Great Generals

[smbakeresq]

What are most people using their great generals for?

I have been playing around with various combinations and seem to get a lot of use attaching one to a siege unit. Something like a drill 3 catapult with other goodies thrown in to start, ending with a super artillery unit after the years and wars. I think I had something like a drill 4, barrage 2, combat 3, medic 1 unit that seemed to serve well, healing the attackers while reducing the bonus then colateralizing everything when attacking.

What other combos have people been using.

[Velociryx]

I will use my first General to create a Warlord off of the most experienced unit I have (foot slogger, usually, and not a siege engine or horse troop). This will by my fight finisher...I preserve him to earn the occassional experience point and add weight and menace to my Main Battle Stack.

Once I have one (just to open the door to the Heroic Epic), the rest get burned to create academies or military instructors in my hammer heavy burgs, to help crank out better troops.

-=Vel=-

[Jaybe]

1st GG: Warlord for Heroic Epic qualification. With any warlord I create, the first promotion is morale (+1 movement), then the extra-experience promotion. After that it's generally combat or city raider promotions with the combat promo leading up to commando (use enemy roads).

2nd GG: Instructor at my Heroic Epic so new units built there will have 5 XP.
3rd GG: Probably for an academy somewhere, possibly for another warlord.

4th and subsequent GG: After I have 1 or 2 academies, I'll usually create more warlords for the "fun" factor. After all, warlord units tend to expire on occasion.

The Fine Print: Huge fractal or terra, marathon, noble; with either Hephmod or Better AI.

[Velociryx]

ah yes...and so I see I forgot to answer the part about which promotions I take.

I always take the "earns 100% experience" promotion first, followed by City Raider, and then Combat promotions for additional overall strength. Not very flashy or creative, but they tend to serve me well enough.

-=Vel=-

[absimiliard]

Well, I'm sure I'm wrong, since I don't do what Vel does.

But my first general goes to a unit. He gets it Medic 1, 2, and 3. If possible he also gets March.

After that I agree with Vel. Settle him or use him to make his building. Either way in one of your military cities.

-abs

[Velociryx]

That's not a bad use of the Great General, because the idea is to preserve him, however, consider this:

You typically want your medics to be low-powered units, right? Meaning that if you are attacked, the medic will almost never be the "best defender" in the stack, and so, unlikely to get killed in the line of duty.

The thing is though, your Warlord unit gets free upgrades, which means that you'll be wanting to make him the most heinously powerful guy you can get, right? Which works against the medic approach, cos now, he's a top-of-the line guy, and likely to be named best defender in an attack.

That's why I tend to shy away from Medic promotions for units like that.

-=Vel=-

[absimiliard]

Oh I absolutely don't want my GG medic unit to get into fights. In fact once I build them they pretty much never get experience any more. As for the free upgrades, can't make me take 'em. *sticks out his tongue at Vel in a particularly childish manner* Nyaah nyah, nyah nyah nyah!

My preferred unit for the GG medicalization is a scout that I gave Combat I to after he beat up two animals defensively, or if I absolutely must I will sometimes put him on a warrior with Combat I. Both are pretty easy to get, either from animals or a barracks, and both are pretty weak so they rarely end up defending when a stack is attacked. I prefer the scout slightly because of the move 2.

But I do have to admit, you can get a heinous attacking unit with a GG going "fight-y" promotions. Just not what I want, I feel one powerful unit just isn't as good as faster healing for a stack-o-death. Thus my preference for the medic route, and my stubborn refusal to upgrade that scout to an explorer or that warrior to anything.

-abs

[Solomwi]

I agree somewhat, ab. The first two words that pop into my mind when that question is asked are "medic" and "three." You're looking at healing your entire stack 25% per turn, regardless of whose territory. I also agree with Vel that the very first promotion is Leadership.

After that first one, I'll settle one or two in my HE city to get that next promotion when it's fully developed and use at most two for academies, depending on my cities. I probably under-utilize subsequent GGs by attaching them to newer units, but they're so much fun to play with that I've gotten hooked. My favorites are Warlord Marines, since I can completely eliminate the danger of their being attacked by leaving them on the ship. I just read back up the thread and noticed that Jaybe described my situation well. I'm not a big fan of Mobility, just because that movement point typically gets wasted, and there's another promotion that I'd have rather had, but other than that, spot on.

