General's Bodyguards' Size

**KiOwA** · 12-04-2004, 19:47

Does anyone know what influences the size of a general's bodyguard? Most of them seem to top out at 20++, but I've had one general with 46 size bodyguards (this is on large unit size, btw).

**chemchok** · 12-04-2004, 19:57

Faction leaders and heirs get larger bodyguard sizes.

**KiOwA** · 12-04-2004, 20:03

Larger by how much? And surely this is not the only factor; the general with 46 bodyguards definitely wasn't faction leader/heir, he was some old general that I'd campaigned with for a couple of decades, then stuck him in a border town to govern because of his high influence. (Conquering hero trait is a whopping 6 influence - the decrease in security was more than compensated with his no. of stars and wreaths.) He did take some time to reach 46 bodyguards, though.

**chemchok** · 12-04-2004, 20:10

Off the top of my head, I'd say that faction leaders have 2x the bodyguard size of a regular general. I'm pretty sure bodyguard sizes increase over time, but I've never seen something that extreme in a non fl/fh general in my game.

**asilv** · 12-04-2004, 20:17

I think it depends on how many command stars general has.

**Colovion** · 12-04-2004, 21:16

I think it would be awesome if for every extra Command star, the General gains more men to his entourage. I am almost positive this is not the case, as I've had a 10 star General with 20 or so men. I think that a General of that status would have about 40 or so, you know - gaining two extra soldiers to the body gaurd for each star gained.

Just a brainstorm, but I'd love to see it implimented.

**Szun** · 12-04-2004, 23:00

I noticed..the more traits/ancilleries the higher the general BG
stars dont have that much impact really

I had several generals non factionleader/hier with 124 BG unit (hugescale)
with like 10+ traits and 8 ancs each

**Mikeus Caesar** · 12-05-2004, 12:23

I think it all depends on how many battles they can win. I had a general, who started out with only 10 men. By time he died, he had won so many victories, that he had about 42 men. And he wasn't the faction leader or the faction heir.

**jerby** · 12-05-2004, 15:54

he,
sounds fun. but I had a 10 star general with just 10 bodygaurds.
wich reminds me, what are the efeects of command stars? influence on fighting ability or on obedience? or what?

**KiOwA** · 12-05-2004, 16:06

Each command star adds one point of attack and and one point of morale to each of your units.

**Nelson** · 12-05-2004, 17:18

Originally Posted by KiOwA

Each command star adds one point of attack and and one point of morale to each of your units.

I don't think it's near that much. Shogun and Medieval only gave you a 1 for 2 increase never a 1 for 1.

**zhuge** · 12-05-2004, 17:34

Originally Posted by Nelson

I don't think it's near that much. Shogun and Medieval only gave you a 1 for 2 increase never a 1 for 1.

Agree with you that that was how things were back during S:TW but Jerome mentioned that the situation has changed somewhat.
See https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37001
I can certainly agree that the old system was better and more moderate but it appears that we're stuck with the new system until CA decides otherwise.

As for general bodyguard sizes, simple as that sounds, I don't think I've across a thread/post which has answered it definitively. I vaguely remember someone mentioning that it might be tied to the general's influence rating, but I can't seem to work out a good correlation. Perhaps a few factors are involved. Anyway, I notice that virtually all new generals start at 10 men for Normal unit size (on the battlefield this appears as 11 when you add the general himself). Agree that faction leaders and faction heirs appear to get more.
Since you tend to lose a few men (bodyguards) after a heated battle and their numbers appear to be automatically replenished each turn till the maximum, it's a bit hard to figure out the factors involved unless one keeps multiple saves before/after fights and turns.

Would be nice to know the answer though. I certainly could use a few more good men for a general's unit if I knew how to affect it.

**Red Harvest** · 12-05-2004, 18:34

Just read through Jerome's info on this. ...more attack bonuses. CA went nuts with attack bonuses. It is no wonder combat is over in seconds. ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK! This also explains why battles can actually take a little time in custom on medium, where you have no general stars and you don't have any inflation of stats for the AI. In the rare moments where the AI has a 10 star general on very hard it will get 7+10 = 17 attack bonus? And if instead the player has 10 stars (common) the AI will be getting +7 plus any generals stars (usually something like 2 or 3), while the human gets +10. That will put the human and AI one equal footing, but the kill rate is through the roof.

It would have been nice had CA used a more balanced approach--increase attack a little, increase defense a little.