So if you weren't tracking, someone finally updated the wiki to include most leader traits, including General traits. Given how tight the cap limit has been, and how few people have taken talked about the available traits for generals, I figure some people may not have seen any of these period.
First, a review at General mortality.
It used to be that generals had a 5% divided by the number of units chance of dying every time an army on their side was destroyed. Now they have a 2%/(# of armies in the army) chance to die per any given army. If you have 50 armies, this is 2%/50, or 0.04% chance to die per army. The General is certain to die if your army is stack-wiped, but can survive if you emergency evacuate a planet before failing.
This means that- in a doom stack- a general is very unlikely to die. You'll just want the doomstack afforded before that, and not try to win with 'just barely large enough' armies. Armies with withdrawal chance increases, or more health (for more withdrawal chance), or just a lot of chaff supporting stronger units (like Zombies) will decrease the risk of general death.
Second, a review of General growth.
Generals are the fastest growing leaders in the mid/late game. Generals gain 100 xp per world occupied, and .25 xp per army on either side. Given that a governor is 5 xp a month, a scientist .1 per day from research assistance, and an admiral 5 per space battle and .25/.5 per ship that withdraws/is destroyed, Generals have the fastest potential XP growth.
This means that a General has the best ability to 'catch up' from a mid-game hire, though this is non-trivial. In the new XP rebalanced system, getting to level 4 for a veteran trait requires 3600, or less than 36 planets to unlock Veteran traits, fewer with XP bonuses, which is where the real power spike for Invaders comes. Level 8 for the destiny trait requires 27,000 XP. A general will get to that somewhere under 270 planets, assuming no modifiers.
General growth will be fastest (and safest) with huge doomstacks of trash mobs with a few hard units, not smaller elite units. Doomstack mobs will dilute the chance per death, and their own deaths will provide XP for the general.
Third, a basic refresher of the trait dynamics:
With Paragons DLC, you get a trait every level, or upgrade a trait you have.
The trait pool includes universal common traits, as well as traits specific to your leader type.
At level 4, you get to choose a veteran class, which provide a bonus and grant access to new traits going forward.
Veteran leaders get access to a few more traits in their pool per level. These traits serve a general archetype.
At level 8, leaders get a destiny trait.
As such, you could summarize it as everyone gets a mix of general and ruler-type perks thru level 4, chooses a specialty line from level 4 to 8, and at 8 gets a culminating legendary trait.
As I see it, the general trait pool in this context is chaff or trash depending, as these traits may prevent you from getting the traits you want. These traits are, well, general, and rarely specific. Maybe someone has a different feeling of how often they get in the way.
Fourth: The General Strategic Role of Generals
The main role of generals is to increase the profit / decrease the cost of winning planetary invasions. Most traits will focus on their ability to kill better (damage buffs) and take fewer casualties, but others some will enable killing fewer pops along the way, meaning you can capture more.
Just as armies are more efficient than bombardment capture, generals can be more efficient than 'naked' armies. Generals can do this by decreasing collateral damage done, or increasing moral damage done to drive defenders into retreat early. The 'Careful' trait minimizes collateral damage and improves army withdrawal chance, minimizing risk to the general. The '
Generals can also take this another way, and be specialized to inflict more damage along the way, which could be useful in wars where you don't/can't capture pops, but want to set the foe back. This could be a Federation War, a war with gestalts, or something else. A trait like Butcher, which increases collateral by 33%/50%, will devastate an enemy world and significantly set back major developed worlds with sigificant defense armies.
In both of these contexts, it's important to recognize these are win more dynamics, not 'lets you win' bonuses. You need to already win the space navy game to fight for planets. You need to win the science/industry game to win the space. You thus need the researchers/governors to lead to the generals.
However, once you hit the snowball phase of the game- where your victories are a result of the econ gains of your earlier victories and not the margins of war battles- then you can get greater and greater use out of good generals to help you win more when you're already winning. A general will help you capture more pops, keep planets healthier, and otherwise get more profit to win the next war.
This is where the Veteran Archetype- and specifically the Invader archetype- will matter.
Fifth: Veteran General Archetypes
There are three Veteran Classes for Generals: Invader, Protector, and Marshal.
The Invader tree gives bonuses for invading armies. These can make invasions directly profitable, and are valuable for how they can make wars of regular occupations profitable even without claim conquests. This is likely the strategically strongest tree for helping turn wars into profit ventures even without claim conquests.
The Protector tree is much more defensively minded. The protector tree will generally tailor its bonuses to a specific planet. These are generally defensive, and I'd say bad and easily skippable.
The Marshal tree is actually a primarily diplomatic focus tree, with empire-wide bonuses for councilors focused on diplomatic aspects. This one is interesting, especially if you have a council position that's only filled by a General.
I am hitting what I consider the highlights of the trees, not all the traits.
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Invader Tree
This tree is good.
