Rebuilding Damaged Units

[Lord Almighty]

This is my first post so this might be a newbie question. I'm currently playing as the Egyptians/Early/Easy. Its 1125 and my General has rampaged and reduced the Turks to a minor faction. This General just got promoted for winning so many battles. The problem is, due to all the fighting he has done, his unit only has himself and two comrades left. I want to keep him active but not before I get more Gulam Bodyguards into his unit. I want the unit to be at its original strength and numbers because he is one kick ass general. How to I rebuild his unit back up to original number of bodyguards? thanks, Lord Almighty

[cutepuppy]

For Retraining a unit, you have to construct the appropriate buildings. In this case, you need a royal court (construct fort, royal palace, keep, royal court)
Then, move this unit to the province where you constructed the royal court. Open the unit trainig panel in that province, you will see it is possible to train Gulham BG in that province. Click now on the army stack with that general in it. You will see al the units in that stack with their icons on the bottom of the screen. Click on the uniticon of that general and drag it to the unit training panel and get it retrained. At the end of that turn the unit will be back at its full strength (but the valor may be decreased)

[Dhepee]

Also you can do this to upgrade the unit's armor and weapons. If for instance you build a blacksmith, an a master armourer, and a master swordsmith then you can drop units and tech them up, it's faster and cheaper than disbanding your old units and building new ones.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] ]Also you can do this to upgrade the unit's armor and weapons. If for instance you build a blacksmith, an a master armourer, and a master swordsmith then you can drop units and tech them up, it's faster and cheaper than disbanding your old units and building new ones.

The good thing is that this doesn't work the other way round. When you retrain a depleted unit with armor upgrades in provinces which does NOT supply armor upgrades to units constructed there, the new recruits in the unit WILL BE supplied with the armor upgrades. I suppose this represents stuff taken from their dead comrades http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif .
This feature was already present in the Shogun expansion.
The lowered valor represents the new, inexperienced recruits. The valor represented on the unit banner is the average valor of all the individual soldiers in the unit. The veterans haven't lost any of their valor, its just that the recruits have brought down the average. The game keeps track of the valor of each individual soldier.

So, luckily, The retraining doesn't include a mindswipe or a amnesia for the veterans http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif .

[The_Emperor]

Welcome to the Org Lord Almighty http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

I see everyone has already answered your question and provided some good advice... Nothing more I can add except that you should upgrade your troops over time and make use of those Iron Provinces http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Anyway welcome and enjoy your stay http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Lord Almighty]

Thanks all I will give these a try

[barvaz]

You can also just fill the ranks by merging with other units of the same type. I always keep the partly full units as a reserve and use them to keep filling the ranks. I find this much more effective than retraining the units.

Also, I don't find the retraining feature very useful. In the time it takes to retrain it (either to fill the ranks or to upgrade armor/weapon/morale) I can train a new unit and keep them both. Usually by the time I have the ability to have the higher level upgrades, I have enough money to keep any size of army I wish. So the only point I see in retraining is to upgrade a veteran unit with high valor, otherwise I just get new ones.

About merging units, does this seem right that I can merge a unit with no armor upgrade with a unit with highest upgrade and keep the better armor ? Seems that the game keeps the upgrade type of the “target” unit when merging (the target of the drag-n-drop). It makes sense to have the average between “source” and “target”, no ?

- barvaz

[Cruelsader]

Quote[/b] (Ludens @ Dec. 08 2003,14:09)]

Quote[/b] ] About merging units, does this seem right that I can merge a unit with no armor upgrade with a unit with highest upgrade and keep the better armor ? Seems that the game keeps the upgrade type of the “target” unit when merging (the target of the drag-n-drop). It makes sense to have the average between “source” and “target”, no ? [quote]

[quote] When you retrain a depleted unit with armor upgrades in provinces which does NOT supply armor upgrades to units constructed there, the new recruits in the unit WILL BE supplied with the armor upgrades. I suppose this represents stuff taken from their dead comrades http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif .

I think that armor and weapon upgrades should work like valour: i.e. the game keeps track of each individual man. Therefore the new (or merged) guys should not get the upgrade. It only seems that they got upgraded when 51% or more men have the upgrade.

[The_Emperor]

Quote[/b] (Cruelsader @ Dec. 08 2003,21:08)]I think that armor and weapon upgrades should work like valour: i.e. the game keeps track of each individual man. Therefore the new (or merged) guys should not get the upgrade. It only seems that they got upgraded when 51% or more men have the upgrade.
I do not agree. I'd have thought that Men tend to get transferred between units and recieve the equipment from the guys in their new unit when they get there... So it makes sense that they get the equipment bonuses that effect the rest of their unit.

