Maxing the Chevrons?

Is this even possible in EB? I mean a unit having 3 golden Chevrons. In my game retraining is the only thing i take advantage of seeing i fight all my battles where i am outnumbered and at a disadvantage with troop quality seeing most of my army is composed of regional troops. This is regarding a double golden chevron Triarii maniple i recently retrained and since then has fought 3 major battles and are now down to 32 men with over 1000 kills. How much more will it take for them to get the last chev? this by far has been the longest for a unit of mine to gain experience.

Cheers!

I have had nomad generals get it when they are down to the last few men in the unit, it usually goes down after the battle and always after a few turns when the unit is replenished. I have never had a non-general unit even get 1 gold chevron to be honest, those Triarii must be killing machines.

The increases in XP levels are not linear ie: it takes more kills to advance from level 8 to 9 than it does from level 2 to 3.

IIRC it follows something called a Fibonacci series, which if i understand correctly means that the number of kills required for a soldier to reach 3 gold chevrons would be the sum of the number of kills required for 2 gold chevs plus the number of kill required for one gold chev. Also remember that RTW tracks xp by the soldier and not by unit what you see in the game is a average.

Yes, I have had a Lusotannan bodyguard (faction leader) get 9 chevrons.

I have had few FMs with 3 gold chevrons and it seemed that they got them out of nowhere.

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Originally Posted by Andronikos

I have had few FMs with 3 gold chevrons and it seemed that they got them out of nowhere.

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Ancillaries might be the cause of that. I know that the "Bodyguard" ancillary automatically grants a FM around 4-5 chevrons.

That might be the starvation trait doing that. It can reduce the xp level beyond 0 so it ends up at 9.

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Originally Posted by bobbin

The increases in XP levels are not linear ie: it takes more kills to advance from level 8 to 9 than it does from level 2 to 3.

IIRC it follows something called a Fibonacci series, which if i understand correctly means that the number of kills required for a soldier to reach 3 gold chevrons would be the sum of the number of kills required for 2 gold chevs plus the number of kill required for one gold chev. Also remember that RTW tracks xp by the soldier and not by unit what you see in the game is a average.

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Thanks for this bit of info, a question though about RTW tracking the xp per soldier does that mean when i retrain it restarts to 0? if so will i get a better chance of gaining the last chevron if i merge my single golden chev triarii with some 600 kills with my 32 double golden triarii?(although i would prefer not to)

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Originally Posted by johnhughthom

those Triarii must be killing machines.

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Oh you have no idea :beam:

I think the chevrons are overpowered in Rtw i like the Mtw2 chevron system much better.
If i could only change it...

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Originally Posted by Valion

Thanks for this bit of info, a question though about RTW tracking the xp per soldier does that mean when i retrain it restarts to 0? if so will i get a better chance of gaining the last chevron if i merge my single golden chev triarii with some 600 kills with my 32 double golden triarii?(although i would prefer not to)


Oh you have no idea :beam:

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No. It was mentioned yet: the unit xp is the average of the xp of all the individual soldiers in the unit. If You merge men from 1 with men of 3, what is the calculation of the new average?

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Originally Posted by Valion

Thanks for this bit of info, a question though about RTW tracking the xp per soldier does that mean when i retrain it restarts to 0? if so will i get a better chance of gaining the last chevron if i merge my single golden chev triarii with some 600 kills with my 32 double golden triarii?(although i would prefer not to):

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Not entirely sure but I remember read somewhere that retraining units means the new soldiers have the same xp as the average of the unit, so if you retrained that double gold chev unit it would stay at that level.

Not sure if this is true though because i'm sure i've seen units occasionally go down a level when retrained. That said though for getting higher chevs retraining is better than merging in my opinion.

edit:what i said first seems to be the case

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Originally Posted by bobbin

retraining units means the new soldiers have the same xp as the average of the unit, so if you retrained that double gold chev unit it would stay at that level.

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Not true.

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Originally Posted by bobbin

Not entirely sure but I remember read somewhere that retraining units means the new soldiers have the same xp as the average of the unit, so if you retrained that double gold chev unit it would stay at that level.

Not sure if this is true though because i'm sure i've seen units occasionally go down a level when retrained. That said though for getting higher chevs retraining is better than merging in my opinion.

edit:what i said first seems to be the case

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That seems to be the case., thanks for that link! Now i dont have to worry about retraining my triarii's yet again. Although i still have to say the last chevron is quite persistent :sweatdrop:

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Originally Posted by Tollheit

Not true.

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Did you read the link I posted? There's two outcomes from retraining (RTW1.5)

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Originally Posted by Severous

I proved that retraining can have two outcomes:
- Replacements come in with 0 experience
- Replacements come in with average of exiting men (lets say exp = 2)

In your 80 man 2exp unit there are an estimated 160 experience points among your 80 men. If 40 more arrive with 0 exp you now have 120 men with 160 exp between them. Average is probobly now 1exp.

Yet if the second outcome occurs you would gain 40men each with 2exp..thus now have a unit of 120 men with 240exp....ie 2exp unit still.

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Yet if the second outcome occurs you would gain 40men each with 2exp..thus now have a unit of 120 men with 240exp....ie 2exp unit still.

