Exp, opportunity missed?

The effects of experience in the TW series have bounced between minor effects to the creation near god-like units capable of levelling continents with a flick of the wrist. With the earning of exp requiring either the single handed conquest of the known world to get to someting respectable or showered upon units for merely turning up. Bottom line equilibrium has yet to be found.

This mechanism probably fits ok with older time period titles, where armies were less about professional soldiers with standardised equiment, and more about dragging who you had as part of your feudal obligations training the basics and then letting them pick the rest up on the job (providing they didn't get run through).

For ETW it could have been different. Like a lot of posters I initially missed the role play elements of the dynastic family, carefully nurturing lunacy and psychopathy in equal measure. However as I got in to my first campaign (UK) I found that this had been replaced with the role playing of the trusty line infantry developing them into volley firing bayonet charging masters of the battle field. But my Austrian campaign made me realise that it hadn't gone anywhere near as far as it could. Austrian line infantry in game are about as far away as possible from UK as possible, loads of them and pretty poor with a musket. No matter what I do with them they will always come off second best to equivalent exp troops, I can provide advance bayonet drills, rank firing, but teach them how to reload and fire at a reasonable rate and acceptable accuracy forget it! (I know there might be historic basis for this but I am more interested in the game mechanic).

What I think could have been more interesting would have been a reduction of exp and introduction of training to the barracks (similar to tech research at universities):

Exp:
1 - untrained (peasant mobs etc)
2 - basic training (militia)
3 - Professional (line infantry)
4 - Professioal* (grenadiers)
5 - Elite (guards)

At each level the unit would be more proficient in line with performance standards of that unit class and access better drills.

The training element would allow you to set training prioities (firing, accuracy & reload - melee, offensive & defensive - unit sizing) essentially shape your factions military doctrine. You would have a training quota that could be used to improve training over a period, and the size and number of barracks would effect the amount and quality of troops you produce. To keep faction differences changes in training that depart from faction start prioities would lead to an increase in cost and delays in those increases taking full effect. In the case of the Austrians to try and gain improvements in firing drills would cost me more and take more time to achieve than UK, but as you focus more on a particular type you become more proficient and earn bonuses quicker, establishing a new doctrine, the player then has the option of playing to national strengths or forging a new path.

Just a rambling thought.

interesting idea... that you could develop a "national apptitude" for a particular aspect of combat would be very interesting and would increase longevity and replayability of the campaign.

however, it would need a lot of balancing and one heck of a lot of player micro-managing, so I'm not sure how that would work with Vanilla's, well, vanilla appeal.

By setting faction start doctrines AI could simply be set to linear progression of doctrine type, keep dooing what you are doing well.

The player would have access to a number of settings in a barracks screen which would have an option to drill more, hold constant, or less (to free up drill credit) each stat in the unit profile (this would be a faction doctrine affect all units - except specialised units which would fall outside of the variation). The amount of drill credits would affect speed of training as well as provide the increase, and be a function of number and size of barracks. Credits would have to be capped to ensure that the units did not dominate in all aspects but allow the player to focus on those elements important to their style for the campaign.

Sounds like you want something similar but possibly more basic than the one found in Europa Universalis. You had sliders that could be moved (in that game only with extreme effort), to dictate the nature of the armies your nation would produce. Huge numbers of cannon fodder, small bands of heroic death machines, and every option in between for the balance you prefer of numbers, quality and expense.

It certainly would be nice to have such an option in Total War games, for strategic flexibility. Start off poor with one province capable of producing armies, and you could at least shove out tons of barely trained idiots you can train loads of in a single turn to mob the enemy. Or capable of absurd riches with few provinces like those damn Dutch, you could choose to build an army of enormously overpaid, highly trained psychopaths who reload like machines and crush skulls with their bare hands.

It adds more depth than that as well, because if you're all quality then losing your stack of doom is a crushing defeat because you can't replace it without years of buildup (British Expeditionary Force anyone?), whereas the conscripters will just relentless lob stacks of fodder at you until you drown in their blood.

Exp should be easier to gain IMHO. Right now i've got 4 chevron troops seemingly unable to gain any more xp despite killing 100s of dudes without suffering many losses (yea i baby em like hell). Battle after battle they rack up a minimum of 100 kills barely losing 10 guys and they just cant get over the hump. Hell IIRC the time they advanced from 3 to 4 chevrons i think they got like 250+ kills, but if the kill count isnt cumulative after each battle and i gotta rack up some serious bodycounts PER battle to gain xp then that's jacked up.

I got a few line infantry to 5exp in Prussian campaign. It took A LOT of kills though; towards the end when France, Spain, and Russia were attacking with gangs of stacks full of line infantry, some of my stacks were fighting 3 battles a turn.

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Originally Posted by Warhammer3025

Exp should be easier to gain IMHO. Right now i've got 4 chevron troops seemingly unable to gain any more xp despite killing 100s of dudes without suffering many losses (yea i baby em like hell). Battle after battle they rack up a minimum of 100 kills barely losing 10 guys and they just cant get over the hump. Hell IIRC the time they advanced from 3 to 4 chevrons i think they got like 250+ kills, but if the kill count isnt cumulative after each battle and i gotta rack up some serious bodycounts PER battle to gain xp then that's jacked up.

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Agreed. As the Turks its very difficult to ever get XP over 2 for any unit. I don't even bother with it any more.