Something strange i have noticed twice...

[Dayve]

The thing i'm notocing is, and i don't know if it is intentional... But very rarely, when you click on a general in the field, he gains the 'spear carrier' retinue... The first time i didn't know what was going on, i clicked on a general and down the left side of the screen fell the 'retinue expands' trait... I opened it, saw that someone has gained spear carrier, then closed it as i didn't think anything of it... Then a little bit later i started to wonder how he gained the spear carrier retinue just by me clicking on him...

Then it happened again today... I left clicked on a general once half way through my turn, he was in northern Italy close to Mediolanium, and down the left side of the screen fell the 'retinue expands' notification... And the general i had just clicked on gained the 'spear carrier' retinue simply by me clicking on him...

Playing as Rome by the way... If it happens again i'll be sure to get a screenshot.

[MeroFromVero]

This is in the Traits and Ancillaries Frequently Asked Questions.

Q. When I click on my new generals for the first time they seem to get an ancillary each - such as Tutor and Spear Carrier. What's going on?

A. We're trying to have more realistic and historical traits and ancillaries. We can restrict who gets what trait based on their ability and talent, but ancillaries can be transferred at will (by the player, anyway, the AI doesn't transfer).

Ancillary transfer is historical, but it upsets the careful balance we're trying to achieve if a general just gets 10 stars or wreaths by having a bunch of ancillaries. There is only so much that an assistant can do; the rest must come from the general/governor himself. So we must come up with some way to have our cake and eat it, too.

Hence this imperfect solution:
The plan is to use that "Tutor" ancillary to block off ancillary transfers so that the most powerful boosting ancillaries (that give influence, command, and management boosts) are not all dumped on the high-capability generals by the crafty player.

The major hard-coded limitation that has been discovered in the VnVs area comes in here; since only 3 ancillaries can be listed as excluded ancillaries for any one ancillary, we have to have a generic ancillary "Tutor" that we'll use to block off the good boosting ancillaries. Getting the Tutor will boost traits, though, because he'll teach the general as if the general were in a settlement with an academy. So the general is not losing out too bad.

Also, I've put something in to have ancillary acquisition tied into Charisma. More Charismatic generals can acquire more ancillaries. They can hand those out to the less-qualified generals, but eventually people will stop wanting to work for the guy if he just sends them away with a dunce.

[GoreBag]

I've tested this out too. I found that men who've married into your family will gain an ancillary when you click on the 'zoom to character profile' button in the Marriage Celebration message, but if you find the general yourself and bring up his profile, the ancillary will not arrive.

[Malrubius]

He should get it on the next turn if he doesn't get it immediately. The ancillaries have not gotten as much work on them as the traits, and we have some big plans for future versions.