Unit retraining - a little too good?

[TheDuck]

I still think it is overboard. With the current "retraining" it is possible to build several times as many total armies as one could otherwise. If you take the retraining argument to its logical conclusion, then why not allow you to build as many NEW units as your bank accounts would allow as well?

The idea of the training structures is that the new guys need instruction and equipping! This is not merely a draft. While retraining would require less of this than forming new units, I somehow doubt that it could be as much as 8 times less... So I see it as more of it just being an unusual rule, than it being a logical extension of existing rules.

I like the fact that retraining can happen at the same time as new unit builds. That makes sense to me, it is the quantity that bothers me.

Under normal circumstances in the game you aren't replacing 90% of your troops in one turn. Its prob. more like 10% of your entire army (say 130 or so guys on normal settings). That doesn't sound like a lot to me. I agree that if all the units you are retraining in a city are down to like 10%, then it seems rather large..

But.. that said.. there is a lot of extra information imparted to completely new officer corps (for new units) that simply doesn't have to happen with replacements. In WW2 replacements were given to existing units just after completing boot. Realistically if your training requirements are high, you might keep the boots over for advanced boot or some supplementary training, but you can shove em at existing units quite quickly. In reali life replacements happen very quickly, and can be in fairly large numbers.

Creating totally new field units in real life is a much longer process than just boot and advanced boot camp. The unit spends a LOT of time together before ever being committed to combat. There is so much that the unit has to learn to do together.

I think the game models the difference between these two things really well. There might be a scale issue in exceptional circumstances, but given the results I'm seeing in my own games I'm just not seeing it.

And on further thing on the 'attrition point', if my logistical/economic support train is right behind me (the city I'm defending has production buildings in it), and the AI has them 200 miles away, I should have an advantage, which is precisely how retraining affects game mechanics.

I personally haven't played any other game that gets the whole economic warfare portion down so well and still does a good job of tactical mechanics. And note here I've played Shogun some and Medieval to death, and am also an RTS junkie (I bought Shogun on a bargain rack about 2 months before Medieval came out.. I keep meaning to go back to Shogun and really get into it.. but Medieval mesmorized me, and now RTW has me awestruck...