Unit retraining - a little too good?

[Orvis Tertia]

The really screwy part about retraining is that you can get bonuses from enemy temples for your troops. You shouldn't be able to do that with a temple from a foreign culture.

I disagree. From a gameplay standpoint, it creates an interesting strategic decision: Do I keep this enemy temple for the bonuses and take the culture penalty? Or do I raze it and build one of my temples?

From a roleplaying standpoint (for lack of a better word), it simulates that way that a native people who were skilled in, say, archery, could retain those traits that made them good archers under a different country's rule, provided their culture wasn't completely obliterated. By destroying a conquered enemy's temples and building your own, what you are really doing is suppressing their religion and culture and replacing it with your own.

[ToranagaSama]

I think the manner in which retraining works is just fine.

The problem may be, as its always been in all the *vanilla* TW series, TOO MUCH MONEY!

Re-training a 1 man unit cost virtually the same as training a new unit. So what's the problem?

TOO MUCH MONEY!

I wonder, how many follow an "Occupation" or "Enslavement" policy feel that re-training is too easy? Or, if the correlation is with an "Extermination" policy?

It just occurred to me that perhaps the game should required the Player to declare a policy of Occupation, Enslavement or Extermination at the Start of a Campaign; and, as a consequence, certain pre-determined *changes* become in effect corresponding to the Policy one chooses.

Choosing a Policy of Extermination migh then result in Re-Training to have a greater *penalty*, such an increased 'Turn' requirement, etc.

Just a thought....

[GFX707]

a very convincing and constructive post...(that's sarcasm )

If you had to go to the trouble to point out that it was sarcasm wouldn't it have been more efficient to simply point it out without sarcasm?

Seriously though, if any of you don't like the changes made in RTW, go play MTW instead.

[Orvis Tertia]

I think the manner in which retraining works is just fine.

The problem may be, as its always been in all the *vanilla* TW series, TOO MUCH MONEY!

I am playing my first non-Roman campaign now, with the Parthians, and I am discovering that money is actually hard to come by. Because my territory is so spread out (i.e., it takes several moves just to get from my city to the borders of the province), and especially because there is no Senate to grant me windfalls of cash, I am finding it quite challenging. I'm only about a dozen turns into the campaign, but there is an early difference that is noticable when playing a non-Roman faction.

[Bhruic]

Seriously though, if any of you don't like the changes made in RTW, go play MTW instead.

Yeah, exactly. So why don't you stop whining about bugs, and go back and play MTW instead.

Bh

[Hosakawa Tito]

I disagree. From a gameplay standpoint, it creates an interesting strategic decision: Do I keep this enemy temple for the bonuses and take the culture penalty? Or do I raze it and build one of my temples?

From a roleplaying standpoint (for lack of a better word), it simulates that way that a native people who were skilled in, say, archery, could retain those traits that made them good archers under a different country's rule, provided their culture wasn't completely obliterated. By destroying a conquered enemy's temples and building your own, what you are really doing is suppressing their religion and culture and replacing it with your own.

The problem is you can do both. Retrain immediately to gain the enemy temple bonus, then next turn demolish the enemy temple and build your own factions temple.

[Orvis Tertia]

The problem is you can do both. Retrain immediately to gain the enemy temple bonus, then next turn demolish the enemy temple and build your own factions temple.

True, although personally I don't see it as a problem. You still have to sacrifice that bonus in the future if you decide to demolish and rebuild.

[GFX707]

Yeah, exactly. So why don't you stop whining about bugs, and go back and play MTW instead.

Bh

Because I like the changes, Einstein. Unfasten your teeth from around my ankle.

[Ulstan]

"If an army is in a city that can make the units it has, you can never defeat that army through attrition unless you can cause the enemy to run out of funds"

Can you retrain men in a city that is actually being besieged? I'm not quite sure - the times I tried it it didn't seem to work.

But anyway, I imagine a lot of this comes down to unit sizes. On huge and even large (though to a lesser extent) unless you have an absolutely enormous metropolis, you just don't have the population to replenish an armies ranks through more than a couple bloody battles. On the normal 40 man size, I imagine you could keep replenishing a full army from even a 13k population town for a looong time. But on huge, where you might lose 2k men per battle, it's not real feasible :)

Another point : I'm curious as to what 'attrition' you are referring too. Usually when I fight the AI, he gets crushed utterly. He'll lose 95% of his forces. I haven't really run into battles where we both fight, it's a draw, and we've each lost like 25% of our men. That at least is what I tend to think of as a battle of attrition. Maybe I am misunderstanding you.

