New Question About Retraining

[yonderboy]

First of all, this is my first post, so heya to everyone.

I've been play the Total War games since Shogun first came out, and I play M:TW quite often. I've finished many a campaign, and beaten the game using various factions.

Today, I came upon the phrase retraining ones units. This is something I guess I've completely overlooked I've done a bit of searching on the forums and didn't really find an explanation of what exactly it is. I usually just take my partial units and merge them together (unless of course one general has too many vices, but there are always exceptions). I often have a port provence designated as the stopping point for partial units. I'll send a unit of archers w/ 15 men there to away the day when there is another group of archers, and then I'll end up w/ a full unit. But this doesn't add armor, etc... to the unit, which retraining seems to do.

Anywayz, if someone could tell me exactly what retraining is, I'd be very appreciative.

[Cebei]

Heya back yonderboy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

You'll be http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif when I tell you what it is... Are you ready? OK, retraining is simply this:

1- Open the unit training box of a province.
2- Click once on the stack of your damaged unit.
3- Drag and drop the damaged unit on the first slot of the unit training queue.
4- Tadaaaaaaa

You can re-train a group only if you got the necessary buildings in that province.

[yonderboy]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-furious3.gif


http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

Well thanks man... It's like a whole new day... I guess I'm off to go check it out

[VikingHorde]

Very good guide http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[nick_maxell]

Quote[/b] (yonderboy @ Mar. 24 2004,11:11)]http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-furious3.gif


http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

Well thanks man... It's like a whole new day... I guess I'm off to go check it out
hi and welcome,

you might also want to check out ichi's post in the mainhall called combining units - I found it more useful than retraining as you keep the valor up and can outfit high valor units with upgrades without loosing valor.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

nick

[MadKow]

Here is something obvious for everyone but not so much for those unfamiliar with retraining.

You have to select the stack and drag from the stack box into the building panel, not directly from the strategic map.

If the game says you can't retrain that unit type, and you are sure you can, then you are probably trying to retrain a unit you just moved, and it still refers to the building abilities of the province it was in.

(just some stuff that happened to me :) doh)

[Borathor]

I haven't tried this yet, what makes it better to retrain an unit instead of just disband and train a new army? Will the retrained unit be able to keep its valor? Does it cost less? If not I don't see a real reason to retrain your units, simply just train a new one instead.

[nick_maxell]

Quote[/b] (Borathor @ Mar. 24 2004,16:23)]I haven't tried this yet, what makes it better to retrain an unit instead of just disband and train a new army? Will the retrained unit be able to keep its valor? Does it cost less? If not I don't see a real reason to retrain your units, simply just train a new one instead.
Hi Borator,

yes the unit keeps higher valor as each man in the unit is monitored individually by the game - so if you drop 2 depleted val3 units together you get a full val 3 and some if it were more men than full unit size. - for the trick of upgrading equipment have a look at ichi s thread I mentioned earlier, but roughly: if you have a v3 unit with a sword and a v3 without and you drag and drop the one without onto the one with sword you get a full unit with sword v3 - same for armor upgrades - see ichi s post for a graphic description how to.

The other good thing is that it doesn t matter if you have the needed buildings in the province - you can do it anywhere. I usually have a province where I ship my depleted units too do the trick and ship them out where needed when full. It is most useful when you have depleted units you cannot retrain eg crusaders or bribed units - one full unit of high valor templers is better than 3 with only 14 or less in them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif

nick

[katank]

Quote[/b] ]The other good thing is that it doesn t matter if you have the needed buildings in the province - you can do it anywhere
that is not true. You need the buildings necessary to produce the unit in the province in which the retraining is done

there is requipping elite high valor troops with good armor and weapons for even better survival rate and also the speed of it.

playing on huge unit size or for units like varangs that take 2 years to train, training a depleted unit takes only 1 year no metter if only 1 man is there.

for varangs, I love to get the unit leaders V&Vs and merge away all of the veterans into full units to fight while the 1 man remanants gets sent back to get retrained in far less time.

[TonkaToys]

Quote[/b] (katank @ Mar. 25 2004,02:21)]
Quote[/b] ]The other good thing is that it doesn t matter if you have the needed buildings in the province - you can do it anywhere
that is not true. You need the buildings necessary to produce the unit in the province in which the retraining is done
Hi Guys,

welcome to all the new and newish Org members on this thread... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

I think there has been a mix up here; I suspect that nick_maxwell is talking about combining two existing units together, whereas katank is talking about taking one unit and retraining it.

