Marry had a little "Star"!

[Gomer_Pyle]

Hi!

I am wondering about the generous ai handing out stars in buckets to their generals. I hardly can get mine up to 7 or 8 stars. But many many of the ai generals run around with that when they are aged 25? What is the story here and how can i gey my generals a bit higher when they are young?

Plz dont tell me "Win battles" cus I do that.

[lesterthenerd]

win lots of heroic victories and give them ancillaries that give them command stars like master archer or lancer breaker etc. ive gotten lots of generals with 10 command stars this way. however, at a young age i havent been able to max out their command stars.

[Lothe]

For the first time I've had a really hard time keeping my Generals from being absolute trash.

Playing Poland on H/H and my current greatest general?
My King.
His Command Rating?
3.

Most of my Generals have 0 Command Rating, The highest in loyalty is 4.

I don't think im truly grasping the Education system or something, can anyone give me a hint at how i can raise the stats of my generals?

And with Heroic Victories; I never get them, Its clear or I lost the fight.

[themoob]

If you have any traits that mention that the character can gain more from education, throw them into your best castle for military stuff, or to your capital for academic.

So for generals, you want someone who is military minded, and sit them in your best castle for a few turns.

Even then, he won't be that great, so then you proceed to give them as much combat ancillaries (from non combat generals) as you can.

And lastly, send them out to fight as much as you possibly can. Try to focus on one general. I have found it hard to get high amount of command stars, it does take a lot of battles, but it's possible. 40-50 turns or so into my Byzantine campaign (H/VH) and my best general is my Prince because I have focused on him, after almost conquering Venice then taking the Asia Minor back from the Turks up to Iconium (known/feared by Turksand Venetians now), he only has 6 command stars (I think), yet full dread and loyalty.

[Gomer_Pyle]

Heroic Victories? Playing on VH/H and I have won i dont know how many battles highly outnumbered but I never get them. The problem may probably be that I can not win against a 10 star general outnumbered with a low numbered star general. I mainly play as Castille/Spain and the moors keep spawning their godlike generals quicker than i can kill them. The funny thing is that their lowest ranked generals is their faction leader and crown prince. LOLOL. Do I sence a revolt.

Having all these high ranked ai generals makes it hard and challenging but why make it so hard for us to gain rank? Is there something we can change so our generals also slightly rain rank quicker?

40/50 turns? Most of my generals are dead by then. hehe

[themoob]

I should of mentioned I play on 2 turns per year... so it feels like my family members had a chance to actually LIVE!

I'm not sure what you could change, it was probably changed like this so the A.I would be more challenging, seeing as they have their limits... being A.I and all.

And remember, I'm pretty sure for Heroic victories you need to have very little casualties, the numbers don't matter as much, as long as they are above even. In one of my battles with a Venetian force, I got a heroic victory from deploying 1613 men, losing 325 and killing 1029 (998 prisoners), against about 2000 Venetian soldiers.

[Quark]

Gomer_Pyle
1. The harder the game, the more command stars the Ai has
2. How many Alexander the greats should there be in your Empire ?
3. As stated Military inclined general in castle gets some, heroic battles (ie odds are against you at least 2:1) more, ancillaries such as Tacticus more, books such as Art of War, more, having the natural skill to start with adds 1-3, capturing certain key locations, more.

The game is geared so that most people can gain 5-8 stars and a few exceptional commanders can gain 9-10. Obviously I know the system, so I can get the 5-8 if I focus on it, but even for me 10 would be fairly rare, which is as it should be. I know this is not true for the Ai, but if I wanted dumber opposition generals, I could just choose an easier campaign level.

[lesterthenerd]

i just got a general with the trait born to conqueror. he is age 19 now and as the heir to the throne he has 6 command stars. best young general ive had in SS so far.

[themoob]

^^^ That's just luck

If you take enough cities and destroy enough armies, you get the trait "Conquerer" anyway, also a neat little title. I should take a screenie of my Prince.

[Alex Green]

Well, i think command stars are the biggest unbalalancing factor of the game.
I mean, it helps human players too much. I would like to see an EB like command star system, where the stars are lowered for everybody, and also hard to get them.
Personally, i play with an added (hidden) trait, which lowers the human player command stars by 5. So almost all of my generals have 0 stars. And i still winning the battles. Not because im a reborn Napoleon... ,because the AI so dumb...

[lesterthenerd]

well i just did a test using the auto_win cheat. i used it for my 14 year old general and he went from 1 star to 4 stars after winning a heroic victory using this cheat against 2 rebel units of light swordsmen.

[Quark]

lesterthenerd
What traits did he gain ?

[lesterthenerd]

lesterthenerd
What traits did he gain ?

traits - aspiring commander
ancillary - veteran warrior

@gapper
if troops do level faster then thats np since the ai should have this kind of advantage since the ai is so stupid. and about the ai getting high level generals its ok too because of the same reason.

@user
yeah ive also noticed that your chances of getting a heroic victory increases if they have much better quality units than you do.

[Quark]

gapper4
You are playing on VH, which means that the Ai gets all the advantages it can.

Heroic victory is based on odds, which in turn is based on autoresolve values, so yes, its not just about numbers of troops, but about quality as well.

[gapper4]

I also find that the AI keeps spawning a ridiculous number of 9- and 10- star generals. Also, has anyone noticed that AI troops seem to gain experience faster ? I play on VH/H.

About the education system, am I right to think that a general has to be in a castle within a single turn of being adopted or coming of age, otherwise they won't get any education ? That's a bit of a problem because I keep very few castles around (one castle for every four or five cities).

[User Name]

Well for herioc victory the triggers for it are kinda wierd. I got a herioc victory with superior numbers 100 more than A.I.
maybe the difference is the quality of the troops mine where all militia and the A.I> was what was left of a crusading army.
heres the pic.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

maybe its cause I had Istvan in command.