Nuances of Retraining Valour Units. Questions inside.

[Colovion]

This may need a Dev to answer.

Let's pretend I have a unit of spearmen. They have been through a few battles, have let's say 4 Valour but have 50 men out of 100 left. I go and retrain them and the Valour goes down to 1 or 2. This is expected because the Valour is averaged for each individual man on the field.

The question I have is that when you retrain the unit do the Higher Valour soldiers go to the front of the formation OR are the tougher units at the back of the pack OR are they all randomly interspersed amongst the green troops? I'm guessing they're all randomly placed through the formation to balance the new formation but thought that it may be another way.

Anyone know?

[Encaitar]

I've always assumed the entire unit is just given the new Valour value (i.e. the average value).

[Raider91]

Yes, I doubt they track valour for the individual soldier. Tracking 20 units and calculating their valor is one thing, but this would mean your system would have to track and calculate 6000 seperate unit valor ratings... I don't think we have that much processing power yet in the average home PC.

[Phatose]

Oh, they absolutely track individual valor for each man on the field.

[Nerouin]

They do track everything. It's in text files. Armor, valour, etc.

However, IIRC, for the purposes of battle the unit has the average of every soldier as its total stats. Each individual soldier does not fight based on his own valour, armor, weapons etc., but based on the average of his unit.

[ichi]

I've always assumed the entire unit is just given the new Valour value (i.e. the average value).

Valor is tracked individually, while armor and weapons upgrades are tracked by unit.

ichi

[Sociopsychoactive]

As ichi says, Valour is definately tracked for every single individual sodier.

every soldier fights to his own valour, so having one valour three man in a unit may not put it's average valour any higher, but that individual will fight to valour three.

Armour and weapons are either for the whole unit of none of the unit, all or nothing.

Moral, however, is averaged, let me explain.

Take a partial unit of spearmen with average valour of three. They get retrained with no new weapons or armour, and get an average valour of 1. Now, all the men with valour three or more will still fight harder and longer, but the moral of the unit will still be the normal moral for spearmen plus 2 for the one valour, ignoring any general induced valour.

So, you can make the unit rout just as easily as if it had all valour 1 people in it, the moral bonus is always averaged for the unit.

As to the original question, I had always assumed they were randomly dispersed. There is very little to indicate they get sent to the front, and while it;s possible they get sent to the back if they are it's proably not intentional (as they will probably rout before actualy seeing combat in most battles) which leads me to assume it's random, but I'm by no means certain.

It's easy to prove that valour is tracked individually, I had an instance of this recently. One of my provinces with only the governer got attacked, that particular governer had the pride virtue.

So, I retreat, like you do, and the next year they assault the castle. The 100 man governer unit, with three valour for every man, gets split into two units of 50 men. One of the 50's has 3 valour, but the other one, because it counts as a new unit (albeit just for this battle) and the commander has pride, their valour, for every man in the unit, is now 6.

Troops who had never seen combat had 6 valour, and it was every man of the 50, not just the commander.

I was rather glad of that, though I still lost the fight. 100 men ust couldn;t stand fast againt nearly a thousand

[Medieval Assassin]

Tracked for each man, You never lose valour, The number is just the avg. So if the spearmen were 4 and 50% of the men, and you retrained, they would become 2 with 100% of the men, however 50% of those men are 4.
Its been suspected that the greens are placed at the back of the formation, to help flanking be so effective... I 'unno.

[Oaty]

Valour is tracked individually and the 1 I love the most is you have 100 feudal sergeants @ V1. Never participated in the melee combat but lost just 1 man to archers. Losing that 1 man brought the average valour up and they are now a valour 2 unit.

As far as where they get placed, I think the unit leader is always # 1 and that is why he is always at the center. I'm guessing since you are merging in 50 guys in with that unit, the original 50 maintain there 1-50 #s or it could be more complicated


And heres how I think it really works

Since the original inception of this unit

I'll use a simplified graph to show what I'm getting at

-----------------Survivors --------deceased
Men numbered ---1-5 lived --------6-10 died
-----------------11-15 lived-------16-20 died
-----------------21-25 -----------26-30 died
-----------------31-35------------36-40
-----------------41-45------------46-50

I'm not going to do the last 50 but I'm pretty sure you can see the point I'm getting at

My guess is they always maintain what # they were in there ranks and the new recruits take the open numbered slots as it has been stated that guy # 10 will always be in the # 10 slot everytime he's on the battlefield. So guy # 5 that is still a survivor will keep his spot at the front but guy # 95 will be all the way at the back with veterans and recruits intermingled in front of him.

Now when it comes to merging I think the original unit keeps its #'s and the unit being put into the stack gets reassigned new #'s and it could even be that guy # 1 will take the first available open slot or it could be he gets a random # thats open in the ranks.

Anyways I think the only way to be positive on this is to hope a dev answers it himself.

Edit: I had to edit the little minny graph because for some reason when you put in more than 1 space the forum program deletes all spaces but 1

[Sociopsychoactive]

I don't think thats the case oaty.

If you have a full strength unit, and they start getting picked off by arrow fire while still standing still in formation, and the people at the front are the ones dying, then those behind them will move forward to fill the gaps. I'm prertty sure next time you field that unit, those who moved forward as replacements will still be in the forward position.

So, if each man gets a number, then it's from 1-100, and if no' 2 gets killed, everyone shifts one number along, so it;s then 1-99. It isn;t necessarily no' 3 thats becomes no' 2, but they don't keep their numbers and therefore positions because they always move along to form the formation, and if they are numbered the numbers must change to reflect that.

Still not sure on the answer tho.

[Oaty]

Hey Socio I can quickly find if your right or I am. Hopefully the log files has some statisrics in there and if guy # 3 is missing then that will answer all. Well you are right Socio never even thought of the log files. But apparently if guy # 50 dies someone takes his place and guy # 60 is no more.

[Colovion]

So maybe the new valour units do go to the back and they all shuffle forwards?

[Medieval Assassin]

Its been thought to be like that, to maximize charge, and when you get flanked, the greens cant hold up as well...

[Colovion]

Yeah that makes sense. I wonder if that's the case in RTW.

It really doesn't matter - it's just one of those stupid things that I was wondering while thinking about the game at work.