While compiling your work sheet (see part 1 of this series) you should have identified the names of the generals that you want to have in your scenario, their commands and how effective they were. There is nothing to stop you having as many generals as you like in a scenario, but the custom battles have a maximum of 4 per side and I think you should have a good reason for having any more than that. One reason would be if your scenario is very large, I think a good rule of thumb would be one general for every 12 units, if your scenario has more than 60 units per side I don’t think anyone will complain if you have more than 4 generals.
You might also want to increase the number of generals in an outnumbered army as a way to make the scenario more balanced. Remember, generals make an army more effective, they give combat bonuses, cohesion test bonuses and free turns to units in command range. So if you give a smaller army more generals than the enemy you are effectively making them stronger.
In the Editor, click on the “Generals” button:
The “Generals” window will pop up:
We can now start writing in the names of all our generals that we want in the scenario. So click in the Name field and write the name that you want, in this case I have put in Philip of Macedon, the commander in chief of the Macedonian army in this battle:
Then click on the “Add New General name” button, you will see the generals name added to the second box in the window:
Now we want to place Philip on the map with one of his units, so make sure you are in the Unit Placement Mode, by clicking the button near the top of the editor.
Then click on Philip’s name in the second box in the “General” window, so that the name is highlighted. Then make sure you select the desired General type and quality ranking using the arrow buttons at the bottom of the window. In this case I want Philip to be C in C and Field Commander.
Then click on the unit on the map where you want the general to go. In this case I want him to be with the left hand Agema Pike Phalanx unit, this will put him nicely central in his infantry line so that his bonuses can affect the maximum number of units.
Then click the “Place General” button, this will create an entry in the first box in the window, with the general’s name, his rank and rating, his location coordinates, and the unit he is with.
You have now placed the first general. Just repeat this process for all the generals that you want in the scenario, for both sides. When you have finished just close the “Generals” window, and save the scenario.
The generals names are saved to the Text9.txt file in the scenario folder. Therefore they can be easily modified outside of the editor if you have made any spelling mistakes. You can also create new general names in the Text9.txt file, but you would have to place them with units through the editor. The entries look like this:
IDS_CUSTOMGENERAL_1,"Philip of Macedon",
IDS_CUSTOMGENERAL_2,"Nikanor",
IDS_CUSTOMGENERAL_3,"Leon",
IDS_CUSTOMGENERAL_4,"Titus Quinctius Flamininus",
IDS_CUSTOMGENERAL_5,"Archedamus",
IDS_CUSTOMGENERAL_6,"The Unknown Tribune",
So if I wanted to create a new general to use in the scenario I would just copy one of the lines, and renumber it IDS_CUSTOMGENERAL_7, then write in my new general’s name within the quotation marks. When I next open the scenario in the editor, the name will already have been added to the list in the second box of the “Generals” window, and will be ready for allocation to a unit. You could in fact create all the generals names that way before using the editor to allocate them to units, some might prefer to do it that way.
Often you will have a C in C and two or more Sub-Generals per army, and they will be mostly Troop commander or Field commander rating. Sometimes you might need to use an Ally General, so you would create him as an Ally General (the arrows go in the order Sub-General, C in C, Ally General) and then place him in a team solely consisting of his own nation/faction (see part 4 of this series).
Only use the Great Commander rating when it is justified, ie; someone of the calibre of a Caesar, Alexander or Hannibal. Of course, it does not have to be someone that famous, there have been plenty of great generals that are relatively unknown. There again, it might have been someone who was normally quite average, but in this particular battle was inspired or very lucky.
