Generals being systematically murdered = boring.

[Yerevan]

My generals are systematically murdered when they are in the center of the action. It's a common combo for the AI to murder a general before attacking his army. It's already very difficult to make any bond with your generals because of the 1TPY and no family tree thing but with those systematic murders on top of it, it's getting boring.


With Epirus (hard difficulty), I got Pyrrus wounded at the second turn of the campaign and when he finally came back, well, he won an heroic victory and was murdererd just after . I would be ok with that, hadn't my former Egypt VH campaign been totally ruined by dozens of Seleucid/Qidri/Garamantia/etc murderers.


As a player I don't use this murder thing with generals as I don't think it's quite realistic, (you got almost 80% chances of succes at level 2) but the AI seems to really dig that feature. And when you're at war with 3 different factions you have easily 6,7 agents swirling around your troops and breaking everything. I'm ok with the sabotage, unrest, etc.. but not the automatic murders.

If only CA could balance this murder thing.

[Naked Emperor]

I agree and placing an agent with your army doesnt help because then the A.I will just use another method. Spies protect against cunning and then the A.I will use authority or zeal to kill your general or sabotage your army. If you could place all 3 agents in your army then you could protect it

[AusHaching]

Funny. My Generals also die like flies, but in combat. In MTW2, the general would be among the last of the general unit to die. In RTW2, he´s one of the first. Charge Royal Spartans into the flank of an enemy, wait ten seconds - unit is at 112 of 120 - "your general has died". Happens all the time since patch 3.

The most annoying thing about this is that you general unit looses all xp and weapon/armour upgrades this way.

But doesn´t really matter, does it? You get a replacement for free. And it´s not like they have any noticeable personality anyway.

[nameless]

Funny. My Generals also die like flies, but in combat. In MTW2, the general would be among the last of the general unit to die. In RTW2, he´s one of the first. Charge Royal Spartans into the flank of an enemy, wait ten seconds - unit is at 112 of 120 - "your general has died". Happens all the time since patch 3.

The most annoying thing about this is that you general unit looses all xp and weapon/armour upgrades this way.

But doesn´t really matter, does it? You get a replacement for free. And it´s not like they have any noticeable personality anyway.

Funny how nobody ever bought this up in Shogun 2 and FOTS where generals died like flies and you could only keep maybe 1-2 on the field.

In comparisons to that RTW2 is a bit better. Your best objective is to keep a trio of agents to protect them.

In RTW2 I lose maybe 1-2 generals on VH

In FOTS/Shogun 2 I lose about 5-6 generals on VH.

So yeah

[Jihada]

But they lose their gained abilities. My generals on vh campaign regularly get killed meleeing skirmishers,especially if cavalry.

[karamazovmm]

its interesting how Shogun 2 hadnt taught people how to use agents in protection and offence.

because there your generals had so much more moe character, personality, depth and beach photos with V sign posing you protected them with agents right? apparently not even there since you are not doing this here.

[wulfgar610]

Add a spy to the army for counter intelligence. They gain rank while they're traveling with the army as well.

[AusHaching]

Maybe I didn´t make my point clear. I treat my generals like a disposable resource. There is no point in roleplaying them, as a) the traits they gain are utterly random and b) most generals are leveled up the same by me. I care about armies and their traditions, but generals are spear-fodder.

I mean, if I start the campaign with a 60-year old faction leader who will die in 5 - 10 turn regardless of what I do, only to be replaced by Chance McRandom, why should I care?

[karamazovmm]

A) the traits were always random generated, you only had some specific traits that were not. it was quite common to have paradoxal traits

B) then you have the same kind of armies

I too wish to know the age of the generals that I hire, I actually want a revamp on the hiring system, more info about the generals that you are hiring

[AusHaching]

The traits were not always random. In MTW2, a general could get "civil" traits like "Good Taxman" or "martial" traits, depending on how much time he spent doing a certain job. Also, murdering captives would increase dread, releasing them did the opposite. Of course, some randomness was always to be expected. Now, army traditions are much more important than the generals.

And yes, my armies always look pretty much the same. If you have a winning formula, why change it? It also makes the battles a lot easier if you have the same basic setup for all your armies (i.e. X infantry, Y skirmishers, Z cavalry).

[crzyrndm]

a) the traits they gain are utterly random

The traits were not always random.

Where on earth did this myth surface from...

Gaining a trait is not a random occurence that is independent of your actions!

Just because you don't know what the conditions a particualr trait will appear under are, don't assume they are randomised. A trait can only be gained if you fulfill its conditions, without exception.

[GixTheMage]

This is a big issue for me and I think it's due to multiple agents being able to murder, making defense much more difficult and due to success or minor failure being far more likely than death.

If actions were harder and death was more likely the low level enemy agents would be naturally weeded out.
Especially if they sat outside a settlement constantly sabotaging it.

I also wish agents would disappear after X turns of their faction losing all settlements.

[Huberto]

This is CA's answer to the question -- what is good AI?

