New Faction Leader Question

[Martok]

There's a point - I've gone through several kings who never set foot on the battlefield because when they die of old age, you lose the command stats (etc) whereas other generals keep theirs. Do most people tend to do this? I only started using my king to lead armies again when I read about how it affects the quality of heirs - he's jumped from being a 2-star to a 4-star general and is still only in his early 30s.

It really depends on the situation. Using one's faction leader in battles early on in the game is indeed often a good idea, especially since there's a good chance he's one of your only decent generals at that point in the game.

Once your empire reaches a certain size, however (I want to say around 30 provinces or so), using your faction leader becomes a risky prospect....specifically, if you use him to command a battle in which you're the attacker. If you use your faction leader to lead an invading army into an enemy province, your empire tends to treat him as "cut off" -- just as if he were on Crusade/Jihad or stuck on island somewhere -- and your entire faction may suddenly erupt into civil war and/or massive rebellions everywhere. This doesn't always happens if/when you use your king in offensive battles, but there's a *very* signficant chance that it will. So be careful if you own a lot of territory!


Note: Using your faction leader to command *defensive* battles isn't a problem at all, regardless of how big your empire is. So if you have a large empire and a faction leader with a high Command rating, you could still park him on a disputed border province that's under threat of invasion. That way your king will have the opportunity to put his command stars to good use, but without endangering his empire.