But I do think it's odd you can recruit men from a town you just took - there should be some sort of flag that limits you from recruiting unless the culture penalty is at an appropriate level.

Also, perhaps degrading the level of military buildings by one (as often happened in MTW) might work.

But I do think this change helps the AI.

In MTW, I had armies of veterans. The AI always had armies of utter raw recruits.

In RTW, we both have armies of veterans.

In both cases the player would do whatever it took to make sure he had full strength veteran units, but in MTW, the AI almost never did.

[ToranagaSama]

I am playing my first non-Roman campaign now, with the Parthians, and I am discovering that money is actually hard to come by. Because my territory is so spread out (i.e., it takes several moves just to get from my city to the borders of the province), and especially because there is no Senate to grant me windfalls of cash, I am finding it quite challenging. I'm only about a dozen turns into the campaign, but there is an early difference that is noticable when playing a non-Roman faction.

Have you found your capability to re-train units at all being inhibited by the lack of funds?

Playing as the Juii, my Campaign is finally progressing along, and have taken over all but 4 of the Gaul cities, with only one of them left with an army of substantial size.

Since reaching this level of progress, recently, on more than one occaision I've had to wait 1-3 turns to completely re-train an army, or sigificant numbers of units, particularly units which have suffered heavy attrition, for example [several] an 80 man unit[s], down to 60 or less.

Of course, this occurs while simulatenously doing a lot of Building in several provinces.

---

Can "re-training" be modded?

[TheDuck]

Yes, that's exactly my point. Within a turn of having an army completely decimated, you can have it fully up to strength. So what's the incentive to take any care?

It's even worse when you are attacking/defending a city. You know that as long as you win, you've got a full strength army again. This completely destroys the concept of "attrition".



Not sure what you are talking about. Armour, weapons and "veteran" status are all tracked individually in RTW. You don't lose anything by retraining, you just get some novice units as replacements. That's hardly a tragedy.

Bh

Attrition is a little more complicated that you are making it out to be.

Attrition is about resources, both human and otherwise...

A large country with a large economy can out-attrit a smaller country with a small economy. The idea is that you can provide greater numbers of people and material, and train more of them 'in parallel'. Both the larger pool of folks and the larger economy is what make attrition work against a smaller foe.

The retraining of troops in RTW requires money and available bodies. No money, no retraining. So its not like its 'free' or anything. And you do have to have the training facilities both handy, and at the correct level for the unit involved, so logistical issues are taken into account.

Given the fact that (in the real world) it is way easier to put replacements into existing units than bring a new unit completely 'up to snuff', I have no problem at all with the system in RTW. It works and meets with my expectations about logistics and the training of new soldiers.

Given that each turn is 6 months, it just makes sense. Now if each turn was two weeks, you might have a point!

[TheDuck]

Actually, it is true. If an army is in a city that can make the units it has, you can never defeat that army through attrition unless you can cause the enemy to run out of funds.



Which is part of my point. Why can you fill up 9 units that have 1 man left in 6 months, but only recruit one? Or, none, if you've got a unit that takes 2 turns to train (but still 0 to retrain from 1 unit).



Granted, it makes the AI tougher. But what you seem to forget is that it makes the player proportionally tougher. That is, the player is able to exploit the retraining system much better than the AI can. That means that instead of giving the AI a benefit, like you imply, it actually penalizes them.



Enemy cities are almost always better built up for military than my own. I can count on one hand the number of times I've taken a city and not been able to retrain most (if not all) of my units. Frankly, I'd be happy with the system you're talking about. If, for example, I could only retrain Roman units in Roman cities (ie, the cities the Roman factions start with), that'd be fine. But being able to take over a British city and immediately retrain all of my Roman legions just doesn't seem "more accurate" to me.



Something like that could work. I've never really been sure why you can recruit/retrain units from a city you just took over in any case - wouldn't they sort of not like you? I guess you could conscript soldiers, but they wouldn't be terribly effective in battle.

Bh

Attrition is a grand strategic goal that is economically based. Your whole line of reasoning is flawed because attrition ain't about individual units, its about wearing down an army supported by an inferior economy by attriting their entire army which they can't afford to replace. In game, if you have 20 provinces and the AI opponent has 4, attrition will work given time. At 20 vs. 20, you must find alternate means.