[Yerevan]

In comparisons to that RTW2 is a bit better. Your best objective is to keep a trio of agents to protect them.

In R2TW you can't have more than one agent in your army. As Naked Emperor explained it doesn't matter which agent you use since there are 3 different ways of killing a target.

( I don't remember I had so many general murdered in S2. Maybe it's because only ninjas could murder generals and for metsuke it was single combat ? I liked the general defection though, especially in the Sekigahara campaign ! )

I can deal with this later in the game when I have enough agents, then they are used only to hunt and counter AI's agents. But when you find yourself at war with 2 factions in the beginning of the game you don't stanf a chance to protect your generals.

As I said, sabotage, subversion and disruption are ok and challenging but automatic general's murder is unrealistic and in my case it breaks immersion. I haven't looked at it until now, but i hope this feature is easy to modify in the db table. Or maybe there's already a mod for that ?

[nameless]

In R2TW you can't have more than one agent in your army. As Naked Emperor explained it doesn't matter which agent you use since there are 3 different ways of killing a target.

Again like I said even on VH the number of generals I'm losing is tiny to what I lost in Shogun 2 and that's with just the heroes in my army.

( I don't remember I had so many general murdered in S2. Maybe it's because only ninjas could murder generals and for metsuke it was single combat ? I liked the general defection though, especially in the Sekigahara campaign ! )

Nostaglic does that to you.

Every single agent had the ability to kill and it was ridiculous. When things got rolling the AI sent in waves of agents (Metsuke, Geishas, ninjas, etc.) and there was nothing I could do to protect my generals. That's how bad it was. Go and play FOTS on VH and once you get rolling the AI resorts to the agents and you won't be able to keep more than 3-4 generals at a time.

As I said, sabotage, subversion and disruption are ok and challenging but automatic general's murder is unrealistic and in my case it breaks immersion. I haven't looked at it until now, but i hope this feature is easy to modify in the db table. Or maybe there's already a mod for that ?

I agree fully.

[karamazovmm]

The traits were not always random. In MTW2, a general could get "civil" traits like "Good Taxman" or "martial" traits, depending on how much time he spent doing a certain job. Also, murdering captives would increase dread, releasing them did the opposite. Of course, some randomness was always to be expected. Now, army traditions are much more important than the generals.

And yes, my armies always look pretty much the same. If you have a winning formula, why change it? It also makes the battles a lot easier if you have the same basic setup for all your armies (i.e. X infantry, Y skirmishers, Z cavalry).

the idea is that the armies and the generals are modular blocks, if you have the same armies you have the same evolution each time, no need to complain about something that you are not using.

no the traits were always random with some chains that are linked to some things. the difference is the quantity, there are far more random traits than ones that are linked.

and yes the armies are now much more interesting, actually they are interesting now

In R2TW you can't have more than one agent in your army. As Naked Emperor explained it doesn't matter which agent you use since there are 3 different ways of killing a target.

( I don't remember I had so many general murdered in S2. Maybe it's because only ninjas could murder generals and for metsuke it was single combat ? I liked the general defection though, especially in the Sekigahara campaign ! )

I can deal with this later in the game when I have enough agents, then they are used only to hunt and counter AI's agents. But when you find yourself at war with 2 factions in the beginning of the game you don't stanf a chance to protect your generals.

As I said, sabotage, subversion and disruption are ok and challenging but automatic general's murder is unrealistic and in my case it breaks immersion. I haven't looked at it until now, but i hope this feature is easy to modify in the db table. Or maybe there's already a mod for that ?

Every agent could kill in shogun 2 or take away your general

when you are in the beginning, the AI factions and yourself have a problem with funding. and thus agent actions are costly.

basically kill their agents. I incredibly dont have any problems with the AI killing my generals or hampering my movements, maybe because every time I see an agent I kill them outright

[Inhuman One]

natural death seems pretty much the same as assasination, considering how short any generals tend to be around. Most are quite old already when you get them.

Worst part is that they always must start at the lowest command level. Same with all agents too, this stupid level up mechanic is rediculous and I hope modders will remove it from the game.
I loved the random factor in rome 1 and medieval 2. You could get idiots come of age, but also born conquerors with five command stars at age sixteen, kind of a succesor to alexander.
With negative traits reduced to something acceptable, that system was perfect and should never have been changed.

[GixTheMage]

You could write a small book about why the trait system in Rome 2 is absolutely terrible while Medieval 2/Rome's mostly worked well, but that's not really the point of this thread.

[Rasic]

The higher the level of your general the more the AI will attempt to neutralize him before attacking which makes sense game mechanic wise but can be frustrating, and with patch 4 they seem to be more aggressive in offense use. I limited agents to 1 of each for all levels just because I hardly use them (due to the OP nature) and it can become too much if you're at war with several factions at once considering it takes nothing to recruit another agent the next turn after killing one off that is almost as powerful as the one you just killed. I like it because it helps with the end turn times and you generally see less, but more powerful agents running around.

[karamazovmm]

the cost of agents increase as the numbers of them increase