Moving armies without a General

[Riekopo]

Does anyone else want to be able to move armies without a General in Attila? Many times in Rome 2 I found myself very annoyed by this limitation. I see no good reasons for it. An army without a General would be led by a "captain" of some sort and probably wouldn't get the morale bonus or abilities that having a General would give you. So there would be a disadvantage to it, but it would make things less annoying when you want to move troops around in an easy way.

[OBRkenobi]

I agree although it is historically accurate

[DecimusMaximus]

I never really had a hard time moving around armies without generals. Usually I designate a specific main city in some territory I've expanded into and make sure it's barracks and such are as upgraded as possible, that way I can just build an army there if I need one quick and fast. Then I just rinse and repeat as I expand. That's just me though.

[von stoker]

I like how it is in Rome, needing a general to move troops. The only way I'd like to see troops being able to move on their own (eg. if you want to recruit higher level troops to send to an army that can't recruit them) is by being able to recruit them, but those troops must be in forced march stance and must use their full movement allowance to move to the target army. (similar to Med 2 crusades movement). If they don't, they are disbanded at the end of the turn. This way you can recruit and move troops to your army, but they cant be used to attack or garrison towns. Maybe something similar to generals recruiting in the field as in Shogun 2, but with the above requisites.

[Riekopo]

For instance when there is a rebellion but they are not very strong, I have to march a full army out to destroy them, and of course they run away, so I have to pursue them some more. I wish I could at least leave half my army at home so the slaves don't retreat automatically, or maybe be able to march out a few troops on their own within a certain sphere of influence of the city. Also, I can't say, recruit some chariots or something from a city that makes chariots and move them to merge with an army somewhere else; that army actually has to march all the way into that province to meet whatever unit I want to recruit. It's just a terrible and arbitrary design. Like so many other things in Rome 2.

[Altimis]

They need to raise cap, in vanilla Rome 2 have too low cap...

Even better, remove goddamn cap forever, why limited it?!? why not 100 armies!! silly idea.

[Sheridan]

An idea - crazy or not - just hit me. They could limit armies without generals to only being allowed to move across owned territories. Like previous games, these armies wouldn't be able to recruit from the field or enjoy replenishment as long as no general is present. If an owned territory is occupied by the enemy, the army could be moved back to the border or something I guess. That'd effectively remove the issue of having lots of small, annoying AI armies attacking you, but still allowing anyone to patrol and reinforce key strategical points within their own empire.

[Abdülmecid I]

It's pretty simple: CA couldn't prevent the CAI from spamming dozens of armies in the campaign map, so they chose to limit the game instead. Actually, that's why we have torches, insta-transports, siege escalation and states-satrapies that never existed. What I'd really like is that CA, for once, will try to solve the problem, not hide it under the carpet. Also, I don't know what happened in the warscape games, but I didn't find the army spamming so horrible in R1. It definitely did happen, but it wasn't game-breaking, imo, so I prefer the original approach. Of course, there's the possibility that army spamming was way worse in R2, so they were forced to "eliminate" it somehow.

[Lionheart11]

Go back to S2, this gereral only armies suck.

[Butan]

When I read the thread's title:

[GussieFinkNottle]

Actually, this is one I'm going to have to disagree with you on. I was one of the fiercest critics of this limitation prior to Rome II's release, but now (over 800hrs game time) I think it works really well. It makes you think more tactically (actually adding challenge to the campaign that didn't used to exist), leads to bigger battles and clears up some of the issues with the old army system, such as the super long-range movement exploit. Legion names, ranks, small amount of customisation and legacy are all cool extra bonuses of having armies with character.

[damien007]

I actually rather like the feature but think the implementation is a bit off. The arbitrary army limit is silly and doesn't make a lot of sense. Instead you should be limited by the number of nobles / family members in your faction which could be tied to imperil. With the other features in Attila this would add other strategic choices. Do you want to assign that noble as governor of a province, or have him lead an army? As having a noble / family member managing a province would effectively reduce the number of armies you could field by one.

[DeliCiousTZM]

This general thing is here to stay and now with Horde it is more important then ever.

[GussieFinkNottle]

This general thing is here to stay and now with Horde it is more important then ever.

Also all the mechanics that have been built up to enhance this system of unique, limited armies to a relative level of sophistication. I'll list the ones I can think of:

Rome 2
-Army legacy recording all commanders and battles.
-Army customisation, of both name and standard.
-Army rpg progression, allowing specialised legions and representing the shared experiences of troops in an army and the traditions specific to a legion.
-Recruiting directly into a legion as a self-contained unit with no need for troops in transit.
-Army stances applicable to legions as one collective unit.

Attila
-Horde mechanics, making a contained army also a potential settlement when encamped
-Army integrity, affecting all units within a force with the potential for an unhappy or disloyal force to rebel. Equally there are bonuses for fervently patriotic armies. This system would break down somewhat with scattered forces
-Decimation of a military force, linked to fighting effectiveness, morale and army integrity

[prithupaul]

If they are going to stick to these limited 1 army per general thing, I would suggest bringing back the ability to recruit reinforcements from different settlements.

These units of course will take multiple turns to travel to its recruiting army, leaving room for enemies to intercept these small groups opening up new strategic risks and possibilities. Unlike previous games, the player wont be able to take control of these reinforcing units as an individual army on the strategic map. They will be locked on a preset path to the parent army.

I dont really mind the fact that all armies need generals, which sort of makes sense. But I do find the arbitrary 15 army limit no matter how large and well-managed the empire very nonsensical. Instead I will suggest introduce an army upkeep (which is added on top of the unit upkeep) system that exponentially increases with each new army. Then this army limit will be reached in a more organic manner.

[Lionheart11]

no i like the old system, if you fought well without a general you were rewarded with the ability to make him a general. You could also have lots of small geurilla forces for ambushing.

If this is going to stay forever then S2 will be the last best TW game imo.

[Garensterz]

You could also have lots of small geurilla forces for ambushing.

This is what I'm really pissed of in Rome 2. No guerilla battes, especially in minor factions.