how do you train a quality combat general?

[bigmilt16]

In RTW vanilla, getting a good combat general was quite easy: just take any ol' character and meat-grind him through enough battles until he got his stars up. With EB however,the trait system, age, and the various temples and educational concerns make developing a good general tricky. What is your secret?

[Mister V]

I prefer mine to be educated men first, and generals later. That's why in the later stages of the game nearly every settlement has the highest level of the school building.

Then choose one who's S/C/V, and go get 'em.
The meatgrind thing seems to work, too, because the traits increasing unit morale are the most important ones, and they come with experience.

[Malrubius]

Having your general command in battles where the odds are even or against him is the best way to gain command stars. Just tagging along as a second general in the stack won't do any good. It is also good to give him rest between battles if he doesn't immediately gain a star so he can think about what he did right and what he did wrong so he'll do better next time. The stars are nice to look at, but the morale traits are more useful on the battlefield. Putting the general in the thick of battle is something that can help out there, with traits like Brave resulting.

[Macilrille]

resting helps? I never knew that and rarely have time, but thanks.

I find that the proper Roman way of having your youths studying strategy in military academies from coming of age till 20-ish then having them be tribune for a while till they are 30, then govern cities for a while, then command armies works well with some generals. Those with the right traits that is ;-) and I think that what it comes down to is a combination of governing in cities with high level educational building and actually commanding will do the job.

[soup_alex]

resting helps? I never knew that and rarely have time, but thanks.

Resting is something all of your worthwhile generals and FMs should indulge in on occassion; it's bad enough suffering from supply-related morale penalties when your general is on extended campaign without exacerbating the problem by having him repeatedly making a full move each turn (Forced Marching and Tired etc. penalties combined can be truly horrendous). I didn't realise that your generals would "reflect" on actions from previous turns, though: many thanks for the tip, Malrubius!

...about how long could this after-the-fact learning potentially remain, though? A turn? Two? Five?

[Ardri]

I downloaded Konny's mod which gives command stars in relation to the experience, so 25+ battles is +4 command stars. I really do enjoy that change to the traits. The one thing I don't quite understand is why most of my generals get the hesitant attacker trait even though I don't often wait til the end of a siege to attack a city.

I will say I just decide when a boy comes of age if they are going to be a general or a govern. I base the decision on their stats, but moreso I let the situation dictate. If I am just undertaking a new war or at a time of "relative" peace. If they are to be a general I have them make the circuit through my cities picking up the proper retinue members.

[Ibrahim]

educate, marry, and then send him to war. I don't keep most of my characters in a city for too long, unless they develop "attuned governer" trait. then i keep them.

[Fluvius Camillus]

My generals never rest, their unstoppable armies kill everything on the way and they do the job. Getting better on and on, no time for the feeble. They only rest in Rome to triumph and replenish their men. I only educate them on young age then they hack and slash trough the enemy!

This looks like one of the results....



Actually I should show you one of my best generals with it to prove my point.

EDIT:

YAY those Epirotes from my other campaign are slower

[Ardri]

I use the career mentality, except I normally use my most outstanding general as my faction heir. Once he becomes the faction leader I have him return to my capital to rule the empire.

[athanaric]

If you play the Saka, you will get excellent generals automatically due to the fact that you have to use those FMs or perish...

[soup_alex]

YAY those Epirotes from my other campaign are slower

Rome: Total Domination by 195 BCE
Epeiros: Total Domination by 190 BCE
Clearly this is a serious game balance issue that needs to be addressed in the next patch. I refuse to play this ridiculously unbalanced release until the bias is corrected

[Fluvius Camillus]

Rome: Total Domination by 195 BCE
Epeiros: Total Domination by 190 BCE
Clearly this is a serious game balance issue that needs to be addressed in the next patch. I refuse to play this ridiculously unbalanced release until the bias is corrected

Now dont take me for the standard EB player. The thing I did is an extreme exception. I only chose to play the fastest I was possible to do!

