Loss of valor in units

[ShaiHulud]

I've had a number of occasions in which a kataphract unit, after killing a few hundred peasants, or their like, and losing a few men in doing so, has lost 3, even 4 points of valor. I'm certain that some of these were in the royal family unit...maybe even all of them were. Is there some rule concerning loss of a high valor troop vs rabble that causes this dramatic drop in valor? Or even that using high valor troops against rabble causes valor loss?

My Byz king was in battle and I committed him and lost 3 men. He lost 3 valor. I re-fought the same battle and committed him, losing zero troops from his unit and he STILL lost 3 valor. I re-fought the same battle and refrained from using him that time. No loss in valor. There's a process here that I do not understand yet....

[HopAlongBunny]

That is odd http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

I can see it if you lose the leader and he had some V&V's that added valour. Are you sure there is no change to the leader that accompanies this change? ex. gains the "lazy" or "gluttony" vice

[Kongamato]

Dont your men's cumulative kills count for valor? If so, then the guys in the front row are getting most of the kills. I dont think their positions or numbers change, so you can expect sort of a higher killcount for the men in the front row. When you lose some of these front row guys, the total kills of the unit could go way down. Of course, that's just a hypothesis.

[frogbeastegg]

Excerted from my guide:

"This next point is important: A UNIT NEVER LOOSES VALOUR When you merge or retrain a unit the valour rating may appear to go down. This is because the valour of a unit is an average of all the men in the unit. Thus green troops can lower the overall, however as valour is tracked on an individual basis nothing is actually lost it only looks like it. If you have one particularly high valour individual in a unit and he dies the overall valour of the unit may seem to go down. This is because the man gave a large boost to the average. Again nothing is lost (apart from the dead man) it only looks like it."

[ShaiHulud]

To clarify, This has happened even to a royal unit, so it's not the loss of a leader. I've had it occur even with ZERO losses. The valor loss, FrogBeast, DOES occur, I've only seen it with Byz, but I've seen it at least 4 times.

Also, though I'm now using the Wesmod, I saw it on the unmodded game, too. It's a mystery...

[frogbeastegg]

If you read past the first line of my post you will have an explaination on why the valour appears to go down. That information is taken from a post made by one of the CA developers a while back,they said that valour is tracked on a PER MAN basis and never decreases, I'll see if I can find it although it may have been deleted by now.

[frogbeastegg]

I've searched the archives, unfortunately the post in question is MIA but I did find some topics from January 2003 (several weeks after the announcement) disscussing what individual valour means.

A question of valour (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=7;t=3618) discusses how each man earns his personal valour. It also mentions the logfile which tracks the personal valour.

There was also this nice post by el_slapper which sums it up nicely
"According to the battle logfiles, the games keeps in memory the valour of each grunt. So, if you retrain, the noobs will be sure weaker. But the vets will still be kick-ass guys. Sure the average valour will go down, but the valoured guys will stay alive, and their impact might help some noobs to survive long enough to get better.

I personally don't like to merge units, except if leaders are weak. But it's a matter of choice between several good units, and some kick-ass backed by newbie hordes. "Better" is a simple feeling, as I can understand seeing valour going down from 13 to 11 is not nice. But, once again, it is NOT a waste of valour."

So there you are no valour is lost it just looks like it, check your logfile if you don't believe it.

[hoom]

Yeah but he said he'd had valour loss from a unit that didn't suffer any casualties.

Thats a whole new kettle of fish and quite worrying.

My main hope/guess is that you're talking about after leaving the battle rather than on the end battle review screen?

If so, you may find you have the "automatically tidy up units" option ticked.
This merges units automatically after battles & would have the same valour diluting effect.

Otherwise, perhaps if you kill lots of prisoners in the battle you could have gained a valour reducing high dread vice? Though I'm not aware of one that does that.

[frogbeastegg]

ShaiHulud says he lost troops in several of the fights, my answer was aimed at those fights. As for the fight where he didn't loose a man but still lost valour the best thing would be to check the log file. Several people have reported valour loss without a man dying but on inspection of the log file they have found that a man from the unit did actually die, so either they over looked it in the battle report (easily done) or the game reported the casualties wrongly.

If the valour loss takes place outside of the battle then it is down to Vices and Virtues or mixing green troops with veterans and the avergae valour (the one that's reported on the unit screen) gets lowered, even though no valour is lost.

[Kraxis]

Shaihulud, next time you have a zero loss of men and some loss of Valour plese take a screenshot of the endscreen.

[frogbeastegg]

I've just noticed that my last few posts could be taken as rude or insulting, I'd like to state that I didn't intend to be. When I typed those I was pressed for time and so I couldn't do my usual triple check for spelling, clarity and remove my customary bluntness in favour of something less likely to sound hostile. I apologise to anyone who might have taken offence.

Kraxis is right, next time you loose valour without loosing a single man take a screenshot of the end battle results and check your log file, there's not much that can be done to investigate without them.

[Red Harvest]

Did any of these happen to be a castle siege? You can win a battle in a castle siege, then the besiegers losses are calculated after the battle. If any high valour soldiers are lost, the individual unit valour can drop.

