The making of good generals

**Kazaksan** · 04-26-2009, 20:36

Hello,

I have a question regarding the generals of EB. I've been playing as the Romanii for about 50 years into game. Having brought down several factions to their knees, and I stand with not a single decent general.

Having used family members to lead in several battles and sieges, most of them victorious and even with minimal losses, the general does hardly gain any "stars" or any treats. There has been few occasions where I have gained a one-two generals whom achieved triumph or even "Saviour" retuine, but I get amazed when I stumple across AI's generals with 6-7-8-9 stars, several military treats. So here I am, having waged war over 50 years where I have had not a single general with more than one star.

So, it has got me wondering, am I doing something severely wrong? I might aswell almost cut out the general bodyguard/family member and replace him with a elite troop to lead the army.

**/Bean\** · 04-26-2009, 20:46

Download Konny's mod.

**Madlax** · 04-26-2009, 21:24

It also depends on what kind of battle you where fighting.
For example, if your general fights a lot of battles where the enemy has more troops and your general wins them, he will gain stars a lot quicker then when he would outnumber the enemy every battle.
Also making him fight on the battlefield in the heat of the fight will be a good chance of him getting traits. And stars don't really say a lot, traits like "+1 command if attacking" or "+1 command when commanding cavalry", those are the ones that count for me.
It's a lot harder then in the vanilla RTW to get stars, but I rarely have 3 star generals walking around. Most of them have 2, that is, the ones I use on the battlefield.

**pockettank** · 04-26-2009, 23:18

ive personally never had a hard time gaining stars.
i currently have 3 generals on my roman campaign with around about 5 stars.
and ive had 2 or 3 past ones, in this campaign, that had around 5 stars.
and the years currently 183-180ish dont remember off the top of my head.

**Macilrille** · 04-27-2009, 12:21

This is a recurring subject. I suggest a Forum Search, it should yield some detailed information on how to gain traits, how they affect your general etc.

**Cute Wolf** · 04-27-2009, 12:33

Yess... making one general blitzing the map alone (or two maybe) from his 16th birthday..... until he reach senior age (73-74 years)...... resulting in certain freak 8 star scarred seen the elephants general...

**Elcmar** · 04-27-2009, 13:58

The most important thing if you want a really good combat centered general is odds. The less the odds are in your favour, the more likely it'll be for you to gain good traits and ancillaries - generally, give your general the bare minimum amount of units required to win a battle - 3 or 4 units of cavalry (light/medium/heavy/HA) plus your general can work wonders against much larger armies if you use them right.

**Cute Wolf** · 04-27-2009, 14:15

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Wonders this only applicable if you play a nomadic faction / faction who had better cavs such as AS, Makedon, or Baktria.. Romani cavalry are suck... I suggest you to play with your FM, with 2 hastati, 2 principe, 1 triarii, and some 2 / 3 light troops... they could outfought most gallic army twice of their size... quite good for blitzing in early game...

**Zradha Pahlavan** · 04-27-2009, 16:29

I had a thirty-something 5-star seen-the-elephant general once, but he fought so many battles that now he's sick of fighting. Oddly, he has both the war weary trait and the restless warmonger trait at once, which makes an obnoxious and near-useless combination.
Basically, I say this to show that you might want to be careful with all this.

**Watchman** · 04-27-2009, 16:37

Dude's gotten PTSD, obviously.

**anubis88** · 04-27-2009, 16:41

Originally Posted by Madlax

It also depends on what kind of battle you where fighting.
For example, if your general fights a lot of battles where the enemy has more troops and your general wins them, he will gain stars a lot quicker then when he would outnumber the enemy every battle.
Also making him fight on the battlefield in the heat of the fight will be a good chance of him getting traits. And stars don't really say a lot, traits like "+1 command if attacking" or "+1 command when commanding cavalry", those are the ones that count for me.
It's a lot harder then in the vanilla RTW to get stars, but I rarely have 3 star generals walking around. Most of them have 2, that is, the ones I use on the battlefield.

that's not true. I fought a battle with very few units, saw that the map terrain was very bad for me, retreated after a little skirmish and my general got 2 stars after this battle. If you ask me, it's completly random