High Valour Units

[Ghostmonkey]

After reading the threads about Jedi Warriors I've been wondering how people get such high valour units (around 30 valour). How do you guys do it? Is it only on higher difficulties like hard and expert? Or do you just fight a whole lot?

[katank]

you need to train them up.

what you do is to use clever flank and rear attack maneuvers to get the units to kill a lot but not die a lot themselves.

we also provoke rebellions in times of peace to train up troops.

combine veteran units and retrain with good weapons/armor and then rinse and repeat until you have at least V5-6 units with good armor and weapons.

even V9 gold gold peasants are a fearsome sight. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Ragss]

30 valour? Are you sure? In my entire turk campaign I had many units live for well over 100 years and the highest valour I ever saw was, I beleive, 12....

[Ghostmonkey]

@ Katank:
Do you start rebellions in your own provinces or border provinces?

@ Ragss:
According to the Jedi thread its very possible, although I've never seen it happen either.

[katank]

I start them in recently conquered rebel provinces.

starting them in borders is too risky as often AI factions perceive a weakness.

ie. start some rebellions in sweden and norway when danish and also keep provinces like scotland and portugal as training grounds for geenrals and troops.

the income is also significant.

you can keep the taxes at very high as you want them to rebel and you also save on garrison fees of keeping those suckers happy.

defeating the rebels also give huge amounts from confiscated land.

[katank]

@ragss and ghostmonkey,

there was a thread with a screen of an aragonese RK who was v29 and a full unit

there was some bug about retraining as the 1 man jedi was 29 valour but somehow even after retraining, the entire unit got that valour.

v14 halbs was my record.

[Ghostmonkey]

Thanks for answering my questions, I'll try out your methods next time I play.

[motorhead]

also, if you read that thread about the V29 unit, he used extensive reloads to groom that unit for just good virtures and to avoid any poor vices.

@katank - no disprespect meant, your posts are almost uniformly useful, but rebel training is major cheese and IMO makes the game way too easy to play.
1) cheap valor for your men
2) cheap command and/or command virtues for your generals
3) cheap and relatively steady flow of cash from rebel prisoners
4) cheap and easy +dread or +happy virtues for your ruler

Just my .02

[King Edward]

But Makes it more historically accurate, Many a medieval king had to put down rebellions in the heart of their kingdom as well as defeat their overseas enemy's.

If i remember Rightly one of Henry V's first battles was against Welsh Rebels in which he got shot in the face and only just escaped with his life. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[motorhead]

Quote[/b] (King Edward @ May 26 2004,04:31)]But Makes it more historically accurate, Many a medieval king had to put down rebellions in the heart of their kingdom as well as defeat their overseas enemy's.

If i remember Rightly one of Henry V's first battles was against Welsh Rebels in which he got shot in the face and only just escaped with his life. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

- sorry, farming rebellions to improve your unit's valor/command/virtues plus all the cash you get from endlessly confiscating land does not represent even a faint hint of historical accuracy. By all means, everyone can play the game as they enjoy it, but i don't buy that reasoning.

edit: I've heard rebel farming justified as a military college, or field training. Baloney. If your troops or generals need experience, just fight a regular battle. Rebel farming is just staging one-sided fights to pad your record.

[Kaatar]

Rebel farming is the only farming, baby

If you want a perfect general with only good VnV's and ridiculously valour, use the save and load on rebels. It's not in any way historically accurate and it's considered cheating and down right low by many, but it does the job.

I made a guide based on my campaign. Here it is:
http://p223.ezboard.com/fshogun....9.topic (http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotalwarfrm5.showMessage?topicID=13139.topic)

My campaign is almost at the year 2000. I've only used it to learn about VnV farming. I recently started it up again now that Monk has confirmed that upgrading Great Warrior is possible.

Even I myself wouldn't use these tactics in a real campaign but I researched anyway. Go nuts. Your jedi's will have their day.

[katank]

@ motorhead, you are quite right.

I also view rebel provoking as cheap although it's not always that way.

it can easily backfire.

in danish campaign, I recently had a rebellion with huscarles popping up

trying to deal with two units of huscarles 5 or 6 years into the campaign isn't fun.

they hid in a forest and took major baiting and loss of some fine vikings and tactical royal flanking maneuvers to win the day.

it can be quite tough sometimes and early in the campaign, they can be tougher than faction armies.

it's less so in VI but in regular MTW, 3 or 4 stack rebellions can be very bad.

[ah_dut]

Fight bandits, leave no garrison. So kill kill kill. 60 Huscarls controlled by expert computers are nomatch for my valour 30 Katank Squad http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif (only one man in it though http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif )

[Mightypeon]

My highest one was 15 with a Boyar.
My funniest one was as Turks, Valour 12 on a christian peasant who happend to be a 9 Star general. Emerged fomr a Rebllion with command 5, bribed, got the other rebels= command 6. Defeated some Byz: Command 7. Had an acumen of 6= King of Byzanz. Command 9.

To the rebellion thing: Well, dont try this in medmod 1.85....
Considering that medmod 1.85 Chrisitan bandits consist of roughly 6-8 Knights Templar with assoprted Feudal foot knights....
The normal peasant ones are beatable though, unless you are in high or late were peasants tend to be Halberds.

[katank]

well, halbs aren't that bad as missiles esp. the motd. variety can take care of them.

I must say that defeating the norwegian huscarle rebels earl on was a pain as a big chunk of the map was forested that time and thus my RKs were at a huge disadvantage.

my best foot was vanilla vikings and they can't take huscarles head on very well.

managed to win through fancy maneuvering and it was pretty close esp. when one of my vikings got routed and some huscarles managed to turn on my rear attacking RKs even when pinned

[Papewaio]

To do it easy without cheese:

Have good generals in command to start with.

Have identical units that replenish the core unit(s). Only go and retrain when you need better armour/weapon.

It is easier to do with units that can do a lot of damage but even easier to do it with units that can take a lot of damage. Weak defence means they take a lot more babysitting until they get strong. Weak attack takes a lot longer to get any experience.