Best General Killer?

[DesertEagle]

Well, in melee you'll lose men. Sometimes quite a many men.
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From what I've experienced the general survives in melee very long too.
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I don't dispute a single word of this, but he asked for the quickest way, not the safest ;)

In my experiance, IF you can pull off a formed charge as follows (forgive my craptacular artwork) -

c = horseman
g = general

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cccccccccg             <---   cccc
                              cccc
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- the general is going to die very quickly. As I said, maybe I'm just lucky to have the AI playing against me have some inexplicable fondness of hanging his general either behind the battle line, or chasing flankers where I'm able to actually pull off a formed charge in this way. I must confess that I do play on m/m so that may have something to do with the ai measuring and handing me the rope as well.

Also, as a side note, god help the enemy if you can pull off a three sided charge like this (back and both sides). The general will rout faster than you can say "Hoosier Daddy?" and will rout through your cav leading to a quick capture, if he didn't perish in the sidecharge..

But yes, to clarify my original post - it seems to be my experiance that a general will fall faster in melee than to missilefire, however, missile cav will take far fewer losses in the process, in most cases.

[Maelstrom]

Easy. Routing French peasants.

Have your unit of French Peasants wander up to the general, and then turn and run away screaming.

The general will of course chase them down, and the moment he makes contact he will die.

I have to confess that I have not actually tried this approach myself, but I have had the AI use it very successfully against me. Poor King Rufus - The ignominy of it!

[Zasz1234]

Really great suggestions all. I will definitely try them out. They certainly beat my current method of swamping him with spears.

[RoadKill]

Balistas, a single hit, and the generals a goner.

[Out]

Two groups of mounted Crossbowmen. One sits in front, one sits behind, no matter where the general turns, his back is to someone, maybe both, and it's not that hard to use light cavalry or the Crossbowmen themselves to lure him away from the "real" battle so that the Crossbowmen never have to worry about skirmishing others. General gets destroyed by the crossfire, you lose no one.

Edit: Not to mention the fact that luring him away from the front lines diminishes the morale boost he's giving to his men, anyways. This would help your "rout centric" battle style.