Quote Originally Posted by screwtype
The loyalty system in MTW had potential but it had so little impact on the gameplay it wasn't worth the bother.
It was quite fun dealing with loyalty at the beginning of a HRE campaign - your generals were so mutinous, you had to be careful who you flattered with a governorship and who you gave a stack of troops too. But those considerations tended to get swamped by your king's influence as you conquered.

I was not so keen on BI's loyalty - more victories led to your general's becoming more disloyal, putting a kind of "expiry date" on your generals and encouraging you to fight with your leader and heir.

I think maybe a blend of the two systems would be good. Give incentives throughout the game (not just the beginning) to nurture your generals' loyalty MTW style and allow some (but not all) generals an unobserved predisposition to become to overly ambitious BI style.