I can ensure the second outcome each time. Just before end of turn, clear the training queue, then put the units back in training again. Doesnt make sense but it works.

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So you have to perform some hoodoo to get a bugged retraining process that yields experienced recruits.

I have not tried said procedure; my retraining experiences seem to be consistent with the fibonacci-type personal xp model and green replacements (when no xp-boosting buildings are present).

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Originally Posted by Tollheit

So you have to perform some hoodoo to get a bugged retraining process that yields experienced recruits.

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Nope., in my game all my units that i retrain get the same experience as the previous when ending the turn. UNLESS and this is whats important i reload a save that i already placed the units in the retraining pool, in that there is a chance that some of the units you retrained wont get any experience. this for a fact i know and proven many many times in my game.

same here, and I didn't do any hoodoo... maybe jammin out CCR tunes on my guitar does something to the game...

If you check the date on the thread bobbin linked to it was early 05. Patch 1.5 came out after that didn't it? May well have been changes since then.

Personally I have always believed retraining dilutes experience, I rarely do it though so I could be wrong.

The bit i quoted was from a guy using 1.5.

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Originally Posted by Tollheit

So you have to perform some hoodoo to get a bugged retraining process that yields experienced recruits.

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Not quite, he's saying that to be certain of it occuring you need to do that, but that it can still happen without. Personally my experience is the same as Valion's, i use both 1.5 and BI.exe (1.6).

Yes, you can have 3 gold chevrons.

By approximately 200BC, two of my Roman stacks were made up almost entirely of 3 gold chevron units of all types (skirmisher, light inf, heavy inf, spearmen, cavalry), with a handful of units with lower experience (as I'd had to replace some depleted units).

Bear in mind though that those two stacks had been fighting almost non-stop in Greece versus the Macedonians and Epirotes for a good 30 years, with a battle every turn or two. So it is not easy at all.

BTW, Principe's with armour and weapon upgrades, and 3 gold chevrons are a sight to behold - during a crap battle with a very small rebel stack with no experience, the killing rate of one of my veteran Principe units head on against...I think it was Samnite spearmen, seemed to be in the realm of 3 or 4 kills per second.

Also, I've had weird retraining issues, where most of the time if I retrain one of my elite stacks in a city, their experience remains the same, but then maybe one time out of every 5 when I retrain the same stack in the same city it seems to drop their experience from an average of gold/silver chevrons to 2 or 3 bronze ones.

It's even easier to get those 3 golden ones by auto-calculating battles. For some reason, the auto-calculator is very generous in handing out experience.

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Originally Posted by Megas Methuselah

For some reason, the auto-calculator is very generous in handing out experience.

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Yeah, but at the same time it is equally, if not even much more generous in handing out casualties :sad:.

I heard it was something to do with the xp from the battle being spread out equally amoung the soldiers.

A couple of my Iaosatae are already at 2 gold chevrons, and on their way to 3. It's possible. Hate having them lose men though--they lose experience everytime I have to merge troops at the frontline.

My slingers (sphendonetai) always ends up with gold chevrons, 8 or 9. But melee infantry units seemed to had at best silver (only elites that I always used at every battles get gold). Cavalries seemed easy to gain to silver, but getting gold is not as easy... Well, nomadic FM's usually got gold easily, and I get some Katanks getting gold by slamming them against pantodapoi several times, but the fastest unit that gain 9 chevrons is......





Hippakontistai

Seriously, when you start using these guys, they had ap swords, javelins and good speed to mop up routers, giving the hellenic factions lack of acessible HA's I use them to patrol my border and chewing up minor enemy incursions, whith several hippeis serve as primary line breakers.

Well i think i really do have to send back my triarii to Roma for yet another re-training seeing they are now down to 18 men even after slaughtering another 324 enemy soldiers they still remain at 8 experience :wall:

Oh well at the least i can FINALLY enjoy having a 10 Star FM!! Scipio has finally maxed it Weee!:beam:

Why exactly do you so very wish to get maximum chevrons?

HA's get 9 chevrons quite easily. I've never had infantry get more than 4 or 5 chevrons.

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Originally Posted by Frontline1944

Why exactly do you so very wish to get maximum chevrons?

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So that i'l keep the unit as something to remind me of the Camillan Era. And yes i want it shiny :beam: having maxed experience gives a sense of awe :2thumbsup:

chevrons are too overpowered in RTW...

I only re-train units with 3 regular chevrons or less. Anymore than that and it gets silly the amount of ass kicking the units do. It just starts making the battles boring.

I also merge units so the result in LESS chevrons, not more.

the nomad factions get 9 chevrons quite easily. ive got most of my non administrating family members get 9 chvrons unless i make a mistake and have them die.

It definitely varies. I've even seen mixed experienced recruits/green recruits in the same retraining batch - on bringing a heavily battered Epeirote stack back to Ambrakia for retraining after 10+ years of fighting in Italy, I queued up half the stack for retraining, only to find the next season that my formerly 8-man Prodromoi unit had retained their one gold chevron, while my formerly 23-man Thorakitai unit went from three silver chevrons down to one bronze one (huge unit size).

oh don't worry, the front row dudes are still the silver chevron killing machines that they are...those 23.