"Unproven Commander"

[HIGGUM]

I was a little mystified when I started getting the "unproven commander" trait for my English prince who had fought and won god knows how many battles. In 6.0, I had even got "pathetic commander", very annoying as this was my king, who had fought loads of battles, and the trait lowered morale, movement points, authority, and command rating I believe.

ANYWAY, to get a look at what an enemy army consisted of before I engaged it, without using a spy, I used to attack then withdraw, then look at it's roster. After this, I noticed my prince's command rating had gone down by 1 and he had the "unproven commander trait". I then won a significant victory against the scots with my prince, and the trait dissappeared. Another turn later, I did the same exploit, attacked then withdrawed, and he got the trait again.

It seems using this exploit does have some negative consequences, which I like. Gives spies more use.

Anyway my question - anyone know if this trait thing is a bug? Is it meant to be this way? If it is a bug, is it to do with SS or Kingdoms?

I'm not complaining or anything, was annoying when I didn't know what was causing it but now it's cool.

[Spamostoc]

This is because retreating counts as a loss therefore your commander is recieving bad traits from being a coward and running away. So, no this is not technically a bug.

[Clayton Gold]

What he said ^

If you initiate an attack, and then withdraw, it is a loss.

I used to do this as well until I realized that I was ruining generals.

[Inhuman One]

yes, its of course much smarter to rush into an army 4 times the size of yours.

[AntonM]

yes, its of course much smarter to rush into an army 4 times the size of yours.

Thats what spies are for, NO?

[Mhydrian]

Strategic retreats should not be counted as losses. You can easily lose a battle with a retreat and still score a major victory. I have noticed that trying to get any decent generals is almost impossible. It makes no sense to have zero stars when a general has won a series of heroic victories and conquered half a nation.

Command star rating should be tied in with victories more than it is. Sure it makes it easy to get higher rated generals, but at the same time to have a zero star general who has led a successful campaign singlehandedly against an entire nation makes no sense. Especially seeing as the computer has a plethora of 4 and 5 star generals by default.

[Inhuman One]

you often do get a better location when retreating.

[Quark]

Mhydrian
Each time you gain a >=clear victory you have a chance of gaining +1 command. The exact chance depends on clear or heroic, MilitaryInclination or not. So it is tied to number of battles, although some people may be luckier than others. My view is that 10 star generals, like Alexander the Great, should be very rare, while 3-6 should be common, which is how my games go.

As to using the withdraw exploit, well yes, your troops do not trust a guy who keeps charging them into combat and then running away, plus its something the Ai cannot do. As said thats what spies are for to check out the enemy. I never take an army anywhere without first having checked out the terrain with a spy. Perhaps thats why I never get ambushed.

So to answer the question possed by HIGGUM, yes its delibrate.

[Spamostoc]

Funny, I find that you get worse locations after retreating i.e. pinned on the side of a mountain with trees everywhere.

[aduellist]

@HIGGUM

You can accomplish the same thing using a small army without a general. When I'm either advancing into hostile territory or have an enemy army closing in and I have my spies out of position (yes, I admit to getting caught leaning in the wrong direction occasionally), I'll throw out an "army" with a couple of units of light cav that has no general. That will perform the scouting function nicely. You can "attack" the enemy with the light cav and withdraw from battle after checking out their roster. You get the info without the risk of negative traits and simulate the use of light cavalry in the recon role. Even if they trigger an ambush and get torn up, you haven't lost a lot and they've done their job as scouts.

As the "generic order for recon" goes: "Go down that road until you get blown up and then report back."

[Gorrrrrn]

Given that most medieval armies did their best to avoid open field battles unless they had a good chance of winning or had no other option, and given most soldiers would rather be alive than dead, it would make more sense to have a quality (positive) "PrudentCommander" for one who looked to initiate a battle and then backed off if the odds were stacked against.

(of course a quick load of the previous autosaved game might solve the roblem too.)

[Tiwaz]

However, going to battle and retreating means you do not show your talent as commander. Thus, unproven commander.

You are only remembered as far as your last success/failure.

[Gnomer87]

The unproven commander trait seems to pop up constantly, both for good reasons and for no reason at all. For instance just letting your general do nothing for a few turns is enough to get the trait, it's as always based on a chance system. You also tend to get it if you besiege a settlement longer then a turn or two.

To be honest it's bloody annoying, the focus on bad traits is to grand, once you get a bad trait you can usually do nothing to remove them (except cheating ofcourse, which I do alot ), this includes the Unproven commander trait, I've sent generals with the traits into heroic victories many times without getting it turned around, pure folly if you ask me.

The trait shouldn't be applyable to generals who've von battles, even if he lost the first battle the trait should die the second he wins a battle.

[Mhydrian]

Well I know that before I was able to get high star generals by using them and winning a lot of battles, now it seems the negative traits are overwhelming any kind of gains I make on the battlefield. There are quite a few negative traits that give negative command.

In my Ireland campaign every general has been abhorrid, no matter what I do. The one good general I had just seemed to randomly collect command traits sitting in a citadel. But he was too old and too far away from the front to do any good. In the meanwhile my experienced commanders all had at best maaaybe 2 stars.

Really it's not a game difficulty thing, but it sure makes it hard to feel proud about your generals when it says in the text bock over command rating "would wet himself if he saw battle". I have had generals who have over 20 victories with that kind of rating too.