Who Should I Get?

Khalid is IMO the strongest infantry in gold tier, and just very, very good as an infantry. Nikephoros is IMO the best Consul gen if you switch out when you need to do national policy, and Guiscard is both a great infantry and can provide a huge economic buf small countries in conquests.

No charge cav gen? None. I mean at the very least you HAVE to have Alfred and Harald.

Khalid is the only one I'll give a pass since he's at the very least a decently competent swordsman. Not that that's saying much since Belisarius is free and Harald and Cnut can still pass for swordsmen due to high infantry stat while being WAAAY better in hero legend/treasure missions because axemen are better than swordsmen.

"Guiscard gives a leg up on smaller countries". Not really. About 70 or so money in the first few turns probably if you're using everything in his kit. Fighting with small countries mostly involves rapid aggression. It could afford you another unit or two, but I wouldn't call that "huge", especially since every conquest starts you off with a bunch of trivial quests that give a MUCH larger income boost anyway. I don't think any country warrants that atm. MAYBE it'll be useful for certain speedrun strats, but the impact on whether or not it'll help you win seems miniscule. And again, infantry, too much competition.

Nike, Lobbyist 2, actually a pretty game-changing skill as it'll make conquests soooooo much easier. What's he's got going for him over the others with that skill? Well he's available before the eleanors and 800 or so cheaper than Justinian and has higher admin if you ever wanted to pool a lot of heraldry into him for admin (don't). Justinian can do what Nike does and more and give a +2 tech bonus with Theodora. That's game-changing. You otherwise get 1 per turn. If you want to deploy a lot of war gear you need this. And there's going to be missions where you want to deploy a lot of war gear. In the long term they might even give you an economical boost. So yeah, pay the 800 more.

I honestly don't see what it is you're consul-swapping for. Nike doesn't have good base admin and you're not investing heraldry into making that better than Justinians.

1. The only reason we sometimes use Belisarius as a cav is because he has comparatively high cav skill when no one else has that early on. He's not good at cav in the long term, not better than other people we can get. Saladin, alright, basically a replacement for Basil when you're not using his Mamelukes, but why WOULDN'T you use your mamelukes now? I mean they're one of your strongest units you have available right now and you can deploy 2 generals per mission, and he's among the highest range you have and would work well on them in the long term once we get the weapon, and then the other I think is Attila on crossbowmen? Just seems like such a huge opportunity cost to use Saladin as charge cav in your case. Alfred is so good and you're not even considering him? He can even do counter infantry really well should you need that.

2. Alright, why. You argue that but give no reason? The only thing swordsmen generally has on axemen is that they're more available. No swordsmen can charge, only axemen, and that lets us nuke things with outburst, that's huge, incredibly huge. Axemen also seems to have better legion effects across the board (although I'm not sure I understand most of them perfectly). No swordsman has higher counter chance than Varangian Guards. The only thing I see is that Janissaries can dodge ranged attacks (10%) and has 5% more counter than Nordic Heavy Axemen should you want a unit that has top shield.

3. Strong Navy. Harald. Cnut. It's also not fully clear to me exactly how navy works too so I'm not sure more is necessary. I hit pretty hard with Richard on Navy too. His early conquest abilities I just explained were miniscule. I mean you'd usually get like atleast 500 silver and 200 iron at the start because of the quests, 70 or so is a pittance compared to that. Strong infantry, high competition, admittedly he's sometimes better on swordsmen than the other two because he's got mountain, but terrain isn't something you can easily plan for since movement space is very cramped in this game.

4. That might be a decent idea. Justinian IS pretty expensive afterall and his ranged performance is really not that useful when you've already got so much ranged. Lv. 2 Lobbyist isn't really replaceable though imo because those diplomacy points are accumulated over the course of many turns, so lv 2 and lv 1 is a huge diffference, 30 points over 10 turns for example. and then you're not getting that bond bonus with Justinian + Theodora. Naval missions in particular has you spending a lot of tech for ships, but it can be handy elsewhere too. So yeah, Justinian is more justifiable than Nikephoros imo, but still a pretty low priority for you so Antonia can kinda try doing that job, but you're going to want lv 2 lobby.

That would be a big slap to those who have Basil The Second HAHA. Just like mee HAHAHA

Well since “Charge” provides a hefty amount of damages. We could look out for it. I will be waiting for your review HAHAHA.. since I don’t have the luxury to make a lot of mistakes (Free 2 Play and need to be smart, I already did a lot of mistakes HAAHA)

The reason I am not using the Mamluks on Saladin is because he is still a great Cav Gen, and Attila can use Mamluks Just fine. As My current lineup, I field Attila with a Heavy Phanlax Pikeman and 2 Mamluks. Then I field Olga with a Heavy Phanlax Pikeman, Viking Raider, and Legion Brigade.

Belisarius IMO is great on Cavalry, he has 3 fantastic skills, good stats, he can perform the job of Cavalry quite ably, especially because it is not quite the highest priority.

Alfred, I tried him and he ended up being sorta like a Tunnel and that was it. He was worse than Saladin on Cavalry, worse than Olga and Aetius on infantry. Maybe it's just because I didn't have any good Cavalry units at the time?

Maybe you're right. I'll switch Saladin to Mamluks and Belisarius can be my cav guy, because like I said, they aren't too much of a priority.

Heavy armored cavalry has 50% + 20% from their skill. So you can still probably stack quite a bit of charge before you get andronikos.