How to XP up units?

**Warhammer3025** · 03-20-2009, 06:37

I'm a long time Total War veteran, and given a coupla weeks i can whoop the hell out of the AI, but man, on VH battle difficulty i feel like i'm fighting Spartans straight out of 300, even lowly firelock citizens are taking it to my grenadiers. Every victory is phyrric with horrific losses on my side. Hell ideally to play VH/VH campaign i'm vastly better off just autoresolveing every battle cuz its sad, but the AI does better than me in teh loss department when it was ALWAYS the opposite in earlier titles. Spam troops like crazy with my crazy economy and auto resolve to victory

Cant outshoot them (plain jane militia outshooting my fire by rank line infantry), melee they just straight up own me (i can outnumber their light cav with my heavies and hitting them from all sides but they still inflict equivalent casualties), and their cav just ROLLS right over my troops even when i'm in square proceeding to sabre down everyone in sight (my cav even when charging them from behind stalls after impact and start dropping like flies in the melee). So if anyone has any fool proof tips to consistently win on VH battles plz feel free to educate me. And yes, i tried using mass artillery tactics, but the comp just straight up charges and weathers the canister shots without batting an eye. Hell and even with a single arty unit they tag my ass with higher frequency even when i have 4 or 6 units shooting back.

So in interests of having fun, rather than using every single gamey tactic i know to win, i just play on hard where i can fight them using standard tactics. Sure they're still juiced up pretty good, but at least i can beat em without gruesome casualties.

Now comes my topic question. How does one XP up their units in a reasonable manner? Without the retrain bug, raw recruit replacements will destroy whatever collected experience you have in a unit, so now i never replenish except by merging battered same xp units. Also i notice the AI has the tendency to gun after my "elites" or higher xp units, so while i savage them with my newbs, my veterans get torn to shreds destroying whatever hope i have in fielding a battle hardened army. I roleplay since blitz games are boring, i like fighting big battles, however these big fights tend to kill alot of the guys i'm trying to xp up. Small fights are good where i can overwhelm a coupla units with little loss, but the AI is acting too chicken to raid my territories anymore.

I hear folks having 5 xp units and frankly i'm jealous as hell. Highest i've ever gotten so far is 3 xp, and in EVERY battle the AI starts gunning after em even to the detriment of winning the battle forcing me to howl in anger even as i win while losing half of those precious high xp soldiers. They raelly need to patch it where it isn't too hard to get 1-2 xp and after that making it a helluva lot harder. I mean whats teh point of having 9 xp levels if its damn near impossible to get to 6 xp without anal retentive gameplay.

Geeze i miss being able to recruit 7 chevron Knight Hospitallers

**A Very Super Market** · 03-20-2009, 06:49

Well, you make sure they take losses, but acceptable losses. 20-50 men should be good to at least not lose some experience.

Also, the AI gets stat bonuses on VH, and maybe on H.

**Dayve** · 03-20-2009, 07:42

I don't think there are any stat bonuses on hard, but i know for sure they get them on very hard. I know on VH a unit of light infantry will decimate a unit of militia, but playing on H i just used a unit of militia and defeated a unit of light infantry with around 30% casualties, which is fair, because all 80 men in a light infantry unit fire at once, whereas only the first rank of my militia fire and then have to reload.

One thing the AI do get on hard is accuracy bonuses to artillery though, this i am positive on.

**Warhammer3025** · 03-20-2009, 08:07

Also does anyone know how a unit places it individual soldiers? Like do the most experienced go in the frotn rank and teh newbs in teh backrow? Cuz if the vets are in the front that means they're the ones to die when a unit gets into a firefight. Also if you replenish while losing only 20-50 men per unit they wont lose xp? I mean raw recruits will bring down xp quite a bit otherwise.

The AI definitely gets bonus on H in battle. A militia can still shoot up a line inf unit with fire by rank, sure militia willl lose, by for all practical purposes getting into a firefight is still gonna cause some hurt.

**al Roumi** · 03-20-2009, 11:22

I'm guessing the mechanic that attributes xp is still based on a kills per casualty ratio for each unit?

In that case, the best way to XP line inf (for example) is to kill as many enemies without losing men. This is hard to do 1 on 1 unless you are using (buggy) "garden wall" cover or better: the defense "trenches".

It's clearly not as easy to xp up units in ETW as it was in MTW2. To my mind for 2 reasons:

1. The lack of campaign/battle map strategy (i.e. no river crossing or mountain side defenses to exploit) and the debatable uselessness of forts. I've found it very hard to put my troops in a very advantageous situation, from which they can maximise enemy casualties whilst remaining more or less unhurt.

2. There's also the uniformity of troops in ETW -gone are the days of faction specific tactics i.e high xp genoese militia decimating the enemy from behind a protective screen of spear militia. ETW just doesn't seem to have as many advantageous troops (units with an edge over the enemy's) -or even opportunities to exploit them!

In my games, this means the success of an even battle (numbers wise) hangs on how adaptable my troops are in deployment on the (apparently random) battle map and tactics.

