General Loyalty

[BigC5]

Im having a few problems with my generals in MTW. It keeps saying that I have a large number that are not loyal to me. I know I can take them out with Assasains but is this the best way? What else can I do to improve their loyalty and stop civil war from breaking out?

[Ldvs]

You can use your princesses, it increases the married generals' loyalty.
Try to expand quickly (gain influence). Put the disloyal generals apart (alone in their own stack) they will still command the army in case you're invaded.
You can also put a useless disloyal general on trial as example for the others.

High dreaded generals are more likely to become the ring leaders, so watch out.

[BigC5]

Do I use an Inquisitor to put a general on trial? What buildings do I need to train inquisitors?

[Ludens]

There are several ways to get rid of a low loyalty general: send him on a suicide mission, use an assassin, try him for heresy with an inquisitor or have a spy frame him for treason.
Also, you can set him apart so that he is not officially in command of the stack anymore, though on the battlefield he will be (but I find this rather cheesy).

However: to prevent is better than to cure. Low loyalty can be prevented by marrying princesses to them, improving your influence or keeping them close to your king. Succesful treason trials are also supposed to work (pick a low loyalty peasant or some such thing, as Ldvs suggested), but the few times I tried them I didn't found them very impresssive and if things go wrong you are in even more trouble. So I went off and attacked my neighbours instead. That worked pretty well.

[Mayfield The Conqueror]

However: to prevent is better than to cure. Low loyalty can be prevented by marrying princesses to them, improving your influence or keeping them close to your king. Succesful treason trials are also supposed to work (pick a low loyalty peasant or some such thing, as Ldvs suggested), but the few times I tried them I didn't found them very impresssive and if things go wrong you are in even more trouble. So I went off and attacked my neighbours instead. That worked pretty well.

So, as always, the best solution to all things is to attack!! :)

Actually I have used treason trials and I have noticed small increases in loyalty, but not throughout the whole empire. Throw a couple of disloyal generals in the same province and trial them all, see what happens..

[Procrustes]

Maybe it's just me, but it seems it's a lot harder to successfully try a general for treason, or to assassinate one of your own generals, when you are playing during the Viking era than during one of the medieval eras. Anyone else notice the same?

(And if you miss with an assassination or trial then you end up with a general with "hard to kill" or some other notable vice. I've ended up disbanding those kinds of generals unless they have a couple of stars. If they do have stars, then I marry them to a princess or put them in a stack with my king or a better general.)

Just curious....

[Darth Binky]

The easiest way to make generals loyal is to stack them with higher ranking loyal generals.

So if you have a 2* general who is about ready to revolt, and a 5* general who is totally maxed out on loyalty, put the 2* in the same stack as the 5*. Only the highest ranking general in the stack is the one who matters for civil war purposes- so the superloyal 5* will keep the rebellious 2* in line. Smack him around and all, you know how it is.

DB

[lars573]

Another easy way to increase general loyalty is to win a few battles. 3 should cure your generals of rebellious thoughts. Plus new units trained will be of higher loyalty to boot.

[DisruptorX]

The usuall tactic of princess+provincal title usually bring loyalty up to at least 5. Also consider giving a title to another general in the same army, he will usually become the new leader and you won't need to worry about the old guy. Also get virtues like builder to increase global loyalty.

Just from these basic steps I have managed to avoid civil wars in every game.