A Question About Upgrading/Training Troops

[Sensei Warrior]

I seen a number of posts where people refer to sending troops to different provences for training typically to get Weapon upgrades since only 10 provences have the Iron Resource. I will give a hypothetical situation and then pose the question.

You are playing the English. You have a desire to make your Billmen as powerful as possible. You have a Master Spearmaker in Mercia (I think thats their requirement). You have a Cathedral in Wessex. A Master Armorer in Flanders and Master Weaponsmith in Navarre (I think that one has Iron).

You build a unit in Mercia and then send it to Wessex, Flanders, and then Navarre. The question I have is: When you have finished sending your unit around would it have:

All of the valour bonuses from Mercia? They would get one from the provence and one for the Master Spearmaker.

The Morale bonus from Wessex?

The gold armor from Flanders?

The gold weapon from Navarre?

Outside the minimum requirements for the unit, would there have been anything to stop this from happening? If Navarre didn't have a Master Armorer would you still have been able to upgrade your weapons and keep the upgraded armor? Is their any buildings I forgot? I vaguely remember the Military and College of Surgeons doing something? If I did forget a building or two, do those buildings work the same way?

Now that I look at it, it isn't a question but alot of questions. I know someone out there must know the answers, and if they don't I suppose I will have to answer it on my own, its just going to take awhile. I am nothing but long winded.

[Martok]

You build a unit in Mercia and then send it to Wessex, Flanders, and then Navarre. The question I have is: When you have finished sending your unit around would it have:

All of the valour bonuses from Mercia? They would get one from the provence and one for the Master Spearmaker.

Yes. Yes.

The Morale bonus from Wessex?

Yes.

The gold armor from Flanders?

Yes.

The gold weapon from Navarre?

Yes. (It's a Metalsmith, by the way, not Weaponsmith. )

Outside the minimum requirements for the unit, would there have been anything to stop this from happening?

Nope.

If Navarre didn't have a Master Armorer would you still have been able to upgrade your weapons and keep the upgraded armor?

If they already had upgraded armour from somewhere else, then yes.

Is their any buildings I forgot? I vaguely remember the Military and College of Surgeons doing something? If I did forget a building or two, do those buildings work the same way?

Sorry; here I cannot help you! I don't play the English that often, and it's therefore been a while since I last looked up the requirements for Billmen.

[Sensei Warrior]

Thanks Martok. All the years I've played and I never sat down to figure it out. One provence, invariably the one with the Cathedral and the metalsmith , is the one I try to jam all that junk into. I didn't realize that it would be just as easy to tour them around a bit instead.

[Peasant Phill]

Don't forget to produce your billmen with the master spearmaker (I th. Your billmen will get an additional valour point. So build a master spearmaker in Wessex for V2 Billmen. Add the max armor, the max weapon and the max morale upgrade (cathedral) and your billmen will be unbeatable.

[caravel]

You won't get the morale bonus IIRC. A man is trained with the morale and valour that the province gives him. Retraining makes no difference to this. Equipment upgrades can be given by retraining in another province though.

So basically you should have the master spearmaker in Mercia. This trains Valour 2 Billmen. The Cathedral should also be there to give the maximum morale bonus. Armour and weapon upgrades can be obtained from any other provinces, that meet the prerequisites for training billmen, by simply moving the unit(s) there and retraining them.

[Sensei Warrior]

Thanks guys.

Caravel, if I got this right, you say the bonus to morale is only given to the unit in the initial provence it was made in, thus Mercia having a Cathedral as well Master Spearmaker. I know if you built a Military Academy and a College of Surgeons they gave some type of bonus as well. I can't remember what it is, I think it had something to do with the Generals traits (maybe +1 Acumen or +1 Command).

Anyways, do those buildings give the bonus to any units that are trained in that provence or are they more like morale and only give the bonus to units created in that Provence?

By the way I hope everyone had a, or is having a Happy Holiday.