Where I differ is that I want him getting into fights, but on my terms. The main reason I want this is to maximize my XP gained and speed up that next GG. When I get more upgrades, I'll go the City Raider route, since that doesn't make him any more likely to defend, then start up the combat ladder generally. I typically have another Warlord unit that's built for power, plus several non-Warlord units that "outrank" my medic by virtue of combat or unit type promotions, in the stack.

As always, the general rule applies: do what Vel does, not what I do.

[Velociryx]

Oh, I don't think that the medic approach is a bad one, and I must confess, an easy high ranking medic has its charms.

My main beef with it is more stylistic than anything. I like getting the free troop upgrade, and want to make full use of that (saving several hundred gold a pop), and my battle style is typically to attack with overwhelming force along a broad front, such that we kill so many, so quickly that there is little danger to my damaged guys healing in town.

-=Vel=-

[SebP]

I do the medic 3 scout/explorer as well - if i want to build west point. So, not usually with my first general. I often get the 10xp needed for the heroic epic by normal means in the first war and only need a warlord if i want to build west point.

My first one is usually instructor or academy in the to be HE city. I have been using instructors but am tending to academies first now.

[couerdelion]

I think the Medic strategy is a good but I find too that I dislike the idea of not wanting to forego promotions and preferring something that can hit hard. I used to give the job of warlord to a melee unit and adopted the basic promotion strategy of

Leadership
Raider I-III
Tactics
Combat

Sometimes I might have shared the XP between 2-4 units if my Warlord was be at least Raider II – they are never going to be leading the charge into cities.

Nowadays I prefer to attach the warlord to a mounted unit to allow the leadership, and blitz combination to give steady promotion options. But be careful here that you have access to iron. It’s bad enough running around with a warlord chariot when there are horse archers/swords/longbows around but in the age of knights, pikes and maces, the chariot unit is a little weak.

Second warlord always goes into a strong military city – preferably coastal but first priority would be the H. Epic city. A second instructor might go to the primary naval base. After that it’s probably more warlord units.

I have never built a military academy.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Recently, I've been playing around with attaching them to my most experienced cavalry unit, and taking (of all things) the +movement, double experience, withdrawl +30% and flanking I and II. Then with the more typical blitz, and combat promo's as they come. I've found these things to be nie indestructible, and they gain 2 xp if they withdraw anyway. I use them as nutcrackers as there always seem to be that one or 2 units in a city that just decimate too many artillery for my taste. An attack with one of these guys to damage that city defender II longbow before attacking with the artillery on the more squishy folk behind him seem to leave me with a lot more artillery after the battles. (probably wouldn't be much of an issue for some of you, but I'm lazy and use stack attack way too much)

My record is a 98 xp cavalry following this method. Probably could have got him more xp, but the game was to a point where it was 'won' and I can't stand playing those out once victory is assured. I think my hall of fame has all of 2-3 victories recorded in it.

[ben04]

I always use them as great instructors in my unit pump.

Academies come to late in the game to be useful. At that point in the game I am building units across my whole empire and not in a certain city. Of course there are the production houses but those don't have enough weight to justify spending a GG.

I don't like the warlords. Certainly the additional promotions are nice but they aren't ground breaking. Free upgrades are also nice but not that interesting as they basically only save you a few buckets. The only interesting part are in my eyes the 20 experience points.

As a great instructor you however only have to build 10 units and you also have the 20 experience points. Of course they are distributed over those 10 units but why do great instructors stack? You need lots of instructors to make up for the 20 points but 10+ exp in combination with barracks and civic are very possible. Also you will have more of those 10 exp guys than you could ever have warlords.

I only see one advantage of warlords over instructors and that's that they pay off immediately. Instructors only pay off over time but they pay a lot more.

Also instructors don't have the warlord death zone effect. Meaning that 0.001% chance of loosing a warlord which then occurs and it feels like it happens in every game.

[Velociryx]

I second that opinion.

I have observed the loss of an uncanny number of Warlords with a 1/1000 chance of dying.

Since I have not played several thousand games yet, and since this phenomenon is widely reported (I have heard it mentioned in several places, by lots of people), I can only assume that we're either all horrendously unlucky, or....something is amiss.

-=Vel=-

[Krill]

Sods Law at work...