How do War dogs / War hounds gain experience ?

[JJ2335]

Hi guys, I am revisiting RTW =). It seems many changes were made after the 1.2 patch. I have vanilla RTW 1.0 patched up to 1.5.

This is my first time using wardog units in campaign. In battle, I pullback the handlers right after releasing the the dogs. The handlers only engage routing units.

However these wardogs still have Zero experience after winning many battles with zero casualties. My question, how do the wardog units gain experience / chevrons? I also tested the experience gain in custom battle with one unit of war dogs vs. two units of peasants. No luck

Does the version of RTW change the experience mechanic? Do I need to kill non-routed units with the handlers? I welcome your input.

Thanks!

[Fwapper]

I couldn't say for sure but I think I have seen some of my wardogs get experience and I basically never use the handlers in combat... I'll have a test.

[guineawolf]

it seems you wardogs handlers need to join into melee combat if you want your wardogs gain exp.I used to be wardogs army commander,i use wardogs to clean cities defenders,smashed a hole on the gate,then release those dogs squadron to those defenders waiting at the gate.....(always got full stack of wardogs behind regular army)

[Severous]

I agree. Its the handlers that need to kill enemy to gain experience. Routers is fine but they are worth a fifth of a normal kill.

You dont gain experience for killing dogs.

[Fwapper]

Either way I have to say that I love using dogs, especially with huge unit sizes. There's nothing like seeing 500 dogs smash into the enemy battleline, swallow it up, and win your battle for you with zero losses :)

[guineawolf]

i think it is the overwhelming style that you are loving it,it just look like a lot of zerglings slaughtering those marines in starcraft...you kill a lot of them,but those dogs keep coming,your enemy still have to die!overwhelming!

[Caliburn]

I guess they changed the exping for wardogs in some patch, as it used to be too easy to gain 3 gold chevrons with them, does anyone know? I at least used to have a Wardogs unit I called "The Emperor's Hounds" as my faction leader had them all through his decades long campaign through in Central Europe, and they gained 3 gold and the handlers never entered melee.

[Shieldmaiden]

I at least used to have a Wardogs unit I called "The Emperor's Hounds" as my faction leader had them all through his decades long campaign through in Central Europe, and they gained 3 gold and the handlers never entered melee.

The dogs are "free" and don't need retraining to full unit size. I'd imagine thats why it changed?

[Caliburn]

Yeah, I can see the logic behind it, and I think it's better this way anyway. Dogs should have a fixed experience anyway, and the handlers can still get exp pretty easily if you use them as flankers.