Youngest 10* General?

[13th-Caesar]

Hi all, I am new here. I bought Rome:Total War 2 weeks ago and I am hooked! I have completed a campaign as the Julii and I though the game was excellent. Only bits that I would improve is the Egyptian faction, their units arnt what they were like at that time, also in my campaign Egypt ended up near Scythia and Alexandria and the Egyptian regions were all lost to the Scipii.

I was wondering though, what is the youngest ten star general you have had/seen? My youngest was 29/30, he came from a huge city with a good academy and started off with 5 stars. I just sent him out to conquer Spain and Gaul.

Another question, if your generals beat, say, a Gaulish army of 800 men and a Brutii army of 800 men woud one boost his command ability more?


Thanks!

[naut]

Welcome 13th-Caesar.

Never played RTW long enough to get decent generals, (got bored ).

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi and welcome 13th-Caesar,
I have, sadly, never got ten star generals in R:TW, actually, I am yet to get any above six stars! Sadly, due to a few problems with the battle system and the amount of generals I was losing in my campaigns, I, in the end, simply only used captains and, later than that, only auto-resolve - the strategic map is where the action is for me!

Another question, if your generals beat, say, a Gaulish army of 800 men and a Brutii army of 800 men woud one boost his command ability more?

I would beleive that it really depends on the size of your forces compared to the enemy's. If you have five hundred peasants and they have five thousand elite troops and you win a heroic victory you are much more likely to gain multiple command stars in a battle rather than if you had the five thousand elite units and beat one unit of feeble peasants! As a general rule the worse the chances of you winning the battle the more command stars you will gain if you win a great and grand victory! Also, over time, the more battles a general wins the more popualar he will become with the people, and the more he will be hated by the senate, that is, however, if you are a Roman faction - if you are not a Roman faction, you just gain influence bonuses.

Hope this helps you, cheers!

BTW, if you want a completly different game play experience, as well as a grand and realistic Egypt, then perhaps you should give the almighty EB a try!

[Caerfanan]

I'll say that you gain command stars when you gain battles. And might have a boost with very brilliant battles, because you general might get virtues giving command bonus.

In RTW, you have retinues, and could have someone giving you one or two command stars, maybe?

29/30 y/o 10* general is impressive, congratulations! :-)

[Andres]

Welcome 13th-Caesar

10* at the age of 29/30 is quite impressive

[Fate]

Random question, but what message comes up when you hold the cursor over the stars? I always remember this more than the number of stars lol.
Like with spies i remember "more cunning than a sackfull of hungry weasels" is about 8 points in strength

So yeh, any idea?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi Fate,
Perhaps this information could aid you:

Influence
0. A stuffed olive has more influence than this man - it could choke someone important and change history.
1. This man has almost no influence over his dinner menu at home, let alone his life and the fate of the world.
2. This man's opinions carry little weight. He is simply regarded as something of a duffer.
3. This man is of scant importance. He occasionally says sensible things, but the occasions are few.
4. Sometimes this man's counsel carries weight, and his opinion is sought on carefully selected matters.
5. This man's word carries weight in the lesser palaces of the world, although the truly mighty largely ignore him.
6. More often than not this man's counsel is listened to with respect even if it does not always carry the day.
7. This man's good qualities make him someone who can tip the balance of many arguments.
8. This man carries enormous political weight, and his words sway the opinions of most lesser men.
9. When this man speaks, all stop to listen to his words. Even his opinions have the force of law for many.
10. When this man speaks, his words carry the wisdom of the Gods to his listeners.

Command
0. "Leadership" is just a long word to this man, like "inspiration". He posesses neither.
1. Command ability is, at best, a yawning gap in this man's personality.
2. This man knows how to shout orders, but these are often neither timely nor relevant.
3. This man lacks command, but makes up for it with a good loud voice and a small talent for instilling fear.
4. This man has a basic talent for command, although he sometimes lacks of confidence.
5. This man shows skill in battle command, but from time to time he makes tactical errors.
6. On a battlefield this man inspires confidence in his soldiers. Sometimes the facade cracks - but not often.
7. This man's sound grasp of strategy and tactics inspires confidence in all who follow him into battle.
8. This man is a tower of strength on the battlefield. He has the inspiring 'look of eagles' about him.
9. At the sound of this man's voice even clouds change their path across the heavens!
10. At the sound of this man's voice even clouds change their flight across the heavens!

Management
0. An under-achieving oyster would show more signs of being able to manage the day-to-day affairs of an empire.
1. This man should not be entrusted with running a whelk stall, let alone anything important.
2. Administration is not this man's forte. He can manage simple matters, but without skill.
3. This man has dogged determination as a replacement for administrative flare.
4. This man's limited administrative talent produces results that are adequate but far from inspired.
5. This man has talent but becomes flustered when the unexpected spoils his best laid plans
6. More often than not this man solves administrative problems but some crises leave him floundering.
7. This man is an efficient administrator, well able to deal with unexpected crises.
8. This man is a whirlwind of efficiency, cutting through red tape at every turn.
9. This man shapes the business of state to his will, and gets any task done despite any challenge.
10. This man shapes all the affairs of the world to his plans, and lesser men obey in all things.

