Generals
The swordsmen, archers and horsemen units in an army are each lead by a general. Generals gain experience (= XP) similar to the whole army and their heroes, and are awarded a higher level when they reach the required experience.
The higher the rank of the general, the higher the value for their combat score. At the beginning generals of new trained armies have the rank of a Youngling. With research you can improve the starting rank of the generals up to Chief Hemmer. When splitting an army the existing generals remains with the main army, while the new formed army gets generals corresponding to the research level of the owner of the field. That means, if you are splitting an army in a castle, town or harbour of an ally, you will probably get different level generals then when splitting on your own estate. When merging armies, the highest general of each unit will "survive", the others are lost.
Generals can be assassinated by spies. The killed general will in each case be replaced by a Youngling.
Generals can reach the following ranks (listed from the lowest till the highest one):
