How to use a great general?

[cephalo]

Is there any benefit to keeping him alive? Or do you always expend him in some place with lots of troops? The help talks about 'attaching' him to a unit, but I don't know what that means. In Civ4 I always built academies or great specialists.

 

[fugazi]

When you attach him to a unit, you'll be able to pick great-general-only promotions for that unit. Check out the civ-o-pedia, I'd say that that super medic looks damn sweet.

 

[cephalo]

When you attach him to a unit, you'll be able to pick great-general-only promotions for that unit. Check out the civ-o-pedia, I'd say that that super medic looks damn sweet.

By that do you mean simply grouping him with a unit? Is it only for the one unit? Or for a group of units? Or a stack of units? I only saw one button on the general's interface, and once you press it, he's gone.

 

[Armstrong[DiE]]

I also wonder about this?

Group as many unit as possible then click or just group him and go around attacking with general+soliders?

Someone enlight me!

 

[Freddy K]

As far as I know grouping the general with one unit will give your unit experience as well as allow for general only promotions, like Fugazi said.
At the same units in the same tile get 20 Experience points. This didn't work however when i attached a general to a ship in a city, only the Ship of the Line got free promotions, not other ship and none of the twenty or so dragoons and sodiers.
Ships with a General are offered the "Leadership" promotion (+100% experience gain, something veteran soldiers have from the get go).

 

[UWHabs]

I got my first, and now have a Veteran VI dragoon. +75%. Can't wait to use him in a real fight (so far only used him against a few natives).

 

[Polobo]

In Cinv4Col you can ONLY attach the general to a unit; there are no buildings that cat be constructed using him. You can only attach the general to a single unit; that unit (and that unit only) will get access to the special promotions (leadership, surgeon 3, maybe others). In addition, during the attachment process 20XP are divvied out amongst all the units currently on the tile.

Re: Freddy K's comment; I've never actually done this - in fact I'll rarely spread out the XP but instead will give it all to one (maybe 2) units. As I haven't seen anything to explain your observed behavior (unless, maybe, the general was ON the ship and then only the ship the general is on gets the XP...) it could be considered a bug.

 

[GamblerTuba2]

Great general will give 20 experience total divided among the units in his tile so it seems most reasonable to me to pick a single unit and move him to an empty tile and then join the great general to that unit.

Be careful if you want to make that unit into a medic though. If his stack is attacked, the great general may be the best defender and therefore may be killed first.

Seems like their should be a great admiral unit as well. Does not seem right to have a great general captain a ship.

 

[mike p]

Using them as a great Medic seems like the best usage - cutting your healing time in half has the effect of almost doubling the size of your counterattacking forces once wave after wave of the king's troops start attacking. But he'll probably get killed if he's the best defender, so have a spare Medic ready to be promoted, just in case.

 

[kingofbirds]

What may have happened to Freddy K is that only the ship gained a level from the 1XP it received after the 20 was divided over 20 units or so...

 

[Freddy K]

After some testing:

2|5|10|17|26|? Those are thresholds for the next promotion (it doesn't take an Einstein to guess which Promotion threshold is next).

A general has a total of 20 Experience Points to give (a native village offers 7XP sometimes), which are distributed equally among troops in the same tile. The most effective thing would be to lead 10 troops, which get 1 promotion each. *
Four units get 2 promotions each. **
Three units get 7XP+7XP+6XP and 2 promotions each.**
Two units can each get 3 promotions (at XP 2-5-10) ***
One unit can be promoted directly to the 4th rank, with 3 XP overshoot. ****

Free promotions don't affect the threshold, each units will be promoted when it gets it's first 2 points experience, even if it is already a Grenadier I (from the French leader) or if it's a veteran soldier.


If you choose right to bear arms (+1 strengh for citizens), and have the FF with +50% to native strength, then promote 4 natives to minuteman II.
What you get is four 'Chingachgook' units with
3 Str
+45% settlement defense
+50% native strenght
+X% rebel sentiment.
Bring on the Artillery.