re training units

[Raz]

In one of my more recent Fatamid campaigns, I had a regiment of Ghazi Infantry that just killed *everything* they came across. Despite them losing nearly 90% of their numbers during a particularly brutal battle against the Castille-Leonese (in fact, they pretty much saved the battle for me), I still brought them all the way back to Egypt for retraining -- I felt I owed them at least that much.

Even though that 10% of veterans will probably die in the next battle... leaving only those raw recruits remaining...

[bamff]

Even though that 10% of veterans will probably die in the next battle... leaving only those raw recruits remaining...

Ah, but the regiment lives on!

I suppose that I have to confess that I do the same thing - part of the "role playing" thing perhaps for the grateful king to confer patronage on a unit that has gone above and beyond....

[Raz]

Am I the only one that let's those veterans... err, retire... on the battlefield?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Hehe, "retire"

[Martok]

Ah, but the regiment lives on!

I suppose that I have to confess that I do the same thing - part of the "role playing" thing perhaps for the grateful king to confer patronage on a unit that has gone above and beyond....

Exactly. I like to reward units that have performed faithful and exemplary service.

[macsen rufus]

Reading KotR's last post brought to attention I'd been a bit sloppy with terminology. I usually make a distinction between retraining and re-equipping - retraining in the strict sense is bringing a broken unit back up to full strength (this may or may not entail upgrades), whereas re-equipping is running a full unit through higher-level facilities for the upgrades. In most cases I raised above, I was really considering the case of re-equipping.

Generally speaking, when the issue is keeping full units in the field, I'm a fan of merging high-valour fragments to concentrate the valour, then retraining (strict sense) the dregs from this process just to get numbers back up. I'd generally rather have a v2 and a v0 unit than two v1 units.

On the fun side, I do like to gather those odd regional troops that only come in one province. Would you believe I've been playing the game over 4 years now, and my current campaign is the FIRST time I've ever managed to get any Avar nobles It's a Kievan (XL) early campaign, and I've just neutralised the Horde with an army composed mostly of the standard Pav Arbs + Halbs + Boyars, but spiced up with a few of the Avar nobles, Wallachian mercenary cav, Chernyi Klobuki and Bulgarian brigands. And one mercenary unit of Mamluk handgunners who have earned my respect and appreciation as first-grade horse-scarers I always look for gunpowder units emerging in the mercenary pool before the Horde arrives, their morale hits are invaluable, alas my handgunners are now down to a third of their starting numbers and I can't retrain them...

[Heidrek]

Biggest use is with multiple turn build time units. The irish berserker units are a good example of this. At the end of each battle my berserkers have generally ktaken losses. so I merge a few units and end up with a "left overs" unit. If I have plenty of bereserkers, I sometimes end up witha 1 man berserker unit and another units of 5 or 6. I then send them off as individual units to retrain. This way I get two units back up to full strength, netting me say 34 new berserkers produced in two turns at full tech, instead of the normal 20 I'd get from training.

Meanwhile my standing army has full strength units of vets to field. I do love those berserkers though, good fun to watch them carve through a spear wall in record time.