Allies and new Generals

**Sitalkes** · March 30, 2010, 08:41 PM

Hi, I was dispairing of ever getting allied armies to behave themselves in battle - if they were cavalry they invariably seemed to find the nearest spears to throw themselves onto, and I could never get them to wait for the main force to arrive before attacking - even if they were set to "Defend". Now I have found how to fix this, and it's really stupid! I don't know if it's different in Third Age: Total War (which I played first) but in the Teutonic campaign I have discovered that you only need to click on the icon of the leader of that army, then click where you want him to go, and he will go there! How stupid is that. I should point out that allied armies commanded by generals seem to be more likely to do what you want than those commanded by captains.

Now for the interesting bit:

I had a full stack and a small group of cavalry units (commanded by a captain) attacking an inferior number of Polish units. I didn't have enough movement for the full stack to fight except as an ally of the small group of cavalry, which didn't have a general. So I attacked anyway, expecting to receive horrible casualties as it would be so difficult to co-ordinate the two armies and the AI would throw itself onto the spears if it got the chance. In fact, when I started the battle I got the message that "the battle seems to be going in the enemy favour" ie I had fewer men than my opponent, which was true until the allied army appeared. Then the allied army came on and the AI didn't attack me so I was able to manoever my small group of cavalry so that it was on both flanks of the Poles and put the allied army (mostly infantry) to attack the centre of the Polish army. I've noticed that the AI seems to have a mysterious ability to attack without getting any casualties, or very few at any rate (if it doesn't throw itself apon the spears), and this happened. My cavalry managed to hit the flanks and rear of the Poles at just the right time and soon the enemy were running (I'm playing at Hard level for battles).

After the battle - I got Man of the Hour and one of my generals got the Mauler attribute. So this is how you get extra generals even if you have many more men than your opponent. Split your army into a small, mainly cavalry army commanded by a captain and a larger army commanded by a general. The small army should be smaller or no bigger than the opposing army. The larger army should be mainly infantry. Now attack with the small army with the rest of the troops as allies. If you win you get Man of the Hour and a new general (providing you have fewer generals than provinces that is)!!!

**Viking Prince** · March 30, 2010, 10:49 PM

A little bit more goes into the man of the hour chances than that, but I am glad that you are learning and experimenting. Good job and a good post.

It is magic -- you now have a ring for rep instead of the scales.

**Loki_999** · March 31, 2010, 01:54 AM

Thats very interesting. When trying for man of the hour i always just went in with a single smaller army. Like you and many others I find the AI (when working for you) is incredibly stupid (amazing how it plays much better when playing as itself).

I'll give this a try in the next couple of days although I may have to wait a bit for my generals to thin out a bit because I already have almost as many generals as I have regions, and the game likes to limit this.

PS: Plus rep from me also.