Subterfuge
0. This man is an innocent, cast adrift in a world of rather cunning weasels.
1. Cunning and guile are the last words that would be used to describe this transparent, naïve individual.
2. Subterfuge is not a weapon found in this man's intellectual armoury.
3. This man is not a natural conspirator, but sometimes he has a flash of insight.
4. Sometimes this man recognises subterfuge for what it is. Sometimes he even makes use of it himself.
5. Subterfuge is a tool that this man can use, even though he makes occasional mistakes.
6. This man can plot and conspire with enthusiasm and sometimes with real skill.
7. This man has more cunning than a sackful of hungry weasels.
8. This man has a mind of serpentine complexity, and is able to create and penetrate the most cunning of plots.
9. This man's plots are all masterpieces of feints within feints, hidden within other conspiracies.
10. This man's plots are invisible webs, while his keen mind can untangle any foreign conspiracy

Hope this helps you, cheers!

[RabbitDynamite]

Hey Ceaser. Don't trust me entirely on this, but I think you're general has got a chance of winning a command star if he wins a battle when the odds are somewhere around even. If the odds are 3:1 in your favour (and might be 2:1, again I'm hardly an expert) no command star for you fatboy! On the pre battle screen where you can select attack/auto-decide/retreat, hover your mouse over the red/blue bar to see the odds.

Size of the armies might be an issue, but since I've had "man of the hour" captain promotions from small-scale battles I suspect not. If you play EB (which I'd heartily recommend you try after a couple of campaigns in vanilla. The amount of work those guys put in, particuarly with regards to historical accuracy, is astonishing) the intelligence stat adjusts your chances of getting an increase.

In regards to the question, I think my youngest 10* was Amilius the Great from a Burtii campaign. He hit that rank about age of 45 after conquering all of macedon/greece and a bit of Asia minor.

[pockettank]

the youngest ive had was as the selucid empire as i conquered Parthia around turn ten he came as a 3 star general after killing armenia and parthia with him he was about an 8 star killed scythia with him 10 star w/ barbarian, easterner and egyptian turncoat (i killed 1 army and he got it ) he was 34-36 as a 10* general i killed thrace, roman brutii, dacia, germania, and almost all of britania before he died with him he was cleitos the mad when he died and had stuff like unhinged loon and ucontrolable rage he went pshyco he kicked-ass

[OliverWKim]

10* at 29/30? That's nothing short of impressive. My youngest 10* was probably like 50-something when he earned his 10th *, and he had fought through like 20+ battles.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Sorry about this guys, yet I'm going to interrupt and talk about the great M:TW generals! You sadly cannot find out the age of standard generals in M:TW, however, as the English in Early, I got Lord Mobray, Duke of Normandy, up to eight stars within twenty turns of his existance, that's twenty years in M:TW terms and ten in R:TW terms. It was an interesting story involving ignorance of the Pope, excommunication and the destruction of the French! It was a very enjoyable campaign. It was a real shame that it ended in an epic HRE Crusade against my lands!

[IrishArmenian]

I forgot about my best young generals in MTW and RTW but in M2TW: Regions Provinces Mod (with Darthmod) it is Ruarc the Crusader--31.

[Martok]

Sorry about this guys, yet I'm going to interrupt and talk about the great M:TW generals! You sadly cannot find out the age of standard generals in M:TW, however, as the English in Early, I got Lord Mobray, Duke of Normandy, up to eight stars within twenty turns of his existance, that's twenty years in M:TW terms and ten in R:TW terms. It was an interesting story involving ignorance of the Pope, excommunication and the destruction of the French! It was a very enjoyable campaign. It was a real shame that it ended in an epic HRE Crusade against my lands!

And why, my dear Omanes, have we not heard the story of young Duke Mobray in the Main Hall yet? Perhaps the threat of more time shoveling out the camel stalls will "inspire" you to write about it....

But if we're going to include generals from MTW, then surely Prince Alexios Comnenus must be one of the youngest uber-generals any player can have. I mean, I believe he *starts* with 7 stars already, for cryin' out loud -- and that's just when he comes of age at 16 years old! Truly, the early line of the Byzantine royal family in MTW is just scary.

However, if we're only talking about generals that we've mostly built up ourselves, then I would have to say that my Danish prince Joar is one of the ones I'm most proud of. When he came of age, Joar had only a relatively modest 3 command stars. Even worse, though, the rest of his stats were completely abysmal - very little loyalty & piety, no dread, and IIRC he had a whole 2 points of acumen. To top it all off, he also had the Inbred vice. In all, he wasn't exactly worthy of being a member of the royal house.

