Increasing command

[Mulceber]

Does anyone have any good advice for increasing the number of stars in a general's stats? I regularly fight the battles myself (usually don't auto-resolve) and for some reason, despite the fact that they often get the "good tactician" trait, their number of stars just doesn't increase. Anybody got some advice? -Mulceber

[Tarkus]

1. Fight alot of battles with even odds at best, and win.

2. He may have some other traits that reduce his command ability, so any positive effects from siginificant victories on the battefield are cancelled out.

3. Having said that, what's more important to an evolving leader and his army is the morale of his troops, and not his command stars. The level of command proficiency actually has relatively little to do with deciding the outcome...morale is where it's at.

Good luck!

[Mulceber]

All very good points. Also, I've heard people making reference to leaving your FM in a city with a school in it for a few years before sending them out to battle. Is that likely to make them more able to learn generalship in the field? -Mulceber

[Tarkus]

All very good points. Also, I've heard people making reference to leaving your FM in a city with a school in it for a few years before sending them out to battle. Is that likely to make them more able to learn generalship in the field? -Mulceber

Yeah, that definitely does make a difference...my current Faction Leader has never fought a battle but has considerable command ability as a result of his underlying characteristics and his long-standing FL status. But I still think, logically, that battlefield experience will go a long way towards making a legendary general.

My drunken, womanizing, narcissistic, foul-mouthed, disloyal SOB Appius Gallicus has made a career out of butchering many an enemy in the field...despite his rather abysmal managerial skills and his complete inability to exert any influence within the Roman governmental system, his battlefield leadership is second to none -- and he recently marched through Rome after receiving his Triumphus.

[Dumbass]

The level of command proficiency actually has relatively little to do with deciding the outcome...morale is where it's at.

Good luck!

I'm not sure why everyone thinks command has little to do with the outcome of battles, because it plays a much larger role than morale. Firstly, with each point of command, every unit within range of the general recieves +1 morale, +1 attack and defence. Also increasing the number of command stars and the influence of the character vastly increases the range. My 10 star, 10 influence commander's general inspiring range covers the whole of his army.

That means his whole army gains +10 morale, +10 defence and influence, plus the morale bonuses given through traits. So command plays a major role, and I don't understand why people keep stating it doesn't.

You'll probably notice that when fighting those 6 star rebel generals, that their troops fight much harder than they should do and are very hard to break. However, once you kill their general, they break much more easily, and do not fight very well. That's why I always make it a priority to kill the general.

[mcantu]

I'm not sure why everyone thinks command has little to do with the outcome of battles, because it plays a much larger role than morale. Firstly, with each point of command, every unit within range of the general recieves +1 morale, +1 attack and defence. Also increasing the number of command stars and the influence of the character vastly increases the range. My 10 star, 10 influence commander's general inspiring range covers the whole of his army.

That means his whole army gains +10 morale, +10 defence and influence, plus the morale bonuses given through traits. So command plays a major role, and I don't understand why people keep stating it doesn't.

You'll probably notice that when fighting those 6 star rebel generals, that their troops fight much harder than they should do and are very hard to break. However, once you kill their general, they break much more easily, and do not fight very well. That's why I always make it a priority to kill the general.

not quite right...

Just to clear this up ( as requested ;-) ), from the old code on my machine at CA the General's command modifier on attacks is still there in the last version, but it only applies to melee attacks and it is -inverted- so the quality of the defender's general is applied as bonus directionless defense for the defending soldier. It is also rescaled to range from -6 to +6, changing quickly at low bonus levels and then slowing down towards the top of the range. The idea was to limit the number of stacking bonusses which speed up the battles, i vaguely remember.

Also, the bonus is not limited by physical distance, and is supposed to represent a good general's ability to get superior performance from his troops through training in small scale maneuvers. The only way for this bonus to result in faster combat death rates rather than slower ones is if the defender's general has bad command traits...

If you want to test it, I would suggest a battle between some big peasant units, fighting the units 1v1 and timing the length of time to rout; then repeat giving each army a 10 star general. You should see a slower time-to-rout with the generals. In the end though 6 pts is not enough to make up huge troop quality differences, so don't expect to see miraculous differences.

the formula for morale radius of effect is: 30 m + 5 m * command + 2 m * influence

[Cullhwch]

You could do what I did and simply remove the incredibly complicated "becamebettergeneral" line of triggers from the relevant file. I substituted the Vanilla RTW GoodCommander triggers in their place and used GoodTactician and GoodLeader with lower odds to make a +2 jump less likely. This may hurt the roleplaying aspect a little bit, but it's much more satisfying to see Dennoros oi Neamha, conqueror of Gaul, Germany, Italy, and Spain as a 10-star demigod instead of some 3-star plodder.

[Dumbass]

I stand corrected, but command stars still make a big difference.