All you can do is build your younger people up so they're good. That way, you'll always have good generals.

Well what I do, is I take a really young general(usually the grandson of first faction king) and have him conquer and pillage from sea to sea....my current general has slain about 20 egyptian armies, and taken 10 cities. He is 50, so I have taken his son who jsut came of age...16 yrs old loading up with a full stack army with praetorian cohorts, equites, and principes.

My faction leader, publius the great, will go north into what is left of the egyptian empire(i have their 3 base cities) and take jerusalem, Sidon, Damascus, and antioch. His son. Caius Scipio will go south and then north, taking petra, dumatha, and palmyra and even going so far as to maybe attack Seleucia(babylon). Then I will use Caius to take over pontus, which owns the entire Ionian peninsula...so that will be a 20-30 yr war that could even be multi-generational.

Don't even attempt to put governors in all of your settlements. You will never have enough to go around, only put them in the more important locations. Transfer retinues from old family members to the younger ones so that you do not lose them when they die. If you truly start running low on family members you will likely have more opportunities to adopt new ones into the family.

Use your generals sparingly in battle. They are best used to run down routers once the battle is won so you can gain experience and hit points for your general. WIth the 1.2 patch it's very easy to get + hit points for you generals.

It is even easier when you are Egypt. With chariot generals, your generals will almost always be in range to shoot something and so be in combat, so he doesn't get the coward line of traits and keep getting the combat side of positive traits.

i currently have and 85 year old egyptian general, no idea how though

How can one transfer retinues?

yes, how can we keep retinues, I am very interested, and I have an 80 somethings faction leader for britian, he's never left london.

I'm sure there is an explanation in an FAQ somewhere, as well as somewhere in the manual. A lot of people don't realize or know how for some reason. (took me a few weeks to realize at first)

To transfer retinues all you do is get both characters into the same army group, settlement or ship. From there it's just a click and drag. Use the mouse to grab a retinue from one and drag it over to the other guy and vice versa. You can use this to keep them before your characters die and to put them where they are needed. For example, the generals get all of the battle/command bonuses possible and the governors get anything that helps with law/order, unrest, taxes, income, etc. It does now allow certain combinations and will sometimes reject a retinue transfer.

You can do this with agents (spies/assasins/diplomats) as well as family members.

Only "bug" is that you have to put them both into an army group, settlement, or ship so you can't swap retinue between two agents that are out in enemy territory where you have no other units.

[This message has been edited by Themistocles472 (edited 09-27-2005 @ 05:22 PM).]

that should be in the newbie guide

Actually, what I want most is to make my Faction Leader live longer (enough to conquer Egypt) so that when he dies, he would be known as Quintus the Mighty with 10 command stars instead of just "The Brave" with 8.

Is it me, or does anyone else have a problem where the very first flaming onager stone lands smack on my 8 star general, killing him outright? This has happened more than once, and invariably turns battles that I should win into slaughters where I get my ass handed to me. The only solution I can find is to keep him well out of sight of the rest of the units, which is ahistorical and not terribly useful.

Nutmegger, maybe you offended someone and thats why your general is getting killed... Although my favorite tactic is to kill the general or captain early on with artillery. Useful trick if your playing the Parthians. The only nemesis I feared as Parthia was those damn Chariot Generals. Everyone else I mowed down like grass.

Strage, i find chariot generals to be fodder for me....My equites run them down and slaughter the chariots with ease.

Elrond89, what are you playing on as Rome, Very Easy? Maybe Equites get a bonus, I don't know.

No, they just suck. You really need to pick a harder difficulty level man. Or do you mean Roman Cav?

I agree, if Equites can mow down chariots something is wrong. Cavarly, especially LIGHT cavalry, is not suppose to do well vs chariots with scythes. Not at all. Are you on easy or very easy or something here??

Stick him in a city with the best health facilities and upgrade your other cities as much as possible with Health and temples. Like having them in an aged home so they live longer. Health cities longer living Goveners and Generals along with citizens.

Regards,
Scipii

all of my faction leaders I have had in my currnt selucid campaign are "the great" or "the conquorer"
even some of my non-faction leaders have that trait too.
I have never had the brave though, how do you get that? use your general in battle alot?

You'll need keep using that "the Great" general to win more battles in order to get "the Brave" status. Or maybe it's triggered by having the general himself fight in the battle.

And I once did kill a unit of chariots with equites. Although, I have to admit, the difficulty was on Medium, the chariots were British light chariots and I had like four full equites while he had only one chariot unit.

I have a british campaign going, 230's, and I still have the same faction leader I started out with, he's 95, and has outlived like five faction heirs.

Wow! 95? What did you do to that Faction Leader?

Yeah Mike the Mighty, we would all like to know as the oldest Faction Leader I had only made it to 89.

Contrary to most convention wisdom on these boards, I use my generals to do serious fighting. But the nature of the foe is key. Charge phalanx from behind, and get out. Slam into archers and keep moving against peasants. And most importantly, know your general. Learn what it does for your general to gain certain traits, especially "been in the wars", "scarred", etc. And that will then help you figure out how much you can push your general. Never let your general be attacked with onagers (you deserve to have your general killed if you do).

I rarely fight with better than 2/3 odds... that is, the enemy almost always "outnumbers" me by 50% to 100%, and it is my generals that make the difference. I loose an average of one general in 50 to 70 battles; but I create generals as fast as I need by attacking rebels with captains... and winning against the odds. Generals are overwhelmingly powerful, and a massive waste to leave in some pansy city. That said, a few cities derive benefit from generals exceeding the value in the field, depending on ancillaries and traits, and retinue. Sun Tzu said it so long ago, "Know your enemy, know yourself". The true military power of a general, especially cavalry generals, properly used, is so overwhelming as to nearly unbalance the game, particularly in the early game or when you have limited cav.

Good hunting...

I currently have a 35 ish year old general who has about 7 stars (Cassius Brutus). He has taken Salona, Patavium, Mediolanium, Arminium, Arretium and Segesta. He is just about to go throught he Julii's holdings in Gaul, before taking the rest of Gaul and Britannia. If that doesn't get him ten stars, then I don't know what will. His father (Amulius Victor) has almost singlehandedly destroyed Greece, and Macedon, before wiping out the Senate. I aim for him to take Thrace and Dacia and get Legendary Commander before he dies (he's 57).

Basically, just avoid battles if you want your generals to live, but fight if you want them to be good. Avoid them being the main cavalry force as soon as you can get a reasonable amount of cavalry and get brave traits if possible (by fighting and surviving).

What i've noticed is that generals tend to live longer like 70+ if you somehow "retire" them at his early 60's in a city as a governor.

Another thing that made me laugh was that i had this guy who was an Heir to the throne, the faction leader was about 10 years younger.
He just wouldnt die until he was the King at his 77!
He died a couple of years later.