Quote Originally Posted by Duke of Gloucester
You pick up the not so bold vice by not engaging the enemy with your general during battles, so you can avoid it. I also think that if you get too many high starred generals, the game compensates by introducing vices to even things out, such as "always drunk" etc.
Well, I would agree with the second half of that statement, about game balancing factors.

Most of the time, I keep my general well away from the action and never seem to pick up any vices for doing that. On the rare occasions when they do get involved, it is usually due to a certain amount of desperation and they frequently get themselves killed in the process, whether I win or lose.

The one time I saw one of my own general's getting 'not so bold', it actually involved a battle won versus the AI. He was a Katank unit and this was in the desert, so exhaustion and being the last man left in his unit had something to do with it. I'd pushed the AI to the back end of the map and was at the stage of coping with its incoming reinforcements. I probably wasn't concentrating on his environs properly and I suspect he auto-engaged something (i.e. without me expressly pointing and clicking at any target). He was obviously in no fit state to fight and actually routed forwards, so as to take the shortest distance to get off the map. Fortunately, the effect on my remaining men was negligible and the job was finished sometime later.

So, I reckon he was given that vice for having routed. I've had generals who routed but rallied and didn't get this vice afterwards but the ones who go right off the map, without stopping, will likely get the "coward" vice. Perhaps the very short distance mine had to run helped limit it to 'not so bold'?