retraining of crusade mercenaries and gunpowder infantry

1. Can someone tell me the requirements for retraining your mercenaries that you hire doing a crusade? yesterday i was suprised a lot when i saw that my dismounted crusaiders (those with swords) were retrained in castle lv1 or 2 (dont remember) in allepo. but my other not whole dismounted crusaiders on rodos didnt get me an option to retrain them so i presume it can be done only on islam sand territory. What about crusade spear guard and those mounted fellas?

2. Since kingdoms are comming and in america campaign we will need them so can somebody teach me a trick to allow my gunpowder infantry to make a constant shot. they go idle so fast that i dont know if they even shoot one volley.

Hello icek and greetings to Poland.

1. The unit you are referring to is probably the dismounted knights you can recruit in the holy land, is it? The one where the unit description says they lost their horses.
This unit can be hired at any time by Christian faction in the levante region, it's not a crusade unit. Crusade unit like crusader knights (on horseback) or crusader sergeants can only be recruited and retrained while on crusade, but your unit is a "normal" unit. I hope this is what you meant.:knight:

2. What do you mean by "make a constant shot. they go idle so fast that i dont know if they even shoot one volley."?
For me gun inf works fine. They should get off at least three volleys. If nothing else helps you can delete the fire_per_rank thing in the edu. I have never done this, but I suppose that only the first rank will fire without switching ranks. That makes approximately the same amount of kills (even a bit more), but you don't get the salvos impact on moral.

Gunpowder infantry doesn't have the little bow icon in the unit card during their reload phase, it only shows up short before they fire but that doesn't mean they stopped shooting and are idle now.if they are in range and there are no obstacles, they should keep firing, at least in 1.2.

1. so this is just a game bug :shame: https://img441.imageshack.us/img441/...ytuuzu3.th.jpg

2. I played otumba battle a week ago and when aztecks arrived behind my starting position i put arquebusiers after them.I made them in single line, ordered them to shoot, they get a shooting icon and after 5 seconds it dissapear. WTF? i play in vanilla 1.2.

sorry for those units names. i must guess it a little, i have a polish "screwed" version.

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Originally Posted by Husar

Gunpowder infantry doesn't have the little bow icon in the unit card during their reload phase, it only shows up short before they fire but that doesn't mean they stopped shooting and are idle now.if they are in range and there are no obstacles, they should keep firing, at least in 1.2.

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i didnt know about this. thx :) i must check it.

1. No, it's not a bug, you can retrain depleted merc units in the regions you can recruit them from. You just have to wait for their to be some units available, and if you cannot recruit a unit whilst not on crusade, you can't retrain it.

so unless some crusaiding army will land in allepo castle i cant retrain them :shame: its little buggy, very similiar to issue that i had with english archer militia in my previous campaign. bruggia showed me that it can retrain archer militia in lv2 baracks (archer militia need lv3) but never let me do it from obvious reasons unless i builded lv3 baracks.

For more information, see descr_mercenaries. Here's an excerpt:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

pool Levant
regions Edessa_Province Antioch_Province Aleppo_Province Acre_Province Damascus_Province Jerusalem_Province
unit merc galley, exp 0 cost 200 replenish 0.36 - 1.0 max 2 initial 1 religions { islam } crusading
unit merc galley, exp 0 cost 1040 replenish 0.03 - 0.15 max 2 initial 1
unit Bedouin Cavalry exp 0 cost 630 replenish 0.04 - 0.13 max 2 initial 1 religions { islam }
unit Kwarizmian Cavalry exp 0 cost 1020 replenish 0.08 - 0.25 max 4 initial 0 end_year 1400 events { mongols_invasion_warn }
unit Turkopoles exp 0 cost 720 replenish 0.06 - 0.18 max 3 initial 1 religions { catholic orthodox }
unit Pilgrims exp 0 cost 35 replenish 0.18 - 0.5 max 6 initial 1 religions { catholic } crusading
unit Religious Fanatics exp 0 cost 70 replenish 0.12 - 0.33 max 4 initial 1 religions { catholic } crusading
unit Crusader Knights exp 0 cost 220 replenish 0.15 - 0.35 max 4 initial 0 end_year 1300 religions { catholic } crusading
unit Crusader Sergeants exp 0 cost 110 replenish 0.15 - 0.35 max 4 initial 0 end_year 1300 religions { catholic } crusading
unit Dismounted Crusader Knights exp 0 cost 170 replenish 0.07 - 0.17 max 2 initial 0 end_year 1300 religions { catholic }
unit Ghazis exp 0 cost 100 replenish 0.18 - 0.5 max 6 initial 1 religions { islam } crusading
unit Mutatawwi'a exp 0 cost 60 replenish 0.08 - 0.25 max 4 initial 1 religions { islam } crusading
unit Turkomans Mercs exp 0 cost 740 replenish 0.06 - 0.18 max 3 initial 1 religions { islam }

