Gross Disparity in Ability

[NEver]

Yeah no worries, its not like it detracts much or anything. In fact I hadn't even noticed. I was just saying cause 140 got a lot of flack for complaining.

[Wolfman]

@ 140

You are right. I remember how Polybius described the situation before Cannae: Hannibal was outnumbered, but he could look out over the field into the Roman camp and see only 3 stars floating next to Varro, the Roman General, while he saw 8 stars rising high into the sky next to him. When he saw this disparity in command stars, he knew victory was certain. Lesser generals had to worry about morale, the availability of water, the weather, the terrain, and the individual personal strengths and weaknesses of his commanders and captains. But not Hannibal Barca; he need only look to stars to know that victory was assured.

Of course, when he wasn't feeling up to the challenge, he had his aides compute the various simple math problems required to keep his army marching. 2+2+1-1-1+2 was too much for Hannibal Barca. Besides he could not take the time to be troubled with such simple arithmetic. Instead, he just wanted to fight the battle and be done with it. After all, he had to read the second act of Hamlet for 9th grade english in the morning. He did not have time for such things like logistics, strategy, and realism. Perhaps tomorrow afternoon, once he has finished his milk and cookies, he'll reinstall Vanilla... those arcanii were cool, and the mummy-like egyptians were far more interesting than the Ptolemaioi. Besides, who ever heard of the Getai, anyway?

:develops ulcers from laughing so hard:

back to the topic. Its not impossible to get command stars. As the Casse i was able to their faction leader Barae up to ten stars. I agree though with the EB team. Traits tend to be better than Command Stars. The latter just look shinier on the map.

[Beefy187]

Barae is a genious . By the time you conquer britain and ireland hell be 10 star general. Probebly because his fighting most battle outnumbered.

[Spoofa]

I have an idea, combine command stars and morale traits

[Wolfman]

your probably correct Beefy197.

[konny]

Unfortunately, we cannot change what is displayed in that location, or we'd probably put in the morale bonuses he gets instead. That would be a better representation of what you say.

That would be the better sollution I think. It would first of all end discussions like these. But there are other benefits as well: AI armies would less likely rout, what would make battles really harder.

Another thing are the secondary effects of command stars. For example they are needed to become Consul in the Romani faction, what is a night impossibilty because there are more traits that reduce command stars for sitting around in a town than there are traits that give stars out of the blue. And because beeing Consul should be the requirement to lead a Roman army (if played correctly) it is unlikely that the characters gain, or better hold, stars. On the other hand I always have half of my characters adding 2 or 3 points in moral, evidently "for nothing".

Command stars also determine who is leading the army in battle when there are more than one FM present, save for the faction leader. So it would be the best thing to link them to the characters experince in battle, because in most armies the most experinced officer would also be the most senior officer.

The requirement for becoming blooded, veteran etc. can be tied to (moderate, may be 10%) losses of the bodyguard without the need to actually command the army (similar to the "brave" trait) and give a command star each. That would allow characters to benefit from fighting in a battle under a senior commander, provided they actually did participate in the figthing and not were mere spectators, and allow them to advance on the military ladder of career up to a maximum of four stars, what would make it more likely for them to command future engagements themselves.

Further command stars and moral, movement, forage, LOS, attack, defense, ambush etc. boni and mali should be reserved for real commanding generals and tied to the actual conditions of their battles - and their characters' profile.

The AI would again benefit from that because it either has no FMs or half a dozend of them in its armies. And under autocalc all those FMs would suffer losses among their respective BGs and so advance in experince.

[Theodotos I]

In my Getai campaign, I took a 16-year-old family member with the Terrible Tactician trait( -2 stars) and a War Chief trait( +1 star) and took him out on a rebel-smashing campaign. Now he's about twenty-three and he has two stars. I'm playing on M/M, so maybe that makes a difference, but with a little practice I was able to reverse his bad traits and shape him into a decent general. Maybe it helped that he was Sharp/Charismatic/Vigorous, but it can be done. Good luck, all.

[Geoffrey S]

I'd just like to jump in and mention that EB is the only mod I've seen using this approach to command stars, yet I've seen no mention of other mods experiencing the problems which this approach of increasing enemy command stars is said to solve. Has anyone got some more experience with other mods to either confirm or deny this?

Any takers?

[mcantu]

Just to clear this up ( as requested ;-) ), from the old code on my machine at CA the General's command modifier on attacks is still there in the last version, but it only applies to melee attacks and it is -inverted- so the quality of the defender's general is applied as bonus directionless defense for the defending soldier. It is also rescaled to range from -6 to +6, changing quickly at low bonus levels and then slowing down towards the top of the range. The idea was to limit the number of stacking bonusses which speed up the battles, i vaguely remember.

Also, the bonus is not limited by physical distance, and is supposed to represent a good general's ability to get superior performance from his troops through training in small scale maneuvers. The only way for this bonus to result in faster combat death rates rather than slower ones is if the defender's general has bad command traits...