**MadKow** · 03-20-2009, 15:19

As for battle situations, i had some success defending a bridge in a repeatable manner, while play the ottomans. There is this bridge south of Bagdhad i was defending with 2 Kurdish Skirmisher units and a Camel unit (the one with 90 range). And was attacked by 3 units of Persian troops (desert warriors i believe, and a melée camel unit).

The bridge was there and the troops were in the expected places, so it all went as in other TW bridge battles, only this one was a shoot out, not a melée (sp?) blood fest. The AI behaved properly bad too, sending one unit at a time and standing in the middle of the bridge shooting... (if only i had grenadiers there....)

On the other hand i remember defending a river crossing, somewhere in Europe, not at a road bridge but at one of those "land bridges" and when the battle started i was on top of a hill with no river in sight...

**crpcarrot** · 03-27-2009, 11:47

i think some of us are expecting our vetrans to behave like previous TW games were high exp meant thay had high defense values and consequently took very little casualties against green opponents. but in this edition they wear very little armour and you cant dodge a bullet no matter how much exp u have. so in a shoot out even against militia they wiill only suffer less casualties because they will be inflicting casulaties faster than before (with better accuracy). the only area where you will seea big difference is in melee.

one strategy that i try to use to get kills with less casualties is shooting them while they are moving. i'm sure everyones noticed that units cannot shoot while they are moving. of course only good skimishers can do this line infantry is there basically to slug it out unitl onge group routs thats what the warfare was like in this time and i think it was one of the main agumenats in the past of making a TW game in this time period.

**MadKow** · 03-27-2009, 18:11

This is sort of an exploit of the AI but that's how i got 3 prussian Line Infantry Units with 4 chevrons, and one with 5, (well, one chevron and a star). Just used a couple of them on a fort to hold the Coureland (sp?) border. The AI will send several small stacks, some single units even, across your border and you just intercept and defend the fort. Your units will grow fast enough in experience that way.

I did this while handling Poland and Austria, and finally picked those units and had them join the main army and serve as it's hardened core.

As mentioned, shoot outs will deplete your veteran units almost as much and you green ones, so either use them in the flanks, or charge them ASAP into melee. They wont disappoint.

**Warhammer3025** · 03-27-2009, 21:47

Yea, its rather funny how your units suffer ALOT less casualties in melee rather than a shootout. I'm so desperate to get the feel for the age of muskets that i'm about to use the darthmod, cuz i'm basically playing M2:Lite with all the bullrushing.

I swear i think the AI fights smarter with smaller units, cuz on huge, i'm racking up kill ratios that i couldnt on beforee. Right now they're milling about in place, not forming up for a proper infantry charge, constantly facing change letting me get free shots, etc etc. Also it feels that huge size units ROUT faster than normal size units, most of the time a normal size unit fights to the death (on H), but on huge they're routing pretty (sometimes only losing 25%) early netting me ALOT of easy kills for free xp. I'm using the EXACT same tactics so it has to be the AI sucking.

**magnum** · 03-28-2009, 00:00

Think crpcarrot and others nailed it. In past TWs the higher exp units were tougher to kill so you were able to keep advancing their exp. It was all simply a matter of fighting in enough battles. But in ETW, with no defensive value in shootouts, you get to a point were your tactics set the max exp your troops are going to get. Basically the number of enemy killed equals the amount of exp lost by your guys who died. You can improve it by meleeing more as that still uses a defensive value, but over time everyone will come to a point where they just can't seem to get more exp. That point is their tactics level. Unfortunately for me it seems to be 3 chevrons on Hard. =(

I have started to use the cavalry trick to draw off part of the enemy armies but feel kinda cheesy doing it. I'm also trying different army configurations in both makeup and deployment. Of course always trying to find a better defense/attack strategy. Hopefully I'll find something.

**Warhammer3025** · 04-01-2009, 23:40

Alright folks, after some more play i found the best way to xp my units with a little effort. Dont blitz and let a nearby 1 city minor spam units to his hearts content. Then when the little blighter declares war on you and sends small raiding stacks, eat them alive and xp to your hearts content. This only works on ultra size units since it gives you the best bang per fight. Ideally let em camp out behind some cover, march the troops you want to xp behind him (DO NOT use arty to pound them or else they'll shift) and keep a sacrificial unit to their front to keep them pinned (i prefer militia since i dont give a rats ass if they die) and let them be shot at too if you want ot be sure the AI wont shoot the xping units.

Using this cheesy strategy as France on Bavaria i was able to build up 4 line infantry units to 4 chevrons, 3 Cheveux Legers to 3 chevrons, and a Cour de Blois to 4. Sadly the AI is starting to become more clever and will prioritize shooting my elite troopers instead of green line or my throwaway militia (they WILL pivot their line to go after my elites even whiling eating raking fire from my lesser units). Sometimes i'm forced to charge my suicide militia and go Longshanks Braveheart style shooting at the melee mass with my militia stuck in the middle (use up the Irish! heh).

I coulda blitzed Bavaria early and take the place (i usually do) but i realized that Austria sometimes gets sidetracked by wars in the east so i dont get as many gimme fights as i would if i let the Bavarians spam line inf.

Pity the Genoans werent so agreeable with my strategy. Once they're done spamming their capital full they dont build extras for me to pick off. I guess they're ieither spamming Corsica, or they're building up a fleet.