[Deus ret.]

I know if you built a Military Academy and a College of Surgeons they gave some type of bonus as well. I can't remember what it is, I think it had something to do with the Generals traits (maybe +1 Acumen or +1 Command).

IIRC the bonus given by a military academy is +1 discipline to all units trained in its province. I may confuse something but that's what sits in my mind. Command stars and the like rather seem to be influenced by the king's influence and the unit type: e.g. with the exception of famous generals I never got a spearman unit with a single star, whereas building a knight without any command stars is quite a rare occasion.

College of Surgeons? Good question. I'll look it up as soon as I am back home.

Oh btw: good to see you again in here, Sensei.

[caravel]

Military academy makes units trained in it's province disciplined. College of surgeons provides a provincial happiness bonus and neutralises the effects of disease.

[Sensei Warrior]

Thanks guys, for the life of me I couldn't remember what they did. This thread caused me to start a game as the English. We will see how my uber Billmen will fare after they have been properly toured about. I almost started the game in high to avoid the anticipation.

Oh btw: good to see you again in here, Sensei.

Thanks Deus ret., I didn't know if anyone was going to remember little old me after my hiatus. I got distracted by a number of games, and then waylaid by some comp problems. Once the dust cleared I was ready to conquer the Medieval World once again.

[Sensei Warrior]

I wasn't sure if editing my previous post would mark the thread as unread so I made a new post. My apologies for the double post.

Now that I've had a chance to think about the whole idea I was wondering what units other people go out of their way to power up in such a manner and why? I have the tendancy to do it with Urban Militia with the English (my obsession with Tancred de Normandie is neverending) and the JHI as the Turks. The latter one is practical and the former is more of a whimsy.

So what units do you guys go out of your way to power up and why?

[Soljah]

I didn't even know you could upgrade/retrain troops, how do you do it? or is a mod?

[Sensei Warrior]

No it is not a mod, it is a normal function of the game. No worries when I first started playing I didn't know it could be done either. Anyways onto how to do it.

First you need a unit you want to repair/retrain. For this exercise we will say it is a unit of Spearmen that has been reduced to 1/2 its number from a backstabbing attack by the unhonorable Argonese.

Next the Spearmen need to be in a Provence where Spearmen can be made. By in a Provence I mean in it at the start of the year not moving to it. If you have to move to it you'll be able to do this on the year after the piece is moved to the Provence.

Then left click on the train unit button for the Provence. It is to the right of the Building button in the lower left hand side of the screen.

Left click on the stack that has the injured unit. Go down to the bottom of the screen where it lists all the units of the stack.

Left click and hold on the icon of your injured spear unit. While holding the button drag it over to the train unit window and set it in one of the empty queue boxes at the bottom of the screen. You'll notice the unit disappears from the stack and appears in the training queue with numbers telling you how many men and how much valour, like they do in the battle screen.

When you click the end year button and go to the next year you'll see the unit has been replenished back up to its full number.

You can do the same exact thing for units that are injured or full, but are in a provence that has an armor/weapon upgrade (has an armorer or metalsmith in it). When the unit is 'retrained' it will come out with an armor/weapon symbol on its icon noting that the unit has upgraded armor or weapons.

Once you figure out how to do it you'll know when to do it. It opens up a whole series of strategies for you to think about. Good luck and by the way Welcome to the Org

[Deus ret.]

So what units do you guys go out of your way to power up and why?

In my longest-lasting XL Byz campaign I captured Aragon by naval invasion for the sole reason to train some uber-kataphracts for the fight against the horde. That was around 1252 I think, I had been playing since Early but with a lot of turtling and didn't even own all of Asia Minor when the Mongols showed up. Which was good because they were already kind of dispersed when I encountered them....

anyway, I found myself in the desperate need to counter those MHC's in the open because the merc pikes that the Byz get to build in XL don't really do the job. when there wasn't enough cover available I regularly faced defeat at the hands of those supermen so I sent my katas (with +1 valour from the big C, another one from the Master Horse breeder, +3 morale from the Cathedral, and already 4 armour upgrades) there to turn them into something which could match those Mongols. The results were awesome: equipped with +3/+4 weapon upgraqdes, those horsies evolved from decent MHC-stoppers to uber Mongol killers. YEAH!