Attrition does not apply to tactical actions, but to long term economic warfare.

[Red Harvest]

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.

[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...

[Bhruic]

Because I like the changes, Einstein. Unfasten your teeth from around my ankle.

Right. Yes, of course. So when I'm saying how I like the diplomacy in RTW, and you're saying that it sucks, I'm somehow the one that likes changes and I'm the one that should go back to playing MTW.

If you're going to be an annoying idiot, could you at least try to be a consistent one?

Bh

[Bhruic]

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.

But that's my point. I don't mind so much when I'm in the middle of my own territory (although I still think it lowers the possible enjoyment level, because it hamstrings the AI).

It's when I march into enemy territory, lose 95% of my army taking a city, and have my army fully retrained immediately before the AI can do anything about it. Even if they attack me on their turn, my army is already retrained. So I can walk into any situation like that, and exploit it.

In a "real life" scenario, there is no way I would (a) want to take that many losses, and (b) try and hold the city if I did. It would be ludicrous to consider. But in RTW, it would be stupid to not consider (because it would work).

Bh

[Blodrast]

ok, even if we forget about realism (and even consistency) for a moment, the fact remains that the way retraining is implemented gives the player incredible opportunities for abuse, and a huge advantage against the AI simply because the AI doesn't "think". There are several ways to benefit from those opportunities (several were only pointed out by motorhead).
IMO, this is a _bad_ way of giving the human an advantage (not that he needed one), and is producing a significant imbalance in the game.

[Red Harvest]

I agree on that Blodrast. However, on very hard, I really do need that advantage because the AI is sending full stacks at my half stacks every turn... On the other hand, I would like for the AI to play smarter, so that I didn't have to handicap myself so much to get a challenging game.

One thing I'm learning with retraining on limited funds: move all of your greenest guys to veteran units, then retrain the greenest. This saves a lot of money. Training a couple of 3 silver chevron guys is horribly expensive! Better to train a greenish unit and use the high experience guys on the flanks.

[Bhruic]

One thing I thought of that might work nicely - and it makes sense.

Right now, I find that a lot of the problem comes from the fact that your actions happen before the AI gets to move. That is, if you queue up a bunch of units to retrain on your turn, they get retrained before the AI gets to move.

That doesn't make sense. Everyone is moving within the same 6 month period. Why not wait on unit retraining/recruiting until after everyone has moved? That way, if on your turn you strain your resources taking a city, if the AI has an army close, they can move in and attack and have a decent chance of winning.

Bh

[Lonewarrior]

Is there a way to mod this so unit retraining takes a year per unit.

[Bob the Insane]

It's when I march into enemy territory, lose 95% of my army taking a city, and have my army fully retrained immediately before the AI can do anything about it. Even if they attack me on their turn, my army is already retrained. So I can walk into any situation like that, and exploit it.

But it is not "immediately" it is 6 months of occupation later you have rebuilt your forces from the local populance as long as the province has sufficient population, you have sufficient funds and the army you are talking about is only 8 units...

How is it more "realistic" than in a conquered city of 10,000 (for example) you could only press gang 60 odd people to reinforce one of your units in 6 months??

If we want more "realisim" we should be moving the Strat Map to real time, rather than turn based, I don't know anyone who really wants that...

I am not arguing that the present system is particularly realistic, only that the old one was not any better...

Game play wise I don't see the issue, this function is just as available to the AI, and I don't come across understrength units anymore unless I am chasing down an army I have already attacked...

[TheDuck]

But that's my point. I don't mind so much when I'm in the middle of my own territory (although I still think it lowers the possible enjoyment level, because it hamstrings the AI).

It's when I march into enemy territory, lose 95% of my army taking a city, and have my army fully retrained immediately before the AI can do anything about it. Even if they attack me on their turn, my army is already retrained. So I can walk into any situation like that, and exploit it.

In a "real life" scenario, there is no way I would (a) want to take that many losses, and (b) try and hold the city if I did. It would be ludicrous to consider. But in RTW, it would be stupid to not consider (because it would work).

Bh

Uh, ask the Germans that tried to take Stalingrad whether that idea is ludicrous or not. Someone didn't think it was ludicrious at all (even if I agree with you completely).

On making a habit of doing that in RTW, you are still spending money producing those units, no matter how you produce them. I'm not seeing this in my campaign because I play to minimize casualties no matter what. More efficient use of $$ = more overall inertia in a campaign.

