Does archer experience have an effect on accuracy?

[Lamprey]

I always did wonder what earning experience did for missile troops. It raises their defence/attack, but since they should generally be kept out of melee, that's not much of a benefit. In RTW it raised their ranged attack value as well, but this is not the case in MTW2.

Then I remembered that in RTW, experience raised the accuracy of siege equipment. So I wonder, can the same be true of missile troops in MTW2?

Can anyone speak for or against this? It doesn't seem reasonable that experience has no bearing on ranged effectiveness or ranged troops, since that would make a green archer unit equal to an elite one (since they should be kept out of harm's way anyway). Frankly, this seems more than a bit silly.

[imnothere]

ok, i THINK it does. as i mentioned before, I am prone to alot dosage of accidental (un)friendly fire from own supporting units. just as well that the mercenaries and the spear-grunts that are coping most of it. but hey, you gotta have some casualties in a war!

but after getting some stripes, it seems that i am coping less from friendly fire. this is applicable to artillery - like bombard, canon and balista.

i can't vouch for the missile troops. but they do get better morale and melee stats. but i suspect increase stripes = better accuracy. this is due to my expensive xbow mercenaries disbanded, and high casualties in archers from far off land = merging. Merging depleted units loses some experience if not the same level(like mine).

[imnothere]

forgot. not noticeable if only 1-2 stripes. but 3 stripes onward the artillery unit seems to be more accurate.

[Ars Moriendi]

Merging depleted units loses some experience if not the same level(like mine).

Experience is never lost. It is tracked on an individual soldier basis, the display only showing the average for the unit.
Eg. if you merge 40 peasants at 8xp with 40 peasants at 0xp, the resulting unit will have 1 silver, but you'll still have the same number of master pitchfork ninjas.

About the original question, here's something posted half a year ago (and referenced in the FAQ):

I did a quick test on retinue longbowmen V Scottish pikemen and checked the casualties inflicted after 5 full volleys from the longbowmen.The longbows were deployed in a wide line 2 men deep directly opposite the Scots Pikemen and were left on fire at will with no other action from me.

Retinues with no experience after five full volleys - 29 casualties inflicted.

Retinues with 3 gold chevrons under the same conditions - 61 casualties inflicted.

Even though this simple test is hardly under laboratory conditions it clearly shows that there are other forces at work with the additional experience other than the missile attack rating.

There's a lot more info on this in this forum, do some searching.

[imnothere]

hmm, i guess you are right.

but in my situation - merged units are usually experienced and badly damaged units welcoming new unexperienced friends. i should have stated clearly at the start. So yes, if this is calculated on the invidual basis, the level 6 sergeant unit is reduce by a few levels due to new comers.

[Ramses II CP]

Don't merge in M2TW, retrain. Retrained units keep their experience level even with fresh troops.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Don't merge in M2TW, retrain. Retrained units keep their experience level even with fresh troops.

Retrain???

Aww.... but I'm deep in enemy territory and about to make a bonfire out of my fallen enemies. I don't have time to retrain!

[Shahed]

Lamprey, xp for missile & arty makes ALL the difference.

[Philbert]

About the retraining, here is what I always do with partially depleted units:
You have to calculate your merging so that merging two units will lead to one full unit, and one unit of only very few men. As the merging unit will send away its least experienced men first, this leads to the left over small unit to be very experienced on average. This average is retained when you retrain the small leftover unit, gaining a lot of experienced men.

[4th Dimension]

Also if you do it right you don't loose the units. You only need to retrain them.

[icek]

when you merge try to throw full number between two units for max effect. and NEVER merge when you see that from your two units you will have only one after merging unless you just making place for better units.

[Sentinel]

Take three units of spearmen (normally of 75 size) that have been depleted to say 50 men each. One unit with 3 gold chevrons, the other two with none.

The best way is to retrain the gold chevron only to full strength, then use this unit to merge with the lower experienced units. The 25 experienced men from the 3 gold unit joining the other units will boost their average experience and will give you two full strength units of about 3 bronze chevrons and one 25 man 3 gold chevrons. You can then retrain this gold unit again back up to full strength.

This way you gain about 6 experience points in two turns.


Question

What happens to armour and weapons upgrades when merging units. Are these tracked / recorded as individual men?
e.g.

A full unit of armour upgraded spearmen is merged into a badly depleted unit of none upgraded spearmen. Does this give and average upgrade value or do all the merged men loose their upgrade?

If you retrain a depleted unit of armour upgraded spearmen, in a settlement that does not have any armoury type building, are the replacement men equipped with armour or not?

The unit card says that they have armour, but can it be believed?

[Philbert]

I have seen an armor shield disappear from a unit after merging with an unarmoured unit, so that suggests that armour is also remembered per individual.

[crpcarrot]

@ SENTINEL

you do not actually gain any experience units by merging them with lover exp units. although the evarage exp will be higher when in battle each soldier will have his own exp level and will fight accordingly. so although u will have half the unitt full of gold chev units the rest will still fight like new units.

your system is good to keep producing high exp units.

personally i feel its a bit of an exploit though as the AI hardly seems to retrain any units.

[Ramses II CP]

Heh, if you're on a blitz don't retrain or merge, just buy fresh mercs and use the smaller units in loose formation to break up enemy cavalry charges. :p

I suppose it all depends on your play style.

[Sentinel]

original posted by crpcarrot
you do not actually gain any experience units by merging them with lover exp units

If you just retrain each of the units individually you acquire -

3 gold experience - 25 men.
0 experience – 2 x 25 = 50men.

The method I described gives you.

3 gold experience - 75 men.

To me this is an overall gain in experience.

Whilst the merging does not increase the overall experience, if done as described, it enables you to optimise the quality / experience of the troops you recruit. Giving you better value for money.

[FactionHeir]

While I have not run an actual test on this, from my own subjective observations, experience does not increase / decrease accuracy although it does affect damage, which results in more kills.

Projectile accuracies are set in stone in the projectile file.

[Husar]

I once had some gold chevron arquebusiers in America which had only four guys left. I think pretty much every volley resulted in four hits but then again I haven't counted the hits less experienced arquebusiers achieve.

[FactionHeir]

If you have fewer units in a regiment, they tend to each pick their own targets. If you have a full regiment, quite a few tend to aim at the same target. That's easily observable if you set the accuracy to a lower value (i.e. higher accuracy)

[Stig]

MTW2 is different from RTW.
In RTW you could easely get uber archers by giving them 3 chevrons and 3 weapon upgrades, which meant 3 more defence, 6 more attack, extra morale and but nothing more.

IIRC 1 chevron doesn't matter, a second doesn't either. It's the bronze, silver and gold that matters for training (and thus accuracy).
However this was all for RTW, and they changed some of the coding (weapon upgrades for archers don't give an upgrade for missile, only for melee.

Next to that this is all for MP, could be different for SP ... tho I doubt it

[imnothere]

thankyou for your feedback. will keep it in mind for current and future games.

Scot-guards veteran sgt:" Listen up you newbie, if you don't put that arrow where I wanted it, I will put SOMETHING in places that you don't want!"

Newbies *looks terrified* : "yes sir!" *add chervons to experience*

[imnothere]

this is interesting. higher experience does = higher kills (as expected)