The Invader tree can make wars profitable even if you don't conquer, and much more efficient when you do. This is probably the strongest General tree, as once you hit a certain part of the power snowball- where you no longer need permanent admirals to win wars, but can win them by economic scale- this tree will help you continue snowballing by making any war a profitable war.
Dreaded: Increases army moral damage.
Use: Enemies retreat sooner, causing fewer pop-deaths.
Kidnapper 1-3: 10/20/30% of pops on a planet are moved to a random planet to be slaves. Requires the leader to be Authoritarian or Xenophobe
Use: This is basically nihilistic aquistion but without the perk. This one trait alone is worth a General, as gaining pops from ideology/rivalry/ any kind of war but a claim war makes every other kind of war much, much more valuable.
Interrogator 1-3: 10-30 Intel on winning a ground battle
Use: Depending on if this stacks or caps, this could be a huge boon for identifying and tracking down enemy fleets beyond sensor range. If this stacks all the way to 100, where cloaked ships are revealed, a general with this would make it far easier to use your doomstacks to find and wipe the enemy or defeat enemy coalitions in detail.
Intellectual Espionage: Chance to steal random technology on conquest, scaling with number of enemy research jobs on a planet. (5 + 5x(research jobs); 19 researchers guarantees a tech).
Use: This has significant potential for empires that don't dominate the tech race early, but focus on long-term growth. A 5% chance per planet means a potential for major tech swings.
Crusader: +25/40 unity per enemy army killed in combat
Use: This is an interesting benefit that scales by enemy army killed, and not sacked. This means that enemy fortress worlds will offer huge unity lump sums. Nice, but in the 'makes the war more profitable' sense.
Legendary Trait: Plundering Warlord
Requires Xenophobe. On winning a ground battle, receive resources scaling with the number/type of districts
Resources Include:
+100 energy/food/minerals for respective districts
+50 CG and Alloys per industrial district (wiki says 'and', doesn't address dedicated districts)
+25 research per research district
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Protector Tree
The protector tree is much more situational. It's bonuses generally focus on the assigned general giving it's scope (the army it commands/the planet it's on) bonuses.
I would consider this generally bad- defense armies are worth less than offensive armies, you can't guarantee the enemy will attack it, and an enemy who can attack has local space superiority, which means orbital bombardment. These may get some use in a fortress world, but in those cases I'd recommend hiring a temporary leader from a marauder or a Bulwark and letting them die.
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Marshall Traits
The Marshall line is about Council boosts. This is primarily for those civics who are only filled by Generals, with a unique flair.
Overseer: +.2 / .3 / .5 loyalty from subjects
Uses: Loyalty can be converted into extra tribute... or specialist-subject leaders, which have new value in the current leader meta as a way to recruit higher-level leaders later in the game.
Destiny Trait: Herald of the Empire
+1 Influence from Councilor, +.75 Loyalty
Use: An extremely useful Overlord Councilor. Influence is a gating resource, loyalty is loyalty.
Console General: +25/50/100% Improve Relations increases
Uses: This could be very useful when trying to selectively shift relations to avoid wars or build allies, Diplomacy is very potent when pulled right, and this General allows you to use your envoys more effectively to balance threats without needing to fight- or to get allies willing to fight for you.
Shady Contacts: 1-2 Code Breaking and Encryption
Espionage is bad, but there's a separate general trait with Espionage influence reductions, making it... well, not too expensive
Destiny Trait: Shadow Broker
-65% operation cost, +150% daily infiltration, +1 envoy
If espionage ever gets good, this will be great
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Conclusion/Strategic Role
Generals are a double-win mechanic for when you're already starting to win the game, but are looking to accelerate your margins. This makes them increasingly useful in longer games with more wars, but less useful in shorter games with fewer wars and less times for war-efficiency to pull dividends. The ethics most able to make use of it are Authoritarians and especially Xenophobes.
The most significant General specialization is the Invader speciality, due to it's ability to draw profit from any war, making non-territorial wars significantly more viable and profitable. The Kidnapper trait alone is enough of a reason to try for generals, as it allows a nihilistic abduction effect of 10/20/30% of planet pops per invasion. However, other Invader traits- including technology theft and unty- can make any given war profitable. The Invader tree culminates for Xenophobes with the Warlord trait, which make later-game wars- and especially total wars where control may flip back and forth- a way to directly generate significant resources in well-developed empires.
The Marshal branch is not as powerful, but has potential to consider as a Councilor slot. The Vassal loyalty buff alone is likely reason enough to consider a councilor, depending on vassal strategies, and the Legendary trait is among the rare direct influence boosts. If espionage ever gets buffed, Marshal generals will be a critical component of espionage builds.
In conclusion, Generals aren't going to be a 'meta' leader, because they're not the critical input to start winning and once you start winning you probably don't need their help to keep winning. But as a double-win mechanic they can be valuable in longer games, where the efficiency in capturing pops alive and gaining resources in the course of other wars will favor more aggressive non-territorial wars. If the Leader cap gets reworked to always have one, you'll always want one, as any empire could benefit from either a Marshal or an Invader if not both.
