How important it is to match unit and commander colours?

[Pope Innocent the 69th]

How bad is it to have generals who are red to have blue units for example? Should you always (if at all possible) have red units under red general, purple under purple etc.?

If 'depends' then what does it depend on?

[Slorver]

Best thing in my opinion is to match each unit with its intended general, such as an strategist general with a ranged unit (since they will usually have stats that give ranged more ammo) and so on.
Bonuses range from 15-30% more (be it ammunition, charge dmg etc). As for other generals its up to you really, sentinels are pretty good with melee units, champions not so much.

[RCMidas]

Yeah, specialised generals provide exceptionally greater benefits to their intended units than to any others.

[Vermel Silk]

If your generals are only lvl1 It wont matter super-much. But on lvl 4+ one should swap unit into those intended for your general.

[dulany67]

I'm about to finish my first campaign. Haven't given general color any thought at all... EXCEPT: range should be under a strategist (blue).

[Atomicbean]

Army composition > Individual bonuses.
That said, if you're GOING to have a blue general in your army, put the archers under him. If you're not going to put a blue general in your army, then put them under whoever doesn't have full 6 bonus units for the army comp you want.

For example, with Liu Bei and his starting force, you still want a decent force of archers, despite the 3 of them being yellow/red/green. And for something like a Blue/Purple/Green army, you'd still want some cavalry thrown in there, even if it's a purely defensive garrison army.

It's worth swapping the units out to be under the general they get a benefit from, but it's not worth sacrificing good composition just to get those bonuses. Having archers and cavalry in your purple/purple/green army will do a LOT more than the infantry bonus stats generally will. (only real exception is if you're doing a full cav/archer micro-manage general build army, but that's a whole different thing and usually only works for 1 army due to needing the right gear/characters.)

[Nyuk]

For blue commanders, the ammunition count matters a lot. For the rest, it's not that important. If you look at the commander skill tree, there are minor buffs for their respective color units. The other thing is that higher tier units are only availabe for their respective commanders. End game units such as dragons or faction units are available for all colors.

[templar0122]

part of it is also each color commander can unlock more units for that color, but if you need to fill in some spots depending on your commander makeup, you can add archers to the purple commanders since they usually have some range skills added in(usually just fire arrows and armor piercing) and if I have a yellow commander in, i usually use him to fill in any missing units that I dont have under someone else(usually spear/ji units since I dont recruit them too much, or go down the green tech path until late game)

[Pope Innocent the 69th]

Thanks for the answers guys.

The reason I'm asking is because I find the fact I have to pick 3 colours for my armies quite restrictive. In Warhammer, my go-to composition was:

1 Champion (fighter general or hero)
1 Mage (general or hero)
8 Infantry (4 Sword and Shield, 4 Halberds)
6 Ranged units (4 archers, 2 artillery)
4 Cav (2 melee, 2 shock)

In Three Kingdoms, building such an army is impossible. Yellow and Red genrals can only have either good shock cav or good melee cav, not both and the purple/green general alone cannot carry a sufficient frontline.

All of my armies have a blue guy, because ranged in this game is OP as ♥♥♥♥, but then I have to chose between having 2 other good unit types in that army. If I take a red general for good shock cav I can't have good melee cav and if I take a purple general for good swordsmen I can't have good spearmen.

Right now, the most likely resolution I can see is to forego the shock cav, use 4 melee cav with a yellow general, give him 2 more swordsmen (because his shield block skill benefits them too), give my purple/green guy the rest of the frontline and have blue carry all range.

I should point out, I only play Records (Lü Bu killing 1500 by himself in a historical TTW does not appeal to me).

[Crackjack]

Originally posted by The Fighting Man:

1 Mage (general or hero)

Mage? This isnt warhammer

[HouNDDoG]

he said thats his army in warhammer.

[Gregorovitch]

The biggest reason I've found for sticking to recruiting units for right coloured generals is that although every general can recruit militia trash units and (I believe) top tier units, they can't recruit mid-tier units unless they are specifically listed in the generals tab. So if you research a nice upgrade you might find you can upgrade your units if they are not in the right coloured general's retinue.

[Pope Innocent the 69th]

Originally posted by The Fighting Man:

In Warhammer, my go-to composition was:

[/Uninstall]

This addresses generals in armies, not on assignment or as administrators.

Gold militia cavalry are good enough. You dont need a gold general to have melee cav. Gold generals are trash in combat. Why bother. If you want the elite gold cav sure, but like I said, militia is good enough for the job they perform.