Other people play more historical and slower. The game really is not unbalanced I just totally rushed against extreme odds.

Play this awesome perfect and historically correct mod, play it like you want to do it. Dont mind me

[Βελισάριος]

You breed them.

It's simple, really. Survival of the fittest. First, you send them to the Agoge, then if you have Academies, send them there... then let them breed. Spawn children like crazy.

Finally you have them butcher the enemy, particularly where odds are against him.
And, of course... those family members you don't like... send them off to a heroic death, or out at sea never to be heard from again.

And yes, starts are pretty to look at... especially when the star column is bigger than your general on the campaign map.

[A Very Super Market]

Yes, their original traits will help. Being older actually helps as well. Winning big battles does more than tiny ones. Keep your treasury lower than 50,000 or you could not use selfish men as generals. Lover of beauty and other traits like that will give negative stars.

[soup_alex]

Other people play more historical and slower. The game really is not unbalanced I just totally rushed against extreme odds.

Sarcasm, Fluvius!

I'm still a little staggered by the speed of your campaign success, though: but I suppose the vast majority of my FMs (and I never seem to have very many) are left to govern the most profitable and the most unruly cities I possess, while perhaps one or two are one campaign (sometimes rotating) and one "trains" at schools and brigand hunts. I'd like to be able to try a speed run some day, but I'm not a very rapid or aggressive player and I don't often tend to think very far in advance—only on occasion laying a plot when the chances of several conditions being met are very strong (and it's not as if you can rely upon the AI to do much at all, apart from rapidly balloon when one faction has a slight advantage over its neighbours; commit all of its troops to engage your greatest concentration of troops when it attacks, or leave everything on guard stance on the highest available hill when defending).

My generals... tend to do alright (if not always brilliantly). As I seldom have many significant leaders in the field at any one time, I can concentrate all the best combat ancilliaries on one character and indeed switch them to "meat grinder". They may not become superhuman within a season (their bodyguard might!), but they'll certainly only improve with age, heh heh.

[Cute Wolf]

I only used 1 or 2 (3 on a large empire) FM as generals, trained on the field (or some 4 years on academy first, before sending them to living hell), take them to every battle available with matching (not overwhelming) army of sightly lower quality. (use odds less than 0.9 on my side...)

Let the other FM sit down and enjoy their governing duty, so that my General FM can have 8 or even 10 stars.... without any mod rather than standard EB! (but almost all of my generals (except him and his other 1 or 2 comrade) didn't have any stars at all and become fat bookworms)

[Tiberius Claudius Marcellus]

That's just sick

[Fluvius Camillus]

Sarcasm, Fluvius!

I'm still a little staggered by the speed of your campaign success, though: but I suppose the vast majority of my FMs (and I never seem to have very many) are left to govern the most profitable and the most unruly cities I possess, while perhaps one or two are one campaign (sometimes rotating) and one "trains" at schools and brigand hunts. I'd like to be able to try a speed run some day, but I'm not a very rapid or aggressive player and I don't often tend to think very far in advance—only on occasion laying a plot when the chances of several conditions being met are very strong (and it's not as if you can rely upon the AI to do much at all, apart from rapidly balloon when one faction has a slight advantage over its neighbours; commit all of its troops to engage your greatest concentration of troops when it attacks, or leave everything on guard stance on the highest available hill when defending).

My generals... tend to do alright (if not always brilliantly). As I seldom have many significant leaders in the field at any one time, I can concentrate all the best combat ancilliaries on one character and indeed switch them to "meat grinder". They may not become superhuman within a season (their bodyguard might!), but they'll certainly only improve with age, heh heh.

Ow, you got me there!

Interesting look on things too!

I usually assign directions(viewed from Rome here), the southern army + general (focusses on Carthage). The western army (Iberia), the Northern army (gaul) and the eastern army (greece). I dont start with that right away, I make the armies as my economy grows, so the upkeep can be afforded. The direction with highest priority gets an army first, in my case that was Carthage.

Good luck with your campaigns!

