Generals Bodyguards - do you think they are overpowered?

**Lusted** · January 10, 2007, 08:51 AM

Im asking this question to see what other people think as well. I've just fought a 40 minute long epic siege of Edinburgh, but i lost far more troops than i thought i would due to 3 units of Generals Bodyguard. I think they are far too lethal in close combat, they have a very fast attack rate and i've seen 1 bodyguard soldier take out 4 armoured sergeants and 2 Dismounted Feudal Knights in about 6 seconds without getting an attack back because of this.

Im thinking of toning their secondary attack down for 2.1, but im interested to see if anyone thinks they should stay the same as they are supposed to be one of the best units in the game.

**vonKrysiak** · January 10, 2007, 08:56 AM

Well I think they are powerful - totally agree. But in my opinion heavy cav is not strong enough as it is and made some adjustments for all of them. Normally I would say that it should remain the way it is as generals unit should be tough as it consists of his best battle hardened troops.
The problem only occurs when you besiege a city where AI has soemthing like 4 or 5 family members and they all hit your army.

**mostlyautumn** · January 10, 2007, 09:39 AM

It's confusing when you can defeat an army with a couple of pavise crossbowman units, a couple of dismounted feudal knights and feudal knights having 16 year old general with his bodyguards like I did an hour ago. In the end there was my general alone, 6 knights and 47 crossbowmen. So he killed all knights and crossbowmen just fleed after loosing their general. But anyway, maybe it's ok.

**DrJambo** · January 10, 2007, 10:16 AM

What I've done in my own mod is remove their extra hitpoint. Not only does the extra hitpoint make them too powerful, it also tends to prevent generals from withdrawing or routing when they should, since having the extra hitpoint slows down the rate at which the general's bodyguards die. I also reduced the morale of all general units by 2.

Edit: if you're worried that remvoing the extra hitpoint will weaken the actual general too much, then don't, they have further additional hitpoints over and above the bodyguard (IIRC they have 6). So in effect this change just reduces the bodyguard.

**mr.blonde** · January 10, 2007, 10:42 AM

Before 15 minutes i succefully defended Constantinople from a turkish jihad, after the turkomans who entered the broken walls and instant rout in front of 450-600 spearmen and 240 heavy infantry came the enemy sultan with 75 bodyguards and 5-6 stars followed by 360 peasant archers, after a minute most of my spearmen routed with heavy looses. I threw my general to the slaughter and rally the remained troops and circle the enemy sultan. In 30-40 secs they left with 3-4 men and eventually rip the sultan, instantly all enemy's army routed and finito. My point is yes the generals is more powered now but they are really essential in a battle and to further planning.I could wish to have
-less effective ranged troops in melee
-lower number of generals units example in the huge setting instead of 40 -> 30
-tier 4 stables recruiting of generals

edit: and believe raising a little the attack of heavy cav should be perfect

**Lord Cunami** · January 10, 2007, 10:47 AM

I agree with you Lusted
But I think you should look at a alternative approach to fixing this rather than to change attack, defence, hp stats.
How about lowering the number of soldiers in the generals unit. I wind up having a faction Leader unit to have over 70 knights at huge setting. It should be more like 30 to 40.

**Lusted** · January 10, 2007, 10:50 AM

I wind up having a faction Leader unit to have over 70 knights at huge setting. It should be more like 30 to 40.

And they normally are that size, but being faction leader they get a bigger bodyguard unit, and the traits they have also affects boyguard size.

**Com Hill** · January 10, 2007, 02:21 PM

It is not a bad idea to look into this unit. I my opnion they are to powerfull. But then I would not want to see them become too weak either. Your idea Lusted seems like a good idea, as the real problem is in melee. They can take a huge amount of punisment before going down, even aganist spearmen.

**xor0** · January 10, 2007, 02:50 PM

I think they are definitely overpowered especially at the start of the game. They can win the initial battles on their own almost, very unbalancing.

Could be fixed by removing extra HP, having less soldiers per unit (ie 2 or 3 at the beginning), or make them mailed knights to start and upgrade with time.