Sad thing was, I lost Aragon to a French crusade (the superpower in Western Europe) not much later when my shipping lines were still blocked by those traitors, but the 10ish upgraded katank units continued to do an awesome job on my Eastern frontier.

[Adrian II]

So what units do you guys go out of your way to power up and why?

Depends on the faction.

As the Turkish in Early, I power up my Saracens because they are the backbone in pretty much every battle. The Turks don't get any useful swords and your Ghazi won't do much damage on the enemy flank and rear if your spear formation breaks down after 1 minute of battle. Those smelly camels won't do the job either. If I can, I power up my Turcoman Horse Archers so they can fight hand-to-hand in case of an emergency.

[Sensei Warrior]

Katatanks for the Byz I've done in the past, although my Byz games end so early that I often don't get there with out hyper specializing the provence which I avoid to a certain degree. All cav in one prov, all missiles in the other, etc. makes MTW feel more like an exercise in logistics than fun.

Although I have never thought about powering up my Saracens, Adrian II. An excellent idea that never crossed my mind. I'll have to implement that the next time I play the Turks, perhaps I'll even risk playing on Expert

[Geezer57]

You can do the same exact thing for units that are injured or full, but are in a province that has an armor/weapon upgrade (has an armorer or metalsmith in it). When the unit is 'retrained' it will come out with an armor/weapon symbol on its icon noting that the unit has upgraded armor or weapons.

The Sensei covered almost all of it in his post, but don't forget you can also (re)train for morale/valor bonuses too, which are often even more valuable than armor/weapon upgrades. Morale comes from religious buildings most often, and valor can be gained from provincial bonuses and/or Master level buildings. Use the Gnome Editor and check the building requirements in the UNIT_PROD.TXT file, the first building listed for a particular unit (if developed to Master level) will give a +1 valor boost (if Master level isn't a requirement for that unit). Provinces that boost valor for certain units can be found in the guides and other locations.

Morale will keep you units fighting longer in combat, so you get more use out of them. One point of valor adds +1 to attack and defense, and +2 to morale, so is the most efficient way to boost your units.

[Sensei Warrior]

You won't get the morale bonus IIRC. A man is trained with the morale and valour that the province gives him. Retraining makes no difference to this.

... but don't forget you can also (re)train for morale/valor bonuses too, which are often even more valuable than armor/weapon upgrades.

Ok, I just noticed this. It's a small technicality I know, but who is right in regards to retraining a full unit. The unit of Billmen I just created I sent to the Provence with a Cathedral. Will retraining him there give a morale bonus?

[caravel]

For the valour simple: Start an Early campaign as the Italians, retrain the 60 man UM units in Genoa and Tuscany to full units (100 or 120 men depending on which unit size you use), or the test won't work, and end the turn. Swap the UM units from Genoa and Tuscany, end turn again, retrain the Genoa UM in Tuscany, end turn. What happened to their valour?

Also try starting an Early campaign as the Turks, build a Horse Breeder in Armenia, train 1 unit of AHC, should be valour 1. Upgrade the Horse Breeder to the maximum, a Master Horse Breeder. Retrain the AHC unit there. What happened to their valour?

For the morale you can use similar methods but you'll have to go into battle to test it, as it's not visible on the campaign map. You will almost certainly find that it won't be upgraded. I could be wrong though of course.

If the unit was a depleted one, those new men trained would have gained the valour and morale bonuses from the province, though their fellows would have only gained any armour or weapon upgrades.

[Geezer57]

"If the unit was a depleted one, those new men trained would have gained the valour and morale bonuses from the province, though their fellows would have only gained any armour or weapon upgrades."

