Merging units

[Jineter]

Hi,
Is there a way to merge leftovers of the same type of units into single unit? For example I endup after battle 10 spearmen in one unit, 15 in another and 8 in third one. Is there a way to merge then into single 33 men unit instead of three separate units?

[Maloncanth]

Put them in the same stack, select it, then either press 'M' which organizes the whole stack, or drag each unit onto each other. In any case you may be left with a unit of 31, plus two units of 1. Generals with traits or command stars can't be merged into another unit.

You can also select the province then press 'M' which organizes all the units in the province and puts them into balanced stacks as appropriate. Very useful.

[Martok]

Welcome to the Org, Jineter! ~:wave:

As Maloncanth said, once you've got the units that you want to merge in the same stack, just either click "M" to do so automatically, or click & drag one unit onto another. I recommend the latter, as it gives you greater control over which units you want to merge together (and how).

You also can also enable the option to let the game auto-merge depleted units after a battle. I don't particularly recommend this option either, but it does help reduce the micromanaging a little bit.

[The Unknown Guy]

I didn´t know about the "M" bit. That´s useful. Before I just merged by hand
I generally reorganize to avoid exploiting the "retraining feature", which would allow you to turn the remains of an army and their captured brethen into a twice-as-big force.

I´m ambivalent concerning this retraining per se. In one hand, it is more comfortable than having to pay everytime you want to refit your unit´s status, besides having to wait a full year in which it might be annihilated if the province is lost.
On the other, it seems like an exploit, after a fashion (which I partially avoid by M'ing them)

[Caerfanan]

You can also select the province then press 'M' which organizes all the units in the province and puts them into balanced stacks as appropriate. Very useful.
and this sorts the units in the province, but outside the stronghold, which make it even more useful!

[Caerfanan]

I didn´t know about the "M" bit. That´s useful. Before I just merged by hand
I generally reorganize to avoid exploiting the "retraining feature", which would allow you to turn the remains of an army and their captured brethen into a twice-as-big force.

I´m ambivalent concerning this retraining per se. In one hand, it is more comfortable than having to pay everytime you want to refit your unit´s status, besides having to wait a full year in which it might be annihilated if the province is lost.
On the other, it seems like an exploit, after a fashion (which I partially avoid by M'ing them)
Retraining depends on several things. The value is on a per man basis, so you're experienced soldiers are still experienced, but surrounded by fresh ones. If your unit leader has very good traits (like a valour bonus), it's interesting to retrain his unit.

If I had time and patience with the micro management, I would merge the valoured up units under the command of the best unit leaders and retrain them to complete/upgrade (morale bonus included), and I would create a score of fresh units as well, as cannon fodders, keeping the survivors to build new überunits... But that would take such a long time micro managing...

[The Unknown Guy]

If I had time and patience with the micro management, I would merge the valoured up units under the command of the best unit leaders and retrain them to complete/upgrade (morale bonus included), and I would create a score of fresh units as well, as cannon fodders, keeping the survivors to build new überunits... But that would take such a long time micro managing...

I think that´s the point in making retraining free (your army becomes more and more "veteran" after a fashion), but it takes so much micromanagement, and you reçuire to field so many more new units, that it´s impractical. At least for mass-built units. Maybe for minimalistic "turn-battle" units, such as feudal knights on Early, or something, it is more efficient.

[caravel]

'M' is useful if you have three very small 0 valour (or of like valour) fragments in the same stack. When it gets more complex then manual drag and drop merging is needed to avoid your high valour fragments getting thrown in to low valour units.

[Maloncanth]

Where possible, I actually prefer to mix my high valor troops with lower valor stacks. Valor is tracked by man anyhow and having green men in there helps absorb losses.

[ConjurerDragon]

In my current danish campaign (Medieval Total War 1, the version that came with Steam) I have a strange merging problem.
I like to merge understrength units but only sometimes I can’t.

e.g. I have an army with two units of Spearman, one with 132 and the other with 2 men, or two units of Steppe Cavalry, one with 15 the other with 1 man. But when I try to merge them it does not work.

[macsen rufus]

In my current danish campaign (Medieval Total War 1, the version that came with Steam) I have a strange merging problem.
I like to merge understrength units but only sometimes I can’t.

e.g. I have an army with two units of Spearman, one with 132 and the other with 2 men, or two units of Steppe Cavalry, one with 15 the other with 1 man. But when I try to merge them it does not work.

There are some limits to merging units, some mentioned already:

a) If the unit leader is what I call a 'character' (ie he has command stars, personality traits, or a title) he can't be merged into another unit led by another character, so you'll end up with a one-man unit.

This could explain your 15 + 1 situation with the steppe cav.


b) Some 'original' units created by the STARTPOS file at the beginning of the game may be larger than the unit size settings you play on (say you play on 'small' unit size where spearmen have a 60 man unit, but a starting unit is placed with 100 men at the beginning of the game). These 'originals' can be merged INTO other units, but other units can't be merged into them.

So complicated example: you have a 100-man unit, then train a new unit which only has the normal 60 men, and send them into battle. You might end up with say a 70 and a 50 afterwards (ie 120 total). You can drag men from the 70 into the 50 to make two 60s. But the 70 is still oversize, so you CAN'T drag men from the 50 into the 70 to bring it back up to 100. When you use the 'M' command, the mechanism seems to be to always take men from smaller units INTO larger units first, so when you use it with an 'original' in the mix (like the 70 + 50 example) nothing will happen because it treats the 70 as a 'full' unit.

This could be behind the 132 + 2 situation with your speamen if your unit size setting is 100 and a starting unit was larger than that...

Other limits:

Mercenary units won't merge with regular 'trained' units of the same type (although they did in the very first version of the game - bit of an exploit in that...)

Spearmen come in two flavours - though they have the same name on screen, they are different units in the PROD file. The unit icons are different, one with rectangular shields, the other with round shields. In the PROD file they are 'Spearmen' and 'RoundShieldSpearmen': even though they are both just 'Spearmen' on the campaign map, they are different unit types and won't merge. Not all factions use the same type and in the startpos, some factions have been given the WRONG type, so those starting units cannot be retrained or merged in the game. (A similar mistake also occurs in VI where the Picts start with a unit of Highland Clansmen and the Scots have a unit of Celtic Warriors at the beginning, probably because a couple of provinces were switched between owners in the startpos and they forgot to correct the units placed before it was released....)