why is it so hard to get battle stars for my generals?

[Geoffrey S]

Hmm, I guess a couple of battlestars would make campaigning easier.

[Kull]

Here's an anology to help explain the difference between the benefits you gain from command stars versus those from traits:

Let's say you see a real general and he has two stars on his uniform. Does that mean he's "better" than the guy with one star? Maybe, maybe not. What really separates the two are a host of intangibles and real life experiences, which is exactly what traits provide in EB.

So if you want clearly defined limits, go play RTW. If you want real life depth and complexity, come on over to EB.

[gran_guitarra]

Command Stars are really only useful if you want to auto-resolve, since more command stars means easier wins, which means more command stars.

Overall though I agree, its better to get traits to increse Morale for all your units and the capabilities of your General's Bodyguards.


To get Command Stars only have one Character fight all the battles, and never (or incredibly rarely) lose.
I managed, in fifty or sixty turns, to get Caius Aurelius Cotta, Romanii, to an eight star, four management, six influence Character. He also got +1 star for attacking, +2 stars whenever he fought Greeks, and +1 star for fighting Eleutheroi.


It just takes a butload of Clear/Heroic Victories in a row. (The only time he lost was when he died, against two Epeiros Generals (7 and 8 stars), and outnumbered 2:1))

[Ludens]

It also depends on the intelligence and charisma of the character. For example, the Casse faction leader has a very high intelligence, so he will rack up "good commander" traits much faster than normal family members (although still not as fast as in vanilla). There are six levels of intelligence and six of charisma, but unfortunately you can only see the broad trends so it's hard to guess which characters should be developed.

[Michaelis]

Because the designers made it so. All game designers, both amateur and professional, compensate for AI deficiencies by making things more difficult for the human player - and often get a little carried away in the process.

Here's a quick workaround: go to the traits file, search for "command", and lower the thresholds needed for successive star levels, so to speak. Don't feel guilty, either -right now, the system is out of whack. You'd have to fight two battles per turn with the same guy for a hundred game turns to have a chance of getting the maximum number of stars possible (10). To say nothing of AI generals that spend their entire career sitting on their asses in a city and have a bunch of stars, while your guys fighting battle after battle have none. It's irritating.

Stars are important, because they let you win battles on autoresolve without cheating. The way the system operates right now cheats the AI, too - an AI army is far more likely to attack your army if your general has no stars or maybe just a couple. The fact that your general has ten units while the AI general has three doesn't seem to matter much. As a result, it's very easy to provoke the AI into making kamikaze attacks.

[Dumbass]

Stars are very effective in battle. They give give boosts to morale and unit stats, so with a ten star general, there will be a very huge boost to your units. Now it may only be in a specific area, BUT this area is increased with each point of influence your general gets, with ten points letting it almost encompass a full stack army on the field. Now a ten star and ten influence general will have huge boosts applied to almost every unit on the battle field. Not so useless now eh?

[Foot]

Stars are very effective in battle. They give give boosts to morale and unit stats, so with a ten star general, there will be a very huge boost to your units. Now it may only be in a specific area, BUT this area is increased with each point of influence your general gets, with ten points letting it almost encompass a full stack army on the field. Now a ten star and ten influence general will have huge boosts applied to almost every unit on the battle field. Not so useless now eh?

Our testing at EB make us believe that it only gives a boost to morale and not to stats. There is a difference of opinion on this point, but we stick by our own findings on this issue. With only a morale boost, command stars lose out against traited morale boosts, which is how we play it in our system.

Foot

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

an AI army is far more likely to attack your army if your general has no stars or maybe just a couple. The fact that your general has ten units while the AI general has three doesn't seem to matter much. As a result, it's very easy to provoke the AI into making kamikaze attacks.

Good point...

[bovi]

[Command stars] currently affects both morale and combat ability - we tried it for a while with just morale, but it ended up being not enough of a bonus. The combat calculations have changed so much from Rome to Medieval as to be unrecogniseable, so it's no longer easy to equate stars to experience.

As a rule of thumb it's one point of attack per command rank, up to a maximum of 10, and this can become negative for very bad generals. This combat bonus is applied to all troops under his command on the battlefield. Experience is one point of attack and one point of defense per chevron, plus a morale bonus as well.

The general's command also controls his radius-of-effect, which is set to 30 m + 5 m * command + 2 m * influence. This is used to award morale bonusses to nearby units (in addition to the combat bonus), and when testing which units are affected it tests the distance between the actual general's position and the centre-point of the unit being considered.

The whole post.