If you want to test it, I would suggest a battle between some big peasant units, fighting the units 1v1 and timing the length of time to rout; then repeat giving each army a 10 star general. You should see a slower time-to-rout with the generals. In the end though 6 pts is not enough to make up huge troop quality differences, so don't expect to see miraculous differences.

Jerome,

Thanks so much for dropping in. I had completely forgotten I had asked you for your input.

So you would say that what I quoted from you up above is no longer valid?

Originally Posted by JeromeGrasdyke
It 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.

[bovi]

My understanding is that it has been changed, yes. The old quotation is for a rather old version of RTW, I think it was made sometime in 2004.

[JeromeGrasdyke]

Jerome,

Thanks so much for dropping in. I had completely forgotten I had asked you for your input.

So you would say that what I quoted from you up above is no longer valid?

No probs ;) It's nice to see that people are still enjoying Rome, even when we're hard at work on a new generation of tech and gameplay with Empire...

Anyway, most of the info in the old quote should still be valid, I was only referring to how the actual combat bonus works which is applied as a result of the general's command rating.

[mcantu]

No probs ;) It's nice to see that people are still enjoying Rome, even when we're hard at work on a new generation of tech and gameplay with Empire...

Anyway, most of the info in the old quote should still be valid, I was only referring to how the actual combat bonus works which is applied as a result of the general's command rating.

Ok, I think i've got it...

A generals command bonus is applied the defense score of all units under his command; the morale bonus is applied to units within a certain distance of him; with the radius of effect being 30 m + 5 m * command + 2 m * influence. Is that about right?

Could you explain what you meant with this...?

It is also rescaled to range from -6 to +6, changing quickly at low bonus levels and then slowing down towards the top of the range.

Thank you again for your help!

[Aradan]

K, I am probably being dumb here, but this needs some clarification:

the quality of the defender's general is applied

The only way for this bonus to result in faster combat death rates rather than slower ones is if the defender's general has bad command traits...

What I deduct from these two is that the attacker's command bonus is not taken into consideration... If it was, it *would* be possible to have faster combat death rates, even if the defender didn't have combat penalties (he could have 0 command and the attacker would have at least 1 command bonus). Am I missing sth?

The -6, +6 part is clearer I think (are u using some sort of logarithmic function?). Physical distance plays no part in the application of just the combat bonus or the morale bonus as well?

Is there a chance that we ever get a peek at the combat formula, as happened with MTW? Wishful thinking?

EDIT: @ Geoffrey S: Not sure which problems you refer to exactly but for the record FATW does use hidden command/morale bonuses for the AI generals, though we haven't touched the chances of players getting command stars themselves. Up to now we have had no complaints though.

[Pode]

I just would like to point out a perhaps unintended consequence of this system, in that if there are multiple generals with an army, the number of command stars determines which one will be the commander. Which can lead to a situation where all of the morale boosting traits and ancillaries assigned to your chosen commander that you did the "simple math" for are wasted because Doofus McFeeb* who was along for the ride has one command star and a -8 to morale. Not that anything like this has cost me a battle or anything, just saying I realize that this is my own fault for not doing the simple math on all 75 of my family members every turn when they get new traits I'm not told about, but even I have limits to how much I will nanomanage.

Hyperbole aside, yes the current system is workable and the Cannae argument in its favor was funny, but the system has flaws as well and the OP has a valid point that perhaps deserves less mocking and more consideration.

*Purely illustrative and no offense is meant to the honorable and intelligent Clan McFeeb, should they in fact exist

[Mouzafphaerre]

.

It's nice to see that people are still enjoying Rome, even when we're hard at work on a new generation of tech and gameplay with Empire...

Then you may bite your tongue upon seeing how many people are still enjoying the original MTW, including "converts" from RTW, if you stop by the Main Hall.


.

[LorDBulA]

Which can lead to a situation where all of the morale boosting traits and ancillaries assigned to your chosen commander that you did the "simple math" for are wasted because Doofus McFeeb* who was along for the ride has one command star and a -8 to morale.

In my experience best commanders have also most starts, so I dont think this situation is very likely.

[konny]

In my experience best commanders have also most starts, so I dont think this situation is very likely.

That would be by random, because stars and moral boosts are determined by complete different traits. There are even traits that add moral and reduce stars or vice versa. The other problem is all the traits that reduce stars out of the blue.

So, you might have some decent general with exceptional two stars that also add lots of moral leading your army, but than he becomes a lover of beatuy in two levels for sitting around in conquered towns for some time until good governors from the capital arrive; and after that your army is lead by the morose 1-star subordinate that had been building watchtowers meanwhile.

Hyperbole aside, yes the current system is workable and the Cannae argument in its favor was funny, but the system has flaws as well and the OP has a valid point that perhaps deserves less mocking and more consideration.

I agree with that. I can't see the point to treat everyone who lays his finger on this command star problem as if he was demanding something obscene. Even people who ask what's the script is and how to activate it recive more reasonable answers than people who ask "where have all the stars gone".

[mcantu]

is it possible that this new info from Jerome could change the way EB treats command stars for the AI in later versions?