Slitherine

Thanks.

AFAIK if its <1 you get fewer, worse generals, >4 you get more and better generals.
I'm not sure if it makes a difference to have 1.01 or 3.99 though.

Graphic showed 2 swords above 2 "+" icons, and the message said 50% bonus.

This is what is described from the game graphic.

That would be a Ruler bonus of 50% to Military Expertise. So an ME of 2 becomes 3 so long as he is Ruler.

Two things:

1) City garrisons recieve 1/4 of Military Expertise as extra experience stars. Ie extra star for City garrisons when you have Military Expertise 4 or more.

2) Affects the chance for new leaders to get values above 0-0, via the "Leader Quality" factor.
"Leader Quality" starts at 10, it means 10% to get a 2 on a new leader. If you fail to get a 2, you have triple this chance to get a 1.
Military expertise provides a plus of (X-1) (where X is Military Expertise) to that. Notice that if Military Expertise is under 1, this means you actually get a malus to the roll.
Examples:
a) If you have Military Expertise 2.33 then you have 11.33% chance to roll a "2" for a leader attribute (roll once both for offensive and defensive), and if that fails then you have 33.99% chance to roll a "1" for a leader attribute (again, both offensive and defensive attribute is rolled if the attribute didn't already turn out to be a "2").
b) If you have Military Expertise 0.8 then you have have 9.8% chance to roll a "2" for a leader attribute (roll once both for offensive and defensive), and if that fails then you have 29.4% chance to roll a "1" for a leader attribute (again, both offensive and defensive attribute is rolled if the attribute didn't already turn out to be a "2").
NB: The chance for a Leader to get a trait is a flat 50% (unless your country has no harbours, as you can not get any of the naval traits if you do not have a harbour), so Expertise has nothing to do with that.
NB2: If you want to get a properly higher chance to get better leaders, invest in Military Academies.

Seems to me that having high ME is not really worth the trouble if these are the only effects of it.
Or is there some mad civ that can pile bonus upon bonus and gets ME to two figures?

IMO ME isn't worth aiming for. If it's below 1 then it's a second-rate concern; once above 1 it becomes, at best, a third-rate concern.

I would disagree with the two previous posters, as it has a critical influence on the combats in empires (as opposed to FOG2), the extra dice rolls really makes a difference in combats. And having a value of 1 only cost a palisade or training ground in average on each province. And you will need to have some of the high level military buildings to be able to upgrade to some units which means you will more or less always get the 1+ value anyway.

Military Expertise does not provide extra dicerolls in combat. If you want a better chance to get leaders with rerolls, invest in Military Academies. As far as I can see, Military Expertise has fluff value only.

Swuul wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 10:20 am Military Expertise does not provide extra dicerolls in combat. If you want a better chance to get leaders with rerolls, invest in Military Academies. As far as I can see, Military Expertise has fluff value only.

You are right that ME doesn't directly give extra dice roll, but it does give better generals which give more dice rolls.

All I can say is Emperor Marcianus will be missed. He was one of the best all around leaders that I ever got in this game.

Surt wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 11:00 am

Swuul wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 10:20 am Military Expertise does not provide extra dicerolls in combat. If you want a better chance to get leaders with rerolls, invest in Military Academies. As far as I can see, Military Expertise has fluff value only.

You are right that ME doesn't directly give extra dice roll, but it does give better generals which give more dice rolls.

If you get Military Expertise to 2.0,then you have a ~8% chance to get a better general. For much less effort into military buildings you can build 10 Military Academies and you will have a ~80% better chance to get a better general. Believe what you want, but the fact is Military Expertise is not worth the effort for the miniscule bonii it provides, it is just a fluff factor.

The Military Expertise number is the total value of your faction's military buildings divided by the number of regions you have. A Tier II building has a value of 2. So if every region has at least City Walls, then your ME is already 2. I build tall not wide and I have a National Arsenal Province (NAP) with a lot of structures to produce experienced military units, so I eventually get an ME over 4. I've had several Double Deuce (2-2) Generals as a consequence. Of course, you also want a large pool of Generals from Military Academies, but the higher your ME, the greater the chance that this gives the best result. As Swuul posted, high ME also gives your regions better garrisons. Thus, if you build high Tier walls in every region and a good number of structures to produce experienced units and a large pool of Generals, then your ME will be high already.

It is *extremely* inefficient to build military buildings (more than a Palisade, at least) everywhere. Military buildings do nothing for you to win the game. You need culture buildings to win the game, you need green and blue buildings to get the population to build more culture buildings, you need pink buildings to have the resources to build culture buildings, you need yellow buildings to afford the culture buildings. If you build military buildings everywhere, you are effectively tying one hand behind your back and hopping around on one leg.

If you are smart, you build military buildings in your dedicated recruitment center regions (where you have the buildings which boost your recruits to have better numbers when you raise new troops), and you will get a Military Academy in each of those.

Gray Fox, you are again taking the dangerous path of giving absolutely bad advice, and there might still be somebody out there who believes you. Building three Military Academies is better than having 4.0 Military Expertise. Any person who actively advises players to aim for high Military Expertise should immediatly be put on ignore, it is just horribly horrible bad advice.

Surt wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 9:57 amI would disagree with the two previous posters, as it has a critical influence on the combats in empires...

Disagree. It has a trivial influence over General quality; the kind of influence that is far more efficiently obtained elsewhere.

Concentrating on ME is a newbie trap and as such should be largely disregarded as a serious concern.

Swuul, I've posted AAR's of every one of my campaigns. All of these were victories. I've been asked to make a guide to help players by Pocus. I was nice enough to ask you to help, but you're not in to that. You just do a lot of posting with no cred. I've tried to be polite to you, but you remind me of that word that starts with "D".

Defekt, you don't have to concentrate on ME. You're building walls and military buildings anyway. Pallisades and city walls in every region isn't going to stop all other construction. That gives you a base of 2 or more to ME. I had three Military Academies in my NAP. You get an advantage by putting all your unit training in one province with lots of buildings to increase experience. As long as you stay under 100 regions, your denominator is small vs. the number of walls and military buildings, and the ME is high. High ME is just a bonus to doing military buildings well.

defekt wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 4:49 pm

Surt wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 9:57 amI would disagree with the two previous posters, as it has a critical influence on the combats in empires...

Disagree. It has a trivial influence over General quality; the kind of influence that is far more efficiently obtained elsewhere.

Concentrating on ME is a newbie trap and as such should be largely disregarded as a serious concern.

Could I get you to post in viewtopic.php?f=534&t=100135 about your building strategy please?