How is dread or chivalry evident in battles?

[henyo10]

This also goes for all the other traits loyalty, piety, command. I know that piety prevents someone from getting executed. Loyalty I think is that it prevents them from getting bribed? But I don't know bout dread, chivalry and command. What exactly do they do?

[Royalark14]

Command, I think, strengthens your troops morale to a certain degree, a little shady on this though. Chivalry increases your troops morale, so if you have a small force but a general with 10 chivs, they will be quite a force (provided they are not peasants or the enemy is compeltely overwhelming). Dread decreases your enemy's morale. Thus, if you have a general with 10 dread and your enemy has a captain, if you are quick and descive there is a great chance your enemy will just pick up and go into flight. Hope this helps.

[TheTrueGreek]

Command, I think, strengthens your troops morale to a certain degree, a little shady on this though. Chivalry increases your troops morale, so if you have a small force but a general with 10 chivs, they will be quite a force (provided they are not peasants or the enemy is compeltely overwhelming). Dread decreases your enemy's morale. Thus, if you have a general with 10 dread and your enemy has a captain, if you are quick and descive there is a great chance your enemy will just pick up and go into flight. Hope this helps.

thats the jist of it, just pick one with each general thats going to be fighting a lot and stick to the executes or releases, if you arnt in a position to release, ransom as that does not inflict damage to your chivalry

[Sorkenlol]

Not sure, but command speaks for itself I guess. One thing I've noticed is that a general with many stars (you see them when you're in the battle menu) makes his army into a killing machine, take william wallace for example, he can win with 1000 men against 3000, I had to fight him in battle map to have a chance, he only had highlanders and whatnot and I had Mailed Knights, Feudal Knights, Armored Sergeants etc. If I autoresolved the battle I got Crushing Defeat, but when I fought him on battle map I lost one army of 1000 men or so, but then a reinforcement with only mailed knights came and wiped the floor with the rest.

[zligor]

High chivalry means that your troops will fight longer and they won`t retreat so easily when outnumbered and overwhelmed by superior enemy. High dread means that enemy units will rout very easily. Increase generals chivalry by releasing prisoners, keeping normal tax rate in settlements in which that general is governer,participate in crusades/jihads (if you have high chivalry governor in settlement you have better chances of getting hospitaller guild in that settlement) etc. Increase dread by executing prisoners, exterminating population in conquered regions and keeping very high tax rate etc.

[Panthera leo]

Same thing. Dread in particular is extremely useful if you intend of using your general as a mobile strike force, as a high-dread general with even a small bodyguard will send all but the highest-end enemies running for the hills if he gets a lance charge off. If used in connection with cavalry, then you can literally rout entire armies with a single charge (In particular with high-end heavy cavalry like Gothic Knights, Kataphoracti or so on).

Chivalry is not so dramatically useful in that the morale bonus is of very little advantage offensively (where if your men aren't winning then you might as well run anyways), but can be extremely useful in siege battles where your enemies significantly outnumber you (i.e Timurids, Mongols and so on) or other defensive engagements, or if the force you are commanding is lacking in offensive lance-armed cavalry.