Another idea is to force payment (~1000 fl) to accept a new general. Right now its too easy to kill a couple of rebels with a captain and get a free elite cav unit when the captain is promoted.

**Becephalus** · January 10, 2007, 03:21 PM

You will only get new generals through adoption if your current number is less than you number of provinces.

**Lord Cunami** · January 10, 2007, 04:42 PM

I never adopt any generals into my family tree.
Sometimes its fun to play with some meaningfull house rules to increase the
satisfaction in the game.
I say again the best way to reduce the overpowered generals units
is to reduce their size respectively. When you combine that with not accepting any adoption you will enjoy it.

**Godfrey von Bereau** · January 11, 2007, 03:49 AM

I agree with killmore: Especially in the early era, the generals bodyguards were the best warriors of the whole country and if you read throug some historical chronicals, the most important thing was to have more nobles with their knights in the army, because they finally made the battle. So keep them strong!

**Lord of the Isles** · January 11, 2007, 04:35 AM

Originally Posted by Godfrey von Bereau

I agree with killmore: Especially in the early era, the generals bodyguards were the best warriors of the whole country and if you read throug some historical chronicals, the most important thing was to have more nobles with their knights in the army, because they finally made the battle. So keep them strong!

I've been searching for info on bodyguard units in Medieval armies but no useful info turned up, so this will just have to be subjective.

I agree with this to some extent but I suspect that there's a problem with relative sizes of units. M2TW might have a full stack of 1000 men with 30-40 in a General's bodyguard unit. That's 3-4% of an army made up of elite, high stat men, and some stacks will have 2 or 3 generals. And as xor0 noted, early on with smaller stacks, they are an even bigger % of an army and more unbalancing.

In real life, would a Medieval army of, say, 10,000 men have had 400 (700,1000) elite bodyguard cavalry? I really suspect the numbers would have been much smaller than that. I don't think it's realistic to have such a high % of a stack made up of such good troops, so I'd suggest Lusted goes with his feelings and tones down the general's bodyguard units a little. Not nerf them, just tone down a little.

**GeneralLee** · January 12, 2007, 01:59 AM

I loved the gameplay in MTW 1 so I lowered the general unit's hitpoints. They're still powerful but they're no longer the uber powerful unit that can wipe out half an army single handedly.

**Foreign Fruitcake** · January 12, 2007, 10:49 AM

Well I don't know, I mean the Bodyguards are your weapon of last resort on most battlefields and weakening them too much will detract from their ability to turn the tide in more desperate melees.

Reducing their hitpoints though gets my vote.

**FriendoftheDork** · January 12, 2007, 07:13 PM

I say, don't change them. Ok, they were too powerful in RTW, and too weak in STW, and OK in MTW, but now I think they're perfect. No longer tanks, but strong enough to actually matter. In BI I could probably rout an entire army using just one or two units of clibinarii bodyguards, but that is no longer possible in M2.

Now, I recently fought a battle (VH) where my bodyguard 40 strong beat a mailed knight unit (80 strong) losing down to 29 men. The mailed knight lost units faster than the general, and the general also got the aid of semi-engaged merc spearmen which resulted in alot faster losses in the enemy.

In another battle where I amushed the vile Milanese (they tried to take rebel Dijon before my french king... Trying to take my mustard away!), I tried to nail his general with two spearman units (one levy, one merc). He maneuvered almost away, but my levy spearman and my mailed knights (about 60 strong) managed to kill and eventually rout the general. They fought well, but was in no way impossible to kill (TY for better spearmen lusted!). If the enemy had beaten my two units I would think them overpowered.

Also, powerful generals means that the characters become more important - kings with good traits become the vanguard of your army, easily equalling 3-4 of typical mailed knights. Enemy princes becomes a major consideration in determing what units to include in my army, and almost always includes my own general or two.

**Faust Gottes** · January 15, 2007, 01:01 PM

I'm of the opinion that the Genreal's Bodyguard should be powerful, especially with their initial charge. These units are made of men who live to die for their lord. However, no matter how brave you are, lots of men poking at you with long sticks will kill you. I would give them a more powerful charge (increase unit mass??) but slow down their melee attack speed a bit. Not much, just a little bit.