What you have after you need it

... Experience.

This has been running through my brain for a while now. In conjunction with the dual campaign- strategy levels of the game, I was imagining a dual interpretation of experience:

The distinction should be made between battle experience and "overall" experience.

In my view it would work like so:

Experience would accumulate from the moment the unit is built. The longer it spends "existing" the more experience it would accumulate, to a threshold, which could be extended with new technology or general traits.

This experience would allow the unit to march further, fire slightly better, and have moderately higher morale than units that have just been trained. The threshold should be reached in about 2 years after the completion of the unit.

This would represent the "esprit de corps" of the regiment.

Battle experience on the other hand would only come into play in battles, and can only be accumulated in battles - much like experience works at the moment, but with the addition of strategic targets - a unit managed to occupy a building and stave off invaders, resisted a cavalry charge, etc...

This one would make the unit upgrade from rabble to "disciplined", make their fire deadlier, their charge bonus higher, and increase morale significantly, and affect their actual "battle" stats.

This way, a "green" unit would not stand to an established and drilled one, and garrison units will have real trouble with scarred veterans.

Of course generals could affect these too, a lazy one could lower the "idle training" threshold but an energetic one could increase it, you get the idea.

So what do you reckon?

An intriguing idea, SwordsMaster. It would actually make a lot of sense to model experience the way you describe. As you got to know your fellow mates in your unit, you would be better aware of what they're like and what they're capable of in combat, which would indeed almost certainly improve both morale and overall fighting ability. While it's probably already too late to add such a two-tiered experience system to ETW, it would still be very interesting to see something like this implemented.

This type of experience could also be tied in with Generals, for example if men have been in a capable Generals army for a while they will be happier to fight with him, more in tune with his marching regime and more in tune with his battle tactics and his orders.