A lot of this depends on whether the discussion is around valour as shown on the strategy map, or the battle casualty review screen, etc. We all know that you can reduce the "apparent valour" by pulling a unit out of a stack commanded by a general with various stars. We also know that if your general is a skilled attacker (or specialist attacker), that "apparent valour" can increase for units in his stack when he invades another province.

Units with leaders having "pride" or "secret pride" take a big hit if that leader is killed. One casualty can drop them down several units of valour.

[ShaiHulud]

Frog... No offense was taken, friend. I appreciate you taking time to reply. The valor loss, without casualties to the particular unit, was displayed at the battle's end screen. I've only had it happen when playing Byz and only to kataphract units. I can't recall if it ever happened to a NON-noble unit, that is, a unit not under command of a memeber of the royal family.

Also, the valor loss shows, thereafter, on the strategic screen, too. I never checked the log, sorry.

Red... It happened once in a seige, which I re-played twice and saw both times. My experience is that the only way to avoid it, when it happens, is to replay without committing that unit to the combat. As a spectator to the battle it does not suffer valor loss.

Arse... I play without the 'Tidy Up' feature.

[hoom]

Oooh Idea.

High star generals like Byzantine princes have a lot of 'lives' right?

My understanding is that they kinda can be killed x number of times in a battle without actually dieing.

If so, maybe the game gets a bit confused (or was designed that way) sometimes when the number of times the general has been killed starts getting close to x?

Now that I'm on this track, I think I remember seeing one or two Kensai go down in Honour shortly before dying.
So maybe when the Princes number of lives comes down to 1 or so, there is a loss of valour?

[ShaiHulud]

Arse...

Interesting.... it'd be difficult to determine that (royal's hit points lost during battle) if none is even lost from the unit.

[Oaty]

I think I may actually have the answer to this. When the king is at full strength and has an heir in the same province he will donate 5 of his troops to his heir and take on 5 newbies.

This might not be true but I have discovered that when the king is at full stregth and I have heirs in the same province there #'s go up. So apparently this is coming from the royal family donating some of their men to others in the family

[hoom]

Interesting & something I'll have to check up on since I've been trying to figure out how to take advantage of the whole 'auto-generating royal knights' bit http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

But I don't think that can explain how a unit can have a loss of valour on the end of battle screen without losing any men.

[Rocket_Boy]

Just a thought, but is it possible that the leader of the unit picked up a valour lowering vice (eg overweight) in the same turn?

[ShaiHulud]

Rocket....

That was my first thought.... Would the program be calculating that, though, during a battle, or when it renders its +/- valor as a result of battle? I'd guess that's another area entirely.

[Kongamato]

It would be very funny if Vices and Virtues were handed out on the battlefield accompanied by event messages and sound files from the announcers.

The Germans

The enemy general is overweight

"The enemy general has stuffed himself like a pig Even his horse is weaker"


The Mongols

The enemy general has drunk himself to death

"The enemy general has fallen from intoxication, before your men could kill him"

[Yoko Kono]

Quote[/b] (oaty @ Aug. 18 2003,16:00)]I think I may actually have the answer to this. When the king is at full strength and has an heir in the same province he will donate 5 of his troops to his heir and take on 5 newbies.

This might not be true but I have discovered that when the king is at full stregth and I have heirs in the same province there #'s go up. So apparently this is coming from the royal family donating some of their men to others in the family
care to elaborate on this a little more please?

[Oaty]

I'll elaborate on this the best I can. The king gets 5 reinforcements each year that he is not at full strength, when an heir is in the same territory, depleted and aslo the king is at full strength the king puts 5 reinforcements in the heirs force and the king then therefore takes on the 5 new units potentially reducing his overall valour. I do'nt know if the heir gets the 5 reinforcements directly or they get transferred via the king.

[Rocket_Boy]

Quote[/b] ]Rocket....

That was my first thought.... Would the program be calculating that, though, during a battle, or when it renders its +/- valor as a result of battle? I'd guess that's another area entirely.


To be honest, I would'nt have thought so either.

[Yoko Kono]

Quote[/b] (oaty @ Aug. 19 2003,21:40)]I'll elaborate on this the best I can. The king gets 5 reinforcements each year that he is not at full strength, when an heir is in the same territory, depleted and aslo the king is at full strength the king puts 5 reinforcements in the heirs force and the king then therefore takes on the 5 new units potentially reducing his overall valour. I do'nt know if the heir gets the 5 reinforcements directly or they get transferred via the king.
thanks
i have never noticed this effect i always assumed that the kings unit magically restored itself after a fight
ill give this a go

[Maelstrom]

Quote[/b] (frogbeastegg @ Aug. 16 2003,07:16)]Several people have reported valour loss without a man dying but on inspection of the log file they have found that a man from the unit did actually die, so either they over looked it in the battle report (easily done) or the game reported the casualties wrongly.
I have to hold my hand up to being one of these - I swore blind that I had a unit of Gallowglasses lose 1 valour despite taking no losses (according to the post-battle screen).

When I finally checked the log file it turned out that the screen was reporting 60 men dead, not remaining....
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
...it had been a long and late battle - I was tired