Kings cannot retool. If they try... blammo

**Grond** · 10-27-2005, 17:24

You all probably know that Kings cannot retool, that is, go through training to get better armor / sword upgrades. You cannot put them into the queue. The game will not let you.

Your princes, however, can retool.

So what happens when the prince next in line for king is in the queue to be retrained, and your king keels over from the Fandango Fan Dancing Disease making the rounds of your kingdom?

As you all know as well, when your king is crowned, he magically teleports to the most developed area of the kingdom and becomes a rearing horse instead of a guy in armor icon. They give him a big honkin wax seal and a foofy robe, a crown resplendent with tonnes of jewelry ransacked from other less fortunate kingdoms, and he gets to call everyone thee and talk about himself in the third person plural. ("We are pleas'd to see thee.") But if he's also in a queue, you've got a ticking time bomb that will end the world as you know it, or at least that iteration of the game. Cause the moment that king's unit hits the retooling factory, you'll see your screen go black and then you'll be looking at that stupid "Send error message to microsoft, as if they could or would do anything to fix it?" message.

So it went:
Me: (Noting there is an icon in the queue for the king's unit that has 0/0 stats. 0 men, 0 valour?) WTF? (Try to remove it; not successful. Hit "End Turn button.")

Game: Crash! Burn!

Me: !$#*^@&!#&*(#&*(~!

I blamed the French, since they're the largest faction in my game and they're everywhere, but when I went back to my saved game, I made sure the prince first in line for the king wasn't in any retooling queues, just to be sure. Success.

**miho** · 10-27-2005, 17:49

Interesting. I didn't know about retooling. How do you do that?
Have you tried to put your king in a province which had an armourer and a metalsmith because when your heir matures he appears in the province where your king is. If he appears there he might get the weapons and armour upgrades as do the units that are trained there.

**Grond** · 10-27-2005, 18:04

Originally Posted by miho

Interesting. I didn't know about retooling. How do you do that?
Have you tried to put your king in a province which had an armourer and a metalsmith because when your heir matures he appears in the province where your king is. If he appears there he might get the weapons and armour upgrades as do the units that are trained there.

Yar, by retooling, you take old units and you can put them in a province with, as you put it, an armourer and a metalsmith. Open the unit ordering window, where you would normally select new units, click on your old unit to be retooled, and lift the unit from your center bottom window into one of the order boxes. (I hope that makes sense.) Your old unit will receive any new armor/weapon bonuses, and will be topped up with new 0 valor troops to fill out the compliment of numbers. Thus, after an army has been chopped up in battle, and you have 2 archers left in a unit out of 120, you can do this trick, which will take only 1 year instead of the usual 2 years for a new unit.

It took me a few days to figure out how to do this, as they mention it in the manual but it wasn't clear how it was done to me at first.

So, speed and cost are two factors on retooling.

I have noted that the new heirs come out with the bonuses of the province they're "born" in, that is, whereever the king was the year they turned 16. Gold sword, gold shield, those are some tough units (and slow!).

**Vladimir** · 10-27-2005, 18:53

Once he's king he should stay out of battles anyway and just breed generals. Keep him garrisoned in your most teched up providence and the heirs that mature will have all the enhancements.

**Ironside** · 10-27-2005, 18:57

Originally Posted by Grond

I have noted that the new heirs come out with the bonuses of the province they're "born" in, that is, whereever the king was the year they turned 16. Gold sword, gold shield, those are some tough units (and slow!).

Slow? Unless you're playing the Byz, your royal cav is as fast as the average speed cav (those without the mentioning of fast in thier description), no matter thier upgrades.

**HopAlongBunny** · 10-28-2005, 03:38

This glitch has been around since MTW came out and worth repeating. Two things help get around it: 1) keep king where there is just "the best of everything" so his sons get it automatically; 2) hit cntl-S at the end of each turn so if you get the CTD you don't lose too much-this alao helps with other CTD issues.

**Ciaran** · 10-28-2005, 17:00

Some minor corrections, if you don´t mind:
"We" is first person plural

And archers need only one turn to train, at least in the plain, unmodded game, as do all units but ships or artillery. Retraining, therefore isn´t faster than retraining, especially since retraining is done just like production, one unit a time, unlike RTW.

The king is teleported home? I never noticed, I always thought he remained where he was as a prince. I´ll have to pay closer attention to my king.

**Grond** · 10-28-2005, 19:41

Originally Posted by HopAlongBunny

This glitch has been around since MTW came out and worth repeating. Two things help get around it: 1) keep king where there is just "the best of everything" so his sons get it automatically; 2) hit cntl-S at the end of each turn so if you get the CTD you don't lose too much-this alao helps with other CTD issues.

Ah, I'm part of the "second wave" MTW players who showed up when it started being sold at Target for $10.00. We're just discovering the game, while most of the 1500 post folks are like, "Yawn. Yes. We've played that game. We've moved on to BI."

**miho** · 10-29-2005, 23:00

Well if you think of it its quite logical that kings cannot retool. If they could it would mean that they are absent for some time and can't happen in medieval.

**AntiochusIII** · 10-30-2005, 01:53

Originally Posted by miho

Well if you think of it its quite logical that kings cannot retool. If they could it would mean that they are absent for some time and can't happen in medieval.

Not really. Retooling only means getting your hands on that new, shiny set of swords and plate armour to keep yourself up-to-date in Medieval fashion.

And the most number of buildings are considered the "capital." If it so happens that there are more than one province with the most buildings around, the one that reached that point first will be chosen.

Originally Posted by tigger_on_vrb

That turn my sultan died and the new sultan turned up......come on I'm sure you've guessed it by now.........Champagne!

Ah, you have no one else to blame on the fact that you allowed Champagne to develop itself farther than any of your provinces--especially since you have Constantinople in hand.

**tigger_on_vrb** · 10-30-2005, 15:46

Originally Posted by AntiochusIII

Ah, you have no one else to blame on the fact that you allowed Champagne to develop itself farther than any of your provinces--especially since you have Constantinople in hand.

I think this tells us the answer to what we were discussing - Constantinople (and Egypt, Rum and others for that matter!) had a citadels and champagne had a castle and I had much higher level buildings, but because of my province specialisation had less number of buildings