Noob Question about retraining soldiers

[Livius Andronicus]

Hello everyone,

I am perplexed at the retraining of soldiers. I have been playing EB/RTW for quite awhile now and have always combined stacks of units recently used in combat. Browsing through the forums I've noticed people talking about retraining units, so I thought I would give it a try in my new Romani campaign.

I really do not understand what it does. I am in a very new campaign, year 270 I think and I just finished taking Taras. After the battle I sent my units that had been depleted to Capua to retrain. I had a cavalry unit of 5 and a triarii unit of 10. The next turn nothing was different with them. Is the reason because I do not have the right level barracks in Capua? If that is the case why does the game let me retrain them there?

I know this is a noob question and I have searched the forums. It seems most threads simply debate whether one should retrain units or combine partial stacks and retrain new troops.

Any help is much appreciated.

[Kromulan]

2 things happen in retraining. . .
1) Re-building unit strength (replenishing)
2) Adding armory (blacksmith, etc) bonuses.

You can only replenish if you can recruit the troops in that town.
Adding blacksmith & experience bonuses can be done to any troops that don't already have that bonus (even mercs).

[overweightninja]

That would be correct, it sounds like Taras didn't have the correct MIC/Barracks to retrain the actual unit itself, but there were facilities there (for instance blacksmiths, temples) that could retrain the remaining soldiers. They probably have an extra armour or experience point or something. You will need to take them back to the proper Roman provinces to retrain fully.

EDIT
Kromulan too fast for me :(

[Pode]

It's been long enough that I've forgotten (if I ever really knew) how the experience level of replenishment troops is determined. I remember that the number of chevrons for a unit reflects the average of the chevrons for each individual man, but I thought there was much controversy over whether 1) the replenishment troops started out with 0 experience and thus drug the unit average down, 2) they got a bonus based on the experience of the unit they were going into and thus didn't drag down the average as much, or 3) their experience was set to the average of the guys they were joining. I know it's not 3, at least not all the time, but am unsure how it actually works. Can anyone beat me about the head and shoulders with the clue stick?

[Maksimus]

Well, AI in ALX.exe retrains unit's for you anyway's even If you don't give the order

[Senatus Populusque Romanus]

Retraining troops can
1. add armor+weapon effects from the blacksmith in the settlement
2. preserve experience points that units have

[Pode]

With respect to your point 2, I've often had silver chevroned half or quarter units go in for retraining and gotten bronze chevroned ones out, so it's not as simple as it first seems.

[Reno Melitensis]

Retraining troops can
1. add armor+weapon effects from the blacksmith in the settlement
2. preserve experience points that units have

If a unit is heavily under strength it will lose chevrons, as it is logical, green legionnaries are added to the maniple. For ex, as the hastati suffer heavy casualties, one silver chevron unit of approx. 80 soldiers if retrained will lose one experience to 3 bronze chevrons, so losing a bit.

And Maksimus, I thing it is a feature of BI to automatically retrained units, as this happens to me in Invasio Barbarorum.

Cheers

The 100 post.

[bovi]

Actually, they retain their experience, which makes it more or less an exploit since the AI doesn't do it. I always merge troops unless they're at more than 2/3 strength.

[O'ETAIPOS]

Actually, they retain their experience, which makes it more or less an exploit since the AI doesn't do it. I always merge troops unless they're at more than 2/3 strength.

AI do retrain, although some very strange algoryth is used, so it do not do it always when it can. but even in rtw1.5 (not onlt BI or alex) AI retrains in some situations.
Seen this, and also seen full silver chevron AI troops many times.

Livius, if you are in a city that can train given unit you can also retrain. to do this you need to add this unit to "retrain" list, as it will not been done automaticaly

[Pharnakes]

Actually, they retain their experience, which makes it more or less an exploit since the AI doesn't do it. I always merge troops unless they're at more than 2/3 strength.

Some times it does, sometimes it doesn't, without any sort of pattern that I can see. So far as I know nobody knows exactly how it works, though I've seen plenty of theiories.

[Senatus Populusque Romanus]

hmm..i guess it is not as simple as it seems :(

[CirdanDharix]

Some times it does, sometimes it doesn't, without any sort of pattern that I can see. So far as I know nobody knows exactly how it works, though I've seen plenty of theiories.