Additionally.. I'm always fielding units in my campaign that are above the normal unit producing buildings of the cities I'm taking. I take a very focused tech path with just a few cities and the rest are committed to economy. I think I've captured one city in my Julii campaign that can produce hastati (and subsequently early legionarres). Its just so rare to see that for me. So I always have a (light) stream of new units headed to the front. Even in really one sided battles as the Romans I'm maxing at 300 or so casualties (unit size is Large). Maybe as the game goes later I'll see it, but right now its just not happening to me (I can also believe this because I've conquered Iberia, Gaul, Britannia, and am in the process of taking Germania and heading to eastern Europe). I'll see how things go when I hit Asia Minor and the Middle East. What you are saying must be from much later game (current campaign is about 206 BC).

As to RedHarvest's comment about wanting a better AI, that is always the case with me with all games. The AI is never smart enough... although in this situation I'll log a different desire.. I want a campaign game that allows multiple humans. That would really rock.

[TheDuck]

But it is not "immediately" it is 6 months of occupation later you have rebuilt your forces from the local populance as long as the province has sufficient population, you have sufficient funds and the army you are talking about is only 8 units...

How is it more "realistic" than in a conquered city of 10,000 (for example) you could only press gang 60 odd people to reinforce one of your units in 6 months??

If we want more "realisim" we should be moving the Strat Map to real time, rather than turn based, I don't know anyone who really wants that...

I am not arguing that the present system is particularly realistic, only that the old one was not any better...

Game play wise I don't see the issue, this function is just as available to the AI, and I don't come across understrength units anymore unless I am chasing down an army I have already attacked...

I SO agree with you.

And love the sig about the pointy hat. Just love it.

[motorhead]

One thing I'm learning with retraining on limited funds: move all of your greenest guys to veteran units, then retrain the greenest. This saves a lot of money. Training a couple of 3 silver chevron guys is horribly expensive! Better to train a greenish unit and use the high experience guys on the flanks.

I think this is incorrect. I've tested retraining gold chevron biremes and silver chevron roman cavalry and the retraining cost per man is the same as recruiting a green unit if the unit being retrained isn't receiving any armor/weapon upgrades. I can't find the post, but i've read the cost per level for armour/weapon is something like 90/120 per unit. So if you have a gold chevron unit, with no upgrades but are retaining in a town with a foundry you've got to pay four hundred more just for the upgrades.

I can live with being able to retrain multiple units per turn, perhaps if it was tweaked down to 4 or 6 it would help balance issues a bit. I really dislike being able to re-train units while they retain their current XP level. The AI simply doesn't take advantage of the games we can play with retraining high XP units. As per a dev post over at .com: (*Dutch is a CA programmer*)

Dutch
Moderator
Posts: 141
(10/5/04 1:55 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del Re: What's the go with retraining?
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Retraining can do two things:

1) if the settlement can produce that type of unit, it will replenish the unit with new soldiers *at the units average experience level*; these soldiers are subtracted from the settlement population as normal
2) if the settlement can produce armour or weapon upgrades for which the unit is eligible and which it does not already have, retraining will add these to the unit being retrained

If the settlement can do both, it will do so. Replenishment costs a proportion of the unit's cost in denari, while retraining for upgrades costs a nominal amount per upgrade. You can retrain as many units as will fit into the recruitment queue in one turn, although you end up paying for all of them. Hence it is often better to retrain a lot of old units if you need troops quickly, rather than recruiting new.

[Bob the Insane]

I can live with being able to retrain multiple units per turn, perhaps if it was tweaked down to 4 or 6 it would help balance issues a bit. I really dislike being able to re-train units while they retain their current XP level. The AI simply doesn't take advantage of the games we can play with retraining high XP units. As per a dev post over at .com

I have to agree with this, the replacements should really be at 0 experience unless there are buildings to boost experience IMO, thus bringing down the average experience of the unit...

I guess there is some justification for reinforcing a experienced unit resulting in the reinforcement being better trained or something, but it is so open to abuse. If you have depleted units it is best to combine them in such a way as the least experienced are reinforced in the field and the most experienced only have a couple of guys left and then rebuild them in a city...

And love the sig about the pointy hat. Just love it.

cheers... I was about to change my sig to one of the nutter battle speeches, the one that goes "anyone who gets through this battle alive will be my sister and there will be free frocks and jollies for everyone, see if there isn't!!". What do you think??

