Disbanding

[dcousins]

I'm fairly new to RTW. I've read about disbanding but why would you ever do that when you can move the troops somewhere else instead? Could you ever be that desperate to save money?

[Horseman]

Oh yes.

In RTW I always disband any peasant units I start with (as a rule I never build peasants) and any uneeded garrison units as time goes on, say a city falls way behind the front line and I still have some decent combat units there then unless they have loads of experience I'll disband. A one of recruitment fee on the front line can often be cheaper than paying the maintanence fee whilst a unit marches to the front!

In M2TW I often disband obselete units. For example when I can build Feudal knights in an area I'll start disbanding my Mailed knights and replacing them. (same upkeep so why keep worse units around?) This is of course unless the mailed knights have lots of experience.

Also as you can make more than 1 unit per settlement in M2TW I tend to disband any units I dont really need at the time (always keeping those with lots of experience) as I know I can recruit a load more easy enough - for some reason I tend to truggle with money a lot more in M2TW than I did in RTW!

[Punicus]

Another plus to disbanding is if you need to make a town's/city's population grow. Make peasant units from an already overpopulated city, move them to the smaller one, and disband. This is useful with cities whose population growth is something like +0.5%, but not if the population growth is +6%.

[Rick]

Oh yes.


In M2TW I often disband obselete units. For example when I can build Feudal knights in an area I'll start disbanding my Mailed knights and replacing them. (same upkeep so why keep worse units around?) This is of course unless the mailed knights have lots of experience.

It's too bad you couldn't upgrade them somehow.

Rick

[Horseman]

It's too bad you couldn't upgrade them somehow.

Rick

Yeh I wished for that too.

Oh and I 2nd the idea posted that disbanding in RTW helps increase the population. A sound use for Eastern Infantry Mercs

[The Wandering Scholar]

Yeh I wished for that too.

Oh and I 2nd the idea posted that disbanding in RTW helps increase the population. A sound use for Eastern Infantry Mercs

Is that not expensive?

[Punicus]

Is that not expensive?

Certainly a bit more expensive than recruiting them yourself and then disbanding them - but if I remember correctly, Eastern Infantry Mercenaries cost quite a bit less than higher-end ones. Therefore you should be able to do it with no problem if you've got decent income.

However, I'm not 100% so do correct me if I'm wrong.

[Doug-Thompson]

Some high-quality units should never be disbanded. However, many units give very little "bang for the buck" when you compare their maintenance cost to their fighting power. The ultimate example is peasant units that are a cheap way to garrison an unruly town. As the town settles down, disbanding the peasants is much cheaper than paying even two or three turns worth of maintenance to move them to another town.

[Good Ship Chuckle]

Disbanding units into a town that has a low population can be good at boosting low population settlements. I've actually moved a legion of peseants to Salona, and then ordered them to disband and join the population. Salona then grew more rapidly after that.

[Good Ship Chuckle]

Whoa. Me and Doug-Thompson just submitted a reply to this thread at the same time. That was wierd.

Also, disbanding navies can be useful, especially if you have too many captains with command and not enough fleets to go around. Just make sure that they are in a port first, before disbanding.

[Hound of Ulster]

I never use certain units as a rule. If the AI gives me peasants, I get rid of them straightaway. It is a good way to build up the population of your settlement.

[wumpus]

In RTW I train peasant units usually for either of two reasons: 1. To increase the garrison and prevent the town from rioting, which is quite a temporary "patch" to the problem at best--look for a more permanent cure to prevent riots; or 2. To reduce the population of a town and transfer them to another town that needs more people to grow, by disbanding the peasants in the latter place. You couldn't transfer people any other way, in my belief. And I have no compunction about disbanding any cheap units that I built--especially if they have no chevrons or weapon/armor upgrades. But be careful with the second one! I recently had a campaign (in XGM) where I built about twelve units of peasants in (too-overpopulated to the brink of rioting) Ariminium, marched eight of them across North Italy, loaded them in a Bireme, and brought them to Masilia, which I recently wrested from the Spanish and the town was very underpopulated. I disbanded 1, 2, 3, 4 units of peasants, and public happiness slowly grew nicer (I monitored it each time I disbanded a unit). My mistake was when I disbanded the 5th and 6th unit without monitoring, and before I got to the 7th, the public was in the red and about to riot! Maybe because I've reached more than the limit for a small town or because of cultural differences (or both), but I tell you this as a warning. Sometimes you could overdo it. Hawooh.

[John Flint]

When I get really powerfull I train MASSIVE armies of the best units in the game and send them to the scurvy sea dogs walls to make them peepee their pantaloons, then I disband them as a show of my infinite wealth! lol

[Permenion]

When I get really powerfull I train MASSIVE armies of the best units in the game and send them to the scurvy sea dogs walls to make them peepee their pantaloons, then I disband them as a show of my infinite wealth! lol

This is a..... quite weird reply... and a useless tactic (my toughts)

I read the whole topic and I have to say I had never disbanded units just to increase town population, but it seems a quite nice idea and I'm surely going to give it a try.

(sorry if the English is bad :p)

[The Wandering Scholar]

Interesting John, what happens to them then, do they knock on the gates trying to gain access?

[Good Ship Chuckle]

Has anyone noticed a link between disbanding outside of a town, and noticing an increase in the number of rebel spawn rates? This would make sense, because the still bloodthirsty units, having been disbanded, might want to form their own armies for their own designs.
I've noticed this coorelation in some of my campaigns. Disbanding a large force in the countryside, and then having an abnormally large brigand army show up the next turn.

[Horseman]

I think thats just coincendence Good Ship (or do you prefere Chuckle?)

AFAIK Rebel spawn rates are not linked with disbanded units at all, I get huge rebel popups without disbanding. But at the stage in the game when you can afford to start disbanding units enmass is also likely the stage of the game when rebel popups start getting bigger

[wumpus]

Just a thought--speculating--maybe if a huge number of troops are disbanded outside a town, would that also increase the number of mercenaries available for hire? And maybe the mercs are of the type that have been disbanded? Haven't tried to disband any troops outside a town; maybe I'll start a fresh campaign just to try these ideas out. Thanks for giving me an idea, Good Ship + Horseman. Hawooh.

[Horseman]

It used to work that way in MTW but sady not in Rome.

The merc pools are all preset in the merc_descr (I think thats what its called) file located in the campaign folder. Would have been nice if dibanded units di become available as mercs

[Punicus]

Has anyone noticed a link between disbanding outside of a town, and noticing an increase in the number of rebel spawn rates?

In my experience that hasn't happened. Shame it doesn't though - disbanding peasants and making weak rebel units spawn might be a good way to train generals.

I have a question related to the topic of rebels; do Brigands ever show up due to unrest in a population? Are their appearances completely random, or does some other thing trigger it?