Best use for Great General?

[Silver Marmot]

I use my first to make a unit Medic III, also enabling the Heroic Epic. The next one will usually be an instructor in my military city, unless I have the technology for West Point, in which case use the GG for a level 6 unit. After that, I use them mostly for instructors.

 

[ZB2]

i play exclusive earth maps, in particular the 1000ad conversion i made.

i use the first great general for +2 Experience, the second general for Heroic Epic validity. the third general is either produced by my steam rolling for Fascism (1000ad game starts in high middle ages) or by extra mongering - the third is used for +2 experience in the same city that has the first general, and the heroic epic.

just to explain this;
Barracks = 3xp
Stable = 2xp
Vassalage Civic = 2xp (mounted only)
Religios Civic = 2xp
West Point = 4xp
Great General*2 = 4xp
Dry Dock = 4xp (naval only)

i can train infantry with 15xp (3 promotions, and just 2 xp from next level up)
i can train Cavalry with 17xp (4 promotions strait away!)
i can train navy units with 16xp (3 promotions, and just 1xp from next level up)

just from the use of 3 great Generals

 

[heljik]

Maybe I'm the only one here who leave them in peace? I just stack them in the capital until they can build academies. Then I build a few....

 

[mortichro]

Great general + modern armour[with lvl2 combat,lvl1 city raider]+tactics can create mayhem... in my opinion.. tried that and poof

 

[khumak]

Fighting succesfully gives you Great Generals. Haven't found out yet how to use them best. Make military academies, turning into a warlord, or make him military advisor. Any thoughts?

Best overall use:

GG #1: Medic 3 unit
GG #2+: +2xp in your unit pump city

My favorite use:

GG #1: Medic 3 unit
GG #2+: warlords for macemen and trebs

I make sure I have plenty of units with better defensive values to make sure that those units are NEVER defenders. They never attack with less than 99.9% combat odds so they mostly start off on mop up duty taking out the last of the weakened city defenders. Once I get 2 trebs pumped up to CR3 + Drill 4 + various levels of combat and barrage, I don't need suicide cats/trebs anymore for city attacks. This drastically cuts down on the number of suicide units I need to build because cities can reliably be taken with zero losses no matter how good their defenses are.

 

[BumpNsubz]

ironworks + MA, and Heroic Epic + MA, is the first thing I try for. Cap one of them with Instructors then the other city (Usually 3 in a city along with vas. civic to get them pumping lvl 4's right off the bat). I usually stay on organized religion the whole game b/c I hate giving up that extra 25% production on buildings within cites with my state religion so I lose out on the extra 2 xp on the religion civic. The only time I switch is when I've built West Point in one of the above cities (usually the one with HE), bringing it to 17 xp instead of only 15 xp without the religion civic. I never attach my warlords unless I've been unlucky enough not to get a unit to lvl 6 on my own during wars (and I'm usually always in a war). Once I've built west point and have 17 xp per new unit, I'll put any other warlords I get into the other city so I can eventually have two pumping out fast, 1 turn, lvl 5's.

That's a total of 10 warlords if none are used to attach. (3 in the city with west point plus 1 for the MA, and 5 in the one without plus 1 for the MA).

But for me, if I'm not close to the tech allowing west point, I don't attach them. The +2 xp or the 50% production has helped far more in earlier wars than 1 souped up unit even if the unit doesn't go up a level right off the bat by adding an extra 2 xp, it will lvl up after one battle (or two defending battles) in most cases.

I have found generating warlords is easier with water units, especially if one of your cities with the above stats is on a coast with a harbor. The AI likes to pump out tons of water units before building a harbor (in my exp) and become sitting ducks. Plus the more advanced water units move far more tiles later on in the game which makes for more battles in one turn. Plus you do gain a warlord xp point per worker or settler you capture. Take advantage of that before you decide to declare war (if that is even an option and they aren't declaring on you). From what I could tell though, it's not the same if you take over a city that already has workers in them, they need to be outside of the city to get the GG xp.

 

[Captain Pugwash]

Until now, I have attached my first GG to a unit in one of my army stacks and he spent his time dragging his butt around after the troops and posing for the camera until eventually he got terminated by a feisty spearman. Having read this thread, I now have plenty of ideas to make my GGs more useful.

Great thread. Thanks guys.

 

[Quetzal513]

I typically like to use my first to make a Medic III, also ensuring West Point availability, that's usually the only one I'll use to attach to a unit. Although I have played around with a couple of gunship/blitz/combat6's, bon voyage enemy tank stack! Building West Point is like being able to build 2 instructors in one city, so it’s like being able to get a free general without pushing up the emergence threshold plus this “great healer” for the rest of the game. I’ve had plenty of times where I’ve missed out on a level 6 unit, having surplus level 4’s but not being able to get that one unit in the right place at the right time enough to get him up to a level 6.

The second general usually comes around before education, so naturally it'll be an instructor, level 3 units out of the gate. After that I get tempted to turn the third into an academy because it can be stacked with hero epic, yielding a +150% military production, but it’s usually a situational choice. Instructors and academies are around as long as you keep that city, and it doesn’t take long for an instructor to yield far more than the 20exp a warlord would have.

