Weak generals?

[Demon]

I've started a Portugual campaign, and to be quite honest it's the best campaign I've played so far. Truly amazing faction!

Anyway down to business, I seem to have extremely weak Generals with Portugual. I've heard stories of Byzantine Generals being near un-killable, and I've witnessed first hand a Moorish General take on 3 Units of battle-weary Crossbowmen.
Anyway I've losted 5 Generals in the last 35 Turns, 4 of them were Faction Heirs and 1 a Faction Leader!! I had to adopt a new heir because my first and only heir died for some reason in combat to really weak units.....

[Zhou]

You're just unlucky...the Western European bodyguards (which is what Portugal's general units have) are basically feudal knights with 2 hit points. Eastern generals are a bit different, their generals are basically Katapractoi (or Qqapukulus if you prefer, unupgraded for early period, upgraded for late period). The major difference is that Western generals are better equipped at charging while Eastern generals are better at melee as they have a higher armor value.

In any case, just don't try and engage your general unit against units of spearmen in a frontal assault and you should be okay. Losing 4 factions heirs and a faction leader is pretty bad luck though

[Demon]

hehe, im not a total noob, i dont use my generals in front assault against spearmen. one general charged a small depleted unit of desert archers and died
my family tree is totally weird, so many adoptions just to keep my line going! its probably not even the true blood line anymore.
but that does make sense, Western European being better and charging but worse in melee.
Thanks for the info