You can recruit Dismounted Crusader Knights as any catholic faction in the given regions before the year 1300, even when not on crusade.
You can retrain any mercenary unit in any region, no matter how undevelopped the settlement. Condition: the unit is available from the mercenary pool. Otherwise, wait some turns until it's replenished.

icek, you probably got their armour upgraded them when your settlement only had a level 2 barracks, it just probably had an armourer that could upgrade their armour, that is the only other reason they'd show as being retrainable.

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Originally Posted by Flavius Merobaudes

You can retrain any mercenary unit in any region, no matter how undevelopped the settlement. Condition: the unit is available from the mercenary pool. Otherwise, wait some turns until it's replenished.

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ok, i understand the case for dismounted crusaiders, but what about those real crusader mercs? why the game show us that unit can be retrained if not all conditions for this are meet?

Lusted, i dont remember it 100% but i tend in my England games to go for economy in cities and dont build baracks to lv3 unless i build armorer to level 3 in that city for militia spearmen full upgrade. i mean by that that i never ever seen in my army an archer militia unit not fully upgraded when it come to armor. This archer militia that we talk about had a 48 mens from 60 and it was showed as inactive card in retrain queue just like those mercs from picture in 4 post in this topic.

They are probably shown because once you go on crusade again, you can retrain them. I must commit that I find it a little disturbing as well to have the retrain symbol coloured but the units in there can't be retrained.

Concerning the archer militia: maybe their recruit pool was empty after you took the settlement. So again, wait some turns.

i retrained militia archers only after i builded barcks lv3 that allow for it. about crusader mercs, i just launched my game and put those poor guys into antioch that is mine from 25 turns or so already. its the same...

You mean you put your understrength dismounted knights from Rhodos into Antioch but couldn't retrain them?:dizzy2: Either the mercenary pool's empty or it's past 1300.

Archer militia requires lvl 3 barracks and that's why can only be retrained when they're in place. So everything is as it's meant to be... Or did I get you wrong?

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Originally Posted by Flavius Merobaudes

You mean you put your understrength dismounted knights from Rhodos into Antioch but couldn't retrain them?:dizzy2: Either the mercenary pool's empty or it's past 1300.

Archer militia requires lvl 3 barracks and that's why can only be retrained when they're in place. So everything is as it's meant to be... Or did I get you wrong?

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you got me totally wrong. dismounted knights are retraining fine, no problems with them. but crusade seargents and crusader knights on horses are still in my retrain fold and they cannot be retrained even after 25 turns. the game should base on buildings not on posibilities that another crusade from england will com straight through that city. in my next turn i will get a warning about mongols, its 1230 i think.
about the second case, my 48 of 60 men from archer militia, 90% sure that fully armor upgraded, landed in retrain fold in a city with only lv2 baracks(they need lv3).

About your archer militia, were the unit cards greyed-out in the "Retrain" section or just plain ?

It could make the difference, because if greyed-out, it's kind of normal because your unit was down to 48 men from 60 (so it did need retraining) and couldn't be retrained (no lvl 3 barracks)

If the unit card was normal, thre must have been another upgrade to be made on that unit (and if not armor then I'm at a loss...)