The reinforcements do get an exp. bonus if a fresh unit trained in the province would get one. I also think that when reinforcing very experienced units, you don't lose as much experience as if you merged them.

[Apgad]

I had a weird retraining experience with some forest elephants. There were 9 in the unit with 2 gold chevrons, and after retraining they all had 3 gold chevrons! I couldn't work that out, but am not complaining. They're now terrorizing the Casse...

[Pharnakes]

The reinforcements do get an exp. bonus if a fresh unit trained in the province would get one. I also think that when reinforcing very experienced units, you don't lose as much experience as if you merged them.

All you say is true, but there is a lot more to it than that, I am sure.

[Ymarsakar]

When I'm combining units with various levels of experience, I would often times have two units of 120 men, at about 70% each, and then I would merge one with the other. Both units had 0 exp, but afterwards they had 1 xp each.

Also there is a definite pattern when swapping men from one unit to another without merging. They would interchange xp values after awhile and oftentimes would alternate between 4 different variations of xp. Unit 1 would have silver 1 and unit 2 would have bronze 2 chevrons. After a swap, it would become bronze 3 and bronze 3 chevrons for both. Then when I reswap the men back, it would have 2 bronze chevron and 1 silver chevron.

So it does indeed seem, using deduction, that the actual individual soldiers in a unit keep track of their own xp, which must be kills.

That might be why a unit that suddenly loses a portion of their people without killing much, will lose many chevrons.

It still doesn't solve the problem of what retraining actually does to each individual soldier's exp though.

[V.T. Marvin]

The impact of retraining on experience depends on whether you

EITHER retrain several units at once in one turn (or are training a new unit in the city) - experience decreases as green recruits are mixed with the veteran troops. Example: retraining three two-bronze-chevroned units of hastati reduced to half of their original strength will probably give you three full-strength one-bronze-chevroned units of hastati i the next turn.

OR retrain a single unit and are NOT (re)training any other unit in the city in that turn - experience remains as it was. It is probably so to represent that the veterans are thus given enough time to train the greenhorns and pass their experience to them. Example: retraining one two-silver-chevroned unit of slingers reduced to mere five men will give you one full-strength two-silver-chevroned unit of slingers next turn. It might be considered as exploit under certain circumstances and reasonable and justified use of this feature is advised.

[Ymarsakar]

I did a couple of in game tests to check the retraining dynamic.

Those units with 2 silver chevrons but at 10% strength, seem to have high kill counts. When retrained, it is as if they are mixed with non-experienced new troops. I had a levy hoplite 1 silver at 50% strength. I mixed it manually with a newly trained levy hoplite with zero chevrons. It would go from 1 silver to 2 bronze. I kept swapping it until I got back my 41 men 1 silver chevron levy hoplite back. Then I retrained it. I got a 2 bronze chevron levy hoplite on the next turn.

I haven't tested Marvin's proposal, and there is a chance I adulterated the test results by not reloading. All I do know is that there are times when you have a unit at 50% where retraining them will get you a full strength unit with the same experience level. Then there are other times that they decrease. I will have to try that situation out with the use of reload.

The closest interpretation I have for this is that each kill count by each soldier in the unit is counted and averaged. If you get a high enough number, by some kind of formula, you get a new experience level for the unit. If the 41 members of a unit have sufficiently high kill counts that adding in 40 more new members won't change the result of the equation, then that would explain the inconsistent effects we see with retraining of units.

In the end, I prefer to mix my units together, since it combines experience with experience, and is just a lot faster. I can also bring the experience level of a new unit up by giving it some members from a silver unit, without decreasing the silver unit's chevrons. In fact, a couple of times the silver unit's chevrons increased by taking soldiers from it to another unit. That, also, I can only attribute to some kind of underthe hood equation that takes in the average of the kills by the members of the unit, which now happens to contain a higher average than it did before when it had more soldiers in it.

[Mykingdomforanos]

I notice often after a battle that back in the campaign map units have gained experience that did not immediately when the battle ended (ie in the "results").
Often happens after a reload.

Also: do units have a cumulative memory over several battles of their progress towards a chevron, or are they all on an equal chance of gaining exp at the start of each battle?
Because some identical units will gain a chevron for like 80 kills while the other with 280 gets nothing.