Blue/gray generals Challenge

Well, I firmly believe that sooner or later we have to purchase every decent blue/gray general the game offers us. And practically I already did it. The only one general I still don't have is Takeda Shingen, but obviously we need him for Cavalry trials.

Well, to answer your second question I would use a movie dialog between a criminal and a serial killer :

Since I have so many generals, I use this variety to my advantage and play with different setups. In majority of missions I usually use these 3 generals





When I just started playing I had been fully motivated and played quite a lot, actually. I recall I decided, since I have this bitter pill to swallow anyway, to play as many conquests as possible without getting bored. So, it was quite a good start I would say

As far as I remember myself I haven't ever had a huge surplus of medals In fact, I don't think that buying equipment is more profitable in my current situation. The reason is that many blue/gray generals get incredible abilities at 6*. Just few examples... Until 6* Robin Hood is an absolutely unremarkable general. But then he gets an ability to increase the distance of his attack. Most of the time it is a situational skill. But we obviously know one situation when this is extremely helpful, namely arena. As we have an epic task ahead of us to unlock awakened Pachacuti with only blue/gray generals, this means in practical terms that we have to solve the problem of our back line. We have 3 Artillery generals, Khalid, Cleo and Bismarck (we use but don't upgrade free purple generals). So, we have one more position. And in our situation Robin Hood is the best possible candidate.

Another example, Katherine. She is a decent archer without any remarkable skills as well, but at 6* she gets an ability to attack without retaliation with 75% probability AND 75% damage bonus against archers. That makes her one of the best (if not the best) archers' killer in the game. And we have a lot of annoying archers in EW5.

Hannibal with a single promotion from 5* to 6* gets 100% damage bonus against Infantry. If we promote him to super unit soon after that he gets additionally 50% damage bonus against archers. That makes him a very powerful user of legendary weapons, since damage bonus of skills and abilities and damage bonus of legendary weapons do stack.

I can continue, but, I think, you got my idea

In campaigns I don't use Joan often, because I would rather increase my attacking potential instead. But I believe in hard mode campaigns this "field hospital" is still a reliable strategy to use.

No, I have completed Discovery age campaigns long ago when all my generals were of the same level. It's just when you played them many times they are quite familiar: weak spots, best routes, positions of tough opponents etc.
I am planning, of course, to buy legendary items and to collect some of legendary sets, but in my experience it is more like a cherry on top. First you upgrade the most important skills of your generals (Leadership, Bravenes, Commander skills). Then you upgrade their levels. And only then you purchase some equipment.

Ha ha 😂 I am skilled at it, that's true, but this is definitely an overstatement. It's just a question of recognizing the patterns. If you do something long enough you won't need extraordinary efforts every time. And I am telling you that blue/ gray generals is a formidable force to be reckoned with. Usually you they are better upgraded than their purple/gold counterparts. For example, I upgraded Jebe's Armor expert to level 8 quite early in the game. You literally need tons of medals to upgrade similar skills of Blucher or Yi Sun-sin.

It heavily depends on your goals (current or ultimate). To complete the game as it is now you literally need all existing generals or, at the very least, majority of them. But if you have some modest goals at the moment, something like "to complete campaigns on normal difficulty without touching WW scenarios", - your team is pretty solid. You just need support for your front-line cavalry, something like a pair of debuffers Li/Mocte, Li/Nobunaga, Yi Sun-Sin/Nobunaga, Mocte/Nobunaga and a couple of Artillery generals (one is enough if this one is Li Shimin).

So, you will have 8 excellent generals, for example

Front-line: Attila, Suri, Hannibal, Huo

Support: Mocte, Li

Artillery: Khalid(Cleo)/Bismarck or Li Shimin.

You can add one more "expensive" general to your team (in case you won't buy Li Shimin). I would advise you to buy Yi Sun-Sin (instead of Nobunaga). The guy is seldom someone's first choice. But he has excellent skills and abilities, so it is really an excellent addition to your team. Damage reduction is sometimes underestimated, but it is really worth the price.

Edward is anything but costly in comparison to many other generals. Yet the choice between Edward and Hannibal is a false one, imo, because their roles are different. Edward is a Commander, Hannibal is a legendary weapon wielder. You have to find a balance between Commanders, Damage dealers and support generals to succeed.

Don't forget that you can't equip Commanders with legendary weapons such as Gungnir etc. Well, you can equip them but then you have a rather unpleasant choice "either/or". It is a real waste. Some powerful generals like Attila can trigger both abilities in the mid-game, but soon enough you'll reach stages when it is impossible to kill everything around you with one blow and then you need specialization.