About

The General is a balanced, centerline class which serves as the measuring stick for all other hero classes. Both easy-to-use and good for beginners, while at the same time extremely dangerous in the hands of experienced players, the General is a force to be reckoned with on any battlefield.

The General's bonus statistics are as follows:
-50% elite unit casualties in battle
+10% building/exploration costs

The General's elite unit is the Elite, and is both the most overall powerful - and costly - elite in the game, with an attack/defense score of 5/5, the Elite is as effective as 5 soldiers, while only costing 3 gold per hour. In other words:

If you have 10,000 soldiers and 10,000 elites as a General, you are paying 40,000 for your army's upkeep, and will have a raw attack/defense score of 60,000/60,000 (not including your other modifiers from hero stats and buildings). You would need 60,000 soldiers to be as effective, and would pay 60,000 gold in upkeep every hour. After a day, this difference has saved you 480,000 gold; after a week, you've saved over three million!

Additionally, the Elite is harder to kill than a regular soldier, and even tougher than other Elites thanks to the General's skill. A player who focuses on buying nothing but soldiers might have high raw damage and defense scores, but spends a small fortune in replacing the many soldiers; a vast money sink that seems insignificant because of the low cost of soldiers, but it adds up quickly and is money that could be spent doing other things.

GENERAL STRATEGY

The General's strength is in its elites, and there is where all troop training investment should go. Knights and Pikemen are not a smart investment for the General, as his elite is overall more effective.

An General's player, like all other players, should focus, to start, on building troops and getting more money.
A good rule of thumb is 3/4's hourly income to purchase soldiers, then purchase as many mines as you can. If you run out of free land, purchase as much free land as you can. Repeat these steps for a day or two. An hourly net income of 70,000 is a good goal for anyone under 3000 land that isn't a mogul (Moguls should be able to get 100,000 per hour without much difficulty).

It is assumed that, during this time, you will be attacked and will be counterattacking. As you gain land in your conquests, you steal random buildings from your opponents. If you wish, you can increase the number of forts and barracks you have, and you're going to want some barracks for when you start converting elites.

When you're ready to start converting, accrue soldiers with your hourly income. Then, once a day (usually after you've slept for eight hours, so you have a large surplus), you convert as many elites as you can; this gives you a large lump increase in your offensive and defensive stats. Throughout the day, you should be recruiting more soldiers, as they are easier to acquire in smaller amounts. Purchasing twenty elites when you can purchase a thousand soldiers is not a good investment.

Wash, rinse and repeat. This pattern continues on and on as you grow. Keep an eye on your income, as troop upkeep can get very expensive.

Strategy in the long run

Once you go underway, don't go attack happy and waste all resources on soldiers and land. Save your gold. Treat your kingdom as a country, if attacked, retal accordingly and when expanding, attack once and leave, unless you get a butt-load of gold (10 million or more), then attack twice. Slowly build up in strength and land, overstretching your supplies will ruin the General since the Elites are expensive and more people will attack as you go up in acres (More attacks=replacing more Elites=huge drain on your reserves). Don't worry about the gold, as long as you don't save too much (500 million gold or more?) you'll be fine. The General should grow at a rate of the Visionary, at least, a little faster than that. Generals make excellent heroes when used properly, offensive or defensive.

Land Management

Land should be managed as follows:

1) 75% Mines
20% Amplifiers

2) 70% Mines
5% Forts
25% Amplifiers

3) 70% Mines
5% Barracks
25% Amplifiers

Amplifiers ARE IMPORTANT!!! Any hero can fireball an army and with little to no amplifiers, it can deal some devastating damage. Trust me, magicians ESPECIALLY can and will decimate your forces fast. Amplifiers can ease the pain.

Army Strategy

True to the advice mentioned above, the Generals Elites is arguably the best Elite in the GAME. This why your army should compose of mostly, if not all, Elites. Making Knights or Pikeman will cost a lot more and can't do squat against superior forces. In this case, u shouldn't be a general AT ALL! If you already did this, learn from your mistake and make elites from then on.