Experience growth

**Foz** · 12-21-2006, 16:42

Originally Posted by Kraxis

It makes it far too easy... And you have not earned it at all.

It is counterproductive to have feature where it pays to use undermanned units. Don't you agree?
100 men = bad, 15 men = great...

Well yes... and no. On the one hand, I very much dislike that the retrained unit comes out at the exp level of what few men were remaining that had exp. Clearly the men you recruit into a veteran unit are as green as the men when the unit was first created, and should not fight as well as the few vets that remain from the old group.

On the other hand, I would also suggest that the effect of having several experienced men in a unit of otherwise green troops should not only afford the unit the fighting experience of those few men. What I'm getting at is that the presence of veteran troops in a combat unit actually helps the combat effectiveness of the unit as a whole, not just those few hardened men. Green troops pick up tips and strategies from more experienced troops, benefit from the increased competence and military prowess of those vet troops who would fill unit-level command roles, and fight more confidently when they have experienced troops nearby to look up to and validate what they're doing (by example).

So for the sake of balance, but to still allow for some effect of having experienced troops commanding and fighting beside the green ones, the best I've got is the following: each unit with a soldier with 1-3 exp (any number of bronze chevrons) affords each man in it a base 1-exp level. They can have more than that if they've earned it, but would default to 1 exp instead of 0. Each unit with a soldier of 4-6 exp (any number of silver chevrons) instead affords his entire unit a 2-exp level of fighting. Similarly, a unit which has any 7-9 exp soldiers (any number of gold chevrons) would get a base 3-chevron level. This puts a mostly-green unit with some experienced soldiers always in the 1-3 exp range, between 1/3 and 1/2 of the original unit's exp typically (since the few remaining higher-exp men won't influence the average exp enough to make the unit exp any higher than the base levels I assigned). I think this would be an elegant solution to the balance troubles, giving us appropriate but not broken benefits to retraining those experienced troops.

**katank** · 12-21-2006, 17:07

That solution is pretty good. If you stuff simply raw recruits in, then it negates the effect of retraining etc.

BTW, the numbers system is fairly broken. Since morale penalties apply to %casualties taken counting from the start of the battle, then it would be better to have equal numbers of smaller units. This is also next to the maneuver advantages.

I.e. compared to 1 unit of 20 men, 20 units of 1 man each is strictly better (assuming exact same troops) as you'd never see any units rout in the 1 man/unit case.

**Foz** · 12-22-2006, 07:08

Originally Posted by katank

BTW, the numbers system is fairly broken. Since morale penalties apply to %casualties taken counting from the start of the battle, then it would be better to have equal numbers of smaller units. This is also next to the maneuver advantages.

I.e. compared to 1 unit of 20 men, 20 units of 1 man each is strictly better (assuming exact same troops) as you'd never see any units rout in the 1 man/unit case.

Strictly better... hmm. From the standpoint of routing, yes, but not on the whole. Attempting to control an entire army 1 man at a time using the interface would be the most pointless undertaking of my life, and I've done some really pointless things. That, plus your army would be 20 or 30 men, since that's a full stack of one-man units! I don't mind a few troops here and there routing, and if it's the only price I pay for being able to group and push around 100s of men at a time and keep 1000-man armies marching around the globe, you can sign me up anytime.

Besides, they're supposed to be able to rout - it's what people do when it becomes hopeless. If I just watched 19 of my buddies get gutted on a wall of pikes and am the only one left standing, whether or not we're flying the same unit colors I'm turning tail and trying to get the heck out of there. I'd get cut down anyway, but at least I'd die fleeing valiantly

**antisocialmunky** · 12-22-2006, 15:32

Hehehe, harkons back to the STW days where I would run around with full stacks of Kensei for fun.

**katank** · 12-22-2006, 16:35

Which reminds me. I really want kensais in this game. I dunno, maybe Renaissance Swashbucklers or something. Or maybe faction specific 1 man hero units like Robin Hood for the English (heck, we already have his men in tights).

**antisocialmunky** · 12-22-2006, 17:35

Originally Posted by katank

Which reminds me. I really want kensais in this game. I dunno, maybe Renaissance Swashbucklers or something. Or maybe faction specific 1 man hero units like Robin Hood for the English (heck, we already have his men in tights).

It would be kinda cool to have each side's 'champions' or something fight before a battle - though, not very practical.