Getting armor, weapon and valor upgrades via retraining

**andrewt** · 11-23-2006, 09:37

How do people feel about this? It might be a balance change but I find it kinda cumbersome to train a unit then have to retrain them to get the valor, armor and weapon bonuses from buildings in that settlement. I've retrained some Venetian heavy infantry and the retraining costs to get the upgrades they have available (valor+1 and second to last plate) is 320 florins. I think their base cost is 570 or something so it's pretty expensive.

**Rothe** · 11-23-2006, 09:45

I have noticed the same thing. The upgrading option is nice, but the cost is high. Also, the slots are spent on upgrading units, so you can no longer upgrade units and train 3 new units at the same time even if the upgrade units are at full strenght.

**econ21** · 11-23-2006, 10:41

I don't have a good feel for the numbers yet, but a +1 here or there does not seem a big deal when unit defences vary between 0 and 22+. I guess armour varies a lot less, so maybe upgrades are more of a help against missiles?

I tend to view one off payments for troops as almost irrelevant - the key thing for me is the upkeep. Hopefully your units stick around for a long time, so the cumulative upkeep will dwarf the purchase cost. Upgrading a unit rather than building a new one may make sense if you want to keep your total upkeep under control.

But generally, I would only upgrade where convenient, but unless it was a depleted veteran unit I would generally not prioritise it over investing in buildings or new units.

**denmj** · 11-23-2006, 10:42

I have also found that I don't get the upgrades all the time either atleast for the +1 valor/experiance. The weapons and armor I get each time. But the +1 seems to be hit or miss. And this is with units trained in that castle.

Made 3 archers got a woodsmans guild. Retrained all three and one gets upgraded the other two do not. I tried to train them again as they showed up under retraining but it just took my money and no upgrade.

**Shahed** · 12-01-2006, 10:51

That's happening to me right now.

I had about 15-16 Turcomen without any armor, on campaign against the Eastern Rebel cities.

While they were on campaign I built a padder (?) and then a blacksmith for light mail armor. Then I bring them back about 15% manpower depletion. I put them in que to retrain at the blacksmith thinking I'd get the armor PLUS manpower upgrade.

Sure enough they were retrained, brought to full strength. but NO armor upgrade at all, not leather or light mail. I paid however, for a full upgrade.

So now I have the Barneys knocking at my Western gates and I'd really like to have this Turcomen army upgraded before the next campaign.

Can anyone help ? Am I following the correct sequence/procedure ? Is this a bug ?

edit: had a look in the manual on pg 30-31 of the mainland europe-english version, according to that all you have to do is build the buildings required and an armorer. The higher the level of the armorer the higher level it can upgrade.

I'd be happy if it upgraded to light mail. That would be enough... lol !

**FrauGloer** · 12-01-2006, 10:59

Yep, has happened to me, too. I had a Master Chapter House of St. John (+2 Exp.) in Jerusalem plus a Master Swordsmith in Nottingham (+1 Exp. for Knights global), but all knights trained in Jerusalem come out at 0. The thing is, when it was still a Major Chapter house, all units came out at 2 Experience. It seem kind of random (bugged?) to me...

**Rothe** · 12-01-2006, 11:04

I think it is just that the city does not have enough of the units for you to recruit, but you certainly can always train up the armor.

The solution is to join units, so that you retrain the manpower depletion by retraining only one seriously undermanned unit instead of multiple ones that lack only 15% men. You can retrain the full units (after joining units to get one full and one depleted one) without spending the recruiting pool in the city/castle. If you try to retrain multiple units with only a few men missing from each, each of them uses up one unit allotment in the recruitment pool and the recharge rate is limited by your buildings.

To effectively join units, do this.

Unit A - at 85% of original strength - valor +2
Unit B - at 85 % original - valor 0

Join the valor 2 unit to the 0 valor unit, to get a depleted unit with at least valor 2 and a full unit.

The way the joining works is that the least experienced men move to the other unit, which might leave you with more valor in the depleted unit than it had before joining.

When you retrain a depleted unit, the new men have the same valor as the average valor is (the one shown in the unit card). This helps you to build experienced armies.

If you can, fill up as many units as you can with your most experienced one without totally using it up, the core of the unit might have 2 more exp than the men you sent out of the unit, and with retraining the unit can "gain" 1-2 valor.

**Shahed** · 12-01-2006, 11:15

That's a very useful post, thanks. Excellent explanation of how to merge units.

Now, that is exactly what I am doing, and have been since I noticed this valor 'upgrade' when I merged two units at random. So now I have already merged units and am putting them through the retraining mainly for the armor upgrade. There are enough units in the unit pool but it's still not working.

So this means the reason is not that there are not enough units in the unit pool. Actually if there are not enough units in the unit pool, you cannot retrain for manpower at all. In my case they are being retrained for manpower but not for armor.