Is it a bug ?

[paleologos]

When I was playing RTW vanilla I noticed that when I retrained-replenished ship crews, the new crewmen would have the experience of the few battle-hardened, survivor, bloody-lucky, death-cheating veterans. I would transfer experienced sailors to beaten ships and retrain the more experienced ones. I ended up with my entire bireme fleet having a level-9 experience. The same thing did not seem to work with infantry or cavalry, though it was my Cretan archers that would benefit the most. Recently I retrained a level-5 experience unit of measly EB slingers. All the new recruits turned out to be veterans. Is it normal?

Thanks

[WinsingtonIII]

The reason why your cavalry and infantry are losing experience when you retrain but your missile troops are not is probably because in RTW the experienced men in a unit are placed in the front lines. As such, melee infantry and cavalry tend to lose the most experienced men because they tend to engage things directly from the front. Missile units tend to take loses from enemy missiles, so they are probably losing men from throughout the unit, not just the front. So, they probably retain more of the experienced men.

I'm not sure if I'm right on this. But it seems to make sense to me.

[paleologos]

That's not what I meant, WinsingtonIII. In RTW vanilla none of my land units would receive recruits with the average experience of other men in the unit prior to it having it's losses replenished.
But in EB, with unitsize at huge, I retrained a unit of slingers of 38 men with level-5 experience (2 silver chevrons) to full size of 120 men. That is to say the unit received 82 recruit slingers fresh out of the barracks and they all had level-5 experience - they were not rookies. The unit did not loose experience when it had it's numbers replenished. So I am thinking what if I expose a rookie unit to enemy fire, bring it's numbers down, then transfer experienced soldiers from another unit with high veteracy and retrain-replenish the veterans. It sounds like a spoiler too good to resist.

[Fluvius Camillus]

What faction do you play? I remember that if you play the Getai and built the right structures, the units (re)trained in that city all started with 4 experience. Check the buildings that are present for bonuses (usally government, gymnasia, a very good temple and sometimes a wonder).

~Fluvius

[paleologos]

I play the KH, new units start out with 0 exp, except Sparta, that city has a gymnasion.

[WinsingtonIII]

That is strange then. Generally my units in EB lose experience when retrained, as they should.

[paleologos]

To WinsingtonIII: Do you retrain your units in provinces where if you were to recruit a new unit of the same type it would start with some experience?

[WinsingtonIII]

To WinsingtonIII: Do you retrain your units in provinces where if you were to recruit a new unit of the same type it would start with some experience?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Obviously they tend to lose less experience when they are retrained in cities with experience bonus buildings.

[Kikaz]

My units never lose experience when retrained, it is only when I combine units that experience is lost. This is probably a hard-coded bug.

[Trax]

TW games keep track of every individual soldier's experience.

In Shogun and MTW all new recruits had 0 experience (like they
should have) and retraining brought the unit average down.

In RTW this was changed for some reason, retraining now adds veterans to the unit.
That's why I personally never retrain experienced troops, it's kind of exploitish.

[satalexton]

Unfortunately in early game, when you have to blitz, the best bet is to retrain as you'll will be inevitably weak and somewhat defenceless as you wait the few years to get back in the black. If you have a few depleted and veteran units sitting in your capital, that can save your life as you instantly muster a defence when the barbarians attack.....