I have a problem with AI bodyguards. :\

[Spoofa]

One of my Family Members in my Romani campaign has 100+ bodygaurds, id say he's quite an important person in the Senate...

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Influence increases bodyguard size.

I've heard that things like personal security effects bodyguard size aswell. But not everyone believes that. Since good generals usually get things like "conquering hero", that give negative personal security, if that theory is true, then that may be one reason.

I always thought that command stars influenced bodyguard size. When I asked that once (long ago), I was told 'no it does not'. I still think it does, though...

[BozosLiveHere]

Personal security does in fact affect bodyguard size. I think it's 2 soldiers per point, but I'm not sure.

[Watchman]

So "conquering hero" with its something like -5 pers. sec. mainly puts you in the negative in this regard ? That's not much fun.

[Thaatu]

So "conquering hero" with its something like -5 pers. sec. mainly puts you in the negative in this regard ? That's not much fun.

But general's bodyguards should not be used to replace other cavalry units. With a hellenistic faction the general participates in mounted combat, but it's the actual cavalry units that should do the job. It's a cheap way to save money by replacing elite cavalry with FMs, but if one doesn't do this I don't see a huge disadvantage.

If it wouldn't mean AI generals getting slaughtered, reducing bodyguard numbers would be plausible.

[AngryAngelDD]

hmm, i don´t have a problem with the bodyguard sizes as romani.
i play on huge unit size setting

my current Leader has 125 BG size (it won´t go higher i assume).
it is the first FM that get so much BG.

my other FM have between 50-90, depending on their age and how long they sit in a city.
i can´t say which other factors/traits influence the BG size, but i will look for...


one question: does the unit setting influences the size of the BG?
until now i didn´t believe that. IIRC even on large setting my BG could get more than 100 bg.

[pezhetairoi]

Well, I don't do too much replacing of cav with FMs, it's just that I have always brought along 2 family members per institutionalised fullstack army, a long standing army composition rule thing. After all, the generals always fought from the front in good ol' days. I just want more survivability, more than that fella across the battlefield from me with them wavy plumes and big bodyguard. And I just can't afford the time to accrue influence, it takes reaaaaally long, and there isn't even the guarantee that he will get 10 influence always, by a certain period of time.

Ah well. I've found out what I needed to know. I always thought command stars influenced the sizes, seeing some link between all the 9-star and 10-star generals I fought and their huge bodyguards, and seeing how only noob AI family members newly-come-of-age had 40 bodyguards, and not for long...

[Kralizec]

Personal security does in fact affect bodyguard size. I think it's 2 soldiers per point, but I'm not sure.

I thought it was the only thing that affected bodyguard size. Influence itself doesn't AFAIK, though there are several influence-increasing traits that also affect PS. This includes "faction leader" and "faction heir".

[Ludens]

There is a thread about bodyguard size in the Ludus Magna. It's conclusion was that both influence and security increase the number of guards.

[AngryAngelDD]

i looked for the values in the other thread.

based on collected data from my current romani campaign on huge scale,
i calculated the values.
i doubled the large scale values to get huge scale values.

=> the formula is ROUHGLY correct, but there are still some minor differences.
at least you can get some impression how large the BG size grows.

as said in the other thread, for HUGE Scale that means (large => half number of troopers):

A: Personal Security affects BG size by 4 troopers per 1 Personal Security point
B: Influence affects BG size by 4 troopers per 3 Influence points

so influence and Personal Security are the MAIN values for the BG size.

but as i said the formula has some minor errors and/or there are other values which have a minor effect.

i´ll try to find this out in the next days

AA

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

OK, Perdikkas is a conquering hero and he has got NO influence. But is it possible that the ethnicity of a city has also an influence on the bodyguard size? So, if you are Greek and sit around in an easterner city, you won't get any bodyguard, because there is just nobody around who could enter your service?