New Great Generals

[Charybdis]

Ok, so they spawn over time the more wars you wage I believe now?

I'm wondering how they work mechanic wise, if I tell them to lead n minions, does he have to be within a certain range? And how does he gain promotions, just by defending I assume or something else?

 

[Treason]

Great Generals can be born like other Great People.

You also have a chance of spawning one, when you kill off a high level enemy unit.

They gain experience of their lead troops. The troops need to successfully win a fight, and it must be within one tile from where the general is. There are upgrades that increase the distance that the general can apply his promotions to those he leads, and gain experience.

 

[Darksaber1]

I don't think great gereals can be GPP Poped. All the Great Commander points have been removed from buildings.

 

[Secret_Squirrel]

I find that giving your commanders the ability to command more units at once invaluable early on. Playing with Bannor just that one promotion allows another unit to gain extra strength, no maintenance costs and more XP from fights (iirc). Above all your commander should get more experience for having more units under his command that are winning battles, assuming all goes according to plan .

I always use them to build an academy rather than conscript troops, unless its quite early on and you really need a few inexperienced, usually below par tech troops (or have the money to burn on upgrading them.

What do some of the General promotions do? Such as Loose Formation, I believe there are 3 that have no civilopedia entry and when I picked them I couldnt really tell if they had an effect.

 

[vivictius]

The formations do not seem to work at this time.

You can only get Great Commanders from fighting another civ (i.e. not the barbs), being the first to get Military Strategy (or whatever tech it is that gives you command posts), or from a random event / ruins.

Attaching units to commanders allows them to get ~1/4 of the exp the units get (less the if there is a level difference between the commander and the attached unit).

Great Commander's can get promotions that give their attached unit various promotions, increase the max number of attached units, and increase the distance those units can be from the commander while still getting their promotions from him.

 

[xienwolf]

Vivictius has it pretty much all covered.

Open the F5 menu (Military Advisor) to see a progress bar of your "Battle XP." That fills up as units gain XP in battle against another Civilization (not the Barbarians). Once it is full, you get a Commander and it requires more XP to fill again.

Commanders get XP whenever their minions do (both attack AND defense) no matter where the minion is. Range only applies for promotions that the commander grants to his minions.

 

[Charybdis]

Vivictius has it pretty much all covered.

Open the F5 menu (Military Advisor) to see a progress bar of your "Battle XP." That fills up as units gain XP in battle against another Civilization (not the Barbarians). Once it is full, you get a Commander and it requires more XP to fill again.

Commanders get XP whenever their minions do (both attack AND defense) no matter where the minion is. Range only applies for promotions that the commander grants to his minions.

Thanks for all the good info, fun new mechanic to play with.

 

[Tasunke]

they should be able to grant more mobility imo ... raider was already nerfed, then buffed, and now nerfed again ... grumble grumble

without a true raider mechanic, I doubt there would be any cries against commanders to buy extra mobility through promotions.

 

[odalrick]

without a true raider mechanic, I doubt there would be any cries against commanders to buy extra mobility through promotions.

Even with one, I'm unsure exactly what a move 10 (just to pick a number) commander could do? A strength 5 defender anywhere is nice, but his real value lies in leading troops.

 

[Kjara]

The point is being able to keep up with his troops, its rather hard in some cases(mainly hippus cav I believe).

 

[Tasunke]

his current maximum speed is 2. He cannot keep up with the specialty troops of the hippus. This makes them lose their mechanic if they want to use generals ...

 

[vivictius]

I agree that Great Leaders should be able to get mobility 1 & 2, also they should start with the racial promotion of their civilization.

 

[WarKirby]

also they should start with the racial promotion of their civilization.

The fact that they don't is definitely a bug. Please repost this in the bug thread so xienwolf doesn't miss it, because I don't know how to fix that one.

 

[Treason]

The fact that they don't is definitely a bug. Please repost this in the bug thread so xienwolf doesn't miss it, because I don't know how to fix that one.

They don't? ..I usually play as the Svarts, and I could have sworn every Commander I've gotten has had the elvish race promotion.

 

[MaxAstro]

My two cents:

I really, really love the new Great Commanders, they are exactly how I pictured they always should work. Playing a conquest game as the Dural right now and they are the driving force of my army.

I definitely agree that the Hippus should have a UU great commander with increased move, though; having their high-mobility units slowed down by having a commander really defeats the purpose.

 

[Wodan]

Following up on the great commander / mounted issue, I've run into a related concern. One of the Jotar's big advantages is being able to walk over mountains and ignore terrain (and this will also apply to dwarves, elves, and others). However, when the GC can't do the same, it pretty much makes an army not able to use those benefits. In other words, the entire army can walk over the mountains or ignore terrain EXCEPT for the single person, the general.

So, it's two related situations... mounted, and ignore terrain / impassable. Somebody suggested making the GC able to attach. That seems to me to be a big hairy mess, programming-wise. But it might work. Giving the GC the "race" of the civ will work for some of the situations (but not mounted). So maybe it needs some all-encompassing solution (such as "attach") or maybe a partial solution will be better than nothing.

 

[Iceciro]

Is it possible for them to have commanders different in more than artstyle on a by-civ basis?

 

[Valkrionn]

It SHOULD be... Don't the Bannor already have one?

 

[MaxAstro]

Yeah, the Dural have a UU Great Commander. Technically you can have UUs of any great person, it just isn't really used very much.

 

[Iceciro]

Hippus defiantly need a mounted commander more than they need mounted anyone else. Ask yourself, is the common Hippus going to trust anybody NOT on a horse to take combat orders from?