Quote Originally Posted by BozosLiveHere
I'm not so sure if the number of command stars has any affect on the AI's aggressiveness. Was this tested? Actually, I'm not even sure if what Jerome posted is correct either, maybe therother knows more about it. They used to do a lot of testing when the game was released.
Well, from what therother has posted, he tested it and could not find any empirical evidence for Jerome's claim. I've taken therother's word for it, as he's a pretty rigorous empiricist and on reflection, his conclusion does fit my casual observation (unlike STW/MTW where high star command generals were monsters).

It would be very easy to test - just mod the stars of a starting general in the descr_strat and see how the outcome of a small fight varies with his command stars. You could mod his units' attack stats if you want a benchmark for comparison.