To be sure, crusading armies are hell to retrain but IMHO it's the point since they should only be used to crusade and logically disbanded afterwards...

I usually tend to merge any incomplete crusader unit since it is faster and keep them at max strength at all times...

It was grey like those guys in picture posted previously by me. i played all tw games, i remember times when there wasnt retraining option in shogun, but never saw something like this. m2tw have some serious issues about retraining from lossing bonuses after load to this weirdo.

That's what I thought... (Sorry but I can't see the images on my office PC)

There really isn't a bug or problem with your game... The fact that the unit appears in the "Retrain" screen just means that it is in need of retraining but as it is greyed-out you don't have the buildings/unit pool to retrain it and that explains that on completion of the lvl 3 building you could train those archers...

It happened all the time in my game with crusading armies as they are generally impossible to retrain and the loss of a single man with put them on the "Retrain" screen...

There is really no problem in your retraining queues...:2thumbsup:

Your crusade units (knights and sergeants) aren't meant to be retrained once the crusade is over. Your crusaders are volunteers that hire for a religious cause. They wont sign in once the objective has been completed. So either merge them to gain full units or disband them. Those crusaders have a high upkeep... I usually use them to conquer some adherent settlements once the crusade target is secured. They should be disbanded but I'm evil and sacrifice my soldiers lives to gain more influence for myself.:whip:
So they'll die in battle to the last man.

The greyed out entry simply means "could potentially be retrained in the right circumstances".

If you take a depleted castle built unit and take to a city it will not show up in the retain list as greyed out because there no way it could ever be retrained there. If it was a city unit but you did not have any of that unit available in the unit pool it would appear greyed out because you could retrain it in the right circumstances (the circumstance being that there where available units in the unit pool).

With Mercs, they can potentially be retained anywhere they can be recruited with the number of available merc units acting as the unit pool in this case.

Now since you can hire crusader sergeants (for example) in the Holyland you can potentially retrain them there in the right conditions. The conditions being that there are recuits available for crusader sergeants and the settlement's governer is "on crusade"...

i know guys , i know and the question is why the game put it in retrain fold. i hope they solve it in next patch coz it only annoy people eyes.

Bob the Insane, then if your theory is true then tell me why game didnt put my 53 from 60 peasant archers into retrain list in my lv3 castle on rodos(without any archery buiding).

Crusade type units can only be retrained whilst actually on Crusade, ie they must have taken the Cross with a General. Sometimes you can retrain units that you cannot yet build in that city, for instance Archer militia with only lvl 2 barracks. This can be done when the unit can take an armour uppgrade from a better armourer than it had originally. The unit will not replenish its numbers by the retraining.

@Icek : Bob the insane is correct in his assumptions...

As to why you 53/60 P.A. weren't in the retraining queue is simply because you had no archery building not just the right level of building...

I do not really complain about the fact that non-retrainable units appear in the retrain screen but it would have been practical if mercenary units could be retrained if faction units of the same approximate type could be produced

For example, Mercenary Frankish Knights to be retrained if Mailed knights or Feudal Knights can be produced and the unit pool allows it...

There is even historical evidence of such things (notably during the 100Y War in France) that some lesser nobles or knights joined the "routes" (as mercenary companies were sometimes known) for greater profit, such as Bertrand Guesclin.

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Originally Posted by icek

Bob the Insane, then if your theory is true then tell me why game didnt put my 53 from 60 peasant archers into retrain list in my lv3 castle on rodos(without any archery buiding).

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I am not stating that there are not bugs elsewhere, but simply that this one instance with crusader units is not a bug per say (as a support manager in the business software industry I get very twitchy about the over use of the "bug" word, if it was built to work that way, however stupid the design decision was, then it is not a bug!!! :laugh4: )...

I believe the issue with peasant archers being left out of one of the archry buildings is a known one, I think most mods resolve this as it is simply a missing line in the building text file is it not?