[Bob the Insane]

I will add to this discussion:

What about the Generals with their auto regenerating units...

In my Germanian campaign I don't have any Governors, all the generals (8 of them) travel with the army and make up a formidable cavalry line which has single handedly won many battles for me... And the auto regenerate the unit over time without having to go back to a city!!

It was cool at first, but as the number of Generals grew, it has started to feel like an exploit...

[Red Harvest]

I think this is incorrect. I've tested retraining gold chevron biremes and silver chevron roman cavalry and the retraining cost per man is the same as recruiting a green unit if the unit being retrained isn't receiving any armor/weapon upgrades. I can't find the post, but i've read the cost per level for armour/weapon is something like 90/120 per unit. So if you have a gold chevron unit, with no upgrades but are retaining in a town with a foundry you've got to pay four hundred more just for the upgrades.

No, it is correct, at least in some situations. In my most recent campaign I was finding it really expensive to add even a few men back to 120 man units because they had tons of experience (often three silver chevrons). There were other units with good experience that needed more men and they were taking about the same amount of money (and sometimes less.) I found it much cheaper to take a more recently trained unit (from the same town) and use it to fill the gaps in the other units then retrain it. Same number of men, but the lower experience level saved me enough money to train several other units. Sure, I got a bit less experience, but experience was superfluous for these units anyway since they were winning so easily and building experience in a few turns.

The problem gets back to the training of recruits to the experience level of the unit. It doesn't make sense, green guys with high experience with no special training structures.

[TheDuck]

I have to agree with this, the replacements should really be at 0 experience unless there are buildings to boost experience IMO, thus bringing down the average experience of the unit...

I guess there is some justification for reinforcing a experienced unit resulting in the reinforcement being better trained or something, but it is so open to abuse. If you have depleted units it is best to combine them in such a way as the least experienced are reinforced in the field and the most experienced only have a couple of guys left and then rebuild them in a city...



cheers... I was about to change my sig to one of the nutter battle speeches, the one that goes "anyone who gets through this battle alive will be my sister and there will be free frocks and jollies for everyone, see if there isn't!!". What do you think??

ROFL!! I like the new sig too!!! Very very difficult to choose. Although I like the more 'world domination' theme of the pointy hat sig. :)

Is 'nutter' a site on the net? Or a comic I'm unfamiliar with? (I'm an American, but one with an appreciation for British style humor.. I'm quite an odd bird here)

[Bhruic]

But it is not "immediately" it is 6 months of occupation later you have rebuilt your forces from the local populance as long as the province has sufficient population, you have sufficient funds and the army you are talking about is only 8 units...

Sorry, you are mistaken. Turns all take place within the same 6 months. So if I attack and take a city during my turn, when the AI takes their turn, it is the same time period. The 6 months don't pass until we are all finished.

Game play wise I don't see the issue, this function is just as available to the AI, and I don't come across understrength units anymore unless I am chasing down an army I have already attacked...

I see understrength units quite often... But that's not really the point. As has been repeatedly pointed out, the human player can exploit this system much better than the AI ever will. That means that we've given yet another advantage to the human player, when the AI had enough trouble to begin with.

Bh

[TheDuck]

No, it is correct, at least in some situations. In my most recent campaign I was finding it really expensive to add even a few men back to 120 man units because they had tons of experience (often three silver chevrons). There were other units with good experience that needed more men and they were taking about the same amount of money (and sometimes less.) I found it much cheaper to take a more recently trained unit (from the same town) and use it to fill the gaps in the other units then retrain it. Same number of men, but the lower experience level saved me enough money to train several other units. Sure, I got a bit less experience, but experience was superfluous for these units anyway since they were winning so easily and building experience in a few turns.

The problem gets back to the training of recruits to the experience level of the unit. It doesn't make sense, green guys with high experience with no special training structures.

This I agree with. Recruits are recruits. There is no substitute for real experience other than the doing. I use the old MTW system of consolidating all my guys into experience stacks then retraining the depleted greenhorn stack. Its efficient in cash and feels right..

And on the question of 'fun factor', I never use cheat codes, ever. Yet lots of folks do. This whole area kinda comes under the same heading for me. Its there to use/abuse if you wish, but there are other ways to achieve it that are more consistent and 'fair' if you want to play that way (which I do). And I think the AI uses this feature.. but its ok since I think it needs any bit of help it can get.