Cohortes Reformatae slow to gain experience?

[Mulceber]

Maybe it's just my imagination, but it seems like once you reach the Marian reforms, your troops are REALLY slow to gain experience. I've conquered most of Germany, but the most any of my cohortes have is one bronze chevron. Is this standard in EB? Is it just my imagination? Or am I experiencing some kind of glitch? -M

[Tellos Athenaios]

It's likely you: some government types offer a +1 experience, others don't. Game fields/gymnaseia add another +1. IIRC Marian's mules get recruited into the army from a large hinterland of type 2 govts, which means that they can get only up to a +1 lead; your Italian/Homeland people however can/used to begin with a +2 lead.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

That's Morale, not Experience.

[Mulceber]

That's Morale, not Experience.

No, it's definitely experience. It affects their morale, but it's experience - if you need proof, check their stats - the number of experience they have is always equal to their number of chevrons.

It's likely you: some government types offer a +1 experience, others don't. Game fields/gymnaseia add another +1. IIRC Marian's mules get recruited into the army from a large hinterland of type 2 govts, which means that they can get only up to a +1 lead; your Italian/Homeland people however can/used to begin with a +2 lead.

Oh I get it...so if I were to retrain them in Italy, would that give them the +2? -M

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

No, it's definitely experience. It affects their morale, but it's experience - if you need proof, check their stats - the number of experience they have is always equal to their number of chevrons.

It's not. I was referring to the effects of Government buildings, and to my own knowledge Roman govts. do not raise experience but only morale.

[Mulceber]

Ah ok. Still, any advice for improving their experience, apart from just sending them to as many battles as possible? -M

[teh1337tim]

well ceaser's legions did not fight in the gallic wars for 8 years straight to scare pompey and his legions to greece and africa :)

just keep them on the frontlines and resuply them, let the germans regroup while u put half stacks with another half stack nearby (in range to reinforce ur troops) and wait by a river crossing
BAM javelins and ur troops will steadily gain xp in a couple years

[bovi]

Fighting with autocalc gives more experience than commanding hacking down the fleeing troops.

[Decimus Attius Arbiter]

It could be that cohortes have more soldiers and higher morale than Polybian units so the enemy routs sooner before suffering high casualties and thus less experience.

[Apgad]

Romans don't get experience bonuses from anything except Level 4 governments, as far as I can see.

Some factions do indeed get +1 experience from other levels of government, and a number get another +1 from a game field (or equivalent), and some also get +1 from some higher level temples. Then there are the occassional special structure or wonder or geographical feature that can add another +1 to experience.

The best I've had is the Getai with a level 2 (or was it 3?) government (+1), at Sarmizegethusa (sp?) which has some holy mountain (+1), and building a game field (+1) and some war god temple (+1) giving me silver-chevron falxmen churned out on the cheap.

But I'll agree with the idea that auto-calc gets experience faster than fighting yourself. I also find that shifting soldiers between units after a battle works too. For example, I might have 6 units of principes, and the first has lost 5 men, while the other 5 are full-strength at 82. They'll all have 1 bronze chevron to start with, but when I move 5 men from the second to the first unit they get 2, and the same moving 5 men from the 3rd to 2nd, and so on. It's the exact same units, with the exact same men, but just shuffling 5 men from one to the next bumps up the experience of each unit. I've never worked out why that happens, it just seems to.

The other wierd thing is when you'll have a battle and units that don't get anywhere near the action, and end with 0 kills and 0 casualties, somehow get an experience upgrade. Obviously experience doesn't only depend on kills. Perhaps each level requires a set number of battles? Or victorious battles?

And while I'm at it, has anyone ever had a FM go into battle with heaps of experience, and come out with none? I've had guys with 3 gold chevrons suddenly end up with nothing, while the FM stays alive. Of course your FMs can get extra experience from ancillary characters like spear holders, so I wondered if all of that experience gets "stored" in one particular bodyguard, and if he's killed so goes all the experience?

[Cbvani]

As far as I can tell, exp gains have some relation to number of men in a unit, because sometimes my general gained some experience after a battle where he also lost some men, and then next turn when his bodyguard magically replentished that experience is gone. I think it has to do with number of men killed vs number of men in the unit, because small units like cavalry seem to gain exp faster than large units like infantry. This makes it especially hard for cohors reformata, because they have even MORE men than usual (200 on huge, vs 160 for most other infantry).

[Mulceber]

I also find that shifting soldiers between units after a battle works too. For example, I might have 6 units of principes, and the first has lost 5 men, while the other 5 are full-strength at 82. They'll all have 1 bronze chevron to start with, but when I move 5 men from the second to the first unit they get 2, and the same moving 5 men from the 3rd to 2nd, and so on.

Wait a minute...you can shift men between units? I've never done that or seen that done before. How do you do it? That could REALLY be useful. -M

[Nobo]

Wait a minute...you can shift men between units? I've never done that or seen that done before. How do you do it? That could REALLY be useful. -M

Just drag and drop one unit onto another one (the unit cards, as long as they are in the same army)

[Apgad]

Just drag and drop one unit onto another one (the unit cards, as long as they are in the same army)

And the same unit, of course

[Mulceber]

Hey, thanks for the help guys. I figured out how to combine units (which has been very useful, since it allows me to cram more men into recently-conquered settlements that still need a large garrison) and I'll definitely be using some of your suggestions for raising experience. -M

[bovi]

You actually answered your own question too with your signature: Pressing M auto-merges depleted units (meaning those who have suffered greater losses than 10%, I think).