re training units

[Knight of the Rose]

Hmmm, I seem to be clearly outnumbered in this debate... Thanks for taking the bait, I'll play the devils advokate just a little more.

Three substantial arguments have been brought forward:

1) You need it when training takes more than 1 turn
2) You need it when turtling
3) You need it for fun

1) The effect of resupplying units increases as unit size decreases - 120 men in two turns for a vanilla unit (training) is much slower than say 100 men in one turn with 20 veterans.(retraining). But the main effect of retraining is giving your veterans upgrades. This effect is decreased as unit size decreases. The two effects hardly cancel out eachother, and it can be a good road to fast increases in numbers. But new men cost florins, so not only do you need improved facilities during the wars your men becomes veterans, you also need a good cashflow to pull this "trick" off. Both these preconditions being present will count as a won game in my book anyways, and you don't *need* it.
2) Turtling can be fun, very fun indeed. Is retraining suitable for turtling? I don't think so, because retraining is more effective on full units, as argued above. Valor through battle is usually slow, and come at a price. Grouping together experienced units to form "elite" units can be a little difficult to pull off (or maybe I just can't do it right) but not impossible. At the most, in any "standard" game, I'd say such a unit could gain 2-3 valor before you have the next level of upgrade buildings ready. And then, the effect of increased armor morale and in some cases weapons is not gamebreaking, in my experience perhaps what would equal a single additional point of valor. This would make the unit tough, but not more valuable than a additional unit of fresh men from the reserves you can use to flank or bring into the center to hold the line while your übers run amok on the flanks. In fact I'd say that would be more valuable.
3) You can't argue with fun. Fun is what it is all about, and I don't post because I want to ruin peoples enjoyment of the game. Don't do as you think you should do to win, do what you want to do and have fun!

/KotR


Edited: General's unit: Good point! Retraining is *very* valuable in that case