User Guide

96
Assigning Army Leaders
Before sending an army off to battle, you
should assign a general from your country’s
pool of leaders to command it. Leaderless ar-
mies will usually perform very poorly in com-
bat, and take considerably longer to conduct a
siege. Some countries may begin the game with
one or more generals already in their leader
pool; otherwise, you will need to recruit one.
Provided you have a general who is not cur-
rently leading another army, simply click on
the leader name line of the army summary. A
drop-down box will display a list of available
generals and their attributes. Click on the gen-
eral who you would like to assign to command
this army.
Recruiting a New Leader
We have already seen how to recruit a new
leader when we looked at the Domestic Lead-
ers screen. Click on your country’s shield in the
top left corner of the screen to open the Do-
mestic Interface, and then select the “Leaders”
tab. Any generals currently serving your realm
will be listed on the screen. If they are currently
leading an army, the army’s name will also be
shown.
To recruit a new leader, click on the “recruit
general” button. This carries a cost of 100 duc-
ats, uses up one diplomat, and reduces your
current land tradition by 20%. The new gen-
eral’s attributes are determined largely by your
country’s land tradition value. You are far more
likely to gain an effective leader if tradition is
high.
If you lack the necessary requirements to re-
cruit a general, you may also convert your ruler
into a general. This is “free”, and his abilities as
a general are determined by his military skill
attribute. Be careful, though, as your country
will lose stability and prestige if he is killed in
battle, and it is far more likely to experience a
period of regency or even be forced to become
the junior partner in a personal union when
this happens.
Army Basics
During peacetime, armies have extremely
limited uses. If you experience a rebellion in
any of your provinces, you will need to send
an army to deal with the offenders; otherwise,
they will usually do little other than to act as a
deterrent to any of your neighbours who might
desire your territories. You will probably want
to position your forces in the most suitable lo-
cations to minimise any attrition they might
suffer, and to be able to respond rapidly to any
threats.
A neighbour will be much less inclined to
declare war and attack you if it feels that your
military is large enough to repel the attack;
of course, when you do eventually go to war,
those same armies will be the ones that will en-
gage your enemies and hopefully conquer new
lands. While this would make it seem tempt-
ing to create a large number of gigantic armies,
there are two issues you must bear in mind: the
maximum number of troops that your nations
can afford to support, and the attrition they
will suffer when too many are stationed in the
same location.
Maintenance and Maximum
Supportable Troops
When we looked at the Domestic Military
screen, we noted that there is a limit to the
number of troops that your country is able
to support without incurring any penalties to
the cost of maintaining them. This number
is determined by the size of the realm and the
wealth of your provinces.
Each regiment in your military will incur a
monthly maintenance cost, reflecting the basic
supplies and equipment it needs to remain in
good fighting condition. The larger your mili-
tary, the higher the monthly cost. This can be
reduced somewhat by decreasing the amount
of maintenance you are willing to allot it, but
your armies will suffer a corresponding loss of
morale and will be much less eager to fight for
you.
There is also a threshold called the “maxi-