Increasing command

[Cute Wolf]

I never had any general who often play with his horse archers got stars lower than 5...... 2 often come from good tactician, 1 or 2 from ancillaries, and the rest is good leader status.... Damn with "lover of beauty" traits... so I always keep my campaigning general on field.... except when they become a 90th grandpa and... roleplay they are retired...

[General Aetius]

Command stars help but just because you don't have them doesn't mean your commander sucks. I would rather have the morale bonuses but getting xp is also helpful if you want your general to play an active part in battles.
whether my general has 1 or 5 stars I, as the human player, can usually hold my army together anyway. I think the command stars have more effect on the AI's ability to keep their armies from routing too quickly.
But if you like having stars auto-resolved battles seem to, at least for me, produce more command stars.

general Aetius

[A_Dane]

stars are quite usefull if you wanna auto resolve, else they don't seem to matter much.
had a rather surprising outcome of a battle i auto resolved. when you got an army with a decent general (3 star), 2 armenian spearmen, some hoplites, + slingers and archers you kinda expect to win vs, against a 7 star general with 2 hellenic spearmen right? instead i got a notice of a crushing defeat: my army killed around 90, and lost 490... reverted to an autosave and won losing 29 guys...

[Whatever Scortamareva]

This.

[Mikhail Mengsk]

Morale traits are better than command stars, but if you have many stars less than your enemy, you will feel the difference seeing your enemy's units fighting to the last man instead of routing.