But after that I usually have to consider what type of army I want to build. If I have only one true military production city, sink all of the generals there. But if I have 2 production cities I have to manage generals between the two. The major consideration is being aware of the exp level thresholds 2, 5, 10, 17 and if charismatic 2, 4, 8, 13 that you’re likely to be able to generate right out of the box. Then you’ll also have the things that yield extra exp: +2 for stable/pentagon (stable is just about obsolete by then unless you’re trying to make lots of cavalry), theocracy, vassalage, +4 with Ger, West Point & even +5 for siege units with Citadel. Then it gets dicey, is one level 5 and level 3 unit better than 2 level 4’s? You could argue either way; it’s up to someone else to really crunch the numbers. But building the national wonders hero epic, west point, ironworks and red cross tends to lend itself toward 2 military cities.

 

[bardolph]

My favorite use of the Great General is as a warlord in a recently-captured city full of wounded units. The free promotions give free healing to those units, and can turn the tide in a close war, ESPECIALLY when there's a big enemy stack coming to recapture the city!

 

[DilithiumDad]

My favorite use of the Great General is as a warlord in a recently-captured city full of wounded units. The free promotions give free healing to those units, and can turn the tide in a close war, ESPECIALLY when there's a big enemy stack coming to recapture the city!

I did this recently. Really made a difference. Also, I attached to an experienced chariot unit and got a free upgrade to knight the next turn, saving me 240 gold I didn't have! Chariot-to-knight upgrades are wickedly expensive! Warload unit gets the 30% withdrawal chance first so it stays alive, then leadership to get double XP.

 

[Andraeianus I]

Using a Great General for building a Military Academy in a city with the Heroic Epic has hardly any use:
Normal city: 100% build time
MA: 67% build time
HE: 50% build time
HE+MA: 40% build time

So it seems that the following it true:
(1) Use your first Great General as a Military Instructor in the city with HE (or where you plan to build the HE). After that it is easier to get a level 6 unit for Westpoint (which is available late in game, after all).
(2) Combination HE+MI seems better than one city with HE and another one with MA.

In general: you need a high production of units, when you have a lot of casualties. It is better to solve the problem of casualties by giving your units more experience. Only surviving units can gain experience.

 

[val13]

I've tried both tactics:

- Stacking GG's in one city as Instructors, build Academy
- Using GG's as Warlords, build Academy

In the first tactic, my city was pumping out lv 6 Calvalry... yet... my attack odds vs a War Elephant was only 76%

In the second tactic, I had a lv 27 Gunship that wiped Modern Armor off the map (along with the rest of warlorded units that were average of level 16 or so).

I'm finding that one stack of super-uber-units does more damage then lots of mediocre level units... at least for me... so my strategy is:

- Produce enough units to get a few GG'd warlords running, use them as one SoD to conquer the world (supplementing catapults/cannons/artillery as needed), use the mediocre produced units to guard borders.

 

[ZB2]

Yeah i've adopted that strategy too, If i can build infantry at 8-11xp with civics and Pentagon then i dont need to throw in any instructers. I use the Generals to attaching to a Cavalry Unit. Later the next one gets added to a gunpowder(usually rifleman by now) unit. My 3d/4th ill save until I can get tanks (3, maybe 4 techs away), or if i've been mongering alot it will go to another Rifleman. But i WILL end up with one attached to a tank so it can end up being the most powerful ending game unit there is.

Any more generals produced will go to the infantry to help break the City III Infantry which are really hard to take down in the modern era, as everything has a counter unit EXCEPT mech infantry

 

[the Intricacy]

Here's the way I like to use GGs.

First off, the only good neighbor is a dead one, especially in MP.

I'm usually playing as Zulu or Mongols, which means I'm going for a fast strangle at my closest or most dangerous neighbor. IF I manage to kill my first conquest pre-catapult, chances are I've kept the cities I wanted, have gotten my first GG, and am eying another civ to kill.

In this case, I use the GG as an instructor in my 2nd most productive city, explicitly, in the case of mongols, the city WITHOUT a ger, which is busy pumping melee. At this point I can pump exp 6/5 melee units, pre-theo, pre-fued. I use these to pump double woodsman axes (and sometimes spear and sword), or double hill archers (and later crossbow and longbow). In my 2nd declaration of war, then, not only am I beelining it to my new opponent's metal with impi or keshik (or whatever), I'm supporting it with 2-move axes, presuming I'm still early enough to get there before the enemy has chopped all their forests (most people leave some for post-math chops).

This also works well if someone mounts an early attack and good for countering furing the first war after I've killed off their early chariots/archers/whatever.

Imagine combining impi or keshik with jags or gallic warriors which are axes, and you get the idea... extreme choke until the catas mop up their cities

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I keep 2-3 GG's as military instructors if I can. But usually, level 3 medics are too difficult to resist, as they really make it a lot easier to hold captured cities. If you have patience, you can try commando cavalry:

- aggressive (combat 1; 17 exp left)
- vassalage and theocracy (13)
- barracks (10)
- stable (8)
- west point (4)
- 2 GG's (0)

Another nasty late-game combination is level 3 medic warlord, and then combine red-cross with west point. You get march infantry that can benefit from your warlord's healing while on the move.