That's not my experience, at least not for valor - in my current BKB Nicaean campaign, I originally train Uzbek Heavy Cav in Armenia (which has +4 armor and Master Horse Breeder). They come out at +1 valor for the Master building. Then I move them north to a province (can't remember the name right now) with a valor bonus for UHC (but no armor), where the full units come out of training with +2 valor.

You may be correct for morale - it's much harder to test. But I've always assumed (ass+you+me) a unit's morale was set by the highest morale province in which it trained. That may be a wrong assumption, but I've yet to see any strong evidence in my campaigns of units originally trained in weak morale provinces (then retrained in high-morale ones) being prone to wavering.

[caravel]

I'm still 100% sure that valour doesn't get upgraded when retraining, and I'm about 60% sure that Morale doesn't get upgraded by retraining either. I'll test it later when I get home.

[Geezer57]

Not trying to challenge your observations, just noting that I see something different in my games. But MTW is so deep, with so much variability, that there's room for plenty of odd things to happen.

If someone's game seems to follow more closely to mine, then fine - you got the valor/morale boost. If not, then that's fine too - work with it.

[macsen rufus]

I definitely see valour upgrades working for retrained/re-equipped troops, with a +2 valour boost when province bonus + master facility bonuses are added together. The only time it doesn't work is the first year the master facility comes on line (ie when you start training a unit the year before the facility is completed), which is odd, as armour or weapon upgrades at that time DO work. The one thing I'm not sure on is when a unit with earned combat valour is retrained, whether the bonus is added to that or not.

Morale bonuses I have no idea about, as by the time I get to look at the battle F1 display I can never remember which unit has come from where, I just see that some units have better morale than others I just assumed it works like the other upgrades.

As to what units I tech up, well right now I'm still on the Vulgar Bolgas in XL, and my buffing is concentrated on the bashkorts - master spearmaker for valour, mosque and ribat for morale, armour and weapons in selected provinces. Including a couple of provinces which have weapon upgrades but no armour, for my desert army.

In other campaigns, I like to use swiss halberdiers, so Switzerland usually gets max armour and up to Cathedral for morale (then even standard halbs will stay and fight ) I also often have a buffing province for bodyguard units (though I never train them, but I do like to get my Princes the best kit available). Otherwise it depends on the faction. For Italian factions I like to buff my Italian infantry, for Turks it's saracens and Ottoman infantry, plus Turc horse archers. With the Germans I like to buff up my mounted X-bows (in one campaign I had a unit of these with good weapon and armour upgrades, worked up to valour 8 over many years, and they could thrash Katanks in melee!)

[Kavhan Isbul]

I usually do not go out of my way to retrain units, because I find it easier to replace older types with newer ones - for example Chivalric Knights instead of Feudal, halberdiers instead of militia, etc. Also in some cases more armor is actually a negative thing, such as in the case of horse archers - they tire quicker and become slower, I believe, although I might be wrong.
Once however, I was playing with the Cumans in XL, and since they have access to only vanilla spearmen and bashkorts (those are unavailable in late), I found myself upgrading their armor heavily and also givong them a weapon upgrade in Carpathia and Hungary, in order to make them last a little longer than 5 seconds against the Mongol Heavies and the Byzantine katanks. I can see the need to upgrade and retrain units of a certain type when nothing better is available.

[caravel]

Geezer57 is quite right, and I was wrong. The retrained unit gets the maximum valour the province can give him. I was confusing this with morale. As far as I can tell morale doesn't get upgraded, though who knows? I'm off to do a few tests.

Retraining can be important for me, as I use the huge unit size. I only retrain fairly green units though. I prefer to merge veterans with other veterans.

[Sensei Warrior]

does morale get recorded in the battle logs? If it does then that would be the way to tell. Next time I'm in front of my comp I'll see if I can run a few tests.

