Recruitable Generals

[RubiconDecision]

It's too bad it's not simple to alter the EDB and add in recruitable generals.

On the plus side, it would allow for better governance of new settlements, and not rotating around your generals as you do in volleyball (Rotate!).

On the negative side, that lack of generals causes the player to slow down and not blitz as much because they're spread thin on governors.

It takes time to train up governors, and so recruiting would help so they could spend time in the capitol where schools are located, get some good traits since the best infrastructure is there, and then be ready to manage some smaller settlement, and learn politics. Or be the defending general of the region.

The problem with simply adding general units is the EDCT which thinks they are recruitable generals (which they are, but not ones you're going to use in some level 4 settlement or client kingdoms, just regular old historical military leaders who had been trained all along in preparation for governing settlements.

Those recruitable generals in the EDB right away get the Imposter trait, so it means reconfiguring a situation of standard recruitment and the current system. Sure you can comment out ( ; ) out the trait for Recuitable Generals and Imposter, but those are good things to have to deal with.

Playing as the Romans and having lost three generals to Carthaginian elephants, I'm ready for recuitable generals.

[QuintusSertorius]

If you're playing as Rome, you should be installing Client Rulers in places outside of Italy to begin with anyway. Romanisation was a slow, gradual process.

[RubiconDecision]

If you're playing as Rome, you should be installing Client Rulers in places outside of Italy to begin with anyway. Romanisation was a slow, gradual process.

Maybe to be in keeping with history and the mod, but that also probably contributed to the various cultures of the empire and hence the turmoil and disintegration of the empire.

Anyway, I'm working on Both/And where generals could be recruited based upon a level in the tech tree with and statements because you never know when a couple in the family tree will be childless, or if elephants who are dying still might kill off a general. They'd only be recruitable in the main settlements where your kingdom began. So this means teaching them there, then redeploying them to battlefronts.

[athanaric]

Playing as the Romans and having lost three generals to Carthaginian elephants, I'm ready for recuitable generals.

Shouldn't have charged them, I guess. Javelin units is the way to deal with them in EB. Mounted javelineers are especially deadly vs elephants, as long as you avoid any melee contact (as pre-Marian Rome, your best options are Campanians, Numidians, Cantabrians, or Ligurians. Alternatively, you could hire mercenary Tarentines or Gauls). Numidian merc generals also have javelins, they might work. Lancer charges kill elephants but you saw what happens when you let FMs do it instead of regular cavalry.

[QuintusSertorius]

Velites and Leves work perfectly fine against elephants, too. As to Peltastai and Akontistai. Make sure they're not on fire at will (as in reserve a unit solely to play anti-elephant), wait for the elephants to close, then set them to work. The elephants are usually all dead in 2-3 volleys.

[athanaric]

Correctly used, Akontistai have a devastating missile output. The downside is, though, that they rout easily, especially in the face of elephants. And foot skirmishers are slower, meaning you have to plan more carefully in case the elephants change direction.

[QuintusSertorius]

I usually just put them behind my fighting line, where they're not only protected from missiles and cavalry (having human shields in front), but also elephants. The enemy usually wants to come to you, so rather than hunting down the elephants, I just wait for them to come to my line.

[athanaric]

I do the same, however it's more historically accurate to use them as cannon fodder in fron of your lines (which is what the AI does, and why "fire at will" often doesn't work well with your own troops).

[Boriak]

I recruit allied generals very sparringly in any campaign. An increased number of them can and will mess up the family tree.

[athanaric]

I recruit allied generals very sparingly in any campaign. An increased number of them can and will mess up the family tree.

Same here; OTOH they can be very useful in some situations. And their bodyguard retinue can provide you with a unit type that oftentimes your faction wouldn't be able to recruit, at least in that geographical area.

[RubiconDecision]

It's believable that atl-atls could be used to kill elephants as that's what was used against mastodons and develop a lot more force, but then there's the whole Battle of Zama historical record too. And usually my generals are protected and flanking or running down retreating soldiers to score points to raise their experience level.

Yeah, the whole point would be a Condition "and SettlementName = Roma" for example, and so give them a trait when created within that settlement and so be a TrainedGeneral, not a RecruitedGeneral. So a mechanism for raising up a general within capitols just as we do in real life with military academies and politics.

It's a way to prevent the death of families given the limit of some couples not having children and that first generation. A problem is spamming generals in the capitol though since RTW1 is different than MTW2 and has no recruit pool, and hence once that part of the tech tree is researched, and endless amount of those units can be made, which is really flawed and expensive.

With MTW2's family tree you can predesign how many children a designated couple might have, a big deal in the descr_strat because a careful modder could then ensure that there's adequate sons to allow for not dying out. Don't know if RTW1 does this?

Recruitable generals through this procedure allows a solution though.