New player could use some help with specifics

[bretwalda]

Doesn't a cathedral give a morale boost to troops trained there as well? IIRC it does so its worth having in a troop training province.

In MTW VI it says +3 morale upgrade. Is it cumulative with church and relinquary? In my Hungarian game I try to build in Hungary, so that iron and moral boost will give uber troops

[LittleJohn]

Ok I have another dumb question
How do you merge units? I hear lots of talk about it but havent been able to figure it out Would also be nice if I could split then since I play with huge groups and would be nice to have only 100 peasants at times.
While I am findeing the beginners guide useful it has lots of tips like I didnt know your govorners would get vices if you have high taxes no wonder I get so many vices! But most of it is common sense, basic strategy and often tells you to read the manual. And for some reason I cant download stuff from this site so I am haveing to read it online.

[bretwalda]

Automerge: press 'M' while the army is selected. You can press 'M' while the province is selected: then all of the armies are merged that are in the province (observing the 16 unit limit, of course).

You can also pull the units over each other: the same type will merge.

I do not know any way to split. If you have depleted units you can try the above trick.

Ok I have another dumb question
How do you merge units? I hear lots of talk about it but havent been able to figure it out Would also be nice if I could split then since I play with huge groups and would be nice to have only 100 peasants at times.
While I am findeing the beginners guide useful it has lots of tips like I didnt know your govorners would get vices if you have high taxes no wonder I get so many vices! But most of it is common sense, basic strategy and often tells you to read the manual. And for some reason I cant download stuff from this site so I am haveing to read it online.

[Procrustes]

You can only merge, not split. Also, there is an option to turn the "automerge" off - you get to it by clicking on the right-hand side of the global map (where it kinda looks like a triangle pointing to the right.) If you don't turn it off the computer "tidies" your units for you after each battle.

Merging is a little goofy, I tend to do it manually a lot of the time. Two very depleated units will merge into one and you will loose one of your commanders - you don't always get to pick which one. (Generals and units with vices don't seem to disappear, though.) Also, it seems to me that when I have a depleted multi-star general and I merge him with another unit of the same type, it's the general that looses men not the other unit. Very frustrating.

[Lacker]

Something really important to keep in mind!!


When merging, you can transfer upgrades to armies that don't have them.

For example. Lets pretend I created a NEW unit of Mounted Sergents in Sweden, with a Master armorour/swordsmith/spearmaker and the best Iron building possible. That unit will have a little gold sword, AND gold shield due to all the upgrades.

Now, pretend that after a battle there are only 10 of them left and I merge them with a full unit that was mustered in Finland with NO upgrades consisting of 40 men. It's possible to switch the upgrade to the unit with 40 men. This will give you a unit with all the upgrades and 40 men and a depleted unit of 10 men and NO upgrades.

It seems to be a bit of a glitch, because I'm not exactly sure how sending 10 men to fight with a unit of 40 gives EVERYONE better armor and swords but hey it works for me! Quick and easy way to replenish an upgraded unit without rebuilding it. I try to keep "reserve" troops in one province consisting of at least one unit of each type. That way after a battle that involves upgraded troops I can replenish their ranks with the vanilla troops but still keep the upgrade.

A

[MidnitePiper]

How do you merge units?

Select the army - in the window at the bottom of the screen the units within the army stack are shown. Select any unit from that screen, drag and drop onto another unit - men will be removed from the unit you did the drag and drop on and placed into the unit you 'dropped' them on. The only variation is when the two units can merge without any leftovers - e.g. two 50-man archer units can make a single 100-man archer unit. When that happens, the commander the unit being dropped assumes command of the entire force (provided both generals are 0-command star and no V&Vs); the commander of the unit they are dropped onto vanishes into the combined unit. Any time a commander has command stars or V&Vs, he can no longer be merged into another unit - you can give him troops, but you can't vanish him into another leaders' unit. I'm constantly disbanding 1-man units of Sybaritic, Lazy, Strange unit commanders - once I've turned their men over to someone else...

Edit:

When merging, you can transfer upgrades to armies that don't have them.

This is a tool I use constantly - a single leader with armor or weapons bonuses - transfer a bunch of men without any upgrades at all into his command and his entire unit will benefit from whatever armor/weapons upgrades he has. Unlike valor, which is tracked on a man-by-man basis, armor and weapon upgrades seem to belong to the unit, not the individual.

Justification: I always figured that the commander just kept the weapons and armor of the dead - a little morbid maybe ("Here's some armor - yes, that's blood and waste, just clean it") but not a lot worse than giving a new guy a cot that belonged to someone who just died...

[bretwalda]

Hmm, are you sure about this upgrade through merging thing? I read somewhere that the game keeps track of the soldiers one by one not just entire units... That can possibly mean, that you may see an armor upgrade but in matter of fact only 10 men in that unit have it...

[Lacker]

I dunno, it lists it as an upgrade on the unit list....looks good to me..

[Procrustes]

Hmm, are you sure about this upgrade through merging thing? I read somewhere that the game keeps track of the soldiers one by one not just entire units... That can possibly mean, that you may see an armor upgrade but in matter of fact only 10 men in that unit have it...

I've seen it said that that is how valor works when you merge - you can see the new unit gets something like a weighted average of the two source units. I assumed it worked the same for armor, but perhaps not.

[bretwalda]

I've seen it said that that is how valor works when you merge - you can see the new unit gets something like a weighted average of the two source units. I assumed it worked the same for armor, but perhaps not.

Well, it can be tested one way. Maybe someone can do this because I don't have the patience it requires ;)

Here: take a unit with an upgrade that has only the leader left, or merge with another, so that all men go the the other unit only the leader remains. Anyway: you have a 1 man unit with lets say silver upgrade. Now fill the unit up with a no upgrade unit. Make sure that (theoretically) only 1 man has the upgrade in the unit (the leader). Now go to a battle with this unit and make sure the leader of the unit dies, but there are survivors in the unit. Next year check the unit whether it has the upgrade or not. q.e.d. (either way )

[Ludens]

Hmm, are you sure about this upgrade through merging thing? I read somewhere that the game keeps track of the soldiers one by one not just entire units... That can possibly mean, that you may see an armor upgrade but in matter of fact only 10 men in that unit have it...

The game keeps track of valour individually, but not armour and weapons. You should be able to test this with the battle logfiles. It is a bit of a debate how the game keeps track of morale upgrades and that elusive 'discipline' upgrade, but I don't think it works individually. However, I can't prove it.