Rebel Generals

[Callawyn]

Consider adding Generals to each rebel garrison at game start, and also if possible whenever a province rebels. Initial expansion is still incredibly easy for players, even with the larger garrisons. 2 generals, or a general + 3-4 crappy units is more than enough to conquer any rebel settlement. If those settlements contained a General along with those 8-9 units defending, it'd be much harder, especially if that general had a bit of either chivalry or dread at birth.

On a similar note: Why are the mercenaries in the Balkans so cheap? Being able to recruit both infantry and archers for about 300 per unit, with plenty available, makes it far easier for factions starting in these regions to complete their initial expansion than for factions whose cheapest available mercs are in the 550 or even 850 price range.

[Socal_infidel]

One thing I've noticed is that in the EDU, the only bodyguard unit "owned" by the slave faction is the NE Bodyguard. If you try to add other types of generals (e.g. ME Bodyguard) to the slave faction, they will be invisible during battle. Their mounts will still appear, but you'll be fighting a bunch of horses when you break down the gate .

One thing I've noticed though is that if you make a slave general (or any other general really) a "named character" and don't assign him a bodyguard, his bodyguard will appear as whatever unit is the first listed under the army section.

So if you have this:

character sub_faction byzantium, Romanus Angelus, named character, male, age 28, x 214, y 65
army
unit S Peasant Archers exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit SE Town Militia exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit SE Town Militia exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0

Romanus Angelus' bodyguard will appear as Peasant Archers.

This can actually be kinda neat though, as you can have a slave general's bodyguard be any type of unit owned by the slave faction in the EDU.

I figured this out back when I made a Sicilian general a named character without assigning him a bodyguard unit and the first time in battle, he was commanding a unit of Italian Spear Militia!

[tornnight]

Callawyn, there is a descr_mercenaries.txt file on the Download page to fix that. The next release will have it built in.

Also, every independent settlement has a General in the next version.

Socal_infidel, That has been fixed. The next version will feature Independent Generals for all cultures.

[Callawyn]

Been playing Rise of Kings mod while waiting for your next update. Every rebel province has both a garrison and a field army, led by a general. The field armies move around quite a bit, and attacks any force besieging the city in its province. Really cool. Also, their map is excellent, should take a look if you haven't already. Overall, not very challenging tho: has vanilla pop growth, building costs and construction times. So, there's WAY too much money and fast growth for a 900 turn game.

[Callawyn]

The added generals to rebel provinces are great! Don't ever let anyone talk you into removing them. Really makes the early battles vs neutral provinces a LOT more interesting. The rebels have the morale now to fight a good bit longer, the general himself is a tough unit comparable to the player's general, and occassionally the AI will manage to get a good cavalry charge in. Infantry casualties are much higher in these battles now, and you often have to put your general at risk. Even better, if you aren't careful you might occassionally actually lose a battle.

Noticed there's a few provinces that start the game with field armies led by generals. Pretty sure Rise of Kings and Anno Domini have scripts that generate these armies in any neutral province that doesn't yet have one. So, even if a province goes rebel during the course of the game, it gets a field army as well. Any chance of adding in something like this? If you haven't played against these, you should check it out. Its really cool. If you just send a standard army to besiege a neutral city, the field army comes and attacks you, with the assistance of the garrison you are besieging. You have to either send an army that can deal with fighting off these two stacks at once, or find the field army and defeat it before laying siege to the province capital.

[tornnight]

I'm not sure about Rise of Kings but I believe that script is similar to the garrison script.

It requires an individual script for each and every province. Thats one reason there are stability and slowdown issues in AD.