Which unit to spend great general on

[Grimus]

Hello fanatics,

"If" you attach your great general to a unit, which type of unit do you usually choose first or rather... which type do you regularly choose?

What are the different benefits or advantages to have a great general attached to different units?

I also tend to give the full experience to a single unit rather than a stack.

 

[gunkulator]

I like to give it a mounted unit and give it that special medic promotion. You can upgrade it all the way to a gunship and it will act as a mobile hospital.

There's also a good argument to giving it to an axe so that you can have a powerful city raider 3 + combat 1 unit early on.

The important thing though, is to give it to a unit with at least 6 xps so that you get a level 6 unit out of the deal for the Heroic Epic.

 

[Sparta]

The first thing that springs to mind is that mounted units will only get 50% of the benefit relative to one-move units for applying the +1 movement promotion (i.e. improving from one move per turn to two is theoretically twice the [relative] improvement that two movement to three would be). Also, only melee units will be eligible for the coveted city raider promos, if that's what you're going for, although the case could probably be made that if you only have a single uber unit, it would be more valuable with a bunch of Combat promos and Commando or March than it could be as a city raider without those (as the latter would 'waste' far more time healing away from your main stack(s)).

Oh and one counterpoint - mounted units could (typically?) get far higher retreat odds using the +30% retreat promo, as some of them start with a default retreat chance and all (?) of them are eligible for the two retreat promos, whereas I don't believe any melee unit can 'improve' retreat odds from zero any way outside of that Warlord +30% promo. [Edit: except for via Guerrilla III; oops]

FWIW, the only time I attached a GG to a unit was my very first Warlords game to try it out, and I think I put him on an axe, IIRC (definitely melee, whatever it was, and I did put all 20 XP onto the single unit as well just to try out some of those 'bonus' promos). Now I just make them all military instructors in my Heroic Epic city though, personally.

 

[Eggolas]

Medic III on a two movement unit, often a horse archer, goes first. The second GG often goes to a CR eligible unit, unless another mobile hospital is required (e.g., two-front war).

Using the GG as instructors for their +2 xp benefit is also a good use. I particularly like it with protective civs.

 

[johnny_rico]

I also use my first GG on a chariot or horse archer with 6 xp (combat 1 and medic 1) to get the medic 2, medic 3, and morale promotions. I try to continue to use him for mop up duty in the hopes of reaching 37 xp's for the mobility promotion as sometimes war-torn lands are road free and mobility keeps the mobile hospital well, mobile.

After that, the next few go into the HP/WP city. Later in the game with the pentagon, vassalage, and theocracy available, I find it beneficial to burn a couple on academies in other solid production cities if the need arises. Once your main military city is able to kick out 17 xp units, adding more doesn't yield immediate gains. Sometimes settling a GG or two in a coastal city is worthwhile if the HP/WP are inland.

 

[Crighton]

for the record I never use the GG as a warlord, I use him as an instructor. That being said were I to use him to lead units etc, it hopefully would happen with team skullthump in the swordsman era and knock out some rivals earleir the better.

 

[Syndrome Zed]

I also use my first GG on a chariot or horse archer with 6 xp (combat 1 and medic 1) to get the medic 2, medic 3, and morale promotions. I try to continue to use him for mop up duty in the hopes of reaching 37 xp's for the mobility promotion as sometimes war-torn lands are road free and mobility keeps the mobile hospital well, mobile.

After that, the next few go into the HP/WP city. Later in the game with the pentagon, vassalage, and theocracy available, I find it beneficial to burn a couple on academies in other solid production cities if the need arises. Once your main military city is able to kick out 17 xp units, adding more doesn't yield immediate gains. Sometimes settling a GG or two in a coastal city is worthwhile if the HP/WP are inland.

I mostly do the same, although I'll use the 3rd or 4th for an academy and the other of those two will join the 2nd as an instructor in my HE (or soon to be HE) city. I like the ability to turn out a continuous stream of highly-promoted units fairly quickly.

One game, though, I did the usual Med3 with my first GG, and then attached the 2nd to an axeman for the CR/Combat promos. They were a two-man wrecking crew, one strong attacker and the other to heal him up while they rampaged through enemy territory. That was kind of fun, actually.

 

[nealhunt]

Mounted unit with good withdrawal %. Leader and all the Flanking. Attack over and over and rack up stupid amounts of xp.

After that I just pick up whatever promotions I want.

