Leaders

From EU3 Wiki

There are two types of military leaders: Generals and Admirals. There are also two types of exploration leaders: Conquistadors and Explorers.

Generals and Admirals are recruited using 1 diplomat and some Military tradition (Generals) or Naval trandition (Admirals). The higher your Tradition, the better stats they have, but also, the more they use up when created (20% of your tradition to be exact). Unfortunately, this means it's often best to hire new leaders once your war ends (your tradition will be at its peak then). Just hope they live until the next war! If you've been fighting a while, keep an eye on your tradition and hire a new leader when at or near the max (100).

To assign a General or Admiral to an army or navy select the unit and click on the (No Leader) line just below the unit's name. Navies must be in port; armies must be in a province that you control or have a diplomatic right to move through including uncolonised provinces. While you can't select/change leaders in enemy territory per se, you can shift units between stacks.

If you have a king (see Forms of Government), you can convert him to a general. Queens and Regency Councils cannot be converted. Unlike other leaders, kings can die in battle - so only send good kings into battle if desparate, but send bad ones to war all the time (if you don't mind the 1 stability loss if they die). In limited experience and testing, the odds of your king being killed do not appear to depend on battle odds; it seems to be a small, fixed likelihood, even when you're sure to win. (I once tried to kill a worthless long-lived king by sending him against hopeless odds, with his army getting wiped out six times. He didn't get a scratch. -RK7)

Conquistadors and Explorers can only be recruited if one of your National ideas is Quest for the New World. They need a colonist to create instead of a diplomat. They, too, use up your tradition and are otherwise similar to generals and Admirals. Conquistadors and Explorers are assigned to armies and navies in the same way as Generals and Admirals. While Conquistadors and Explorers do give bonuses when fighting, their main benefit is that they allow their stack to enter Terra Incognita. However, areas marked as Permanent Terra Incognita can never be entered, even with Conquistadors and Explorers. For some tips on using explorers efficiently, see Military access.

All leaders are recruited using the Domestic Leaders interface.

All leaders are mortal. Only kings can die in battle, but everybody eventually dies of old age.

The following equation gives an approximation of the total skills of a new leader based on tradition:

( tradition/5 - 2 ) = ( Fire + Shock + Maneuver + Siege )

Fire, Shock, and Maneuver are capped at 6. Siege is capped at 2.

Note that the scores achieved by leaders will also be affected by slider positions but that bonuses do not allow scores to go above the official limits.

Leader Effects

The various leader scores operate as follows

Fire and Shock values

These are added to the fire and shock factors for attack and defence of the units they are commanding. Note that this only affects casualties and that leaders have no direct impact on morale combat.

Siege Value

This is added to the (hidden) dice roll used for adjudicating siege progress. It can be considered equivalent to reducting the fortress level of the city being besieged by this value.

Manoeuvre Value

This is added to the speed of forces that the leader commands and is also subtracted from the army size (in thousands) for evaluating the effects of attrition.