Generals - ahhh the smell of fresh blood at dawn. Anyone ever play a very old game called Centurion: Defender of Rome ?
The "general" was always a guy on horseback. He was fast, but not good in combat himself. The key was he had 2 value's - Voice and Leadership. In the case of TW games - Leadership would be the extra "honor" bonus he gives to units - while voice defines how large the radius around him is that units get the extra benefit of his direct skill in supervision. They should also give a command rating, another area in which a unit inside the area can be directly controlled, where one outside the radius suffers initiative delays in recieving orders, etc. This way, one could model true C&C issues, or one could supplement with multiple commanders. Due to their one man stature, and their emphasis on command, they are not to be used in combat, and are quite quick to fall if not protected adequately.

Generals should not be "created", but purchased out of a personnel pool - available to all players. Yes - that means that the AI could grab that good general before you do if they have the appropriate funds available. The one exception to this are the historical heirs who would be "born" similiar to their appearance in shogun.

Once battle is joined - the player could place their commanders as they saw fit to work within their strategy. While this would mean that the player would have additional "units" to control, it could be done so that a general be given a "set" of units to command (by selecting them and assigning the leader) and would then stay in the area required to do so automatically, barring attacks on his person or morale failure of course.

Of course - if one can hire a commander - one must pay him appropriately as compared with his ability - and a bad commander one could dismiss - or even execute. If you wanted to get detailed enough - you could even track each leader's wins and defeats against various opponents - allowing for subplots of intrigue such as feuds between commanders, a leader and his former employer, etc.
Thoughts??
Qapla!

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BSM_Skkzarg
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."