couple of noobish questions!

[Ripken]

I didn't know you could do all that, but I do know, thank you!

[Ripken]

I didn't know you could do all that, but I do know, thank you!

Of course, I meant 'now' not 'know' the second time!

[gunslinger]

I like the tooltips because they allow me to find out what faction a boat, army or castle belong to if I'm not familiar with the colors.

On the subject of sorting out the armies, once my standing armies start getting bigger than one stack, I generally separate them into four groups: spears, swords, cavalry, and archers. This allows me to reorganize fairly quickly after a battle. It also makes it easier to figure out the composition of an army in each province. If I need to shift some troops to a province that just got hammered in a defensive battle, I can easily see if the surrounding provinces have a couple extra spear units or whatever. If you use this trick, just remember that the individual stacks will probably have 0 star generals, which is fine as long as there is a good general in the province in case of attack. You just have to make sure that whoever is the "general" for each stack has decent loyalty or you'll end up with a rebellion on your hands.

[Martok]

I always disable everything except for autosave (although I'll occasionally enable "see computer moves"). Everything else is a hamper for me and unnecessary besides. I don't need 7 messages telling me I've just finished building a Swordsmith's Guild, nor do I need to see where everyone's emissaries are travelling to.

Like gunslinger, I also organize my soldiers by unit type when I have multiple stacks in a province. It definitely helps with keeping them organized after battles, and also allows me to make sure I have the proper troop composition for the province in which the army is stationed.

[Ripken]

Ok, another valour question: if I have units that have been involved in a particularly bloody battle (in this case an uphill attack against high quality troops with a 2:1 advantage in numbers, albeit only rebels) and have gained 2-3 points of valour but lost 70%+ casualties in some cases, should I send them for re-training and lose some of that valour, or cobble them together in to larger units where it is possible to do so?

That was a long sentance wasn't it!

[caravel]

Merge them with another high valour unit. I often stockpile these types of units until I can merge them with units of a similar average valour. Remember that valour is an average. The individual valour of every individual man is tracked by the game during a campaign. This means that you may have a veteran unit of 20 royal bodyguards with this sort of valour:

3 2 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Average valour (3+2+2+2+1)/20=0.5 (valour 0)

They go into battle, don't fight, but ten of the worst are killed by missiles leaving:

3 2 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0

Average valour (3+2+2+2+1)/10=1 (valour 1)

They're not really any better, but AFAIK they will now get any attack/morale/defence bonuses due to the unit having 1 point of valour. The downside is that the unit is much smaller and not as effective.

So those 0 valour tail enders make a big difference. If you had a remnant unit of 15 valour 6 Feudal Men at Arms and retrained it, you could expect to see all of that valour diluted by the green troops.

[Ripken]

So those 0 valour tail enders make a big difference. If you had a remnant unit of 15 valour 6 Feudal Men at Arms and retrained it, you could expect to see all of that valour diluted by the green troops.

Yes, this is pretty much what happened! My problem was that my first 'gold' armour province came on line just after this particular battle, so I sent all the battered units there to get shiny new kit.

I was also rather annoyed that my general's valour 12 RK unit somehow ended up at valour 8 after the battle. It lost 3/4 of its strength, which may have been all the 'best' men, but it was in the thick of the fighting throughout so the rest should surely have gained plenty of valour?! Hey ho.

[Adrian II]

Like gunslinger, I also organize my soldiers by unit type when I have multiple stacks in a province.

There is a downside to this: when your province has 960+ troops in unit by unit stacks and the province is attacked, the AI wil group those units into an army for you and it will stack them in order of their entry into the province.

Beware of this effect, or you may end up on the battlefield with a totally clumsy army composed of, for instance, 14 Spearmen units, one unit of 3 Royal Knights (whose commander is a 'Coward') and one unit of 11 Elite Crossbowmen...

[macsen rufus]

One other thing to consider with your fragmented units - if one of the unit leaders has a valour-increasing virtue/vice (like "Famously brave" or "Pride") you can give him the lower-valour dregs, as his VnVs will boost them to his level. Or alternatively, send this unit back to your gold-plating province to be retrained.

[gunslinger]

There is a downside to this: when your province has 960+ troops in unit by unit stacks and the province is attacked, the AI wil group those units into an army for you and it will stack them in order of their entry into the province.

Beware of this effect, or you may end up on the battlefield with a totally clumsy army composed of, for instance, 14 Spearmen units, one unit of 3 Royal Knights (whose commander is a 'Coward') and one unit of 11 Elite Crossbowmen...

I don't think I've ever had this problem. When you go to the pre-battle screen you can pull whatever units you want out of the reinforcements pool and put them on as your starting army. If you have the Viking Invasion add on you can even arrange your reinforcements to come on in whatever order you wish.

[Digital]

When your empire gets big, the position of your king has a very direct influence on the loyalties of provinces you hold. You should make sure that your king can ideally travel to anywhere of your empire within a turn or one year. To see this effect, try isolating your king on an island, cutting off all shipping routes from that island and check the loyalties of your provinces. Some remote province with a small garrison may even revolt.

[Martok]

There is a downside to this: when your province has 960+ troops in unit by unit stacks and the province is attacked, the AI wil group those units into an army for you and it will stack them in order of their entry into the province.

Beware of this effect, or you may end up on the battlefield with a totally clumsy army composed of, for instance, 14 Spearmen units, one unit of 3 Royal Knights (whose commander is a 'Coward') and one unit of 11 Elite Crossbowmen...

Do you not have Viking Invasion, Adrian?

[Sensei Warrior]

I used to always retrain my units instead of regrouping vetran units. I've been playing a campaign as the Sicilians and started grouping vetran units together. Man it makes a big, big difference when the high valor units go into battle, especially when the majority of the soldiers have high valor instead of half of them being green.

Can't wait to get them shiny new equiptment, so I can watch them mow down my enemies.

Macsen rufus' suggestion about using valor increasing generals to boost the dregs could be used to give an entirely green army a boost so more survive, to gain valour, to merge with your high valor guys. I did that with an army where the peasant general had one of those virtues. How the General gained the virtue is beyond me considering he was on permanent garrison duty. Maybe he was just created that way, I wasn't really paying attention when it happened.

[Adrian II]

Do you not have Viking Invasion, Adrian?

Sure, I have VI with teh fancy pre-battle screen, but not everyone else has - and besides, if you autocalculate a battle without checking your troops you can get the same nasty surprises in VI as in ordinary M:TW.