A good commander would not allow part of his unit to go out with poor equipment, that would only serve to weaken part of the unit. reducing their effectiveness as a whole.

[MrWhipple]

You can see the valor of individuals by looking in the logfile located in the logfile dir under totalwar. Use any text editor like notepad and you can see each man in each unit and what he did in the last battle. You also have to have the logfile option checked in the game options.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Cruelsader @ Dec. 08 2003,22:08)]I think that armor and weapon upgrades should work like valour: i.e. the game keeps track of each individual man. Therefore the new (or merged) guys should not get the upgrade. It only seems that they got upgraded when 51% or more men have the upgrade.
I don't agree with this either. You cannot have a unit in which half the men have superior armor and the rest doesn't have it. Apart from the fact that it would be difficult for the interface to represent this (it would mean that half the unit is extra vulnerable to missile weapons and the other half isn't), it doesn't make sense from the view of the battlefield commander. The whole purpose about units is that you have groups of men with identical equipment so they can carry out identical tasks, and the commander can easily see which men (not unit) are best equiped for a given task. For example, the spearmen with the best armor should be in the center, to bear the brunt of the enemy attack, the ones without should be at the flanks and the spearmen with weaponupgrades (but why the should one give weaponupgrades to spearmen? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif ) should be in reserve to attack pinned cavalry.

That's why units should have identical upgrades.

[Cruelsader]

Quote[/b] (Ludens @ Dec. 09 2003,06:18)]

Quote[/b] (Ludens @ Dec. 08 2003,22:08)]
[quote=Cruelsader,Dec. 08 2003,22:08]I think that armor and weapon upgrades should work like valour: i.e. the game keeps track of each individual man. Therefore the new (or merged) guys should not get the upgrade. It only seems that they got upgraded when 51% or more men have the upgrade.
I don't agree with this either. You cannot have a unit in which half the men have superior armor and the rest doesn't have it. Apart from the fact that it would be difficult for the interface to represent this (it would mean that half the unit is extra vulnerable to missile weapons and the other half isn't), it doesn't make sense from the view of the battlefield commander. The whole purpose about units is that you have groups of men with identical equipment so they can carry out identical tasks, and the commander can easily see which men (not unit) are best equiped for a given task. For example, the spearmen with the best armor should be in the center, to bear the brunt of the enemy attack, the ones without should be at the flanks and the spearmen with weaponupgrades (but why the should one give weaponupgrades to spearmen? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif ) should be in reserve to attack pinned cavalry.

That's why units should have identical upgrades.

My mistake: I wrote 'should work' but I wanted to write 'works'. The points you and The_emperor made are very convincing, however, I was simply describing how I think the game works not how it ought to work. For instance, Ludens makes a good argument about the difficulties of placing men with different upgrades in formation. However, exactly the same arguments are valid as regards men with different valour: your ideal commander would want his high valour men to defend the most vulnerable spots but I think the game places the men randomly. (It is certain that you may have, for instance, a valour 5 soldier and valour 0 soldier in the same unit, check the log file)


Quote[/b] (Ludens @ Dec. 09 2003,06:18)]
[quote=Ludens,Dec. 08 2003,22:08]You cannot have a unit in which half the men have superior armor and the rest doesn't have it. Apart from the fact that it would be difficult for the interface to represent this (it would mean that half the unit is extra vulnerable to missile weapons and the other half isn't)...

This is exactly the reason why the game shows the average valour of a unit. I also believe that for this reason the game gives a false impression that your whole unit has upgrades while, in fact, only the majority of men have it.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] ]This is exactly the reason why the game shows the average valour of a unit. I also believe that for this reason the game gives a false impression that your whole unit has upgrades while, in fact, only the majority of men have it.
Ludens & The_Emperor are right.
Valor is calculated based on average.
Armour & weapon ratings are ALWAYS the type of armour & weapon ratings of the recieving unit.
The battle engine does not calculate based on half pieces of units.
Trust me. With STW/MI it was already like this.

