Some basic VI questions

[Derfasciti]

I've gotta couple questions that could use some answering:

What exactly is valor and what does it do for you?

Are fyrd or spearmen better? Spearmen for instance say weak attack, whereas fyrd says nothing about attack at all.

I'm sure I'll think of something to ask later on but for now this is it.

[Ironside]

I've gotta couple questions that could use some answering:

What exactly is valor and what does it do for you?

Are fyrd or spearmen better? Spearmen for instance say weak attack, whereas fyrd says nothing about attack at all.

I'm sure I'll think of something to ask later on but for now this is it.

Valour gives +1 to attack and defense and that's about equal to a 30% combat increase. If you press F1 during battle a chart with all your unit stats will show up.

In this case, nothing is better than weak. Nothing is used as a kind of standard, a comment will only be displayed when thing are either better or worse than this standard.
Fyrdmen is better, they got higher morale and higher attack so.

[seireikhaan]

Well, I was going to answer this, but there's not much left to say. Well done Ironside!

[Lord Cazaric]

I personally prefer spearmen, especially armoured spearmen.

100 armoured spearmen and 120 archers once killed 4000 of my cavalry, due to terrible battlefield placement and unit choice on my part. They also had the positional advantage.

[EatYerGreens]

Valour also increases the morale of a unit - usually by 2 points of morale for every 1 point of valour.

For a full understanding of why some units gained valour at the end of a battle, while others didn't, take a look at the battle logs afterwards.

(If you havn't done so already, you'll need to enable the battle logfiles by ticking the box in the game options menu).

The unit's valour is actually an average of all its members individual valour scores. Retraining a valoured cadre will top it up with fresh 0-valour troops and thus lower its average, although the previous members retain their valour record, as will be seen if they go into battle again.

Because of this averaging business it turns out that, a lot of the time, the valour gained in battle is mostly a side-effect of suffering a high percentage of casualties.

It is probably better to merge valoured veteran cadres together, to maintain their high average, than to retrain them. The benefits of the improved valour are at least as good, or better, than those of the improved equipment.

[Derfasciti]

Thanks for the info, and I've forgotten exactly how to retrain units.

[Deus ret.]

EatYerGreens explained most relevant points. It should be added, though, that there's a difference between a unit's own valour level and additional points bestowed upon it by the general's command rating. The +1att / +1def bonus is granted for every point of valour, but the valour bonus received from the general doesn't add to morale. So, a unit with 2 own valour and 2 additional from thge general will have a bonus of +4 att and def and +4 morale from its own valour level.

Thanks for the info, and I've forgotten exactly how to retrain units.

Simple: Open the recruitment panel in the province where the unit to be retrained (it has to be there, of course) and drag it in the recruitment queue. Note that unlike RTW retraining takes a full turn per unit in MTW, so you might be better off recruiting a new one.

[caravel]

Fyrdmen are in fact equal to Feudal Sergeants, so when it comes to Fyrdmen vs Spearmen there is no competition - the men of the Fyrd are superior in every way.

Armoured Spearmen have better armour and defence though lower base morale and melee stats, when compared to Fyrdmen, but are not available to the English anyway.

[EatYerGreens]

Well, I was actually suggesting merging of broken veteran units in preference to using retraining to get them back to full strength but what you can actualy do is merge first, to get one back to full strength (plus a few leftover men) and then send it home for retraining where, in fact, they will just be re-equipped, without harm to their valour average.

The downside to retraining is that it can be a long round-trip (years) to get to the province which has the required training/upgrading facilities and then back to the frontline. Additionally, some units can only be trained in one specific province (e.g. Gallowglass/Highland Clansmen) and a naval blockade just delays the trips even further. They may be of more practical use by staying where they are and making do without the equipment upgrades.

[General Dazza]

100 armoured spearmen and 120 archers once killed 4000 of my cavalry, due to terrible battlefield placement and unit choice on my part. They also had the positional advantage.

Holy cow! What was the story re placement etc?

[bamff]

Holy cow! What was the story re placement etc?

Was there a bridge involved? And did they have an uber-general leading them?

[Caerfanan]

Was there a bridge involved? And did they have an uber-general leading them?

Yes, and what type of cavalry was it?

[caravel]

Holy cow! What was the story re placement etc?