You can do either to increase the size of your units, and whether you need a building or not depends on which you do.

(Edit to shorten quote)

[nick_maxell]

Quote[/b] (TonkaToys @ Mar. 25 2004,03:48)]I think there has been a mix up here; I suspect that nick_maxwell is talking about combining two existing units together, whereas katank is talking about taking one unit and retraining it.

You can do either to increase the size of your units, and whether you need a building or not depends on which you do.

(Edit to shorten quote)
tonka is right I was talking about combining and the advantage of it compared to retraining.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

nick

[ichi]

Thanks for the props Nick. Good discussion.

Combining

The valor or each man is tracked individually, so if you add 23 V3 FMAA to a unit of 25 F2 FMAA you get a unit of 48 FMAA, 23 with V3 and 25 with V2.

Always drop the unit with lower armor and weapons upgrades onto the unit with higher upgrades. Try not to combine a unit that has armor but no weapons with a unit that has weapons but no armor, as you will lose either the weapons or the amror in the combined unit.

Can't combine generals with command starts or V&Vs.

You cannot combine Mercs.

Retraining

If you retrain a unit of 23 V3 FMAA with armor but no weapons upgrades in a province with weapons but no armor or morale buildings, that unit will keep the armor, gain the weapons, and have 23 V3 and 37 V0 men in it. Valor is tracked individually.

Costs a percentage of the unit cost. If you retrain a spearman unit with 50 guys it will cost 50% of the cost of a spearman unit. Retraining a full unit to get the armor or weapons upgrades costs nothing.

Takes 1 turn, which is nice for units that require two turns to produce.

Cannot retrain Crusader Troops or Mercs.

Only done in provinces capable of building specific unit type. Done by clicking on the unit icon at the bottom of the screen and dragging it into the unit training queue.

Units in the queue for retraining don't seem to be available for battle should the province they are in be attacked. If a unit is in the queue for retraining they will be put to the sword when the castle is taken.

ichi

[nightcrawlerblue]

Whoa... You can retrain units? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-stunned.gif

[Tribesman]

About retraining a full unit costing nothing , I had all my training Queues full of full units waiting for upgrades when my income crashed in a spectacular fashion , none of the units would retrain until my balance of florins was positive again .

[Phatose]

Not suprising, really. In order to prevent deficit spending, the game has to have a line that checks that you have more florins then the cost of the thing you're building. 0 may be nothing, but it's still more then any negative number.



Retraining has a number of uses versus just combining. As already noted, generals can't be merged, so getting you general's unit weapon/armor/morale upgrades means retraining.

On huge unit sizes, or with units that take 2 turns to build, it's simply faster. If you're playing huge units, it can become a huge advantage, as huge varangian guard units or Jom's vikings take 4 turns to build, but 1 turn to retrain.

It's useful for chaining upgrades - many units gain valour bonuses in provinces without iron. You can train them there to get the valour, then retrain them elsewhere where there is iron for the weapon upgrade. Note, though, that if the unit is damaged, you should retrain it in the valour bonus province to fill it up, as the new troops will have the valour bonus that way. There is also some use for retraining units to get the catherdral/grand mosque morale bonus, since you can only have one of those in play.

[Bhruic]

Hmm, just a few clarifications:

1) You can combine an army with a general. You can even combine an army with 2 generals, however, the individual general unit will not merge. You can still top up your general's army with a non-general army (where general refers to a stack with stars/VVs).

2) As Ichi said, valour is tracked individually. So in his example, instead of having a unit of 48 FMAA, 23 with V3 and 25 with V2, you'd have 48 FMAA with individual valour rankings. The listed valour ranking is always an average of the valour of the individual units. For example, you might have 3 units with 6 valour, 25 units with 3 valour, 18 units with 2 valour, and 2 units with 0 valour (that adds to 48, right? ;)).

And now a question... I thought that armour/weapons were tracked individually as well. Is this not the case?

Bh

[Phatose]

That is indeed not the case. Weapon/Armor/Morale upgrades are treated on a per unit basis.

[phyrrus]

Question on retraining, how much they charge for partial unit. Is it full charge no matter how many unit u can add in?

[Phatose]

Quote[/b] (ichi @ Mar. 25 2004,20:18)]Costs a percentage of the unit cost. If you retrain a spearman unit with 50 guys it will cost 50% of the cost of a spearman unit. Retraining a full unit to get the armor or weapons upgrades costs nothing.
As ichi noted, the cost is equal to (number of men lost/number of men in a full unit)*cost of a full unit.