So I did what any good king (and MTW player) would: I sent him into "glorious battle" -- i.e., a suicide mission. I was fighting the Pagan Lithiuanians at the time, and I decided to send him ahead with a small force of mercenaries & "junk" units to do as much damage as he could before being killed. I would then follow up in a year or two with my main invasion. Joar would perish having softened up the enemy for me, thus killing two birds with the proverbial stone. I therefore proceeded to sail the prince and his men across the Baltic, and immediately withdrew my ships so that he couldn't leave.

Things didn't quite go according to my plan, however. Despite being outnumbered almost 3-1, Prince Joar somehow pulled off a miraculous victory, driving the Lithiuanians from the field. He gained 2 command stars for this (Skilled Attacker and Skilled Risky Attacks). So then I decided to just wait for the enemy to regroup and lead a counterattack. With no hope of reinforcements, the prince would surely fall....

....But no, I was wrong again! With almost fanatical courage, Joar and his (now dimished) army managed to beat back the attackers. My son showed surprising cunning, using the woods to good effect and springing ambushes on the Lithiuanian troops. With this victory, the prince picked up two more stars (Skilled Defender and Skilled Last Stand). He was now at least a 4-star general, and usually had 5 stars when attacking, as he was often outnumbered even on offense.

Well after this, I couldn't just throw the poor kid away. I realized that while he might never be capable of ruling a kingdom, he sure knew his way around war! After the Lithiuanians had been dealt with (in which Joar was the commander in almost all of the battles involved), I decided to give him next major test: I appointed him to lead a Crusade to Antioch. It's one of the relatively few times I sent a Crusade over land (I usually prefer to deliver them by sea), but I wanted to see what he could do.

He didn't disappoint me. After passing out of Byzantine lands -- the Emperor had granted us safe passage through his domain -- Joar fought his way through and past several Seljuk armies, almost driving the Turks completely out of Anatolia in the process. (It should be noted that during these battles, he gained 2 more command stars - one for number of battles won, and another for getting the Expert Attacker trait.) When he arrived at the gates of Antioch itself, he immediately laid siege and began preparations to take the city by force. In a bloody battle that saw heavy casualties on both sides, Joar finally wrested control of the city as the sun was nearing the horizon. (He got another star for the Good Assaulter trait.) The Crusade had been successful, thanks to him!

Even then, however, his work was not done. The Saracens burned to get Antioch back, and vowed revenge against the infidels from the North. Thus it was that Joar had to fight off numerous attempts by the Muslims to retake the city. The battles became more and more desparate, as he couldn't replace his losses as quickly as the Seljuks could. He eventually had no choice but to retreat to Antioch itself, where he had to fend off an attempt by the Seljuks to take the city directly (another star for Good Assault Defender). I was able to dispatch reinforcements to Antioch just in the nick of time -- only a year before the city would've fallen back into Turkish hands. By this time, my prince was a 6-star general in his own right, with bonuses for both attacking *and* defending castles.

I know Prince Joar isn't the biggest "success story" here by any means, but it was definitely one of the more colorful careers I've seen a general have in my campaigns. To go from bozo to hero in the space of 15 years -- to have become one of the world's great commanders when he was just over 30 when he first seemed to be nothing more than a buffoon -- is quite the achievement. (And all the more so because I'm usually not a very good field commander in MTW, but I kept getting lucky in every battle where Joar was my general! Some guys simply lead a charmed life, it seems....)

[Caerfanan]

Sorry about this guys, yet I'm going to interrupt and talk about the great M:TW generals! You sadly cannot find out the age of standard generals in M:TW, however, as the English in Early, I got Lord Mobray, Duke of Normandy, up to eight stars within twenty turns of his existance, that's twenty years in M:TW terms and ten in R:TW terms. It was an interesting story involving ignorance of the Pope, excommunication and the destruction of the French! It was a very enjoyable campaign. It was a real shame that it ended in an epic HRE Crusade against my lands!

...

An HRE Crusade against the English? How?
(Oh, BTW, I never got more than 9* in MTW)

[Caerfanan]

Martok, I just read the history of Joar.

Whoa... Colorfull and brilliant! Congratulations!

[Martok]

...

An HRE Crusade against the English? How?
(Oh, BTW, I never got more than 9* in MTW)

Nor has anyone else in MTW. For better or worse, the game doesn't allow for more than 9 command stars.

Martok, I just read the history of Joar.

Whoa... Colorfull and brilliant! Congratulations!

Thanks, Caerfanan.