Exactly the same thing happened to me once, when I fell asleep drunk at the controls during a battle...

[Caerfanan]

What exactly is valor and what does it do for you?

Valour is a mix between experience and spirits inspired by your leader. your soldiers gain valour while fighting enemies off, and those valour point give +1 attack, +1 defense and +2 morale. Your good general can inspire greatness by his living example (not leaving, right? ), giving +1 "valour" for every two stars he had (rounded down: 3 stars = 2 stars), this valour point gives +1 attack and +1 defence "only"

As said, pressing F1 sduring the battle provides you with the full stats!

Are fyrd or spearmen better? Spearmen for instance say weak attack, whereas fyrd says nothing about attack at all.

There is a unit comparison tool in this adress: http://totalwar.co.kr/medieval/indexx.html (I don't know how ta say "here" and put the adress behind...). The difference between fyrds and plain spearmen is as follows: they have 0 attack instead of -1, and 2 morale instead of 0. Be cautious about the descriptions; YOu have very weak=>weak=>nothing=>good=>very good=>excellent. Mostly. Each standing for a range of values. So beware that "good" can mean 3 or 4!

[Raz]

Not sure if this has already been said, but when in battle, tap F1 (Don't forget to pause it before hand). And a table with unit stats will pop up. There you can view which units will be better at certain tasks. I thought that a unit of same type was pretty much the same as any other 'till I found this. Just with slightly different attack or something. But my, *Presses F1 and gasps at the morale differences*

I knew I shouldn't have sent those pikemen across the bridge.

[macsen rufus]

Exactly the same thing happened to me once, when I fell asleep drunk at the controls during a battle...

Been there, done that, tee-shirt etc etc - the worst thing is being woken up by the sound of your general routing That's why the drinker line of vices hits your command stats....

BUT regarding the original question, in the VI campaign at least (not sure about the main campaign) fyrdmen also have lower upkeep costs than spearmen.

[Martok]

Another nice thing about Fyrdmen is that they have pretty low build requirements a don't require a lot of teching up.

Exactly the same thing happened to me once, when I fell asleep drunk at the controls during a battle...

I've fought battles while drunk before, but I can't say that I've ever passed out while doing so! My hat's off to you, Caravel.

[caravel]

Been there, done that, tee-shirt etc etc - the worst thing is being woken up by the sound of your general routing That's why the drinker line of vices hits your command stats....

BUT regarding the original question, in the VI campaign at least (not sure about the main campaign) fyrdmen also have lower upkeep costs than spearmen.

Yes, the Muslim factions start blowing those high pitched little hunting horn things when they're routing, that probably wouldn't wake me up though.

I've fought battles while drunk before, but I can't say that I've ever passed out while doing so! My hat's off to you, Caravel.

Unfortunately it's happened a few times. I remember once waking up to find that I had somehow won the battle?! I must have fought enough of the battle to push it in my favour, after that it must have been a case of the enemy rushing my defensive line and routing repeatedly until either the timer ran out or they routed completely.

I must admit that those days are pretty much behind me...

No seriously though, I rarely get to play many of those epic campaigns with similarly epic battles until the early hours these days.

[macsen rufus]

I did once win a bridge defence battle whilst asleep, though IIRC I had already killed off the enemy general before I dozed off...

[Floplexter]

In one of my first ever MTW games as the Danes, I lost nearly half a dozen provinces through drunken antics. Pressing "Abandon Province", "Auto Resolve" accidentally and when in the heat of battle, pressing "Rout" for some happily winning units.


It's not pretty.

[Martok]

Well I can't claim I've been quite *that* sloppy when playing in a less-than-sober state. At least, I don't think I've ever clicked "Abandon Province" or Auto-resolve by accident. It's possible I may have mistakenly ordered some of my troops to run away, however....

The funny thing is, I generally seem to do better in battle when I have a few beers in me. It's not something I've done often enough that I could make any real comparisons or anything, but I do recall that my kill/loss ratios seemed to be a fair bit higher when playing while slightly intoxicated.

[Roark]

Ditto. I tend to take more risks when I'm a bit tipsy, and they usually pay-off.

Playing whilst rolling drunk is to be avoided, though. Ya tend to miss the details, like sneaky enemy fleets and opportunities for enemy invasion.

