hitpoints

[Spongly]

Caesar was well known for leading his troops from the front, and fighting alongside them. As was Alexander the Great. It's really quite a modern idea that the general sits at the back and directs things - in the ancient world it was much more common for generals to lead from the front.

[econ21]

I'd vote to keep the 2 HP for generals, for gameplay reasons. Yes, may seem ahistorical. But it does give the AI generals a little protection and so keeps them fighting longer. It does not bother me if the general unit is a little harder to kill - you can rationalise it as the enemy army making desperate efforts to protect their king etc. (It does not seem so far fetched - think about what the secret service will do to protect a US President.)

If EB balances cavalry right (e.g. comparable to that in RTR 6.0), I don't think human players will abuse it. Even with 2 HPs, you probably don't want to be reckless with your generals if cavalry lose in frontal engagements with heavy infantry. In RTR I have learnt to be very conservative with my general - only committing him if it is desperate or fairly safe to do so.

If EB balances cavalry like vanilla RTW (v. unlikely, I know), then, it probably would be abused. A general's cavalry unit is very lethal in vanilla RTW. (That might be ok if this were MTW, but feels wrong if you are talking about Romans.)

All this is assuming "medium" battles which is what I would hope EB is being playtested and balanced for - I suspect as games get harder, it is more important to use gamey tactics to win. This seemed to be true of the Roma mod, where you have to play with nerfed Romans, abusing your general (and triari) becomes almost essential - it seems to me that you can't win without lots of gamey tactics - such as using your general to repeatedly smash enemy units in the flank.