Unit experience; how does it work?

**Aramazon** · 05-02-2007, 06:26

Hello Everyone! I once read that in RTW each individual unit has its own individual experience, and that that the chevron shows the average experience of the unit as a whole. I believe this is true, however there is a problem then. Most of the time soldiers stay in that line formation where the men in the front row will kill someone, then die. It seems that it's hard to gain experience like that.

Don't get me wrong, I think the individual unit experience is the coolest thing ever, however I would love it if I could rotate the troops or something. Does anyone have any advice on what the best way to get your troops experienced is?

--- What happens when you retrain your troops, experience wise I mean, do the new troops take the average experience to start with?

---What does unit experience affect other than the stats? By how much does it affect morale?

---How do units actually gain experience, is it one chevron per kill? Do routing units count for kills?

---Is there anything that EB has done to the way unit experience works that is different from vanilla RTW? Any plans for the way it will work in the future?

I think some of these questions might do well to be put in the faq; I've always wondered about these, but have never found answers.

**AngryAngelDD** · 05-02-2007, 07:24

can´t answer all your questions...

what i´ve seen so far is, that when i personally command the battles my units get less experience as if i had autocalc´d them.
so i think, that experience has something to do with the loss of some men, not only killing the enemy troops.

the second thing i noticed: while retraining my troops, sometimes they loose nearly all of their chevrons because of the new recruits, but on other occassions the retained them.
perhaps this depends on the number of soldier left in the unit.

my 2cents
AA

**Cadeyrn** · 05-02-2007, 09:58

On the retraining point I'd say it depends on the number of men left in the unit compared to the full size of it, the number of units being retrained alongside it, and whatever experience boosts the city itself has. From what I understand you get the best results from retaining one unit at a time, in which case they seem to retain just about all their experience.

**mucky305** · 05-02-2007, 13:36

My understanding is that the experience is mainly predicated on kills. You are correct in the idea that it is the 'average' experience of the unit. I'm really not sure of the formula but each regular kill provides a certain amount of experience (I think the ratio is 1:1) and routing units are less (like 1:3). I know that everything goes up on experienced units except their armor rating which obviously stays static unless you upgrade it with a smith (also 1:1 I believe). I have several multiple gold chevron units and they are almost supermen (one unit got charged by 3 cataphract general's bodyguard and held the line quite well until my cav could counter charge). When you retrain your units, the exp. will drop due to the green troops being added to the unit. I know alot of guys frown on this but I merge veteran units quite a bit and just replace entire units. Units with very high exp. (1 gold or above) but low troops counts (under 10) are sent to my military cities (5 years) to function as drill instructors for the new troops. Just a role playing thing but I like it. As far as EB changes I couldn't tell you but I don't think they changed anything in the exp. model. I know exp. doesn't have anything to with deaths in your own unit except to eliminate the less experienced troops out of the unit and leave the 'veterans' giving you a higher average exp. Hope this helps.

**AngryAngelDD** · 05-02-2007, 15:00

Originally Posted by mucky305

... I know exp. doesn't have anything to with deaths in your own unit except to eliminate the less experienced troops out of the unit and leave the 'veterans' giving you a higher average exp. Hope this helps.

yeah, this makes sense

thank you

**atheotes** · 05-02-2007, 16:24

AFAIK if you retrain an experienced unit and are alos training/retraining other units, the experienced unit will have its experience avaeraged with the green troops beeing added...
But if the experienced unit is the only one you are retraining and there is no other training/retraining, the unit comes out replenished without losing experience!!!
It is a little whacky... personally i think the experience should be averaged. I dont retrain and just merge units as and when required.

**MarcusAureliusAntoninus** · 05-02-2007, 20:18

An odd thing: enemy units will get experience for dying. I've seen many a time when a enemy group getting devistated by slingers levels up a time or two. (I've done this to AI generals, who gain like three experience for losing men, then the next turn regenerate their whole bodyguard at the cost of one experience.)

On retraining and experience: It is totally random whether they keep or lose experience. I had an army of 20 identical units (HAs) and I took them back to a town to retrain. They were all nearly identical (80-90 out of 100 guys left in each group, and 3-4 experience each). So I retrained nine of them. Then next turn those nine where down to 0-1 experience. I thought, 'oh well,' and retrained nine more. The next turn, those nine had the same 3-4 experience. (Then I retrained the last two.) So even though the same unit type with the same number of loses in the same town with the same buildings were retrained, the different turns cost them experience or not.

**atheotes** · 05-02-2007, 22:35

Originally Posted by MarcusAureliusAntoninus

An odd thing: enemy units will get experience for dying. I've seen many a time when a enemy group getting devistated by slingers levels up a time or two. (I've done this to AI generals, who gain like three experience for losing men, then the next turn regenerate their whole bodyguard at the cost of one experience.)

As unit experience is just the average of the individuals...Maybe the lesser experienced men died and thus boosting the average experience. I have seen that happen a lot in MTW

Originally Posted by MarcusAureliusAntoninus

On retraining and experience: It is totally random whether they keep or lose experience. I had an army of 20 identical units (HAs) and I took them back to a town to retrain. They were all nearly identical (80-90 out of 100 guys left in each group, and 3-4 experience each). So I retrained nine of them. Then next turn those nine where down to 0-1 experience. I thought, 'oh well,' and retrained nine more. The next turn, those nine had the same 3-4 experience. (Then I retrained the last two.) So even though the same unit type with the same number of loses in the same town with the same buildings were retrained, the different turns cost them experience or not.

That is weird... I have never seen that... not in vanilla, RTR or EB(so far)