[bamff]

As a knight of the GinanTonic Order, I will confess that I have on occasions over-imbibed whilst campaigning....on one occasion it resulted in me not saving the game, on one other, I was amazed at how much territory I had conquered in the previous session when I next restored
....a bit of a mixed bag really....

[macsen rufus]

There was a reason the Spartans tended to have a few bevvies before launching into battle Although there were times when they overdid it (Plataea, IIRC???)

[The Unknown Guy]

I was going to claim that I´ve never played drunk, but I just remembered I´d be lying. I did once. I had been drinking Chivas with a friend, who got roaring drunk, despite my warnings about him being hitting on the bottle too much (it was glaring obvious by his intonation, and his euphorical utterances about "somesuch ******"), and had to tend to the posterior "crying drunk" phase, which made the already annoying situation even more annoying by utterances about "the misery of the world" and the like. I applied my water cure (AKA: force him/her/yourself to drink as much water as you can, as this way you will both avoid the dehydration that takes place when alcohol inhibits the secretion of the Antidiuretic Hormone, and will help your liver to metabolize alcohol, as the Alcohol dehydrogenase needs water to do it´s magic. It works most of the time, and is my standard method of dealing with hangovers)

Anyway, after doing that I went to my room, not dim-witted but not totally sober either, and I couldn´t sleep, so I loaded MTW. I was playing as the Byzantines against a humongous Golden Horde army. I don´t recall the details, but I do recall that at one point I was getting beaten and I thought something on the order of "what the hell, cavalry charge", which steamrolled through mongol archers and horse archers, and killed the general, which caused a general rout.

[caravel]

Well last night after a few bottles of Leffe I managed to lead the Turks to an impetuous victory in Antioch and Tripoli. Yes it has now "kicked" off, with the dastardly Fatimids attacking Syria with a force 3 times my size. The camels won they day eventually. At one stage they were wavering badly, and I had my one unit of AHC and another of Ghulam Bodyguards (wothless heir) racing around to the enemy flank. Eventually it came to a big slug fest with the enemy general alone in the middle of my Turcoman Horse units, when suddenly down he goes and the lot of them begin to waver and rout. Giving them some encouragement by a simultaneous multi-flanked charge helped them to finally decide. And that was it. My next moves were against Antioch and Tripoli, I now have them at a disadvantage. Originally I was allied to both the Byzantine and Fatimids, the former abandoned their alliance when the latter attacked my faction. Now that I have the Fatimids on the run, the Byzantine will be next.

So a few beverages does no harm, though getting behind the controls after a serious session is not advisable. Camels aren't that good, there is only so much that camels can do after all especially under the control of a sloshed general. Camels are indeed god-like units, but with an inebriated general at their head they're as good as dead.

[drone]

I've played sloshed a few times. Haven't really gotten into any trouble, and I can't recall falling asleep at the keys, but it's usually fun the next day to figure out the drunken logic in the saved game. There are usually a few questionable strategies...

"What the hell was I thinking?"

[Martok]

Ditto. I tend to take more risks when I'm a bit tipsy, and they usually pay-off.

Playing whilst rolling drunk is to be avoided, though. Ya tend to miss the details, like sneaky enemy fleets and opportunities for enemy invasion.

I think you've nailed it, Roark. It tend to be rather conservative when fighting battles, and alcohol seems to relax me enough to try more unorthodox tactics. And yes, playing while completely sloshed is ill-advised. (I only did it once, with rather interesting - not to mention humorous - results.)

So a few beverages does no harm, though getting behind the controls after a serious session is not advisable. Camels aren't that good, there is only so much that camels can do after all especially under the control of a sloshed general. Camels are indeed god-like units, but with an inebriated general at their head they're as good as dead.

Well put.

I've played sloshed a few times. Haven't really gotten into any trouble, and I can't recall falling asleep at the keys, but it's usually fun the next day to figure out the drunken logic in the saved game. There are usually a few questionable strategies...

"What the hell was I thinking?"

"What the hell was I thinking?" is usually the first thing that goes through my head after nights like that. That, and "How on earth did I do that??"

[Caliburn]

What I learned when playing MTW drunk was that in the heat of battle it is very easy to destroy your portable computer with a glass of daiquri.

Though I managed to do the same to a keyboard with a cup of coffee - maybe a few cups too many?