Extreme vices

[parcelt]

I fully agree with Magraev, and would like to add to that.

Because BI goes much further in its mistreatment of generals. I always loved (especially in MTW) to take a promising young general and have him develop a variety of qualities until eventually evolving into a superb general and statesman, one of those guys that from say his lates 30's on becomes a real cornerstone of your empire. I would place him in cities with the necessary buildings to develop good virtues and attract good retainers, and bestow him with the best titles available and eventually award him by marrying one of my daughters for some guaranteed quality time when off-duty .

Now, that is being made absolutely impossible in BI. Indeed, the extreme vices that many generals develop are only a first factor that seems to spoil the role playing part (it doesn't seem to differ much between factions, but that's based on my limited amount of campaigns played). A second factor is their extreme disloyalty (this seems worse for romans than barbarians). As soon as I have a general win a few battles and gain some stars, he'll get full of himself and loyalty drops to 2 or lower. As a consequence, I can no longer entrust him with any of my quality armies and have to bring in a new young general, just to repeat the entire process.

This really limits the useful life of your generals, and is taking a fun part out of the game. I like how it has been made more dificult for generals to gain command stars (way too easy in RTW), but shouldn't that also mean generals last longer (without becoming dangerously untrustful)? Sure, if it's one or two every now and then, fine with me. But this happens to every single general (at least in WRE campaign).

If I can make some suggestions, it would be great to be able again to coach some selected generals towards true greatness. It shouldn't be easy like it was in RTW, in that respect BI is fine, it just shouldn't come with such drastic disloyalty being applied to each and every general, and so many bad vices being gained so rapidly.

In addition, the AI should be told to try and have some of its own generals collect a huge amount of command stars ..... over time resulting in the type of adversary that can only be stopped if you have a general of equal status of your own. Yes, I guess what I want is the gradual appearance in the game of some super-generals every 30 years or so. You know its coming sooner or later, so you'd better have your own champion ready. At some point, perhaps when they're in their 50'or 60's, I can then have a final showdown between two such giants.

Apart from being a nice addition in terms of a bit of roleplaying, I think it may add interesting strategic and tactical dimensions to the game. You will have to think twice before commting your super-general to a specific front..... because your spies are reporting a 11-star enemy general gather troops on your other border.... etc.

Finally, it can't be that hard to implement, can it? Perhaps.... dare I say it.... even moddable????