It was actually kind of weird -- it was as if I just couldn't lose with Joar in command, no matter how the odds were stacked against him. I began to think he was practically invincible after a while. Indeed, he never seemed to be in great danger in any of the battles he was in. In fact, the only time I ever really came close to losing Joar was when he and his men were under siege in Antioch and on the brink of starvation. He died at the (relatively) ripe old age of 63, having never lost a battle. At the time of his death, he was an 8-star general, and one of the Danes' most brilliant commanders. (Still couldn't spell worth a damn, though!)

[Caerfanan]

It was actually kind of weird -- it was as if I just couldn't lose with Joar in command, no matter how the odds were stacked against him. I began to think he was practically invincible after a while. Indeed, he never seemed to be in great danger in any of the battles he was in. In fact, the only time I ever really came close to losing Joar was when he and his men were under siege in Antioch and on the brink of starvation. He died at the (relatively) ripe old age of 63, having never lost a battle. At the time of his death, he was an 8-star general, and one of the Danes' most brilliant commanders. (Still couldn't spell worth a damn, though!)

Do you remember if Joar got some "has to be killed 30 times to actually die" traits? Surviving this many battle against such odds should have brung him some "undying warrior" traits, should'nt it?

[Fate]

Thanks for the guide Omanes, i can only recall seeing one nine or ten star general in all of the campaigns ive completed (20+). But quite frequently i end up leaving good genereals in cities that need quelling, and tend to forget about them!

[Martok]

Do you remember if Joar got some "has to be killed 30 times to actually die" traits? Surviving this many battle against such odds should have brung him some "undying warrior" traits, should'nt it?

He did get the "Mighty Warrior" trait, along with the "Brave Beyond Belief" line of virtues.

[Katie]

6 Star General, Night fighting capability, 16 years old

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Wow Martok, that was epic, I thought the "inbread" vices restricted a generals development by disallowing them many virtues. You cetainly powered him up them.

An HRE Crusade against the English? How?

Unfortuantely that cursed Pope excommunicated me and then had the cheak to call for a crusade against my lands. My faction leader and all his heirs were in one full stack in Flanders and that was where the huge crusade was heading for! I couldn't abbandon the province as the neighbouring provinces had either turned to the civil war or were owned by the almighty Holy Roman Emperor himself. When the crusaders assaulted the castle, I simply knew it was all over for me and the tiny empire which I had built up. However it was fun while it lasted, I wouldn't mind a re-enactment, yet this time without getting told that my forces have "degenerated into minor factions!"

[Vorenus]

I once got a ten star general at 28 or 29 in vanilla with the greek cities. He came from a big city, picked up a few retinue's and won some pretty impressive battles... a fine greek he was. This guy lost his life fighting a battle in Britain, he was down five to one... the barbarians overwhelmed him. He was a spartan and was scarred so he gave on helluva fight.

[Martok]

Wow Martok, that was epic, I thought the "inbread" vices restricted a generals development by disallowing them many virtues. You cetainly powered him up them.

Thanks Omanes!

I suspect the reason Joar's Inbred vice didn't get worse was because he was almost constantly fighting and otherwise on the move. If I'd had him just sitting around a lot of the time, I'm pretty sure his Inbred vice would've gotten worse like you said.

To be honest, I'm not sure it was the Inbred vice that he had, now that I think about it. I think it might have been "Odd number of toes" instead -- not that that's any better, really. Regardless, I'm reasonably certain it was Joar's "active" lifestyle that prevented his vices from worsening. Just further evidence that in MTW, the best thing you can do for your generals and governors is to keep them busy and moving about!

[The Spartan (Returns)]

warm welcomes from the Grace. i've had a ten star general but forgot age.

[ieyeasu]

France has a budding 10 star at the beginning of a new MTWII campaign--Prince Louis can make it around turn 10 if you push it.

[LuckyDog Trojan]

Concerning all the above: won't the difficulty level you're playing on also have an impact on how frequently you are able to earn additional stars for your general(s)?

[Martok]

Concerning all the above: won't the difficulty level you're playing on also have an impact on how frequently you are able to earn additional stars for your general(s)?

Insofar in that it's harder to win battles, yes. It's not like the difficulty level actually increases the number of victories required to gain another command star, though. Is that what you're wondering?

[Caerfanan]

On the same topic, has anyone ever got a young prince with more than 6 stars when he grows of age in MTW? That's the best I could do, with the vikings in MTW

[Martok]

On the same topic, has anyone ever got a young prince with more than 6 stars when he grows of age in MTW? That's the best I could do, with the vikings in MTW

Do you mean that he already had 6 stars when he turned 16? Or that you got him up to 6 stars before he died?

[IrishArmenian]

He means right out of the gate he had 6 stars.
Some mods, namely the Sicillian Vespers for M2TW (Its okay, you can breath, I installed Darth's mod too), do tone down how fast command skill is accumulated.