[Geezer57]

Retraining can be important for me, as I use the huge unit size. I only retrain fairly green units though. I prefer to merge veterans with other veterans.

I don't use Huge unit size often, but I definitely like merging veterans in preference to retraining. Once they're merged, however, I'll often send them home to be retrained if they missed the building/province valor bonuses the first time around. I have a Skutatos (nice Nicaean spear unit in BKB) in my current campaign that started without armor, but since he had the Pride virtue (?) and there weren't any building upgrades then available, I put him to use right away. His base valor was 3, after combat/merging with another prideful unit remanants it rose to 5. When I'd conquered all desert provinces and my battle focus switched to the Balkans and Europe, I ran him thru retraining with Master level buildings. Base valor now 6, with +4 armor/weapons. Add him to an army led by an 8/9 star General, his stats become quite impressive. It's hard to lose with several similar units in your roster.

[Geezer57]

does morale get recorded in the battle logs? If it does then that would be the way to tell. Next time I'm in front of my comp I'll see if I can run a few tests.

No, the logfiles track "Honor", which appears to be the same as Valor. Morale seems to be too volatile (dynamic?) for the system to record in the logfiles.

[Sensei Warrior]

Holy Smoking Thread Batman!

No, the logfiles track "Honor", which appears to be the same as Valor. Morale seems to be too volatile (dynamic?) for the system to record in the logfiles.

That's too bad that it doesn't even record the units base morale. Oh well, we'll leave that for the mystics with the crystal balls.

I usually do not go out of my way to retrain units, because I find it easier to replace older types with newer ones

I used to do the same thing. I'm playing a campaign right know where I have been combining vetran units together. I've got a couple of Scottish Clansmen units with a valour of 4. They start with a valour of 1. These guys are pretty tough hombres. Seeing that, now I am kinda hooked. I still train newer units, but I'll pit my vet clannies against green CMAAs any day. To each their own.

As to what units I tech up, well right now I'm still on the Vulgar Bolgas in XL, and my buffing is concentrated on the bashkorts - master spearmaker for valour, mosque and ribat for morale, armour and weapons in selected provinces. Including a couple of provinces which have weapon upgrades but no armour, for my desert army.

I have 2 weapon producing facilities. One gives weapons and armor for my Northern Empire, and the other gives just weapons for my desert empire

In other campaigns, I like to use swiss halberdiers, so Switzerland usually gets max armour and up to Cathedral for morale (then even standard halbs will stay and fight ) I also often have a buffing province for bodyguard units (though I never train them, but I do like to get my Princes the best kit available). Otherwise it depends on the faction. For Italian factions I like to buff my Italian infantry, for Turks it's saracens and Ottoman infantry, plus Turc horse archers. With the Germans I like to buff up my mounted X-bows (in one campaign I had a unit of these with good weapon and armour upgrades, worked up to valour 8 over many years, and they could thrash Katanks in melee!)

The mounted x-bows is a new one, they sound sweet.

[caravel]

No, the logfiles track "Honor", which appears to be the same as Valor. Morale seems to be too volatile (dynamic?) for the system to record in the logfiles.

Honour is to STW what Valour is to MTW. Alot of the MTW files still contain the old STW terminology such as "daimyo" (faction leader) and "samurai" (elite).

[Jxrc]

I'm still 100% sure that valour doesn't get upgraded when retraining, and I'm about 60% sure that Morale doesn't get upgraded by retraining either. I'll test it later when I get home.

Donno about morale but I am positive it works with respect to valour. Do it all the time with vikings in Norway when playing as the Danes. It works to if you retrain urban militia in Tuscany.

On the other hand it is not one hundred cumulative if I am no wrong. For isnstance if you build billmen with a master spearmaker in Wessex and retrain the unit in Mercia (without the master spearmaker, just the requisite one) then you stick to valour "1" cause the game does not make the difference between the "regional" bonus and the technological one (not 100% percent sure on this lats one).