Generals and tradition

[Rotten Venetic]

The available information would suggest that the variable called military tradition is used to pay for generals; and that once you buy a general, you lose military tradition. I might be wrong in this assumption, but wouldn't it be better to have a requirement of military/naval tradition, i.e. you need to have x tradition to hire leader y, and x depends on how good y is; but you pay the generals with money (an initial sum + monthly or yearly installments), as they, too, need to eat and want diverse luxuries. The diffrence would be that tradition is not lowered by the hiring of a general.

 

[Brasidas]

You don't "lose" tradition. You use it. The alternative would be a system with floating requirements such as CivIV, whereby you need an ever-increasing amount of points to get the subsequent leader. The only "advantage" of such a system is that it's more straight-forward to get the player to understand a geometric increase in the cost of new leaders.

If that didn't help you at all, ignore it. Maybe this will:

When you see "tradition", read "leadership points". When you get enough, you get a leader. If you can't use it right away, go ahead and save it until you need it. The leadership points are a discrete unit of measure as to how much development the core of military leaders develops during both training and combat, whereas the leaders themselves are extensions of that in the form of a discrete number of excellent leaders that that level of development deserves.

You don't lose tradition, the "tradition" is kept up by the success of that leader winning battles and expanding the empire. There'll be more leadership points generated if he does well.

 

[unmerged(37697)]

Indeed.

You do lose tradition, however, if you remain at peace for too long. Battles keep your tradition at a status quo, and if you fight enough, raise it.

Presumably, losing battles diminishes it, but it could raise it.

So, the more battles you fight (on land for land trad., or at sea for naval trad.) the greater tradition level you have, so the more and better leaders you can recuit.

Of course, if things are desperate you could always send in your king - whose stats as a leader are reflected by his military stats as a monarch - who of course can die, which is never good

 

[unmerged(19042)]

Does fighting pirates/ rebels contribute towards this tradition?

 

[unmerged(37697)]

Does fighting pirates/ rebels contribute towards this tradition?

I would imagine so

 

[unmerged(17138)]

Does fighting pirates/ rebels contribute towards this tradition?

That might be a little exploity then .. just create pirates and fight them with your own navy for naval tradition points.

 

[unmerged(37697)]

That might be a little exploity then .. just create pirates and fight them with your own navy for naval tradition points.

If at all possible, that should be very expensive to do...

 

[Registered]

That might be a little exploity then .. just create pirates and fight them with your own navy for naval tradition points.

That kind of thing could be bad for your BB though.

 

[Rotten Venetic]

But it still doesn't make any sense, to have a quick drop in military tradition, when you get a new general. That just doesn't happen: if anything, the presence of a new military figurehead should increase the country's military tradition! As for reading "leadership points", no offense but that comes straight out of a cheezy rpg.

Also, those generals don't live on air. They're prominent characters and expect to be paid as such. Maybe this could also be done by giving them estates, which would lose you some income in a province for ever, instead of cold hard cash, but not with your military tradition.

 

[unmerged(11427)]

That just doesn't happen: if anything, the presence of a new military figurehead should increase the country's military tradition!

He is. He will win more battles for you and you will be able to plock another quality leader from the lower ranking officer pool.
Military tradition is overall quality of your lower ranking officers. If you pick one of them and promote him, the quality of the pool drops. Simple as that.

 

[Rotten Venetic]

This sounds like a pretty good argument, but only when you have a small army! After you get to the 50k mark, your officer core should be cca. 500 strong, or thereabouts; maybe about 300 if one aggrees that the military hierarchy of those times didn't go so deep (which it didn't). No amount of military genius is going to make one of those 300 count for 10%, or even 5%, of the group. Add to that the chance that military tradition is not usually going to be 100...

A more reasonable figure, say 20k, would have about 120 officers; it is more likely that a military genius would value about 5% of the lot but your average general will not.

And if you're fighting a lot, you'd better take care that your army isn't small.

 

[unmerged(19042)]

Well then think of it as not just a general on his own, but him and his staff. So if you got Nappy as a general, he wouldnt command 100,000 man army on his own, but would need Berthier to write up the orders, Davout, Soult, Massena etc to command the corps, Friant, Gudin to command the divisions etc.

The point is if you win battles, your officers gain experience and can lead men better. Appointing a general recoginizes and simplifies this. The tradition isnt lost, its embodied in the general. If however you lose or worse are at peace you lose the knowhow and tradition goes down.

Remember also it was also to help out little countires that have no historical leaders from getting shafted if they got bigger than they historically were.

I agree though it might be interesting if you had to pay generals as well like I think you will have to with the advisors, but if it will be done automatically, then who cares? The general however poor will always bring an improvement in morale like in VIcky and so appointing one in that respect will never be a loss.

 

[Registered]

I agree though it might be interesting if you had to pay generals as well like I think you will have to with the advisors, but if it will be done automatically, then who cares? The general however poor will always bring an improvement in morale like in VIcky and so appointing one in that respect will never be a loss.

IIRC you lose gold as well as tradition when you recruit a leader.

 

[unmerged(11427)]

IIRC you lose gold as well as tradition when you recruit a leader.

You remember correctly.
Development Diary - 10th of May 2006:

Recruiting a general or an admiral costs a set amount of gold, and a set amount of tradition.

 

[Petrarca]

But it still doesn't make any sense, to have a quick drop in military tradition, when you get a new general. That just doesn't happen: if anything, the presence of a new military figurehead should increase the country's military tradition! As for reading "leadership points", no offense but that comes straight out of a cheezy rpg.

I would refer you to Victoria for the leadership analogy. Frankly, it's a straightforward and sensible premise that is subject to a terrible misconception. As things stand, a belligerent Spain fighting extended land campaigns in Flanders will have a high military tradition, allowing her to recruit from her seasoned officer corps generals such as the Duke of Parma and Count Tilly. A kinder, gentler (or thalassocratic) Spain would have no such opportunity for Farnese and many others to experience combat and rise to the occasion of leadership.

Also, those generals don't live on air. They're prominent characters and expect to be paid as such. Maybe this could also be done by giving them estates, which would lose you some income in a province for ever, instead of cold hard cash, but not with your military tradition.

Generals are far cheaper than the armies they command, however. As Fat notes, they receive their initial commission and then they're yours.

 

[Registered]

Presumably, losing battles diminishes it, but it could raise it.

according to the IGN preview simply engaging in combat is enough to raise tradition.

 

[Rotten Venetic]

I predict this will be mercilessly exploited...

Well, I guess the price in tradition can't be helped (If I mod it out I'll probably just end up having full millitary tradition between 1460 and 5 years after the scenario ends), but I am adamant that, in addition to this, there should be a small price added to your army maintainance cost, for each general you currently have. So if you think your army maintainance is too small, just spam generals

 

[Havard]

I predict this will be mercilessly exploited...

How?

 

[Rotten Venetic]

Get a wrong culture wrong religion province and have it constantly revolting. Then use the military tradition to get lots of generals and conquer your continent with their superior skills

You could even send a small army to fight the rebels and keep retreating it...

 

[Havard]

1) Having provinces constantly revolting on you is not cheap...

2) Why would you earn any tradition for retreating your army?