Yep. I'm also finding that Dread-producting acts also hurt my faction's reputation, so I try not to overdo it. One or two super-high Dread generals commanding the main armies and fighting the really big field battles seems enough - at least for how I play. I try to use the the Chiv generals to go take territory that I want to keep; they are better to "Occupy" anyway to keep the population up. And even if I don't want to keep the settlement, you can "occupy" it to boost Chiv and then sack the crap out it by selling off all the buildings, jacking the taxes up to very high, and leaving.