 

[cabert]

I would have selected both melee and mounted but it's a one choice vote.
mounted, i use them with flanking 1/2 + tactic (the 30% retreat bonus).
It's a bit of a gambit, but it often works.

I voted for melee, though.
Why? because you can keep them upgrading. The free upgrading is worth a lot more for those.
I often associate the GG to my initial warrior (who went back to garrison a core city after earning some barb fighting promotions).
And immediately upgrade him to the best melee unit available .

 

[Arrian]

For me it depends somewhat on the units I have available at the time my first GG pops up.

If I've got a powerful mounted UU (say War Chariots or Immortals) I will attach the GG to one of them. If I'm using standard units b/c my UU comes later in the game, I'll attach it to a melee unit - probably an axeman. I try to use a unit that has 7 XP already, so the GG gets him to the 27 xp threashold (obviously this is different if you're a CHA leader). On melee, this hopefully results in a City Raider III, leadership, combat 1 unit. Yummy.

-Arrian

 

[Quagga]

I usually attach one or fewer GGs to units during a game. The reason being to get the promos for building HE or WP.

That said, I think that the mounted units don't have as rich and lengthy upgrade path as the foot sloggers. The free upgrade is a key feature of the attached GG and one should make maximum use of it.

I do think that a GG cavalry is nice, but it is a long way off if I'm still worrying about HE.

I don't think GG helicopters are all that great; they can't even capture a city. I use them mostly for pillaging. No benefit from being a GG in that regard. Contrast that with a GG Mech Infantry with CR III, +1 movement and probably some other good promos. That's what I call a major general!

Just don't promote your GG to SAM Infantry, as he won't promote to MI.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

Usually I burn one on a mounted unit and make him a healer, but Ive been reconsidering this. Why?

1. Anti-horse units are very effective and usually cheap
2. Sure, the mobility is nice, but usually I keep my healer unit moving with my stack. That means a movement of 1 does the job.
3. One game I recently played I didnt have any mounted units. So I threw my gg on a warrior. I was able to promote him of course to the highest melee unit. Thats a lot of money I save on promoting him.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

medic 3, then dump them into the HE WP city

 

[DarkFyre99]

I usually attach him to a seige unit, giving them the medic III promotion. Seige units can bombard city defenses, thus contributing to an invasion without having to risk such a valuable unit in combat.

If I manage to build the Pentagon, I'll usually attach later G.Gen to tanks, giving them CRIII, morale, and drill promotions. It really helps clean up city defenders after bombers and artillary are finished with them.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Depends on my situation,
Medic III melee is always nice, but if I have a City Raider III unit, i will sometims attach a Warlord and give it Tactics and Leadership. Later more Combat Promotion.
The second warlord usually goes to a mounted unit.
Tactics, Leadership and asap Blitz is a very good combo to get high exp with low risk of losing the unit.
Then it is either Flanking I&II or Combat promotions and Morale.
A Combat VI Cavalry with 3 attacks per turn and a 90% chance to retreat when losing is just awesome.

 

[synthboy]

Like other posters I ususally use my GGs for instructor or academy purposes but th times I have used them on a unit it has usually been to create a monster CR axeman. However, there seems to be a lot of support here for a mounted medic so I might have to try that instead.

 

[Harald500]

After the patch I usualy (almost always) build the academy.
If attached to a unit, I always go for a warrior with minimum 6 xp (or the oldest unit with that ammount of XP). It upgrades for free to the best melee-/gunpowder-unit you have, all the way up to Mechanized Infantry.


OK, I have to read all the post's next time - See that Mr. Civtastic made my point allready.
Sorry about that!

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

I usually attach him to a seige unit, giving them the medic III promotion. Seige units can bombard city defenses, thus contributing to an invasion without having to risk such a valuable unit in combat.

i've been playing around with this and it seems to work better than melee

 

[Meatbuster]

Usually I make a Medic III Chariot and never upgrade the chariot ever...
1. mounted units don't have defense bonus
2. I want to keep the chariot alive, not put 'em on the front line

If I don't have horses, I would instead put the warlord into a medic spearman/pikeman, though. The anti-horse defense units hardly die anyway.

 

[petey]

I put him on a mounted unit, but I do upgrade that unit. Since you keep it in your stack, it will likely never actually be the defender and there's generally some leftover unit with very little health left after you've attacked a city and you can use the Medic to kill him and pick up some easy xps.