[Cruelsader]

Quote[/b] (Aymar de Bois Mauri @ Dec. 09 2003,09:22)]
Quote[/b] ]This is exactly the reason why the game shows the average valour of a unit. I also believe that for this reason the game gives a false impression that your whole unit has upgrades while, in fact, only the majority of men have it.
Ludens & The_Emperor are right.
Valor is calculated based on average.
Armour & weapon ratings are ALWAYS the type of armour & weapon ratings of the recieving unit.
The battle engine does not calculate based on half pieces of units.
Trust me. With STW/MI it was already like this.
Thank you for clarification and good news http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Cruelsader @ Dec. 09 2003,14:56)]My mistake: I wrote 'should work' but I wanted to write 'works'. The points you and The_emperor made are very convincing, however, I was simply describing how I think the game works not how it ought to work. For instance, Ludens makes a good argument about the difficulties of placing men with different upgrades in formation. However, exactly the same arguments are valid as regards men with different valour: your ideal commander would want his high valour men to defend the most vulnerable spots but I think the game places the men randomly. (It is certain that you may have, for instance, a valour 5 soldier and valour 0 soldier in the same unit, check the log file)
No, as far as I know, armor and weapon upgrades are equal over the entire unit, even after retraining or merging. At least, in STW Warlord edition (before the expansion pack, merging and upgrading was impossible). I suppose one must think of it as if the new recruits get the equipment of the killed men of the unit.

Yes, valour works the way you point it out, as I said earlier. But this doesn't mean that upgrades work the same way.
Upgrades only change during merging or retraining, so they can be kept track of for each unit (and not each soldier). Valour works individualy, because even WITHOUT retraining there can be differences in valour for each soldier, because some men kill more than others (the ones at the front line, if they survive).

Example: in STW you needed a 'Legendary Swordsman'-event, meaning ONE of your soldiers got legendary honour (honour = valour), before you could build a dojo to train No Dachi (who's function is probably the same as MAA). You almost always got your 'Legendary Swordsman'-event if you killed an enemy diamyo (clan leader = king) during battle. And this is logical, because if you had to wait for the entire unit to become 'legendary swordsmen', you had probably switched to Warrior Monks by that time anyway.
So, to make this 'legendary swordsman'-feature usefull, you had to keep track of the individual honour of each soldier. This system is appearently copied to MTW.

Thus, in MTW valour is registered individually, because Shogun did that too. Result: you get units which are a medley of veterans and rookies, even without retraining. This is inevitable, and it cannot be displayed properly on the interface, so they just represent the average value. This happens in real combat too: a unit fights a lot, gets a lot of experience, but also a lot of casualities, so the commanders fill up their ranks with recruits. They know that the unit contains veterans as well as recruits, so it can be relied upon not to run away immediatly, but will not perform as well as elite units. Conclusion: it is a unit with average valour.

[Ludens]

Ehh,
It appears my last post was already unnecesary. Well... what can I say?

Ludens

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] ]Thank you for clarification and good news
Glad to be able to help http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif




Quote[/b] ]Example: in STW you needed a 'Legendary Swordsman'-event, meaning ONE of your soldiers got legendary honour (honour = valour), before you could build a dojo to train No Dachi (who's function is probably the same as MAA). You almost always got your 'Legendary Swordsman'-event if you killed an enemy diamyo (clan leader = king) during battle. And this is logical, because if you had to wait for the entire unit to become 'legendary swordsmen', you had probably switched to Warrior Monks by that time anyway.
So, to make this 'legendary swordsman'-feature usefull, you had to keep track of the individual honour of each soldier. This system is appearently copied to MTW.

Thus, in MTW valour is registered individually, because Shogun did that too. Result: you get units which are a medley of veterans and rookies, even without retraining. This is inevitable, and it cannot be displayed properly on the interface, so they just represent the average value. This happens in real combat too: a unit fights a lot, gets a lot of experience, but also a lot of casualities, so the commanders fill up their ranks with recruits. They know that the unit contains veterans as well as recruits, so it can be relied upon not to run away immediatly, but will not perform as well as elite units. Conclusion: it is a unit with average valour.
Very well expained and meaningfull post http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif




Quote[/b] ]Ehh,
It appears my last post was already unnecesary. Well... what can I say?
Nothing, although I disagree that it was unnecessary.
I'm glad you did post it... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Cruelsader]

Quote[/b] (Ludens @ Dec. 09 2003,09:35)]
Ehh,
It appears my last post was already unnecesary. Well... what can I say?

Certainly not. I have not played the STW, so I knew nothing about its valour system. I always thought it odd that MTW keeps track of the valour individually. You could as well give each men the same (average) valour after each battle, merging or training. Now I understand. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Thanks a lot http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif