standing army in the middle of Northern Italy. I assassinated the general as normal, and the army was then led by a captain. However, next turn, without any movement of a general into the army, it was suddenly led by a general again (and I could tell he was new, since he had pretty average stats). I killed him, and the same thing kept happening.

In another campaign - Spain this time - Portuguese generals kept popping up in Pamplona. They always had 2 or 3 generals. They only had Pamplona, and they were sending armies out at me to besiege Toledo and Zaragoza. I defeated them at my walls every time (no assassins this time), killing the generals, but they still had 2 or 3 generals parked in Pamplona every turn.

Is it possible to destroy any faction other than the Mongols by killing all their generals? Doesn't seem to be for me.

No the factions don not have access to a general-training building (unless you're playing a modded game...)

What i gather from experience as a big user of assassins (My king is always This or that the malevolent or the tyrant) is that ther e must be a minimum cap to the number of generals the AI-controlled factions must have.

The cap must be around three, ie the King, heir and one other general...(I thing it was already like that in MTW and RTW... STW is too far for me to remember...:inquisitive:)...or King and two generals ...

So if at the end of a turn you've killed all generals except the faction leader, the AI will automatically spawn one or two new generals raised from the captains as you can see in their names (generally if it was Captain Mucho it will be general Mucho Gusto, f.e.).

In order to get rid of a faction this way, you have to get rid of all generals, heir, faction leader in the same turn...(I'm a big fan of that... I've done it to the stinking Milanese with one assassin for the king...and a trebuchet shot for the heir-become king...the last general died in my cavalry charge...
:2thumbsup:

Hope that helps...

The title was obviously sarcastic, I know they don't actually have such a building.:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Unorthodox

The title was obviously sarcastic, I know they don't actually have such a building.:laugh4:

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Then CA have you fooled then!!!!!!11111oneone :shame:

This is not particular to the AI, it works the same way for player controlled factions. The game likes to keep each faction with a certain number of generals, usually in the ratio of one general per province. Whenever a faction finds itself with fewer generals than it should have, the computer offers it more adoptions and "Man of the Hour" to compensate. If you had 20 provinces and suddenly lost all generals except your faction leader, you would start getting offers of new generals pretty much every turn until you were back up to around 20.

Oh, okay. Hadn't noticed that. Thanks for clearing that up.

But wait. If the new generals are just generals, and not Family Members, won't they just become rebels when you kill the faction leader? Or are these new generals listed as Family?

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Originally Posted by OssomTossom

But wait. If the new generals are just generals, and not Family Members, won't they just become rebels when you kill the faction leader? Or are these new generals listed as Family?

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If they're adoptions, they're family members. Adoptions are the most common thing when you're low on family members, so most likely that's what the AI is getting as well.

If you want to see this become REALLY annoying, you need to play RTW:BI. The horde factions in that game often get whittled down to a stack of only family members. If you let just 1 of them escape, several more spawn in and keep them alive.

What TC said is incorrect.

The AI does cheat in getting new generals as it can make a Captain a Family Member without entering combat and while standing anywhere in a region hostile or friendly instead of only in stacks with exisiting family members or faction cities

Ya, this "feature" is pretty annoying. I already saw it in the normal RTW when I tried my MTW strategy of assassinating the whole Egyptian family.
It didn't work, the only chance you have is if the enemy has a family full of under-aged children, because adoptions will be a lot rarer then.
Or you'd have to assassinate all family members in the same turn, but I never managed to do that.

Yup, noticed it in RTW too alpaca.

In both Rome and M2TW though, you need to assassinate all the newest family members first though to eliminate the faction. Reasoning is that the newest take up 1 slot in the limit of 4. AI also only gets 1 general a turn (except through MOTH but they hardly win battles against the human) and if you keep killing that one, eventually all the family members above them in the tree will have had their max number of children (save for those who are still underage) and then you can go kill any of them at random until one kid comes of age or they die out.

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Originally Posted by alpaca

Or you'd have to assassinate all family members in the same turn, but I never managed to do that.

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I used to do that a lot in RTW, mainly with factions that had not many regions under control... that way, it was easier to do it in one fell swoop...using both armies and assassins...

I've done the same in MTW2 : I've decimated the entire Milanese family and genrals in one turn beginning with the king and going down the line... There were only three of them... I'm actually doing it to Spain and England... :yes:

It is particularly easy with the Sicilian, Milanese, Scottish, English and eventually Papal States factions as they tend to have few grouped territories... So anytime you see a general alone or with few units and one of your armies is at hand, strike swiftly and try to send assassins at the same time to the other targets of that faction... it's not guaranteed but if you're already at war with it may be worth it...