Retraining?

[CherryDanish]

No, I hadn't thought about it clearly. Since when you click on a strategic agent, but nothing shows in the lower bar, you can't retrain. Oh well, loads of ways to level up my assassins and spys ... Hellooooo Mr. Sicilian King ...

[Quietus]

The tactic I used when I played Medieval was to recall all high valor troups. Merge them. And when they get to full strength, I retrain them with new weapon upgrades. When I get done with the campaign, I always end up with stacks of valor 3, 4, 5, and 6 troops guarding my borders (commanded by heirs or retired [overpowered] generals). Or course superpowered Units such as the Varangian guards, Janissaries, and even special Crusade knights etc. I use only as decoration/ceremonial units. Usually I put 1 unit with the king/sultan/emperor residing at constantinople or the spanish border with the high valor troops. Sometimes I use high valor units to occupy a rebellious province (but they don't get to fight; I consider them retired

[CherryDanish]

I don't retire units, even vanilla archers when I have fully developed longbowmen available, BUT I do pick a province and drop all beaten/damaged units in it (I only field units at full strength with very few exceptions) and combine units as they are damaged mixxing higher valour units only with other higher valour units. Sometimes a unit will sit out for extended periods, but I can't stand not using a unit. Another thing I do is garrison castles with old units if it's clear I'm not going to use them again. That said, many of my old units are proving particullarly effective in extended desert warfare now that I left the eggys till the end game. Hobilars, mounted sergants, steppe cavalry and clansmen without the armour upgrades are remarkably effective in desert warfare.

This retraining feature is great though and gives many older units a second life if you're done in the desert.

[Sociopsychoactive]

Retraining is very usefull.

I tend to do the same as cherrydanish and move all partial units back to my most developed province for merging, then any partial's left over get retrained with the best armour, moral and weapons available. Any units that gwet specific place bonusses get sent there to retrain, as all the new recruits will be valour one.

LEftovers like crusade units, bribed ones and loyalist rebellion troops get merged to full and sent out, or hang around the capitol looking mean.

[Quietus]

Basically, the choice is to use Green troops or veteran troops. I just don't like Green troops as garrison. Green troops attacks. Veteran are promoted. I add the reinforcement and attack again, with the Veterans to garrison the last province. In a couple of turns, they become loyal anyways, so the veteran garrisons just move along with the green troops. If the province is rebellious, it might take a while.

These troops are cheap too. They are usually the low troops because I don't use Chivalric-men-at-arm or Feudal Knights. The only green troops I keep are crusader knights and Order foot soldiers. I don't use them in battle. ~:p. If I'm using a christian army. It is usually, 6-7 Feudal Sergeants/Spearmen, 3-4 archers, 1 Steppe Cavalry, 1 horse archer/Jinette or 1 Royal Knight general, and a combination of Urban Militia, Woodsmen, Militia Sergeants, or Feudal Men-at-arms as the 4 shock troops. ~:p