How to deal with Generals?

[DevHyfes]

Maybe there is no real answer here, but I just cannot seem to deal with the enemy generals, unless I have a general who outranks them. Here are a couple of scenarios:

1) Enemy army slips in and attacks my iron mine. I pin them down in choke points, and use my garisoned cavalry to drive off the 1 million archers. He now has like 3 melee units, and 3 generals. I dog pile on the generals and watch as 3 calvary, 2 swords, 2 spear and peasants just get mopped up by the generals. Not a single enemy general was killed- they just stood in the center of my units and ate up spears, horses, swords and the arrows being fired from towers.

2) I reloaded, and instead dispatched my main Liu Bei stack at him. Cao Cao is level 5, so I send Guan Yu at him- but he is "Not interested in dueling". He then rides towards my lines and challenges Liu Bei (who is lower level and will lose) to a duel. This doesn't make sense to me. I can't ask Cao Cao to duel, but if he requests someone of his choice to duel, I lose face if I refuse? Why can't I force him to lose face by refusing a duel?

Ultimately, it feels like there is no way to take down a general, unless I counter with a stronger general. I can completely route his units, but if a couple generals can destroy half my army, battle tactics are of no use. And I cannot even target the general with my generals, because the AI will avoid duels unless they are guaranteed to win.

NOTE: I am not complaining for a nerf or anything here. I am just wondering how people effectively kill generals WITHOUT a stronger general. I like the Romance scenario, but if 150 rank and file soldiers cannot kill a single general, it seems like there is no point to those soldiers.

[JuX]

By not playing a broken gamemode. Records mode is the way to play this game.

[Metadragon]

Originally posted by DevHyfes:

NOTE: I am not complaining for a nerf or anything here. I am just wondering how people effectively kill generals WITHOUT a stronger general. I like the Romance scenario, but if 150 rank and file soldiers cannot kill a single general, it seems like there is no point to those soldiers.

Cavalry usually. not using militia helps too. Legendary generals are pretty tough. Regular generals not so much.

[templar0122]

Keep pulling your calvary back and driving them in, it may not kill the generals but it'll make them break easier if your defending a place like an iron mine

I've been in that situation a few times and always mange to hold them off, once their whole army is routing usually the generals will as well, but even if they dont, I've never had 3 generals hold off the rest of a garrison by themselves and losing the battle

[Paragon]

Sentinels are very good at tying up generals. While their damage isn't great and they may lose, their extremely high evasion keeps them alive.

If an enemy general is in your army, don't fire arrows at him. Most will miss and hit your own guys. That is very likely what caused your army to perform so poorly and get wrecked that time; they were getting shred from behind by your own archer towers.

Like said above, cav is good against them if charging. Shock cav is even better due to the anti-cav bonus. They are very good at tripping the generals and interrupting them so they can't get a foothold and wreck your armies.

You can set your own generals duel status during the deployment phase and afterwords. If you set them to "reject duels" via ability they cannot be challenged. The AI avoiding duels they cannot win is pretty normal; would YOU go into a duel you cannot win?

You can always start a pseudo duel by having one of your generals attack theirs directly. They will direct all their attention and attacks at this general, even outside duels. The only difference is troops and other generals can gang up on them.

Vanguards must be dealt with using cav. They absolutely wreck melee troops in steady combat. Sentinels will last longer than their army. The other three are easily defeated by a swarm of units.

[D. Edwards]

Get a sentinel type of hero try to level him up to get that middle skill where it buffs evasion and use him lock down the enemy general. He may not win the battle but should lock the general down long enough for your troops and other generals to do their work

[shde2e]

I usually deal with them by clogging them with infantry and routing their army. Not a great solution, but it works.

Archer towers do a ton of damage, so they're great against generals. Especially if you have spear units, as the AI is often hesitant to attack them with their mounted generals.

You can also win using lower level generals if you're willing to micro a lot. The trick is to have one general or fodder troops run around and keep them busy, while the others do cycle charges on them. It takes a while and isn't very reliable though.