[Maion Maroneios]

1) It's good for him to 'Take AFter His Father', him being a good tactician
2) Sharp/Charismatic/Vigorous
2) Spartan Agoge training
3) Fighting battles

That's what seems to work for my Strategoi. Of course, my Makedones are the best Strategoi in the world, so the rest of you pesky people will have to pray to the gods to get as good as ours.

Maion

[HunGeneral]

1) Of course, my Makedones are the best Strategoi in the world, so the rest of you pesky people will have to pray to the gods to get as good as ours.

I see, and what about Phyrros? Against him it's the Makedones who should start praying...

[seienchin]

Yeah the Mini mod, which gives gives stars for experience is pretty cool, but anyways I get good generals by,
-Taking dull ones
-Fight and lose(win and lose around 50% each) a lot against Eleutheroi
-Pray for luck
-Pray for luck
-Pray for luck
-Give them the combat bonus acillaries of other Generals
I manage to get 7 Stars Generals sometimes and with atacker threads they have 10 when they atack.
Never(!!!) take the smart ones. As soon as they pause in cities with schools they get absolut pussies.
Sometimes Allied Generals are good too, but thats a big question of luck.

Of course starting Generals are strong sometimes but building your own ones is hard

[satalexton]

if he really was that good than he would not be killed by a falling brick by an old hag xD

[HunGeneral]

If he really was that good than he would not be killed by a falling brick by an old hag xD

Hmmm. True but wasn't Megas Alexnadros killed by too much alcohol (plus his wounds and him taking too much medicine)?

[BurningEGO]

Curious screenshots Fluvius. Did you use any mini mod or something in your campaigns? Whats the dificulty you played the game at? How many full stacks did you support most of the game?

Regardless, pretty impressive to have finished conquering the world so fast. Can you give some timetables of the date you obliterated each faction?

[Fluvius Camillus]

Curious screenshots Fluvius. Did you use any mini mod or something in your campaigns? Whats the dificulty you played the game at? How many full stacks did you support most of the game?

Regardless, pretty impressive to have finished conquering the world so fast. Can you give some timetables of the date you obliterated each faction?

Ah, a curious one!

Epeiros was 1.0 and Romani 1.1, Epeiros was 100% clean and Romani only the official fixes (especially the sprite one, ctd'd so much because of that).

Difficulty is VH/VH or M for both. Forgot the difficulty, at least one of them is M. I forgot how many armies I had as Epirus, only that they owned everything! The Romani were 6 armies + 2 more who couldnt catch up with my frontier armies (This was of course built up during the campaign, just starting with a half stack army.

To keep this thread on topic, I got various pics from my campaigns on an other thread, so take a look at:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=112224

[Maion Maroneios]

Did Alexandros die by a brick? No. Did Pyrrhos conquer half the known world in less than 10 years? No. So please save this for another time. No one surpasses the greatness of the one and only Megas in the world.

Plus, Julius Caesar did cry under the statue of Alexandros when he was 19 for a reason, you know And of course, Hannibal named his the best Strategos of all time.

Maion

[BurningEGO]

Didnt Hannibal actually prefer Pyrrhus? I always heard that for him Pyrrhus was the greatest... And come to think of it, Pyrrhus did crush some roman skulls, and that was a good thing for Hannibal.

And there is someone that beated Alexander in terms of conquest... Genghis Khan.

[A Very Super Market]

Pfft. The British conquered more :P

[Maion Maroneios]

Didnt Hannibal actually prefer Pyrrhus? I always heard that for him Pyrrhus was the greatest... And come to think of it, Pyrrhus did crush some roman skulls, and that was a good thing for Hannibal.

And there is someone that beated Alexander in terms of conquest... Genghis Khan.

NO man, he said he was 3rd after Alexandros and Pyrrhos...

Maion

[Fluvius Camillus]

This is an awesome page to compare!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires

Haha glory to the Netherlands! Our Dutch Empire was larger than that puny Third Reich muhaha