Blue required if you want trebs. And the ammo increase to archers is pretty solid (tho not required per say)

Red militia cav is almost worthless if you auto resolve alot. However, if you're set on using shock cav, after unlocking upgraded cav be it jade dragons or any of the faction unique shock cav, you can just slot 2 militia gold cav in with 4 non militia red cav and it works fine. Many of the better legendary dueling generals are red anyway, so it makes sense.


Purple are excellent. They are great duelests with high melee evasion. They do need a decent weapon equipped to perform their best. Sword infantry is excellent at absorbing missile fire, and better than spears in melee thanks to their higher melee evasion. They do not have charge reflect, but a purple gen can give them charge immune. Pair that with your own cav or archers and cav becomes no big deal even without spears.

Green generals are basically garbage duelests until you get them well equipped, despite what the tool tip says. This doesnt apply to legendary ones like zang fei because they come pre equipped with good gear. Spears are kinda meh. Anything they can do swords and archers and cav combined just do better.


TLDR red blue and purple is the bees knees. Green CAN be useful. Gold is pointless unless you're stuck with one as a faction leader. The good news is, faction leaders come with unique gear that elevates faction golds to becoming useful enough

Edit: concerning turbans

Scholar is the best duelest. Run them with archery masters. Better than crossbows

Veteran is not as strong a duelist. But can still hold their own quite well against troops, and get in decent damage against lords when fighting not in an actual duel. Give them 2 trebs, 4 melee cav. The scholar using archery masters frees up the veterans xbow slots to make use of melee cav. Virtuous nobles rock.

Monk. A bit squishy but can dish out some good damage. Their heal is aoe so useful both for blobbed troop healing or ensuring your scholar wins a duel (or both at the same time). Give him 6x youxia for line holding. Dont let their small unit size deceive you, they are TANKS

I either run 1 of each per stack, or drop the monk for a 2nd scholar who I give 6 scholar warriors to be the main line instead of youxia. Youxia ate a bit more tanky, but output less damage than scholar warriors. Youxia you can also get a tier sooner than scholar warriors

Hope that helps

[ElviraDemonQueen]

well generals are most important of all yellow commanders are well moral boosters they boost your army to fight and keep them from runing away and gives more benefits to your troops

ow yellow comanders get cavalary too the swords meele cavalary they benefit from it too

blue commanders well they benefits artchers they can unlock flame arrows to more ammonition and more supply for your army and many more

red commanders they benefit on armor piercing and DMG to enemy troops and benefits cavalary like more charges and heavy inpact on your spear or helberds cavalary

champions are green commanders they benefits to fight against generals ofcourse red commandesr too of there DMG boost and armor piercing but the green commanders give more benefits to spear units helberds and many more

and purpol commanders are mostly the benefiting the swordsmen foot soldiers and armor and attack evading so your army gets to dodge more and survive longer in battle ofcourse every commander and army have its weakness but its important what leaders you get since you cant always win battles having onely RED commanders or green you have to mix and think carefully

and yes it benefits more on the hero if you have artchers on your green general they wont get the fire arrows when you unlocked it on the blue general

ofcoruse my english is not that great atleast i tryed to explain it

[templar0122]

Originally posted by The Fighting Man:

Thanks for the answers guys.

The reason I'm asking is because I find the fact I have to pick 3 colours for my armies quite restrictive. In Warhammer, my go-to composition was:

1 Champion (fighter general or hero)
1 Mage (general or hero)
8 Infantry (4 Sword and Shield, 4 Halberds)
6 Ranged units (4 archers, 2 artillery)
4 Cav (2 melee, 2 shock)

In Three Kingdoms, building such an army is impossible. Yellow and Red genrals can only have either good shock cav or good melee cav, not both and the purple/green general alone cannot carry a sufficient frontline.

All of my armies have a blue guy, because ranged in this game is OP as ♥♥♥♥, but then I have to chose between having 2 other good unit types in that army. If I take a red general for good shock cav I can't have good melee cav and if I take a purple general for good swordsmen I can't have good spearmen.

Right now, the most likely resolution I can see is to forego the shock cav, use 4 melee cav with a yellow general, give him 2 more swordsmen (because his shield block skill benefits them too), give my purple/green guy the rest of the frontline and have blue carry all range.

I should point out, I only play Records (Lü Bu killing 1500 by himself in a historical TTW does not appeal to me).

truthfully part of it depends on how you use your cavalry, no matter is they are shock or melee once I get rid of the enemy archers i just keep having them charge, draw back, then repeat, so i usually just have whatever is cheapest until i feel like i have enough money to upgrade my armies

once you get to the end of some of the tech trees for unit unlocks it will make it less of a choice, since most of the units from the tech trees can be recruited by anyone, then it just depends on what skills your officers have

I do know going through the purple branch will give you the Pearl Dragons(i believe?) that are a Glaive unit